Save Juno Beach Post

Posted on by under Humanities, Individual Project, Reflections

(Insert craft link here)

Hello readers and welcome back to Maximus the Greatest. Today’s post is about the recent project we’ve been doing in Humanities, Save Juno Beach! This project was all about the history of WWII and discussing which events are most significant and why. The driving question to this project is: “Why is it so important to preserve the Juno Beach Centre?” It’s important because it displays Canada on the world stage and tells our story. Also, it shows how we aided the war effort in France. The final product for this project was a persuasive writing piece. 

To begin this project, we learned about WWII and significant moment of the battle. We learned about Canada’s involvement, the war in Eastern Europe, and D-day. We “made” these notes in Craft, an app that is a useful tool for notes. After gathering all of this knowledge, we wrote about the 3 most significant events of WWII, I chose the Great Depression, D-day, and the rise of authoritarian leaders. 

Here’s what my keystone 1 looked like:

The next step was to understand what “rhetoric” meant, since our final product was a persuasive text on Juno Beach. It was important to have a good understanding of rhetoric to craft an effective piece. To work on this, we did a rhetorical analysis on this piece called “thanks for not killing my son”, we also did this activity in craft. For this assignment, we had to identify how pathos, ethos, and logos were all used. 

After gaining this knowledge about rhetoric, we then began to craft our first drafts of our persuasive texts. All of us were writing about Juno beach, but we had a choice on what we wanted to write about specifically. I chose to write about how the Juno Beach centre represents Canada on the world stage. Using the knowledge I had, I made my first draft, and at first I found it to be too short and not meeting the requirements. So, I made an improved second draft and I also received peer feedback from my classmates. I found the feedback to be very beneficial, as I was able to improve and make it way better. 

By the end of this whole process, I had created my final draft:Insert craft link here)

Once we were all done our drafts, we published them on a public website. The whole purpose being to educate others about the Juno Beach Centre, and emphasize it’s importance. 

In summary, this project was interesting, and I learned lots about WWII and other important  events in history. I discovered more about Canada’s importance, and how they were key in beating the Axis powers. I enjoyed writing about the Juno Beach Centre, and conveying my opinion to the public. 

Thanks for reading!

Marketing You! Post

Posted on by under Individual Project

Hi there readers, and welcome back to Maximus the Greatest. Today’s post is about the recent project we’ve been working on in PGP, which is our careers class in PLP. This project was all about marketing ourselves by creating resumes, business cards, and cover letters. The driving question was: “How can I effectively market myself to employers?”. You can do this by creating effective media that describes your values and experience. Also, by using the resources available to market yourself in the best way possible.

Starting off, we began to craft new resumes. I had already created one in the past for previous job applications, so I just built off my old one. For my new version, I used Canva as my app of choice. Canva was really helpful as it had lots of resume templates to use. To add some flair to our resumes, we added portraits, here’s what my resume looks like:

We also did an activity where we created a resume for a character of our choice. My group and I made a Dallas grey resume, and it was pretty interesting!

We then began to work on our Business cards, we used Canva to create these as well. Using these templates, I tried to create a logo that went well with the colours of my card.

Here’s the cards that I created:

 

The purpose of these cards were to market ourselves in positive, descriptive way. I found it to be really helpful, as it’s something I have to consider for my future career.

The next step in this project was to create an effective cover letter, or an email template. Essentially, this is a short paragraph that displays you as a person. I had previously crafted a cover letter for a job application, so I was on the right track. All I had to do was some slight adjustments and fine tuning.

For the final part of this project, we were tasked with creating “mock interviews”. These interviews had to follow the proper principles of a interview, in which 1 partner was the interviewer, and the other the interviewee. My partner in this was Zach.

At first we had an idea to make our interview “the office” themed. This meant we would emulate the same aspects of the show, meaning it would be goofy. After making a few drafts, we found that our interview was TOO goofy. The feedback that we got was that it was too off track of what the interview should look like. So we applied this feedback and made this final version:

We were proud of our work and had made it less goofy!

In summation, this project was very beneficial and was a good learning experience. I found it good to learn about things that we will implement into our future careers post-secondary. I thought the mock interviews were really fun to make, I had a good time making my office parody!

Thanks for reading!

Power of Imagination Post

Posted on by under Group Project, Humanities, Learning Advance, Pages, Reflections

Hello readers, and welcome back to my blog! Today’s post is about the recent project we’ve been doing called “Power of imagination”. This project was all about Disney of course, since we went to Disneyworld! This was our first ever out of loon lake learning advance, and it lasted from February 28th to March 9th. The driving question to this project was: “How do Disney theme parks shape and influence the cultural, economic, psychological, and social experiences of visitors?”. They do this through immersive storytelling and visual aspects that make people feel “like they’re there”. I felt this especially at Toy Story land at Hollywood studios, where you felt like a toy, since all the toys around you were life sized. The final product for this project was a video that answered the driving question through interviews, examples, and references to the past. My group partners were: Alicia, Erik, Carter, Ben T, and Theryn.

For keystone 1, we were tasked with creating a “PKM” collection. A PKM stands for “know, wonder, learn, and is a way of organizing your thoughts through notes, links and reflections. We created our “PKM’s” on craft, an app that’s somewhat new for us. For our pkm’s we had to research topics that resounded with our project topic. Since our group was Psychological, I researched on that basis. Here’s one of the PKM’s I made:

I found this keystone to be really resourceful, as I learned more about disneyworld and places I could visit. 

For keystone 2, we created a group pitch board for our final video. My group partners were: Alicia, Ben T, Theryn, Carter, and Erik. For this assignment, we made an effort to organize all of our ideas:

Our main talking point was nostalgia of multiple generations, and how Disney had influenced them. We planned to interview people from different generations, and get their opinion on how Disney has influenced them. 

For keystone 3, we were tasked with creating a storyboard for our video. This was a chance to visualize our ideas, and get an idea of what our video would look like. This is also where we assigned roles and responsibilities for each task. I was tasked with narrating and filming an interview at Hollywood studios. 

Here’s what our storyboard looked like:

Next, we had to complete our final video script. We all evenly contributed to this task, and provided our own ideas into it. Since I was narrator, I had most of the lines for the video.

On February 28th, after a false start, (our initial flight was cancelled), we got to florida on late Tuesday night. What a relief it was to finally get there…

On the first day, which was at Magic Kingdom, we all immediately felt the magic of Disney:

IMG_2893

During my day at magic kingdom, I filmed one of my trend videos which was my “just wanna rock dance”. 

The work for my trend video didn’t start until we got to Hollywood studios. Erik and myself conducted interviews while in a Walt Disney museum. We asked people about how Disney has affected them, and what makes them feel nostalgic. 

Here’s what Hollywood studios looked like:

IMG_2899

Once we got back from the trip, it was time to put it all together. We had our clips and interviews all filmed, and the hard work began…

When we started to edit we realized that there was some missing components, that would need to be troubleshooted. For example, our audio in our interviews was pretty quiet and we had to add subtitles over it. 

In summation, going to Disney world was an experience of a lifetime and is something I’ll never forget. It was an opportunity to know my peers better, as well as the teachers. As for the project, it was hard work to coordinate different shots and interviews, and we faced some adversity. In this project I got to work on my group work and communication, which was key for us to complete the video. 

Thanks for reading!

Atomic Habits Post

Posted on by under PGP, Reflections

Hello readers, and welcome back to the blog. Today’s post is about the recent project we’ve been working on in PGP 10 at Seycove. This project was all about “positive brain training” and reading the book “atomic habits” by James clear. The driving question was: “How does balance within my life create opportunities”. With effective habits that have a clear process, we are able to create opportunities. As mentioned in the book, if you keep improving and refining, the results will be remarkable. If you continue to use Habit 7: sharpen the saw, you will keep getting better at your craft. 

To start it off, we explored “positive brain training”. There are 5 ways to do this: Meditation, conscious act of kindness, excersise, journaling, and gratitude. For each day, we would practice one of the 5 traits, and we would record in our “craft daily notes”. I found this to be really effective, as we were able to reflect and mention what we could improve next time. 

We listened to a TED talk by Shawn Achor called “the happiness advantage”. This talk was all about seeing the positives in things, and that positivity=productivity. We did a “4-2-1” activity, where you take the 4 main ideas, then you keep breaking it down until you reach one summary sentence. Here’s what my 4-2-1 looked like:

We also took a look back at the “seven habits”, a topic which we explored last year. In groups, we were each assigned a habit book, and at the end we did a 1 sentence summary on how our story relates to the habit. This was an opportunity to “jog our memories” on what the habits were and what they can be used for. It was important to re-learn these, as the seven habits directly relate to “atomic habits”. 

Our next step in this project was to begin our Atomic Habits reading. But first, we had to create an effective reading schedule. My plan was to read 15 minutes a day, and to be done the book by the end of spring break. For my schedule I used things:

I found my schedule to be very effective, as the reminder would pop up every day, which made it easier to complete and stay true to my plan. 

As I began to read, I noticed the level of detail with personal anecdotes that related to habits and creating systems. He talked about his baseball career, and how he came back from that brutal injury. I liked that use of examples, cause it brought upon a more personal side. He also mentioned the idea that small habits can make a big difference. Usually, we try to do things in big steps, instead of sticking to the process. Focus on getting 1 percent better every day. 

Next, he introduced the “habit laws”, which were for making good habits, and breaking bad ones. The 1st law, make it a obvious, the 2nd law, make it attractive, the 3rd law, make it easy, and the 4th law, make it satisfying. And for breaking bad habits, it’s the inverse. 

Another point that I found interesting, was that we can always revise and improve our habits and systems. Sometimes, I find myself thinking “this is good enough”, or “I can’t make it any better”. But in reality, there’s always room for improvement and refinement. 

To summarize, I found this project to be very useful and beneficial to my goals. Through the positive brain training, I was able to find more balance and cover multiple aspects of my life. And with the schedule and task management of my reading, I became more organized and I got better at working with Things. As for the reading, I connected to the author through his in depth anecdotes and examples. 

Thanks for reading!

Five Trend Videos Post

Posted on by under Individual Project, Learning Advance, Maker, Reflections

Hello readers, and welcome back to the blog. Today’s post is about s project we completed during our field school to Disneyworld. This project was called “five trend videos”, and was all about making trend Tik tok’s during our time at disney. The driving question was: “How do I make effective personal design choices?” I can do this by finding trends that coincide with my interests and passions. Also, by researching and planning out what my videos will look like.

The first “investigation” was our Personal productivity system. This was all about setting up the tools on our iPads, and using them effectively. This included organizing “things”, clearing our inbox, and setting up our calendars. This was getting us ready for Disney world, as we would have to carefully plan out our videos.

Here’s what my maker section in things looks like:

The 2nd investigation was all about researching and planning our videos. We used the web, and examples from our teachers to conduct thorough research. The requirements for our videos is that 3 had to be independent and 2 had to be “squad videos”. Here’s a link to my document of video ideas:

I tried to make my video ideas trends that were well known, and that people could relate to. I also wanted to have a mix of comedic, dramatic, and serious videos. 

The 3rd investigation for this project was to make our video prototypes. At first I was confused as to how we would do this, since our scene looked nothing like it would at Disneyworld. However, the whole purpose of this was to visualize and see what we could fix in our videos. Here’s an example of one of my prototypes: IMG_2852

We made do with the PLP classroom as our scene, and performed our great dance!

Then for the last investigation, which was making our final drafts! We arrived in Disney and we began to craft our videos. We had to make sure we were diligent with our time, and didn’t get carried away in the magic of Disney. On the first day, I filmed my first video in front of the magic kingdom castle: Just Wanna Rock dance

Here’s the rest of my completed trend videos:

Biergaten review

Blizzard Beach vlog

Disney Hotel Room Tour

Me vs. What’s playing in my AirPods

To summarize, this project was lots of fun, and I learned about video editing, and video creation. Doing this project made me realize how much effort has to be put in for these “influencers” on Tik Tok. I found that it took lots of planning, organization, and putting our plans to action while we were at Disney. Looking back, I could’ve planned things a bit better, as I sometimes found myself doing things on the fly.

Thanks for reading!

 

My Super Bowl Sunday

Posted on by under Uncategorized

Hello readers, and welcome back to my blog. Today’s post is about my Super Bowl Sunday experience, and how it went down. To celebrate the Super Bowl, the guys and I went to Colton’s house. Let’s just say we had a bit of snacks…… 

IMG_2815 IMG_2816

 

We all layed our snacks down on the table to “show off” our stash. There was 8 bags of chips, 6 2L bottles of pop, and there was wings, nachos and more. 

I was going for the eagles to win, as I detest the chiefs as a whole. There was a strong divide between us guys of who was cheering for who.

As soon as the game started we knew it was gonna be a Super Bowl for the ages. The game was close, each team kept making big play after big play. At the end of the half, the eagles were leading 24-14, and were looking good. After some shenanigans, it was time for the halftime show. All of us were hype for Rihanna’s performance. I found the outfits to be cool, and the set.

Out of the gate, the chiefs came out strong. They scored a touchdown right away, and the eagles defence had no answer for Patrick Mahomes and co. Going into the 4th quarter, the chiefs had all the momentum. With only 5 minutes left, the chiefs were up 35-27, and the eagles had the ball. Jalen hurts drove his team down the field, and he tied it up with little time left. The chiefs got it back, and drove it tot he red zone, it was 3rd down and Patrick Mahomes threw an incompletion. But no, he didn’t. There was a late flag against the eagles for an apparent “holding” call. The chiefs then bled the clock down, and kicked the game winning field goal. 

In all, my Super Bowl experience was a blast. Thx to Colton for hosting!

Romeo and Juliet Post

Posted on by under Group Project, Humanities, Pages, Reflections

Hello readers, and welcome back to the blog. Today’s post is about the recent project we’ve finished in Humanities. This project is all about Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare. The driving question in this project is: “How has William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet remained relevant to contemporary storytelling? Although the language is very different today, you still see similar variations of his storytelling. For example, you see many variations of the infamous balcony scene, and the final death scene. The final product for this project was to recreate a scene from the play with modern aspects…..

We started off the project by reading scenes from the original play. In the process of that, we explored the language, and what it really meant. There was many words that meant no sense to me, and when I saw their definition, it really surprised me. Words such as, “hither”, and “Thither”, seemed pretty out there to me. Also, we did a “Elizabethan roast” activity where we combined different terms to create the perfect roast!

Here’s a few of my burns…

“You fawning, crook-pated, bugbear!”

“You saucy, dizzy eyed, giglet!”

As we read through the story, I discovered more about the story as a whole, and also the language used. It also gave me an opportunity to see which scenes I liked beast, as the final product was to recreate a scene of our choice.

For Keystone 1, we were tasked with creating a themebook, that explained each scene, and included evidence from a adaptation. To complete this, we watched “Gnomeo and Juliet”, and “warm bodies”, in class. Both films are adapted from the play, and both follow similar storylines, other than the fact that one is a zombie movie!

After completing keystone 1, we were put into our movie groups. My group was Alicia, Fraser, and Makenna, and we chose to recreate the “balcony scene”. Right as we were put into groups, we had to create our “film pitch”. We chose to center our scene around two teens, Rowan and Jessica, who fall in love through Snapchat. After finalizing our plans, it was time to put them into action.

My role in our scene was Rowan, the main character, and it was quite the experience. There was few “cringe” scenes in there, that took a lot to film. But you can judge for yourself: Rowan and Jessica, a Romeo and Juliet recreation..

The filming process was fun, as I got to have fun with my friends and create good work. The best part to me, was the credits scene where Zach and I broke out into song. It was an off script moment, where we were just screwing around, and Fraser thought it’d be cool to put in.

In summation, this project was a blast to do with Mr. Harris. We learned about old language, and how it’s evolved over time. And, how one story has been incorporated in hundreds of movies and films. I liked how we had little to no limitations, and could really release our creativity into our scene.

Thanks for reading!

                                                                                                                                           

MPOL 2022

Posted on by under Reflections, Stories

Hello teachers and parents, and welcome to my MPOL! This year has come with new opportunities, and new experiences, including our first out of country field study! 

(Introduce parents to teacher)

“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

First, I’m going to answer the driving questions. “How have I demonstrated growth as a learner so far this year?” I’ve shown growth by pushing my comfort zone, and becoming more confident in my abilities. For example, in the “trust fall” activity at loon lake, I was doubting myself at first, but at the end, I had full confidence in myself and my peers. 

“How can I sharpen my Learning Plan to ensure I will reach my learning targets by the end of this school year?” I can do that by reviewing and updating it, to make sure I’m doing what’s best for my learning. Also, by setting goals that are attainable by the end of this school year. 

Now, I’m going to talk about my growth in humanities:

In humanities, we’ve completed 3 projects, ”GOLD”, which was about the gold rush in BC during the early 19th century. And “Ology of apology”, which was about different instances of mistreatment in BC, and how Canada has apologized for those actions. And of course our most recent project, “Romeo, Romeo, are we still talking about Romeo?” In which we recreated a scene from the play, with modern aspects….

My strengths in Humanities are being a leader in group settings, and assigning roles to others. Also, I’m good at communicating my thoughts and opinions to peers and teachers. I’ve show these traits in the “ology of apology” project, by voicing my opinions on what our memorial should be. Furthermore, I’m able to manage a lot of things at the same time. For example, different objectives, and being able to plan out my time effectively. 

Things that I want to work on are story-writing and storytelling. Earlier in the year, during the “GOLD’ project, we were tasked with creating a story about the BC gold rush. And at first I was pretty puzzled, and didn’t know where to start. I sook help, by asking my sister for pointers, and she critiqued my existing work. In all, that was a good experience, and I benefitted from that immensely. As the year continues, I want to build upon that skill, and enhance my learning. 

 

One change I have made so far this year, is my mindset on projects. In past years, I’ve had negative opinions on projects, and had a “closed mindset”. This year my goal is to become more opened minded, and be able to put myself out there, by learning about new topics. 

My work throughout the year so far has showed that I like to be different, by creating things that others don’t. For example, in the winter exhibition, my group and I created a video as opposed to creating a physical mural, which most groups did. I found that our video held a deeper meaning, and explained further the idea of our room. 

Now I’m going to talk about Field studies:

So far this year, we’ve been to loon lake for a learning advance. This experience centred around leadership, and working in groups. It was a rollercoaster of a ride, in which I learned about myself, and the PLP 10 team. During this excursion, I learned many interesting things; to not take juice for granted, and that people have more layers than you think. During the infamous “crossing the line” activity, I learned about my peers, and more about myself in the process. 

Looking forward, in the next month we have our first-ever out-of country field study, which will be at Disneyworld. I’m very excited to see what the learning will look like , and for all the exciting features, its Disneyworld! 

Next, I’m going to reference my learning plan. 

A part of my disposition is time management, and finding the time to finish certain tasks. Also, consistency, meaning in my PLP work, and being able to always meet the due date. 

For my habits, I reference staying on task, and not getting distracted by outside sources. And asking for help, from peers or teachers. 

To summarize, this year has been filled with good learning experiences, and opportunities for growth. My goals for next semester are to improve my writing, and ability to tell stories. I can do this by writing more, and regularly getting critique from others. Also, I want to have a better and more positive attitude in every activity/project we do. I can accomplish this by referring to the 7 habits from last year, and by looking at things with new perspectives.

Thanks for watching my MPOL!

Now I ask you, the audience, is there anything that I should focus on more, or that wasn’t;t mentioned in my presentation?

Ology of Apology/Exhibition Post

Posted on by under Group Project, Humanities, Reflections

Hello readers, and welcome back to my blog. Today’s blog is about the recent project we’ve been working on: “Ology of apology”. We later applied this project to our work in the the Winter Exhibition. In this project, we learned about key moments in BC’s history. Specifically, the Chinese head tax, the Komogata Maru, and Japanese internment. The driving question for this project was: “How can we keep apologies for past wrongs alive so they are remembered and not repeated today?” We can do this by making promises, and keeping them. Also, by educating the next generation on these events, so they are never repeated.

We started this project by defining what made good audio. We watched this halloween podcast, and as a group, we discussed whether this audio was effective or not. We talked about the characteristics of good audio, and how to portray it. Next, we defined our “KWL’S”, know, wonder, learn about the respective topics we were exploring. 

For keystone 1, we researched, and created a keynote on our assigned topic. Out of the 3 topics, we were given one, I was assigned Japanese internment. For this assignment, we explained our topic in story format, and defined whether it was just or unjust.

I had created a decent first draft, however, my story needed some work, and I needed to explain my topic in further detail. I applied the critique from my peers and from teachers, and made a final draft. 

Here’s what it looked like:

Presentation 67

For keystone 2, we were tasked with creating a audio clip, that accompanied our keynote, and told the story of our event. It had to be 2 minutes long, and explain whether our event was justified, or unjustified. At first, I didn’t know where to start. So I just focused on telling an effective story, that explained the key events. 

Here’s my completed audio clip:

After completing both keystones, we were put into groups. We were each assigned a topic, I got Japanese internment, Mateo, and Patrick were my partners. 

The next step to this project was incorporating it into the Winter Exhibition. We each got a room to demonstrate our learning, and how it connected to James Cameron’s fantasy world of “Avatar”. Each group had to create a memorial, that described our event. We were in the “Corporate greed” room, so we had to explain how our event related to that idea.

For our memorial, our group created a “heritage minute” about Japanese internment. We used photos and videos from the event, and we created some clips of our own, that described the event. Here’s our heritage minute:

On the day of the exhibition, it was chaos. We had to quickly assemble our rooms, and make sure they were presentable. We were emulating a “buiseness lounge”, so we all dressed in fancy clothes. In our room, there was mostly grade 8’s, so we had to be leaders, since we had done this before. After spending hours getting our room ready the teachers cleared us, and it was time for dinner, which was pizza.

During the exhibition, I presented for many family friends and family members, which was a cool experience. Also, I got asked lots of good clarifying questions, that further tested my knowledge.

To summarize, this project was very interesting and I learned a lot. I didn’t know about the internment in Vancouver, or the mistreatment of refugees off the coast of east van. I was also able to collaborate with others, to reach a common goal. The exhibition had many ups and downs, from being in a panic, to feeling good about the work we had created.

Thanks for reading!

Loon lake post (the second time around)

Posted on by under Learning Advance, Reflections

Hello readers, and welcome back to the blog!

Today’s post is about our first field study of the year at loon lake. We spent 5 days at “looner”, which for some reason, felt like 5 months…

This field study was centred around leadership, and effectively working with others. Most of this trip was run by “Pinnacle Pursuits”, a company that values people, passion, and performance. The guy who was running it was a man named Jonathan willcocks:

 “Johnno”, as we called him, was our leader during this experience, and had us learning at all times. 

We began our loon lake journey with a freezing cold bus ride into the wilderness. I want dressed the best at that moment…..

Here’s what I looked like: 

Once we got there, we were introduced to Amber and Johnno from pinnacle pursuits. We did a few “icebreaker” games, and we needed it, (it was pretty cold). The rest of the day was spent inside, doing some start-up activities. Coming into this, I didn’t have the best of attitudes, for several reasons.

The next day, we woke up at the crack of dawn to start our day. The second day was all about defining who we were. We did this activity, where a partner would constantly yell: “What do you love?”. And we would spit out things we loved, which we later wrote down in our workbooks.

Here’s what I love:

One thing that I realized from this activity, was that I remembered other peoples “loves” better than my own. 

We also did an activity regarding our strengths and skills. It was slightly different from the “love” activity, as we just wrote down our strengths and skills. I really had to dig deep to uncover my skills, as I didn’t really know at first.

Later during the second day, we did a creative activity. We drew a collage, of the things that we love, and are interested in. Here’s what my drawing looked like:

I’m a really sporty guy, so I had a few sport related sketches in there. Also, I showed my “hidden” music side of myself, with the music notes. 

Once we had finished our drawings, we put them up on the wall around the room. 

At the end of each day, we would go around the room and write compliments to people, on how they did in certain activities. As you can see, my page was pretty full.

Another important piece of this was our “credo”. A credo is a short description of what you value, and who you aspire to be at all times. While working on my credo, I found better language to describe myself, more positive language. I also got peer critique from Johnno, and members of the PLP 10 team, which was really helpful.

Here’s a photo of my Credo:

After finishing our credos, we put them into a wallpaper:

We also created a “personal logo”, that defined us a whole. We went into keynote, and used shapes to show our interests and values. Here’s my logo:

 

I chose the balance shape, cause I’m always balancing things in my life, from sports to music. I chose the Fire shape because I’m always heating up, by improving in different skills. And the boat, because I live waterfront, and that defines who I am.

 

The last few days were the most defining for me. From doing new activities, to going out of my comfort zone. We went from having lots of fun, to the polar opposite. 

On the Thursday of that week, we went straight to the lake that morning, After a short discussion, Johnno encouraged us to “wash our faces in snow”, as a way to feel energized. Which for me, worked really well. 

We then went up to the high ropes course, and we all shared our goal for that day.

Then, the real fun began…. My group started with the “trustfalling” activity, something that I had never done before. We gradually worked ourselves up from smaller falls, to bigger ones. I felt really confident during this entire activity, and I had trust in my peers to catch me. Once we got near the end, Johnno really stepped up the activity. He placed a chair on top of a table out on the deck. At first we were confused what it was for, and when he said we had to fall off that, we all said “no shot”! I went 2nd, and I did it pretty easily with no hesitation. 

The 2nd wild activity of the day was the High ropes course. Accomplishing this course was part of my goal for the day, so I was set on fulfilling that. I also did a milk carton stacking challenge, where we would have to stack as many cartons as possible, without them tipping over.

Later that night, the heavy stuff came…..

After dinner we did this activity called “crossing the line”. In this game, if the question asked resounded to you, you would cross the line. At first, the questions were pretty straightforward, and almost everyone crossed the line. Gradually, the questions got deeper and more personal. Things such as, “do you have a relative that’s died of cancer?”. And as things progressed, the emotions ran higher and higher. And for me, emotions were high as well, to see other struggle with different things really got me……

In conclusion, Loon Lake was a rollercoaster of a ride! We went from being excited, to being in straight tears. One thing I noticed from this experience was how my mentality developped over time. At first, I wasn’t all that excited about Loon Lake, and had a pretty negative attitude. But, at the end, I felt changed in a good way. Through Johnno’s teachings, and the activities, I was able to take control of my own life, and uplift others in the process. As I mentioned earlier, this trip felt like months, which is a good thing. 

Thanks for reading!

 

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