Experience Temple Day #1

Admissions’ first Experience Temple Day of the year was definitely a success!

After last night’s loss to St. Joe’s, I crawled into bed and watched the first half of The Ides of March before at least trying to get some sleep. This morning, I woke up at 5:30am to a piercing alarm and made myself a cup of hot chocolate before running out the door at 6:30, without any time to choose a favorite LeafFace from last night’s matchup at Hagan Arena.

I arrived at work seven minutes later, grabbed a doughnut, and headed over to the Baptist Temple to set up for our first of three Experience Temple Days this year. ETDs hold a special place in my Temple experience. My dad drug me kicking and screaming to visit campus in November and when we brought my mom back in February for an ETD and I started pointing out everything as if I already owned the place, I knew one day, it would be my home.

Matt Wargo, fellow tour guide and our Director of Fun, set up a FourSquare event and a hashtag (#ETD2012) that the admitted students could use to tweet about their experiences. The Owl Ambassadors all had a good laugh, as we were not only the only ones using the hashtag at 7am on a Sunday, but also the only ones tweeting on our timelines at all. We set up the Baptist Temple, rushing around to get everything done, but with a lot of laughter in between. As the students started filing in, they were handed All Access passes, a TU foam finger, and an Owls t-shirt.

At 8:30am, what seemed like hours after we got to work, Vinnie, a fellow tour guide who studied abroad in a different part of England before I did, and I were quite excited for the North London Derby, the most exciting footy match of the year between Arsenal and archrivals Tottenham. I was upset to miss such a huge match, but thankfully, I have the best friends at ESPN’s ScoreCenter app who keep me in the loop. Having lived in North London and become a die-hard Gooner (Arsenal fan), I was really excited and we were glued to my iPhone for the ESPN updates. Arsenal pulled out the win 5-2, and we celebrated the win singing classic footy cheers on the way to lunch at Johnson & Hardwick and I couldn’t wait to tweet my cousin and rub in the fact that North London is ours, once again.

The tour guides ate lunch at 10:30, and, while that seems exceptionally early, having been awake for hours already, it felt perfectly fine to us. The freshmen grabbing brunch definitely shot us some odd looks as we downed sandwiches and pasta. After we had eaten, we all split into our designated assignments. I had to give abbreviated tours from the Welcome Center and after my third this afternoon, my feet were sore, but I was still blown away by the enthusiasm of the accepted students as the day wound down.

We finished ETD #1 around 4pm, and I came  back to my apartment, ate some dinner, and took an hour long nap. While I’m currently watching the Oscars and trying to forget that I have both school and work tomorrow, I have a feeling I’ll pass out long before they present the award for Best Picture. But #ETD2012 was worth it. While it’s a long day and incredibly stressful at times, there are rare times where all the tour guides are together, and we have a blast. Plus, we get to share that joy with about 3,000 of our newly admitted students and our families. It’s a long day, but it’s a great one.

Leave a comment