Alien Communication Walk and Balloon Release

I didn't know what to expect when I walked into CoLab on Thursday. I had a hint based off of the possibility of doing the same thing as the other class but I still was unsure. We started the class by introducing ourselves to each other because we had all been separated at some point based on our previous groups. We also had to say a book that we enjoyed. After that we learned about a golden vinyl that was created to showcase Earth's music and culture to other possible life forms in space. This brought us to the activity of the day; creating letters to aliens. We were told to write on disks and put them in envelopes. We had to write to someone or something that would possibly receive our letter. I enjoyed this process because it gave me the ability to be creative with my design and message. After we created the letters we had to attach balloons to them. I helped blow up the balloons which was cool because I had a lot of prior job experience blowing up balloons at Party City. When we were done with that we decided as a class to go to the windmill to launch. None of us expected the walk to be as bad as it was. Most people were dying and wanted to give up. Honestly having a ton of art kids going on a long, uphill hike at 10am probably wasn't the best idea. I wasn't having the best time. I found needing to document my surroundings, keep my balloon from popping and dealing with my possible asthma was tiring. On the walk though I bonded with people about hating the distance of the walk. Once we got to the launch location I realized how beautiful it was and I appreciated the walk we all went on. It was picturesque. Launching the balloon felt bittersweet. Knowing I created that letter and it might not even be found was hard to accept at first. I ended up realizing it'll be a cool mystery though. Walking down the path back to Cohen was way easier but also more chaotic. I had class at 11:20 and I never got back until 11:15. I wish I had documented more on the way back because a few peers and I got a little lost in AState. It was very funny and would have been good content. Overall I really appreciated this experience. It made me realize even more how important communication is and I'm interested to see how CoLab makes me thing deeper about it.