QA Cabin Trip Throwback: Harry Potter and his dementor lovers
In less than two months, the QA Programme will venture to a remote location on one of our epic Cabin Trips. To help you picture what you can expect from one of these trips, we have compiled a few experiences from last semester’s Cabin Trip for you. The first comes from mentee Lottie, who has maybe made the most aweome contribution in QA blog history - a prophecy-in-rhyme for the Movie Mash-Up.
Throwing a random group of people together is always an interesting social project. Dividing this random group in even more random groups and having them compete is even more so. Right before I left for the Cabin Trip, I saw a picture on Facebook, that I believe stated that 15 minutes of playing gets people to bond more than a long and deep conversation. And as much as I enjoy good conversations, I think The Internet has a good point there.
Admittedly, I was quite reserved at the start of the weekend. I didn’t know any of my teammates, and stubbornly wanted to just hang out with the people I had already met. Soon enough, however, I realised that feelings like these are often just products of misplaced self-consciousness. Not wanting to allow myself to be limited by this, I rapidly chose to let go and stop taking myself so seriously. A good decision that resulted in a great weekend with a lot of fun and silliness.
My team - composed of a Finn, a Japanese, an American, an Italian, a Dutchie and a girl from Hong Kong - soon proved to have a great dynamic, and the more activities we did, the more fun we started to have. Balancing on a tiny mat with a group of six people, or competing in a nightly cucumber race with your newly found arch enemy (you know who I’m talking about, red team) surely leads to hilarious situations, no matter how old you are or where you are from. Besides that, exaggerated fanaticism and animosity were often the basis for funny encounters with members of other teams, while during the nights the cheap bar and highly intellectual 90s and 00s music let us forget about our Hunger Games for a little bit. When you find youself mopping the floor on drum ‘n base at 4am because you don’t feel like going to bed, you know you’ve had a good night.
Lottie and other happy campers.
The crowning moments on every team’s work, and my personal favourite part of the weekend, were definitely the movie mash-up plays on Saturday night. The combination of minds from different backgrounds proved to be a great source of creative genius. Whomever knew that Harry Potter is in reality a Japanese schoolboy with dementor lovers, and whose parents have been eaten by a hungry Cyclops whom he shall defeat according to an ancient prophecy? Or that the great Wizard of Oz is in fact a heartless serial killer with a cocaine addiction? Moreover, the way in which everyone put themselves out there, showed that the group had grown quite comfortable with each other over the course of less than two days.
Lottie wrote a phrophecy-in-rhyme the above Movie Mash-Up story. It’s pretty amazing. Take a look:
I see your parents have tragically died Their killer survived and ran off to hide As it is only one, who can truly live free A journey to Greece is what I foresee. Your destined goal is yet still far But along the way you’ll be told what you are Trials shall be met, and your fears you shall face So develop the skills in the right place. Olympus School is where this is done best They will prepare you for your dangerous quest Fear not, though, rest your mind In the end, you shall be “the boy who survived”.
I think it is great to know that university students from all over the world still allow themselves to be silly and let go at times, and that doing so creates more common ground than one would initially think. It is things like this that will keep me going when I’m spending sunny days in the KUA library, struggling my way through Descartes and Hegel.
Sounds like fun, right? Sign-up for the next Cabin Trip is open - sign up now at www.qaprogramme.dk/event/qa-cabin-trip-autumn-2015
(Please note that the Cabin Trip is an exclusive event for current members of the QA Programme.)