Today is the first day in a long time I have gone to sleep and woken up cold. It has rained for the last three days almost non-stop, and I am starting to forget where I am. Not so sunny for the Land of Sun and Sea. Despite the cold, wet weather, the final weeks of Island School are still moving along. While we have Eleutheros papers and math assessments on the horizon, the thing on everyone’s mind is the long run and swim. With only a few days remaining before the event, our morning workouts have become more mellow with the intention of resting before the weekend. By mellow I mean in our swim workout we only had to swim against the current once or twice, rather than the entire time. Even though everyone is fairly nervous about completing the final event, I am confident that the semester’s worth of training we have done will help us accomplish our goals. As long as it doesn’t rain all weekend…

Yesterday students spent an hour and a half preparing for their final Demonstration of Learning that is coming up next week. Our DOL is meant to replace traditional assessments like final exams with a more creative and open ended assignment. With no restrictive structure or format, DOL typically include both academic and extra-curricular experiences, and are presented in a wide variety of forms. My idea is to take my audience on a tour of my favorite places on the Cape and weave in my personal and intellectual growth into the trip. These presentations are meant to show our peers and faculty what information has stuck with us over the course of the semester, without putting the whole audience to sleep.

Even with the rain, our community celebrated Matt’s birthday yesterday with multiple rounds of “Happy Birthday” and a delicious chocolate cake. Everyone made it to the dining hall right on time even though it was pouring rain, maybe they should offer us sweets more often if they want us to be punctual.

While everyone would prefer sun, a little rain doesn’t faze the Island School community in the slightest. It can rain all it wants, just more water for our cisterns.

With parent’s weekend in the past, life at The Island School is slowly returning to normal. We began this morning with an exciting and challenging run-swim workout led by Charlie, Dale, Marcus and Ivy that included jumping off bridges and calisthenic exercises. Although everyone was sad to see their parents go, we are all jumping right back into the grind of Island School life.

Parent’s Weekend was a fantastic few days for everyone in the community, and it was nice to show our parents that we haven’t just been sitting on the beach all semester (even though we’re all way tanner than they are). The events began with our student led Art show, titled “Paddling Forward,” which was a big hit among all the parents. Some even requested to take their student’s art home, yet some parents seem to have forgotten…

The following morning was our Research presentations, a great demonstration of the diligent, hard work we have put in throughout the semester. All of the groups were very successful in conveying their objectives, methods and results, and most of the parents were blown away. The audience seemed very intrigued and impressed with our work in conjunction with CEI this semester.

The highlight of parent’s weekend for me was the Coffee House we held on Friday night. This was a great opportunity for the community to get together in a relaxed environment and enjoy ourselves. Peter C and Charlie were hilarious as always, and the vocal talent among the students was impressive. Noelle claims she had never sung in front of a crowd before, but her voice was incredible and I think she should try out for American idol. Girls North had a ridiculous, blind-folded, peanut butter and jelly eating contest that had the whole crowd cracking up, and we got to see a satellite launch during one of the intermissions. And we got cookies after. Overall, a pretty awesome night.

Now that parent’s weekend is over and we are in the final stretch, students are beginning to worry about having to leave this place. Instead of worrying we should enjoy the time we have left. Charlie Mauck always says, “don’t be sad because it’s over,  be happy because it happened.”

We are one day closer to the arrival of parents, and life is even more busy here at The Island School. We returned to our respective run and swim tracks today, and the swim workout was led by Maxey… by far the most challenging yet. Even though our workouts have been tough, we know we have to work really hard to prepare for the half marathon and super-swim.

Yesterday morning, half of the Human Ecology project groups met while the other half of students stayed on campus to prepare the Octagon at CEI for the art show. Students have begun transforming the space into a world class art show, and it is awesome to see how quickly everything is coming together thanks to such focused work.

My Human Ecology project went to DeepCreekMiddle School campus to meet with the PE teacher and discuss our plans. Our group is addressing the lack of athletic opportunity for Deep Creek kids. While we originally planned to build a baseball field, after speaking with local students and teachers, we have decided to focus our energy on an athletic equipment shed located on DCMS campus. Additionally, we will be constructing multi-sport nets and refurbishing DCMS’ basketball court.  Although we were thrown off track slightly, we were able to overcome obstacles and plan a project based on the needs of the community rather than the interest of our group. Accepting failure and rolling with the punches is definitely a key part of a successful Human Ecology project. Besides, without the change of plans we never would have come up with our project’s new name: The Grateful Shed.

Last night we did a practice run on our research presentations, and all of the groups were very impressive. Our community is excited to welcome our parents and share all our amazing work this semester.

As parents begin to trickle in, everyone is scrambling to prepare for their arrival. Students have been working hard to complete preparations for Wednesday’s art show, and all the research groups are getting ready for our biggest presentation so far.

Even with all the hype for parent’s weekend, we are able to focus on having a very fun weekend. On Saturday, both run and swim tracks did our longest workout yet. In the morning some of the runners ran almost 12 miles, while the swimmers completed a 2.5 mile swim, our longest yet. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it, but I feel much more confident about the super swim after having done such a long distance. Even though everyone was falling asleep during dinner, we somehow found the energy to drive to Rock Sound for our final presentations for Community Outreach. The community center group was the center of attention because of their bake sale, which included the best oatmeal chocolate chip cookies anyone has ever baked. I almost teared up a little after my first bite… and I’m getting hungry just thinking about them. Island School and Deep Creek Middle School members of the Cancer and Plastic Awareness groups gave heart wrenching presentations about two of the most dangerous issues here on Eleuthera. To benefit the Cancer Society on Eleuthera, the plastic team also sold home-made jewelry we constructed out of pieces of beach plastic. Despite the serious issues discussed, Saturday was a great day for everyone in the community and it was great to see Island School students working hard and having fun with their DCMS buddies.

Yesterday was Ashley’s birthday, and a great way to end an eventful weekend. Last night we took a little study break, and had a cookout on the beach in honor of her birthday. The burgers were delicious, compliments to the chef . To top it off we sang happy birthday and ate some chocolate cake. A great way to end a great weekend here at The Island School.