Sidebar
Once more unto the sidebar dear friends,
once more:
SHORTS:
Try-outs for the Varsity Shorts Squad:
Tuesday 2:45-3:45
Tuesday 2:45-3:45
Wednesday
2:30-3:45
Show
up in the Geier Presentation Hall with your sense of humor, bravery and a nice
pair of short pants. Seniors who haven't acted, this is your final chance to
carpe that diem and make a stage appearance.
Support
your local sports teams and farmers. Small business is what America was built upon.
To Vince
Gilligan: Like Jesse said, "He can't keep on getting away with this!"
Club
Forms were due yesterday at three o clock. Which is weird because Club Fair Day
isn't even until Wednesday...
Seniors
now have off campus privileges! No late check-in yet, but on the bright side,
we still have a cafeteria and terrace.
Daily
Prose Quiz:
"So
wise so young, they say, do never live long..."
Hint: The character who says this is a
Dick...
Shout
outs to Mr Davis for yesterday's lyrics quiz and Sajan Palanki for naming all
three from the pre-retreats edition (In Bloom, Vispassana, El Scorcho)
Articles
Junior Retreats 2013
By: Emily Gao (DU Retreat Enthusiast)
I’ve
heard a lot of smack about my class’ retreat. That half our grade was flaking
because they didn’t get the retreat they wanted. That it wasn’t being organized
well. That nobody was going to have a good time on them. Well I BEG TO
DIFFER. Let me debunk some of these misconceptions by informing you all of how
our retreat(s) really went down.
MYTH: Our retreats weren’t as good since we
weren’t together.
TRUTH: Individual groups helped us bond better.
If
you’re going to tell me that on retreat you bond with everyone in your ENTIRE
grade, then you are one enormous liar. I call BS. You don’t have time to get to
know every single person in their grade over the course of two and a half days.
By breaking everyone up on our retreat, we were able to focus on a smaller
quantity of people. This lets us hone in on individuals, some we’d never speak
with normally, and get to know them better. Also, by not being with everyone,
we learned to appreciate the people who weren’t there -- a “you don’t
know what you have till it’s gone” sort of deal.
COMMON QUESTION: So they’re not
all doing the same thing!?
With the various options my grade was given, we were able to
choose a retreat that catered to what we liked. While the class wasn’t united
over one activity, we did all share the common bond of going off and doing what
we fancied. We had seven retreats to choose from: Sailing to and from Catalina,
Meditation, Poverty & Opulence, Fashion, Surfing, Backpacking, and
Arts in CA. River rafting was originally an option but due to the lack of
rainfall this year it had to be axed.
I was a sailor (and yes, we took the mandatory Titanic-pose
photo on my retreat). I can’t speak for everyone in my grade, but I came back
with a closer bond to my shipmates, a newfound respect for boats, and a better
tan.
MYTH: Half of the junior class didn’t even
go on retreats.
TRUTH: Less than two dozen people missed retreats.
Yes
while some people in our grade did not go, for the most part, people attended
retreats. It’s hard to sympathize with the Ditchers though because we were
given the chance upfront to pick which retreat we wanted to go on. I wish
those who decided to opt out actually came along and embraced this new
type of retreat method. Those who DID attend got to know classmates who shared
the same type of passion as they did. Talk to any of us. We’ve come back
with a plethora of amusing, memorable tales to tell one another.
MYTH: The retreats were student led and
therefore disorganized.
TRUTH: Ms Davidson and Mrs. Kelly kept
everything under control.
The
always organized Ms. Davidson did such an amazing job thinking through and
compiling each of these individual retreats.. Not only did she make sure she
was organized, but also that the student co-organizers of each retreat were as
well. By giving us students authority, it gave us the chance to demonstrate our
growth and maturity by being responsible for how our retreat turned out.
Ms.Davidson, along with the cooperation of our advisors and current grade
sponsor, Mrs. Kelly, helped ensure planning for each retreat went smoothly.
I
truly hope the future juniors get to experience what my classmates and I did.
It was an outstanding way to actually get to know people through activities
that you had a genuine interest for (as opposed to being shipped off to a camp
and having bonding games shoved down your throat). My classmates and I had a
voice in what we wanted to do. Democratic retreat was especially fantastic for
this year because junior year is friggin’ insane and of all the stuff that
seems out of our control, we should have control over retreats.
Yeah, I
get that it’s difficult for the majority of the previous seniors/current
seniors to fathom the good in what we experienced because, well, they
never experienced this type of dispersed retreat. Even if they disagree with me
and want to continue believing this unorthodox approach to retreat is nothing
but vile, I hope they try to keep an open mind to change and realize that this
retreat method has its benefits-- benefits that are, at first, not easy to
understand. Don’t burn me at the stake-- I still honor and value the
traditional retreat system, but I think one year of change hurts no one.
No comments:
Post a Comment