Today was a quiet and calm; yet tumultuous day at the Island School. Sleepy students rose out of their beds at 6:30 for a run to High Rock as a semester, as the rosy sunrise guided the students towards the wonderful scenery that the rock itself brought. Upon arrival at the rock, students hopped on into the chilly but soothing waters, one by one (as to not dishevel the natural order of the High Rock legacy), and cheered on their fellow classmates as they themselves jumped off the 15-some odd foot rock. Following the rock run, students attended three classes: math, literature, and finally history, and then were fed humbly with baked potatoes and beans. Research for me, personally, was quite an adventure. An avid member of the Sharks Research Team, we tied the Island School record for most shark catches in one day, with four baby-Lemons at the West Mouth of Broad Creek. After the research groups ended, Boys’ Dorm and Girls’ Dorm split up to have dorm dinners: the boys went to play football and grill burgers at Barracuda’s with Alex Perkins and Jonny Hepburn, while the girls stayed on campus and ate a formal dinner on the roof of the Dining Hall. After a short, but sweet briefing of Settlement Day tomorrow by our History staff members, all students are quietly tucked away in their rooms working on prepping for tomorrow’s adventures. I, once again, have exhausted my duties as Cacique for another day, and am quite ready for bed on this quiet Friday night.
-Peter S.
While I think it will be hard for me to top Peter’s entry, I think it is crucial to the mental health of everyone back home that I do. Yesterday morning we all woke up to our first morning of “Island School Spring 2010: Take Two” not quite knowing what to expect, but of course, as always, we were all at circle promptly at 6:30. The students and teachers were greeted by Peter and I (after we had each consumed several cups of coffee) and we were more than ready to welcome everyone back into the swing of things. As Peter mentioned we all ran the 1.75 miles to High Rock and as students arrived we circled up and listened to the infamous Justin Symington explaining the significance of “jumping” back into the semester. Every single student, most teachers and a few canines jumped into the clear blue water that signified the start of our second attempt at the semester. We were all back at school in time for an 8:15 breakfast where we filled our bellies with delicious bowls of oatmeal and banana bread. We had classes until 12:15 and because our lunch has already been described to you by my co-casique, I will skip on to research. Like Peter, I am also part of the Shark research team and yesterday was an exciting boat because not only did we tie the record for most sharks EVER caught at the Island School/ CEI research time, we caught our first sharks thus far in the semester! Although I had some scary dreams last night about them, holding and studying the sharks was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had. I’m not sure what other research teams did but I know several other teams spent their afternoons out on the water as well, either diving or in boats. Around 5:30 all the teams came back and at 5:50 the girls and boys dorms met seperately for a bonding dinner. Boys headed out to sunrise beach for a cook-out and the girls headed up to the patio on top of the dining hall for a fancy dinner and ice cream sundaes. It was a great day to say the least, and I can comfortably say that Peter and I were the best possible facilitators for ushering the school back into the new semester smoothly.
-Hadley