Norval 2009

On October 19, the whole middle school went to Norval for a day of team building. We all worked together to gain each other's trust, and to take risks. The grade eight class all came together to participate in the Inuit Blanket Toss, an activity where one person sat in the middle of a large blanket/ tarp and the rest of the group worked together to toss the person in the air, and than catch them.

Next we split into groups and half of us went to the Wall, and the other half to Mission Impossible. The Wall was a 14 foot wall with nothing to grab onto and just your peers to help you reach the top and get to the other side. We had half and hour to do this, and used 20 minutes to figure out and plan how we would carry it out. In the end, we all reached the other side, within the time frame.

At Mission Impossible, one person was harnessed to 4 different ropes, coming from four different sides. In four different groups, we had to navigate the person around working together so that the harnessed person could retrieve many different balls. It required lots and lots of team work and we couldn't of done it without Will, who told us all what to do (which included a few pranks).

After lunch, to Drum Cafe came. We all got drums, and the leaders got us playing lots of different beats and stuff. It was pretty fun, but it hurt your hands a lot.

Overall it was a good day and I really think it made the middle school more trustworthy of each other, and it made us a better team.

One Small Thing

Someone once told me that we should pay more attention to the small things. Small things like when your puppy doesn't pee in the house, or when your friend says she likes your hat while everyone else makes fun of you.

I've been taking those things in, and trying to not focus so much on the big things. When people tell me not to take things for granted, I normally just say 'yeah' and move on. But the last time someone told me that I actually thought about it.

Every single person who is fortunate enough to go to school, much less a private one, takes it for granted. It's a small detail in our lives, but in others, its so, so big.

By paying attention to small details like that, it makes us realize how great our lives are.

Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit, and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these.

- Susan B Anthony

"Be great in act, as you have been in thought."

I think that this quote means that whatever you think you should do or should be done, you should perform it and carry it out just as well as you imagined and thought about it.

This quote makes me think about everything we think we should be doing, and how we all talk about it and how we should all be doing it, but never go through with it.

It takes a long time to think about how everything will be done, but once you decide to do what you've been thinking about, you're excited, but second guessing. You know it's the right thing and something you really want to do but you cant seem to get yourself do do it. Suddenly the great plan you had in your mind, doesn't seem so great and your no longer so eager.

I think that if your going to all of the trouble of thinking out this whole deal, you should carry through with it.

"Be great in act, as you have been in thought." Carry out your plans. Not everything you think about has to be done, but everything you think about and do, should be done just as good as you thought about it.

When everyone talks about how everyone should be doing all this stuff to help our society, they should really just be doing it. All the time, people just take all their lives to talk about how we should do this, and we should help them. Really they should carry out all of their thoughts.

Are you someone that just thinks?

Poverty Reflection

What surprised me the most about the stories was that that was not normal. I was surprised because I had no idea this was happening in our society.

Im wondering why not everyone does that at that age. Everyone should be trying to make a difference. I think the role of our society should be to step up and raise money and research so that they can make a difference. One step at a time.

They have made me realize that our world is not a perfect one and that we should try to change it.

When I read the story about the water tap, I could not believe that that was a true story. It was shocking that the only reason they found the tap, was because a boy who was used to nothing less took the first step.

When I read about the little boy coughing up blood, I was taken back. Such a big problem with his health was because of 1 little detail; the community water pit.

We all take water for granted. Everyone is aware that this is happening in other places of the world, but yet when we toss a bucket of water out after watering the plants it never occurs to us that with that bucket of water we could of saved a life.