When you think of team building, you normally think of rafting, climbing walls, do survival things in team. But team building for Hyper Island means something totally different. After our long and hard UGL we went to Barnens Ö, somewhere far outside Stockholm, truly in the middle of nowhere. And off course we had to do to some things together, for example the first task. We were all blindfolded, and scattered across an open field. Then we were asked to find the rope that was lying somewhere in the field. Once everyone had the rope, we had to form a square with it. The cool thing was the collaboration. I couldn’t find the rope, it took me a long time. But than suddenly someone took my hand and guided me to the rope. And the rectangle worked perfectly as well. We were able to form a perfect square!

But what the team building was really about, was getting to know the Interactive Art Directors. The UGL was mingled, all courses at Hyper (even some of Karlskrona) were mingled. But now, it were only the IAD-students who joined the team building. We were introduced to some new students who joined after the UGL, like Nathan, Hanna and Gabriella. And when they were done, it was more like an after-UGL. We had to think about our expectations on ourselves, our students and the co-workers, which means lot of discussion and a lot of reflections. So by the end of the day, we were quite exhausted. We were really looking forward to our evening meal, until they gave us our last assignment. They gave us a paper with all the food they bought, and a list with more information on  the group (the amount of people, the amount of vegetarians, …) . And yes, you could have guested it, we had to make our own meal. So we divided the group in the cookers, the cleaners and the servants. And honestly, this was the best meal I had so far in Sweden. The cookers did an awesome job, and of course the cleaners and servants as well.
The evening afterwards was also quite nice. The good thing about being so far away from the city, was the night sky. Matteo, Sougwen and I watched the stars next to the water. It had been a long time since I saw that clear skies.

The next day was quite chill. Obviously we had more reflections and feedback-sessions, but the fun part were the breaks, the good weather, and most of all the check-out. We all had to say how we felt, and what we wanted to do. And everybody was really excited, and eager to start. For the first time ever, there was no one in the group who I don’t want to work with. I wish it was Monday already!