The Moser Messenger: A Moser House Retreat

This weekend was a non-stop blast for the Moser House boys, from the house retreat at the Cooks' house to rafting at the Ocoee River in Tennessee. As usual, expectations were high for the Cook party, especially with Head Day Prefect Jesse Cook hosting Moser House. But thankfully, this retreat lived up to be possibly the most fun one there has ever been!

The retreat kicked off with “angle ball,” a game invented by the Cook family. All of Moser House was psyched up by the first hour after a close game between the seniors and the underclassmen. After the underclassmen won by a beautiful shot, we split off to play all kinds of mini-games that the Cooks had invented, go muscodine picking and play with some of the farm animals.

After gathering back together to eat, we started up a game of “flat ball” -- this was a great learning experience for the guys who didn’t have baseball in their country. After losing epicly to the veteran Cook team, we split back up again for more mini-games.

During the weekend, I learned a somewhat strange but universally true lesson through a pool volleyball tournament. After being asked to get in the pool by a friend, and denying due to my lack of swimming trunks, he shot back, “Your shorts will dry in like 30 minutes.” So eventually I did end up getting in the pool, and we went from having four volleyball players to twelve in the matter of half-an-hour. It was the most fun I had all night, even though I might have cost our team the game about twelve times. Eventually, around the campfire, those shorts did dry and here’s why that is important: The amount of fun we got to have in the pool out-weighed the 30 minutes of discomfort I might have had in those wet shorts, and it was totally worth it.

The same rule applies when meeting new people in the dorms or in the day community. There might be that little amount of time where it’s awkward and you don’t think you have that much in common, but I promise you it usually passes. That’s how I’ve had the amazing experiences I've had with so many dorm students -- it was awkward at first, but the fun we eventually had far outweighed the discomfort.

After learning this lesson, having some amazing chocolate éclair pie in celebration of Mr. Colavita’s birthday (for my personal safety, I will not mention his age), and gathering around the campfire to admire the uncanny amount of marshmallows an average teenage boy can eat, we ended the night as a brotherhood that felt much different from when we got there: much closer.

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