The End of the Beginning: Dinner at Town Hall

Today, as you might have guessed by my title, was the Brown dinner.

Before I left home, my brother immediately noticed that I was nervous. Apparently, I was making weird claws and fists with my hands. I made sure not to do that again at the dinner, because it wasn't very pretty.

Town Hall

My mother and I arrived to BART on time, but when we got on the train, I found myself saying little more than "I have no idea," and "El Cerrito." I assured myself that I would say more when we got to the restaurant. When we found Town Hall after zigzagging through San Francisco to find a way there, I spoke with a few of the Brown alumni and was glad to gain some general knowledge of what I would find there.

The meal was delightful (I ordered the beef fillet), but I was most pleased listening to our speakers, and especially enjoyed hearing from Alicia and Duncan, who both spoke eloquently, and was happy to find that I got to know them better through their speeches. Both speeches were very different; Duncan's was more informal and Alicia's was very heartfelt, but they were both very true and full of well-turned phrases. I found similar benefits in hearing from our other speakers who gave enlightening speeches about the program and their experiences with it.

My main struggle, aside from relating to adults and making intelligent contributions to conversation, was maintaining good posture and using proper table manners...because I normally look like a hunchback and eat with my hands. No, I'm kidding. But (as I hope no one noticed) I usually have terrible posture.

My delicious dinner

Although this was a completely new type of event for me to go through, the interview and tutorial felt like the beginning of this wonderful experience, and I can tell that I'm growing accustomed to the ILC environment and leaving that phase.

This was on the wall of Town Hall