Campus has begun to quiet down again, as K2 and K3 have left again to finish the remainder of their wilderness trips. Run and swim track begin again today, training for our super swims and half marathons. The twenty four of us who are still on campus have continued with our academic rotation and are now nearing the end. It was an interesting experience to have classes with just so few of us. Yet, the lack of people was made up for by even more exciting classes. Today I experienced my second to last Human Ecology rotation. Meaning that every other morning block so far has been an elongated human ecology class. Each of these stud different topics, such as Permaculture, Aquaculture, Aquaponics, and energy. I was luck enough to have Aquaponics on the day where there was a Tilapia harvest. I spent a large portion of the morning about shoulder deep in the Tilapia tank, which has about 300 fish, catching as many as I could with a net. It turned out to be one of the best mornings I have had here so far, especially after we got to fillet the fish and make some pre-lunch fish tacos.

Some of us have been going the smallest bit stir crazy, as we were not allowed to leave campus for several days because of the high winds, waves, and storms. Our biggest excitement was going to high rock that week, one place we were allowed to go with a faculty member. Driving up everything seemed average, but after walking out from behind a turn onto to rocky coast everything was wild. [slideshow]Huge waves surged out in the sound, some of them surging into the rocks of high rock and creating a fifteen foot high wave of water that splashed everywhere. That combined with the powerful wind made for an incredible experience. Continue reading →

The past two days on campus have been eventful to say the least. Hurricane Sandy decided to make a visit to our campus this past Wednesday and Thursday. The kayak trips were brought in due to the weather and are now going to be going out in a few days once the storm has passed. Many of us watched the weather radar as the big globs of red and yellow slowly inched closer to us, unsure of what would really happen when the storm finally reached us. The days leading up to the storm were spent preparing campus. I spent the day helping to board up the windows of Boys dorm, as well as clearing the porches so that none of our clothing would turn into flying debris.

Once the storm was upon us, we spent the majority of the day in boys dorm, watching as much TV and movies as we could before having to return back to school, whenever that would be. It was almost and eerie night, the windows blacked our because of the boards and the only sound being the wind pounding against the roof, windows, and doors of the dorm. Nonetheless, it seemed not to phase our afternoon. We all were enjoying so much needed downtime and had no complaints about being told that the remainder of the day would be spent in our beds. Continue reading →

Our post-Sandy internet on campus has been limited. And, the days leading up to the hurricane were a busy rush of preparation and planning. Our apologies that this has prevented regular Student Updates from being posted. So now, please enjoy one update written early last week by our new blog writer for the remainder of kayak rotations: Reilly Simmons. And, later today, look forward to a post-Sandy update written by Reilly yesterday.

I’m Reilly Simmons and I will be writing the blog during this academic rotation. Having returned from our kayak and down island trips, K1 and K2 are now back on campus. We were excited to see all of our friends who were in the opposite rotations as us (K3 and K4) and we happy to see them after the eleven days we spent outside of campus. My fellow K2-ers were pleased to be back in our dorm yesterday night, feeling as if our rooms were five start hotels compared to our previous nights on kayak. Only ten days earlier, leaving from campus, we paddled around to the leeward side of the island, stopping at various white sand beaches to camp for the night. Most of us were lucky enough to go spearfishing on our kayaking on our trips to gain a local perspective on where our food comes from. At some point, I even found myself breaking the surface of the Caribbean sea, spear pole and fresh lobster at hand. Eventually paddling all the way around the cape of the island to reach lighthouse beach, the site where we would all do our solos.

Spanning the beach, all twelve of us were confined to our own personal slice of the beach to reflect for the following forty-eight hours. Continue reading →

It has been yet another week of craziness here at The Island School! In preparation for the second rotation of Kayak and Down Island Trips, the academics have picked up and our schedules are busier than ever. This week has included everything from our first night dive and all-day research classes to 8-mile runs and triathlons. As always, this week we were introduced to a new and unfamiliar activity: legacy work. In the days prior to the 4 hour block on which the schedule read ‘legacy work’, the only clues our teachers would give as to what this mysterious task could be were the words ‘you’ll see!’ Even when we gathered at the flagpole in our familiar community circle to begin, none of us had any idea what was going on. After a brief explanation, we all came to the realization that, as the name clearly states, that 4 hours was a time for us as a semester to contribute to the physical campus and leave our own legacy for future generations of Island School students.

The project I was working on was clearing the area just outside of the dining hall of plants and vines which have woven their way all across campus. The ultimate goal is to create a long dining table between two palm trees, which will hopefully be finished by parents weekend so we can all enjoy dinners with our families that are a little less crowded. Continue reading →

This morning marks about a week since we have begun doing chores before exercise, given the fact that it is still almost pitch-black dark at 6:30am when we all sleepily shuffle down to morning circle. It seems that this change in daylight is the only indicator of a changing season and the nearing of what would be winter months at home in Massachusetts. Here on Eleuthera, though it does remain darker in the morning, the days still seem to be summer and we continue to sport shorts, t shirts, and bathing suits…in the middle of October! Anyway, yesterday was a long and very full day, which is to be expected of every day on The Island School campus. A constant stream of activity, human ecology, history, math, Wemyss Bight Walkathon etc. made for a happy group of students who all flopped on their bed at check-in with that always welcome “tired in a good way” feeling. Continue reading →

It is yet another day on Eleuthera and the wind continues to blow with the promise of a storm, and hopefully more much-needed rain to fill the cisterns. Just the other day, as I walked onto sunset beach with a group of my classmates, we were joking about tourists and how we are now past the point of being considered one by ourselves and hopefully those around us. After this brief conversation none of us really gave another thought as to our role here on Eleuthera and the role of a tourist; that is, until Literature class. With all the craziness that kayak rotation brings, it also includes the switching around of classes, schedules and even curriculum  In Literature class, we have temporarily put our reading of Omeros on hold and embarked on a new task (reading Omeros is quite a challenging task), the reading of A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid. I certainly was not expecting to be significantly impacted by this short, 80 page book; however, to my surprise the words within the two covers of A Small Place had far more meaning than most likely any other book I have ever read. Continue reading →

by new blog contributor Phoebe Shaw:

Last night forty-six of us sat quietly in the library, hurriedly trying to finish our mountains of work. Though this past week has been one of the most difficult yet in terms of academic stress, with our oral histories project due as well as another complex marine ecology essay, none could focus solely on homework. There was a sadness lurking in everyone’s mind that after breakfast today, only 24 of us will remain in our small community here on campus. Given the intimacy of this environment, in just over one month we, the students and faculty, have grown closer than I could have ever imagined. With that said, the departure of kayak and down island groups this morning with undoubtedly leave a conspicuous gap in this place that I think we all can now call home.

As I sat on my bunk last night thinking and reflecting on all of the goodbye hugs we had given each other in the girls dorm just in case we didn’t get the chance today, a terrifying thought struck me. This coming Friday marks the end of our seventh week here at The Island School; the halfway point. Continue reading →