UHP
Tales of Resilience

The honors experience I participated in was the honors program Tales of Resilience. Tales of Resilience, or ToR, is a pre-approved experience that uses Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) to explore topics such as mental health, family dynamics, social/political power, self-esteem, and identity through shared storytelling and roleplay. Before this experience, I had never played DnD, and I thought I never would. I had nothing against it, but I didn’t know anybody who played it or anyone to introduce me to the game. I signed up for the experience because my honors advisor talked to me about the program, and it sounded interesting. More so, because my major involves storytelling, I thought it would be a great way to help develop my skills and gain some experience. So, I signed up for the spring session, which was one of my life's best decisions. But I didn’t start out looking at it that way. Going into my first session, I was very nervous. I didn’t know how to play the games, and I didn’t know what to expect. And on top of that, the people in my cohort all had more experience with DnD than me, so I felt like the odd one out. Fortunately, I had a great lead storyteller and an incredible cohort who were all very patient with me and made learning and playing the game so much fun. Through ToR, I was able to understand the true meaning of resilience, which is one's ability to withstand and recover from challenges. In the experience, I learned that things will not always go your way, and you have to be resilient and persevere but also reflect on how it affects you and how to deal with it. From this experience, I will take away healthy problem-solving techniques, self-reflection skills, and friendships with some extremely cool people. 

 

Below are two pictures from the program that I believe represent my experience well. One picture is of my miniature character sitting on stacked-up DnD dice. During the sessions, I would often fidget with my dice, and it became a habit to see how many different ways I could stack the dice without them falling over. Once I got my character mini, which took about 3 hours to paint, I decided to add to the challenge and see if I could balance it too. I chose this photo because it reminds me that I could experience and enjoy DnD by not only having dice but also a real 3D-printed mini. It was cool to see my creation come to life.  The second photo is a cartoon drawing of my cohort’s characters. One of the members of my cohort would draw summaries of our past sessions and reminders of the upcoming one every week. It became a fun way for them to express themselves, and our group loved it. The drawings became a highlight of the week, and we couldn't wait to see what they would draw next.