The day I started dancing

And why it would never have happened if I stayed in Norway

Immersion

So things in the American educational system is a bit different from the Norwegian. While we in Norway have a week at the start of the year called Fadderuken, where you get between 3-6 ‘mentors’ whom are supposed to take care of you, and have to share them with around 20 other students, we have something called Immersion at this school. You spend the entire days with this group doing different activities, usually including something to drink. The difference? Fadderuken last for one week, and you need to get to know your peers as quickly as possible, preferable during this week because this one week will shape your closest network for the next three years and for many, the rest of their life. How do we do it? Get wasted and hope we remembered everyone we met, and that they remembered us.

Alcohol is (sadly) a key ingrediens in Fadderuken as Norwegians are not a very outgoing people, and the first day of College usually consist of insecure new students looking down at their shoes wandering what the future holds and if they will ever be able to get friends. The alcohol drives that insecurity away, and people become more outgoing than ever, and many even get alternate personalities for when they are drunk. If you fail to get new friends here, chances are you will be without a social circle for a long time.

I looked into our schedule and reckoned that Immersion was the American equivalent to Fadderuken, which was correct. However, Immersion lasted for a month, did not have any indications of bigger social gatherings outside of school or possibilities of getting wasted in a common place. What the school here did was to put us in smaller groups the first day, which was small enough to let us get to know each other. Two of the people in my group were Venezuelans, and good dancers I got to know later. Instead of having Hult arranging for ‘fun’ activities, they gave us knowledge, especially on how to adapt to other cultures, grab the opportunities you get and growth as a person.

The group were only together for a few days until we were put in our cohorts (or classes). During this week I had gotten to know a lot of amazing people, not only in my group and cohort, but also around my neighborhood. The gang, which I consider as my American family, consisted of all the people mentioned in the "Who”-section of the about page. We were 11 people, which were a nice size group when we did our own thing at the front porch, but as the network grew, so did the amount of social events we were invited to and we always went together. And yes, they were the stereotypical home-parties you see on TV, only in smaller houses or apartments.

The choices

The first weeks you got to consider where to go, because you don’t actually know where there is a good party, and who the host really is. Making 11 people agreeing on where to go is actually quite easy when you don’t really know what the options are. Usually there were 3-4 events, and had names based on their host, so “Matthew’s party” or “Tony’s party” or “Jimmy’s party”. Usually at least 1/3 of the Uber ride was spent arguing who this “Matthew”-person actually was (the rest was High School Musical and Frozen). This night we went to one of these events, and the great thing with being 11? You know it is not going to be empty and with my family, I knew it was going to be fun. Problem with being 11? It get’s crowded, and usually when people hear there is a lot of people at one place, more people arrive.

Leaving your comfort zone

This time, the place was too crowded and I ended up outside with the two Venezuelans from my prior group and met up and talked to a few more of the Venezuelans at the school. We chatted for a long time, talking about our countries and how we were as a people. And then we came to talk about dancing. I hate dancing. The reason for it is that I am really bad at it, maybe not such a strange thing since I have never tried to learn to dance anything since I was 11 when I was forced to do it. I am the guy that steps on your feet when you dance with me and I had accepted that because none of the men in my family can dance. If it was back in Norway or a week earlier I probably would have said no, but after talking so much about the sentence “I don’t know it yet” and leaving your comfort zone to experience new things and grow I could not let the opportunity pass when they invited me to come dancing with them, I had to give it a try. I consider this to be the best decision of the module.

Me dancing

We went to a apartment where I first had to show the classical Norwegian dances and music, which they were amazed by due to the lack of physical contact. When it came to music they were especially exited about “Salsa Tequila” by Anders Nilsen, and it has now become a big at the school. Then came the dance lessons and it turned out that dancing did not kill me. With teachers who had been dancing ever since they were young it actually went rather well and I quickly got the basics and found that it was more fun than I could ever imagine. I had so much fun that I forgot about the time and I did not leave until the clock was 6 and I had been dancing for 3 hours. This was the start of what I am hoping to be many years of dance skills.

Just like so many others, I disliked trying new things. I always watch the same series over and over, watch the same movies, play the same games and avoid every activity that can create a possibility for humiliation. Being a rookie dancer in Norway was not a cool thing, but dancing with the people I did made dancing fun and disarmed much of the fears I had about dancing. And even better was that they told me I was actually quite good for a first timer!

This one dancing session opened so many doors for me, and it is experiences like this that made me go to Hult, where I get to meet so many different cultures. I have left my own comfort zone, and the more I stay out of it, the less comfortable it is to try out new things I would never do before. This is a lesson for growth: Never let your lack of abilities to do something now, prevent you from participating and learning it in the future. If you think like that, you will miss out on so many fun things about life, just like I did before I came here.