The Beginning of Yet Another SWEet Year!

The 2011-2012 officers started off this new school year with our first event, the SWE Officers' Retreat. It took place on September 24th through the 25th, the weekend before school officially began. Bright and early on Saturday, the group headed to Sunset Recreation Center for a fun-filled four hours at UCLA's very own Challenge Course. The Challenge Course was indeed challenging as we were able to come face to face with our fear of height and were ableto learn the valuable lesson of teamwork. Through working together, we completed many tasks, one of them being Maui-to-Oahu in which the whole team had to get from one "island"

(wooden block) to another "island" only by the use of two wooden beams. After a long, rewarding experience at the Challenge

Course, we headed to our hotel for check-in and showers before dinner.

We had dinner at an Indian restaurant in Culver City, accompanied by Bill Goodin, his wife, and our faculty advisor, Professor Andrea Kasko. Over the course of dinner, we again got to know each other better and were able to have very interesting conversations with Bill, his wife, and Professor Kasko. After about two and a half hours of dining, the group headed back to the hotel to change and prepare for our next adventure, Moonlight Ice Skating! We ended our day after ice skating at 1 am. All of us were glad to be back in our hotel rooms to sleep and recharge for the day to come when our first executive board meeting would take place.

The next morning we got up at around 9 am to have continental breakfast provided by the hotel. Our first E-board meeting officially started at 10 am. We brainstormed and talked about the events for this upcoming quarter. After two hours of intense planning and discussion, we concluded our officers' retreat and headed back to UCLA in preparation for the SWEet year to come!

Tiffany Yeh

Historian