When I walked into the office that Monday morning, I still couldn't believe that I was working at TIG. The vibrant colours of the walls and the casual atmosphere were very different from any environment that I have worked in before. The day began at 10 a.m. and we stayed there until almost 8 p.m. I received lots and lots of information about TIG and also had lots and lots of fun with the staff. It would take me too long to describe everything in detail because I remember it all vividly. So I will just give you the highlights (in no particular order):

-Sulmaz and her energetic presence were unforgettable
-Sena & Kelli had a fun game while introducing us to the online community and multilingual programs. So impressive that TIG is available in over 9 languages and all the translation work is done by volunteers!
-It was great knowing the backgrounds of other interns - wonderful to hear that people of our generation have such fantastic achievements and ambitions
- I loved Mike's presentation - his story about writing a program for organizing baseball cards was great to hear! And what followed that was all impressive....
- Jen has so much energy! She was cheerful from the start and it made us all feel welcome and part of the team as soon as we stepped in. Her sincere involvement in a million different things to make this world better is inspiring!
- A big shout out to Vivian, Frank, Francisco, Rob, Liam, Maciej, Nigel, Sean, Niv, Kristle, Kat and Deanna. I had a chance to know them better after orientation but they already broke the ice with their warmth and friendliness on the first day.

Orientation answered a lot of questions for me and made me feel extremely grateful for being a part of the TIG family. Here are some facts that I learnt:

- TIG does A LOT of things! They encourage youth entrepreneurship through their Sprout program in partnership with the Pearson Foundation, they educate and involve youth in environmental programs through Tread Lightly in partnership with the Staples Foundation, they foster cross-cultural dialogues through their forum discussions and multilingual programs, they encourage Art and creative thinking through the Global Gallery, they bring technology into education through virtual classrooms in the TIGed program and the list could go on......

-TIG has a positive and happy work environment - just on the first day, what struck me most was how free all the staff were and how friendly and warm the atmosphere was. Everyone participated in the games with enthusiasm and we shared lots of good laughs.

-TIG connected me to myself! True story.
As part of the orientation prep, we had to familiarize ourselves with TIG's social network. One activity asked us to do a member search for anyone with the same first name or last name as us. I searched for my name and to my astonishment, found a Rucha Deshpande registered. When I clicked on the profile, I found out that it was my profile from 7 years ago and it was connected to my old email address!!!! I couldn't believe. My 16 year old self at that time had written about wanting to do international studies in university. Now all these years later, I am an International Studies graduate and working for TIG! It was a touching moment for me and I would like to write more about it some other time.

For now, this is all I have about my memories from Orientation Day.