Sleepover at OLA!

This weekend I slept over at OLA from Thursday to Monday. I am so glad I got to have this experience. There were good but there were also bads in this experience.

Where I slept

Dining hall food

Let me first give you a feel for the school. After classes lets out the ladies immediately change into their house dresses. These are different colored check uniforms. The 1st years wear brown (brownies), second years wear green (greenies), third purple (purlies), and 4th years pink(pinkies). They keep the same color all four years though. I wore one of Esthers checks for the weekend.

Another thing thats sets a tone on the campus is that the upperclassmen are allowed to tell the underclassmen  what to do and punish them if they don't. Because of the house dresses' colors, its easy to see who the underclassmen are. The upperclassmen often would stop a brownie or greenie to have them wash their dishes or get them something for them. If they didn't or if they do it wrong then they can punish them. Punishment can be anything from making them go in every dorm and go a dance to kneel on the ground or close to anything else. This was something that was hard for me to see. I saw this happen a bit during school hours but seeing it happen around me all weekend really wore on me and I'm not even an underclassmen. They think of it as a stage in your life. They think that if you can survive your first and second year then you have the privilege of benefiting from it your last two years. Another thing I don't agree with is caning. Teachers will cane a student if they are late to class or if they sleep in class. This is another thing that they think nothing of but makes me more than cringe.

One more thing about OLA is that the ladies here have there own little terms for certain things. For example toilet is cabo. If you say cabo anywhere besides OLA they will have no idea what your talking about. They have a whole lot of these terms which where pretty fun to learn.

Chores

ANYWAY every night we went to chapel. Chapel at night is completely run by the pinkies so its like an hour of worship songs and a whole lot of dancing. I wish I could tell you how much energy was in the chapel. It was just amazing. They sung and danced with their whole being. No one was afraid or embarrassed. It was pretty amazing!

After chapel is prep. which is like a study time. So we went to the classroom and studied. I think prep was about two hours long. After prep is bedtime! Bedtime was so much fun! It was like girls night! The ladies at OLA love to laugh and just have fun.

The dorm

On Sunday I went to my first mass. It was interesting. Standing, sitting, kneeling, standing again. It was cool to see everyone in their chapel cloth.

I actually really enjoyed my experience at the boarding house. Its a whole lot different than school at OLA. I'm so thankful I got to experience it and hangout with Esther more!

Oh and its been brought to my attention that my grammar is not wonderful. I'll try to slow down a bit but I'm sorry if it doesn't get any better.