Surviving the Retreat

Some time in the past my department decided to create a "retreat". Usually in retreats, either the faculty presents the latest in their field of research or the students along with the post docs and professors do it.
In our retreat is structured so that only the students of our department present and get tortured by the faculty. Basically the hotel in which we stay in is very far away and the rode over there is designed so that everybody including the driver can get car sick. We all feel like throwing up by the time we get there because of the squigly rodes. There is absolutely no cell phone or internet acess in this place. And you are not allowed to bring family members. Then after that 80% of the students feel sick for 2 days either because they've been tortured, they someone else get tortured, or they know they are going to get tortured. No one even has the energy to party. So this retreat is a perfectly designed to torture the students.

Anyways this was my second time in this retreat. The first time I didn't have to present because I still had not begun researching. So this was my first time getting tortured by the professors. All this year (all the way from the first time i went last year) I've been thinking that I would fail this task. I just didn't see any way I could survive this. I mean really, the terrorist have nothing compared to this.

Hours before your presentation, you feel nauseus, your stomach feels empty but at the same time it hurts, it feels like it is out of place like if you want to take it out. Your knees shake and you will feel that you will faint. You have a piercing headache that defies aspirin, no matter how much extra strenght you put into it. Drinking water makes you feel like you've drowning. Sometimes images merge and you walk weird cause you are having a dizzy spell. You have hot flashes. Everytime a student presents and it gets tortured your heart pumps like if it is actually going to escape your chest. You do not get any sleep because the walls are so thin. There are loud weird birds outside. Your bed board creeks more than a mouse being cut into pieces without anesthesia while alive. You get maybe2 hours of sleep. You dream about that one last student that cried like a pig being killed "eeeeee! eeeeee! eeee!"
You eat breakfast and the cofee gives you a false sense of hope but then it wears off as soon as you get into the conference room. You take a look around trying to think "these are just humans there is only so much they can do to me" but spontaneous tears escape your eyelids and you sit on that chair ready for your doom. Right before you are about to present you feel like you need to pee.

My experience...
I walked up to the board thinking, "I can just run out. But they will all just laugh and know that their tortures, their tricks work. It will only encourage them to continue it." I forgot to say that we are not allowed to present with slides so we have to use markers to draw everything on a paper board. So I turn the last person's board where instead of her drawings with the markers is really her blood. At first I can't get any words out, "Say your name Godammit! If you can say at least your name you will survive"....
I say "Hi! I am Isa." One of the professors, Old-frow looks at me like if I am wrong like if that was the stupidest mistake I've ever done. I second guess myself, I check in my brain for another name but there is none. Only the name Isa comes to mind. So I continue I give my presentation. Then there comes the questioning session. The lights seem to dim except for one. I am having a hot flash again. My heart is pumping like if I had just ran 3 miles in 3 seconds. 3 People raise their hands. I answer their questions. Then all the sudden I answer a controversial question and then 12 people raise their hands. I am about to throw up but instead I answer and then all the sudden I just want to sit down. All the symptoms go away. The stomaches, the nausea. You feel lightheaded and 1/2 way thru the next persons presentation I realize that I survived. Infact when I look back at it I realize I did pretty good.... GOOD? that is impossible... that is defying gravity. That is witnessing the landing of a space ship. That is traveling thru a black hole and living to tell your adventures.
It is not possible something I've been fearing for a year! Something I thought completely impossible? I ask my friends and enemies how I did. Because for a few minutes I believe that it was all an illusion, maybe a dream and now it is the real time for me to present. They all say I did good, my enemies were impressed. I feel happy for 1 hour but then in my head I tell my self this is all a trick, "this is just false hope they gave me so that I will not quit the program and they can save all the torture for next year." They will catch me at my weakest moment.



I look back at the way Old frow looked at me right before I sat down, those frozen dark green eyes they said, "Next time Isa, Next time!" At the moment I am thinking this I am driving back home and the nausea kicks back in, my heart again wants to get out of my body. I scream like if I have woken up from a terrible nightmare. My friends ask me what is wrong. I almost drive us off the cliff screaming instead I pause the car right on the edge. I start crying unconsolobly and Sheri comforts me patting me on the back and saying, "Oh the same thing happend to me last year when it was my first time. It is okay. I know how you feel. I am sorry I failed you I didn't tell you to run away when you interviewed. I am so sorry. Now you are just stuck here with us in this petri dish full of algar and there is nothing you can do about it they will mutate you. They will make you resistant to all the antibiotic and you will be in the end a clone of THEM" Both me and Maria cry repeatly, "We don't want to be like them we don't want to be like them."
We go home and I don't feel human again, until I see Carlos.

Very important note: Only the last paragraph is fiction, "I did not almost drive us off the rode.." Everything else is completely true!!!!!!