When in Doubt, Wobble

(Apologies for the delay in posting these entries, but I haven’t been using the internet much!)

Thursday was quite the interesting night.

It was around 8:30 or 9pm and we were all in the basement living room preparing for the following day’s orientation session – a day at a low ropes course with an Olympic-based dress code – by making paper marathon bibs, gold medals, and various headbands and arm bands.  We ran out of paper, so I offered to walk upstairs and grab some more from a craft bin in the upstairs living room.  I came upstairs, flipped on the lights in the room, and began walking toward our shelves in front of the window.  As I bent down, I suddenly heard a loud BANG that sounded as if it were only a few feet away from our house.  I dropped to the ground in complete terror (NOTE: We live in a relatively safe neighborhood, I swear!  We are all just a bit jumpy after being pranked by our house coordinator and after another Amate House was robbed in a different neighborhood).  After my gut panic, I told myself I was being silly and it was probably a neighbor setting off fireworks.  I started to stand back up and BOOM another loud sound.  I grabbed paper and ran to the basement, where I was greeted by sheer panic on half my housemates’ faces.  We heard several more bangs, some sounding like they were right outside the house.  We debated if they were a genuine danger or not, all yelling to defend our opinions.  We decided to band together and check all the locks around the house.  As we heard some more bangs, we also saw bright lights outside the window.  After a thorough check of all doors and windows, we decided it was probably kids playing with firecrackers, and that perhaps they had thrown some over our fence and into our garden.  

Still on edge, we felt uneasy returning to the basement.  In a swift motion, one housemate grabbed her iPod and speakers and turned on “The Wobble.”  Evidently this is a hip new dance song I had never heard, but one I am now incredibly grateful for.  She cranked the volume and began teaching us the moves, and before we knew it we were all dancing (wobbling?) like fools around the living room, sweating in the heat and melting away the fears we had held just moments before.

The dance party lasted close to an hour and consisted of pop hits, 90s classics, and anything in between.  We danced, we laughed, we shouted at the tops of our lungs.  Not only had we relaxed a bit from the jumpiness after the firecrackers/”gunshots”, but we were also letting loose and allowing our sillier sides to show.  The same housemate that I had felt frustrated with earlier in the night had come to the rescue of all of us, and I had a new appreciation for the different strengths and skills different people might offer our community in the coming year.  I could not have been the brave one to start a dance party and distract everyone from their jitters in a new city, but I am very grateful that someone else was.  I can hardly wait to see what unique opportunities will arise to allow other people’s strengths to shine through. 

In conclusion, the new life lesson I have drawn from all of this is when in doubt, Wobble.