Hey Everyone! My name is Summer Wrobel.  Today marks the beginning of K1 and K2′s academic rotation, meaning that K4 will be leaving for their eight day kayak.  I think that even though we are all going to miss them we are excited for them to have their own experience and to hear all their stories when they get back.  It’s definitely going to be strange having only 24 students on campus though.

But yesterday was a day off for the students, which means that we all got time to relax, catch up on work, or just take a breather at the beach.  It was a little hectic though because K1, K2, and K4 where all reunited for the first time and so we all had tons to talk about.  I was especially excited for this because I had just gotten back from my eight-day kayaking trip, and as rewarding as it was its definitely also a challenge.  During the eight-day kayak you head towards the Atlantic side with a goal to get to this beach called Lighthouse Beach.  I have to say it is probably one of the most beautiful beaches I had ever seen.  It’s on this beach that we have something called solo.  Solo is a part of eight-day kayak where everyone separates for forty-eight hours and for those hours you’re alone on your own little section of the beach.  You have the bare minimums like a sleeping bag and a tarp, water, a bag of food, and your journal.  For me, it was one of the first times that I was ever that alone and yet somehow it wasn’t necessarily lonely.  Every student will have their own experiences on solo, their own moments of peace or realizations, but overall I think it gives us time to think and truly be in our own company.  Before my kayak group split up for solo we talked about an hourglass analogy.  You see an hourglass starts wide, gets narrower, and then widens again. For us we are all starting wide in our home-towns or our states.  And then we come into the island school, and then from the island school to our kayak groups and then to solo, the narrowest part of the hourglass, where we are just with ourselves.  And then back again to our groups, school, and states.  It was a really cool way of putting it. Overall, I think one of my favorite memories of solo was waking up and watching the sun rise directly above me.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to this next academic week because there’s a bunch of fun things planned, like a rake and scrape dance, fundraising stake-out, Eleuthera’s annual Ride for Hope, and even a night dive.  It’s going to be nice getting back into the rhythm on campus.  And of course were all wishing K3 and K4 the best on their kayak trips!

by  Haeyeon Jang

Wednesday was the first sleep-in the girls have had in a while (due to the unfortunate circumstances of the previous weeks in which food turned up in the dorm and we had to have multiple deep cleans), and they made the most of it. Quotes from the morning include “I feel alive.”—Lexi Merison, Girls North ‘Wing and “I love this, I’m never waking up.”—Maya Sands Bliss, Under my Bed.  Looking around the circle at the other 50% of the current student population on campus, it was apparent that the boys had enjoyed their sleep-in equally if not more than their female counterparts. They had rolled out of bed 2 minutes before circle—as was suggested initially by their bedraggled figures, and confirmed later by Chris Teufel.

Research was invigorating as usual. In the project I am affiliated with, the Flats Program, today was data analysis day. Also known as crash course in college statistics day. Also known as mixed joy and pain. After an eventful three hours involving markers bleeding red life-juice all over the board, various statistical terms, and tears of incomprehension, the Flats team, or those of it left on campus—Dale, Krissy, Andrew, and of course, me—was relatively confident in our capacity to create comprehensive graphs on the effect of predatory presence on the thermoregulatory behaviors of juvenile schoolmaster snapper. We’ll explain it to y’all when you get here for Parent’s Weekend. Plus I’ll make sure to show you my awesome new fly-fishing skills.

Lunch resulted in what may have been the happiest moment so far of my young life. The Human Ecology project I am in, Solar for Our Superheroes (made up of Alliea, Haeyeon, Kiley, Krissy, Nani, and Will) met with Christian Henry(co-founder of the Island School and our advisor for the project) and came away with the glorious news that Christian would be on our Board of Directors!! Christian, everyone on campus loves you, but I love you most. We’ll extrapolate on what Solar for Our Superheroes is on a later blog post, be excited, especially all those of you in MA!

We also received letters today! After Art class, all of us flooded in to the faculty office, and there was much rejoicing. Many of mine dated back from September 23^rd (oh mail system, you so silly), and it warmed my heart to know that my friends back home really cared.  Many of the letters were for students still on kayak and down-island trips, and will end up a pleasant surprise for them when they get back.

All in all, a typical Island school day. After a mass sharing session, we all went to sleep a bit earlier than usual, still thinking of the letters we’d read. I dreamed of my laptop falling into Current Cut for some reason though.