Fresh X

I would like to take this blog and dedicate to a wonderful OWU program called the Freshmen Experience or Fresh X. Fresh X is a trip that happens the week before Freshmen Orientation. New students, student leaders, and adult leaders go out into the wilderness for a week of fun and it enables new students to meet their peers as well as older students. The idea is to ease freshmen into their college career by introducing them to people before they get onto campus.

I participated in Fresh X. It is awesome and I have to admit that without it, I think I would have been lost on campus. It felt good to know people when I got back and made everything very smooth for me, especially since I was very hesitant and scared about going to college. But I conquered that fear by throwing myself into college from the beginning by going on the Fresh X trip.

This year Fresh X is traveling to Seneca Rocks, West Virgina. That's where my trip went too. When I went, I was on the backpacking trip. Four days out in the wilderness, no experience necessary. There is also hiking, rock climbing, rafting, and service work. The trip might have changed this year so please don't hold me to too much detail on the 2007 trip but I know there is going to be one, so check it out.

In order to do the checking, just return to the OWU homepage and in the search bar type in Fresh X. That should link you to some basic information and possibly an application, assuming it has been updated.

If your looking for an example of how Fresh X impacts life on campus, Mery went on Fresh X too and we are rooming together next year. Steve, one of the student leaders on my trip helped me get my job as a tour guide. Great experience, great fun, check it out.

Pictures: All of this pictures are from the backpacking trip because that's the one I participated in. In the past there have been other trips, but I hope you enjoy these. First is of the entire backpacking crew standing on an overlook in Seneca Rocks. Second is me cleaning off a dinner spoon, sumping as we called it. We could leave anything out in the wilderness so it had to be all cleaned, or put in the stomach, in this case, my stomach. Third is another picture of the overlook. The view is really, really nice. Fourth is a picture of Mery, me, and Julia on the bus back to OWU. Great part of that picture is all of us are four days without a shower and on a bus with all the Fresh X kids. Total backpackers: fifteen. Total everybody else: near forty. It was a lovely ride.