Hi, my name is Liah. I’m excited to say that I’ll be writing some of the upcoming blogs.  The past few days have been very eventful.  Parent’s Weekend was wonderful! We loved seeing all of you and showing you around this amazing place that we have called home for the last 2.5 months.  During Parent’s Weekend we presented our Research projects.  Every group did phenomenal and all of the researchers at CEI said that these were the best presentations yet.  I am so proud of everyone!  Over the weekend we did many exciting things, whether it was free diving at Harbor rock with parents or taking families on their first ever scuba dives.  It was a very busy weekend full of laughs, cries, hugs, and sunburns. It was great to meet everyone’s family and learn where all these incredible people got it from. The coffee house was a very…unusual…production, there was Boy’s dorm belly drumming (shout out to Liam for that solo), evolution of dance with Liz, and a throwback to the 90’s with a Backstreet Boys song and dance. It was hilarious!

I hope everyone enjoyed the Art Show demonstrating our talented kids.  My favorite part of Parent’s Weekend was seeing everyone reuniting with their families.  Running down and chasing after cars or jumping into them, cough, cough Sam, haha. Seeing everyone’s happy faces was amazing.  I am so glad that parents could see this amazing place; there is no where else like The Island School.  Here is a big thank you to all the parent’s for giving your children this experience, it is a once and a lifetime experience like no other.  (Thanks Mom!) Though Parent’s Weekend is over the excitement here at the Island School has not.

Sunday we had a leadership workshop.  There were different classes for different kinds of leadership roles or things you need to learn having to do with leadership.  All of us chose 3 to go to.  I went to “Leading through Happiness”, the “Spontaneous Leadership”, and the “Communication”.  During the happiness seminar we learned of how happiness spreads, if you have a good attitude or do something kind other people will do the same.  We practiced this by giving thank you notes to anyone we felt deserved it.  It is true how the happiness spread, after I received one I wrote one to another person.

The Spontaneous Leadership workshop taught us that we can be leaders without it being predetermined.  The Communication seminar was very interesting.  We were asked questions on how we communicate and were to put ourselves in a quadrant of a Null’s grid.  We learned how each style communicates and leads.  We also learned how to communicate with each style and help lead.  This is very beneficial knowledge to have.

After the workshops we had the afternoon to relax and reflect on the craziness that was Parent’s Weekend.  For this the all the girls went to the sandbar and the boys went to the cut and played water polo.  I don’t know how the boy’s day went, but the girl’s was awesome.  Haeyon taught us Karate moves and Brady showed us how to stand on our heads.  As the day was coming to a close we all jumped on the roof of the Cobia to watch the sunset.  All the girls, all best friends, watching the Bahamian sun set over the aqua marine water is a memory I will cherish forever.  From the sandbar we could see the Island School very well.  The sunset behind the school, behind our home, got a few of us, myself included, a little choked up.  This place is like no other.  The experiences we have, the amazing community we have built, it is one of a kind.  It is very sad to think of the time we have left.  Where else can you watch a sunrise as you are swimming 2 miles for exercise, find the ideal asythmuth angle and area to put solar panels for math, or survey a reef for Marine Ecology.  This place will stay in our hearts forever.  We have learned so much and we will definitely apply that new knowledge when we go back.