Student Update November 1, 2012

For the first time today, since the hurricane, everybody will be back on campus. It is the last day of academic rotations, as K4 will return from their down island trip and K4 will return from their kayak. Finally, even through hurricane Sandy, we made it through our kayak and academic rotations. Today is also Island School Halloween. Usually, we would have set up a haunted house around campus for the Deep Creek Middle School kids, but because of the hurricane school was closed for a period of time and we had to move it to this Saturday. I am even more excited about having it later because that means that we will be able to do it with all of campus instead of doing it with just our academic rotation. The theme this year is supposed to be similar to the Walking Dead, a HBO TV series, which means the entire student body will be dressed as zombies and chase the middle school-ers around for the night. Needless to say we are all excited.

Morning exercise today was big surprise. Today was scheduled to be a run-swim, but turned about to have a Halloween twist. [slideshow] We were given flag belts at the start and told “wear these so that we can see you in the water.” As I swam across the first cut, I could see a few bodies lying on the ground just in front of the tree line, but had no idea what was going on. All of the sudden the entire run swim went from exercise to zombie apocalypse. All of CEI and many of the faculty had dressed up in full zombie attire and were chasing us all throughout the run swim trying to steal the flags off of our belts. From my math teacher Gray chasing me while he was covered in fake blood, ripped clothing, and possibly foaming at the mouth, to my histories teacher limping after us covered in fake stiches and had an old kitchen knife. The highlight may have been when I was swimming on the last cut to see Peter, in full zombie clothing, scuba diving below us and dragging us underwater. It was probably the most fun I have ever had on a morning exercise and was an incredible way to start the day.

Yesterday was also our legacy day. This is a day where we as a community start a project to leave our mark on campus. I spent the day building a new patio outside the dinning hall with a few other students. We shaped rocks that Joseph had collected and then dug them into the ground, forming the floor of the patio. Hopefully it will be finished for parents weekend in two weeks. Other projects that we started included building a new glass bottle wall in the resource center, and creating new walking paths around campus.

As we all come back together on campus today, we are excited to share stories about our kayak and down island trips, as well as our academic rotations as well as begin our last month at The Island School.