“Off with a Bang”

October 11, 2010

By Caciques Julia Rew and CJ Easton

Today started off with a bang…literally. It was our second timed run-swim of the semester and the south sides of the dorms went first. Everyone was eager to discover if they improved on their last time. This would be a test of the training that we have been doing for the first half of our semester. This exercise would not only show running or swimming skills, it would portray both. This morning the north students had it easy, instead of testing their abilities, they cheered on the other community members. The support team was made up of groups of north dorm students, who took positions all around the course. Watching and cheering on our fellow community members was exciting and nerve wracking. My position was the time-keeper. As students touched the flagpole at the end of the course I would shout out their times over the sounds of cheering while Alyssa wrote them down. We all have improved greatly since the beginning of the semester, most people shaving minutes off their time. It was the job that would let everyone know if they reached their goals. All community members were very impressed by the improvement of our athleticism. As we continue throughout the rest of the semester we will set new goals and maintain our sense of drive in our fitness.   Our final run-swim times will show the motivation we have for improvement.

-Julia

At The Island School our art classes have their major unit-two projects due on Thursday, October 14^th.  The project my group chose is called “art for advocacy.”  The purpose is to use trash or resources that have already been used, and would have to be incinerated, to make a piece of art that is everlasting on the campus.  My group that consists of Augie Cummings, Nate Smith-Ide and Scott Endzel, decided to build a bench. Today, we had three hours of exploration time so we decided to work on our bench. Our group used a wooden palette, which we sawed in half.   We then proceeded to place one half of the palette vertical and left the other horizontal.  Then we drilled the vertical half of the palette into the horizontal half of the palette and also drilled old car tires on top of the horizontal half palette.  At the end of the three hours we spent working on our project I was very proud.  Not only was the bench good looking but also it was very comfortable. The art classes still have about two hours of class time to work on the project therefore we will be able to apply some final finishing touches to the project.

-CJ