FISH

This weekend was the annual Leadership Retreat for my high school. The retreat is put on by SAIL, Students Active In Leadership, and anyone who signs up can go. The students in SAIL are the leaders and the other non-SAIL members just go as participants. This was my third year going and my second as a leader. The camp is held at the Boone YMCA Camp. The camp itself is beautiful. It is in the Des Moines River valley so you are really secluded when you are there. They have decent cabins, I stayed in a fairly new one with a potty, they have a good dining facility, and they just recently built Pioneer Hall which is this huge building with lots of conference type rooms and a large hall where we did most of our large group activities. The only bad thing about this building is that you have to take your shoes off before they let you into the big hall because it is carpeted.

We went into this weekend with the FISH philosophy in mind. Scannell, the man in charge of SAIL and the retreat, learned of it when they showed it to the entire high school staff during in-service one day. There are four parts that make up the whole Philosophy. Be There, Play, Choose Your Attitude, and Make Their Day. We focused on teaching these four things to participants in hopes that they would take them back to the high school to make it a better place for everyone to be. It actually isn't a bad philosophy and I think that a lot of people emjoyed what they learned and will try to incorporate those four things into their daily lives.

While at camp, everyone was broken down into small groups so we could have discussions over what we were trying to teach. We broke the participants down into groups and then Scannell and Rollison, the other person in charge of SAIL, broke the leaders down into groups and combined them. My small group was pretty good. I had a lot of fun with the leaders. One of them was Tom, we go way back. I was in love with the kid in the seventh and eighth grade and EVERYONE knew it. We pretty much held the group and I had a lot of fun hanging with him this weekend. Another leader was a participant in my group from last year and I have known her for a while so that was good. DePenning was another leader in my group. She is in Inno with me and she sings my part to me all the time. Without her I would be floundering. K-Ro was also in my group as a leader. We have had our differences in the past but they are so far behind us that it wasn't too bad having him in my group. Lindsey was our "adult" leader. She is a student at UNI and is going to be turning 21 in February. Everyone thought she was a high school student for the longest time. I also had Ness in my group again. Last year it took us a long time to crack him but this year he jumped right in. It was fun to see how he had grown over the year. I also met some new people and had a lot of fun with them.

Those are just the basics of camp. Candlelight is one of the activities that we do on the last night. They put all of us in the big hall with our pillows and blankies and turn off the lights. Then they set up a desk with a microphone and put a huge flashlight on the ground to illuminate the area. Anyone who wanted to go up and speak could and the rest of us just laid there and listened. It is basically a time for seniors to reflect on their years at high school, and for everyone to give advice or share a meaningful story that will have an influence on people in the crowd. Basically it was a major cry-fest. I don't think I have cried that much in a long time. Some things that people said really hit home and I agreed with a lot of things that were said.

Some friends Erik and Butter talked about how they wish they had spent more time with their family and encouraged everyone to do the same because once you leave for college, you don't get to see them as much. Some other people talked about their younger siblings and how they wish they had gotten to know them better. Becca and Erin talked about how their different diseases changed their life and how their friends were the greatest impact o n how they got through it. Allie stood up and said that a special group of senior girls taught her a valuable lesson this year. They taught her how to succeed even when no one thinks you can and to persue even when the world is against you. I balled when she said that. I gave my quote, "Columbus could have turned back and no one would have blamed him, however no one would have remembered him either." I regret the people I didn't meet and the things I didn't do so I encouraged everyone to get out there so they could be remembered for the things that they had done. I really do regret the things I didn't try in high school because I was scared to. I missed the opportunity to meet so many people because I prejudged them and never gave them a chance. I don't regret many things that I have done, it's the things I didn't do that I regret most. I wish I could have said it better that night but I had a little stage fright and I was close to crying anyway.

After the official candlelight was over, my friends and I all had our own little candlelight. We all stayed in the room and approached one another on a one to one basis. I would just look at some people and cry. I had a really good talk with Erik. We had been pretty good friends and because of all the stupid drama that comes with being in high school, we stopped hanging out. I have never seen him that way. I could just tell that he was truly sorry that we both let stupid things get between us. Erin jumped on me right away and told me that she didn't know what she would have done without me for the last 12 years. Peter didn't cry but he looked like it was close when I talked to him. For those of you who don't know, Peter's dad passed away this summer. It was mid-June and I had just gotten back from Spain and sprained my ankle. Peter has 2 little brothers and a mom that he takes care of now. I have never seen one person be so strong for everyone else. Peter was 16 at the time of his father's death. I remember sitting at the funeral, which was my first funeral to attend, and when the family got up to walk out with the procession, Peter looked at me and I knew that he wanted to cry so bad, but he didn't because he was trying to be strong for his family. Peter is one of my best friends and he is also one of the strongest people I know. When I talked to him at Candlelight, he had about the same look in his eyes, but he was strong, and just gave me a hug. I said so many things to so many people and many people I talked to had many things to say to me.

After candlelight, everyone dispersed throughout the circles, the cabins were in circles, and sat around the camp fires. About 1:00 Scannell sent everyone inside except the seniors and we just chilled as the senior class with Scannell and Rollison. I think I went in about 2:00 and was up writing my bag of good feelings until about 3:00. The next morning we cleaned and packed and after breakfast we went to Chase Lodge to do bag of good feelings. What you do is write little notes to people in your group and then to other people you care about at the camp. Then you put them into each persons bag and read your own notes from other people on the way home. That was another cry-fest. My friends and I sat on the bus crying almost all the way home. It was a good time. It was sort of like the beginning of the end. It was my last leadership camp and it made me realize that I only have months left with the people in my high school. It also made me realize that there are a lot more people out there that I am going to miss than I originally thought.

On a happier note, another activity that we do is Karaoke, sp?. Each small group gets a song and they have to choreograph it and perform in front of the entire camp and the adults judge it. My song was Walkin' on Sunshine. We dressed as "thugs" and taped papertowels to sticks to use as those ribbon-dancer things. We did "lyrical" dancing to Walkin'on Sunshine dressed as "thugs." It didn't come off as well as we had hoped but it was still funny to us. Two of the boys in our group had a dance off while another one sang. Then the other two boys we threw a yellow blanket over and called them the "sun." They just moved around randomly throughout the song. It was pretty funny. But, no one else got it so we didn't even get one vote to put us in the finals. Owell.

We also played sand volleyball on Friday during our "choice" time. Scannell says you can't say "free" time because then people think they have the liberty to do whatever they want. And that wasn't so much the case. We played boys vs. girls and believe it or not, the girls lost. Our team was mostly volleyball players too. I told Steffi it was because JV was under-represented on the court. Friday night was a dance which I didn't attend because I just wasn't in that mood. Instead Ashley, Michael and I went up to the ridge. To get there you have to climb about a million stairs and then we started walking down the trail which actually takes you farther up and into the woods. All we had was my little Hello Kitty flashlight that barely lit 5 feet in front of us. Taylor was with us and she started talking about people getting murdered and hobos coming out of the woods with barb-wire and strangling people. Need less to say Ashley and I decided we had had enough of the ridge and I grabed the flashlight from Michael and we headed back down the trail. Taylor came running at us and we both screamed. What made it better was when we were telling Rollison the story, she had heard us scream. After that we went up to our circle and laid on the ground to watch the stars. Michael and Ashley kept seeing falling stars and I never saw them. I was so mad! When I finally saw one I was really excited and they both just laughed at me. Then Ashley and I talked in our high-pitched talking-to-our-gato voice for over and hour. Michael was a little annoyed by the end of the night. But, I had fun!

Well, that was my final leadership retreat. That was most of it, there is some other stuff but it isn't as interesting or funny as the rest of it. I am going to miss leadership. It was so much fun. I am still mad at myself for not going freshman year. But at least I gave it a try sophomore year and ended up loving it.

Word of the Day:

Magnanimous: Courageously noble in mind and heart

Enredar: To tangle