I’m a big fan of Mondays. From sunrise to sunset they’re full of productive, exciting, adventurous, inspiring memories. At my sending school, Mondays would be full of groans and complaints because it was no longer the weekend; not here. Yesterday we started out with a choice between yoga and soccer for morning exercise. Feeling very tight and slightly stressed because I had zero clue what was going on in Omeros, I chose yoga. It was so refreshing and I felt 100% better afterwards. I remember looking around the room yesterday while we were all trying our hardest to a seemingly impossible position called “crow,” laughing with each other, encouraging each other, and realizing how close we have got over the past month.

Yesterday we had one of the most interesting Harkness conversations I’ve ever participated in. It was about a movie we watched for Human Ecology called Water Wars, a documentary on the global water crisis. The thoughts bouncing back and forth from each student was truly eye opening and inspiring. You could tell how much of an impact both the movie and the harkness discussion had on everyone. Following Human Ecology we had math and then our weekly Community Meeting. Our big topic was feedback and how important both giving and receiving it will be over the next few weeks with kayak and such.

After lunch we all hopped in a van and headed to deep creek for community outreach! This is one of my favorite parts of the week. Every time my partner and I, Emily, see our buddy we get giddy. We again focused on the importance of education others about compost and we got into making Compost Handbooks. After some hard work we headed to a local store known for its delicious “cups;” a generally loved desert resembling a Popsicle in a cup. It is truly amazing how comfortable we have all gotten with not only our own buddies, but the whole DCMS community. On the way back from getting cups, we all piled in the vans again to head back to their school. Blasting music, we were singing, dancing, and laughing without a care in the world; something I usually just do with close friends, appreciating how close we have gotten with kids that were strangers less than a month ago.

As always, Monday’s events end with advisory time. Yesterday, the advisory I am in paired up with two others to go to these incredible caves in Rock Sound. It was a fun adventure, but what made it great was how close we had all gotten. I remember the first advisory time being a little bit awkward because we didn’t know each other all that well, but yesterday I felt like I was among people I have known forever.