by Clem TItsworth

Happy Thanks Giving from The Island School! Yesterday, the day began with a well-deserved sleep-in and an optional free dive. At 6:30 a group of friends and I went out on the free dive to Tunnel Rock. At Tunnel Rock my free diving buddy Cutter and I dove down and observed the several Parrot Fish and Queen Angel Fish swimming beneath us. Several kids also successfully swam through the swim through at Tunnel Rock which is one of the longest ones we go to. At 7:45 we boarded the boat and raced back to school to be in time for 8:00 circle. After normal morning activities were finished, we had our final research classes of the semester. My team spent our time making our final poster for our upcoming Research Symposium, catching a few lobsters, and discussing a way to continue our Lionfish project next semester. We had several ideas which will hopefully be picked to be in next semester’s curriculum. The second half of the day was a large Human Ecology block where change bomb groups met and worked on their projects. My team, Team Meathead, consisting of five boys doing resource construction, worked on sanding down sand and glass aggregated tables we made, making forms for these tables, and making bio char in the bio char unit we built. It was a very successful day because we completed all our goals we had set out to do.

Later in the night Dr. Edith Widder, the mother of the Medusa, a large underwater camera which can go down into the ocean 2000 meters, and our key note speaker for the Research Symposium arrived for her stay for a few days. All students were very excited to talk to her and learn more about her deep water knowledge. The night went on normally and students went to bed. In the morning the boys dorms woke up to screams of “HAPPY THANKSGIVING” from our peers. We all went out to circle and the exercise for today was announced. Today we had our own advisory thanks giving day Turkey Bowl. Each advisory was dressed in their own uniforms and were ready to play. We ran down to the marina fields and began to play. After the several games had been played it was time or the finals. Jon F.’s advisory versus Kate’s advisory were the two teams left. Each team had one possession and Kate’s advisory emerged victorious after throwing a hail marry down the field to Liam for a touchdown. It was crazy. Kate’s team won the turkey day title and all students returned to campus for chores. Message from Boy’s Dorm: Dear families and friends, Happy Thanks Giving!

The Island School held the final admissions reception of the fall at the Ball’s home (Kaitlin F’12) in Darien, CT. There was an impressive turn out of both alumni and prospective students. Kaitlin Ball led the presentation, utilizing the public speaking skills she acquired during her semester at The Island School. We want to extend a huge thank you to the Ball family for hosting on Friday evening.

This was our final reception of the fall, but we will be holding a reception in New Jersey this winter on January 8. Email admissions@islandschool.org for more information or to RSVP.

Yesterday was an eventful day. With a large period of our day committed to our Human Ecology Change Bomb projects we accomplished a lot of work. Students could be found gardening, pouring concrete, conducting interviews, drying plants, and all sorts of other jobs for their perspective projects. My group created some wooden molds for us to pour concrete into for our underwater sculpture. Our underwater sculpture is designed to be a meaningful underwater art piece that students and other people will be able to visit and explore after we sink it. After cutting the plywood to size we made our form. Once we finished the molds we poured our glass and sand aggregate concrete mix into them to start to form the components of our underwater sculpture. Later that evening we were all able to kick back at the Guy Fawkes Day Celebration. After growing up in England for most of my life it was great to celebrate one of my favorite English holidays. The holiday originates from when a man named Guy Fawkes put barrels of gunpowder under the famous houses of parliament in a plot to blow it up. He was caught and then hung, drawn, and quartered. There was a bonfire on boys dorm beach, sparklers, candy apples, fireworks, and even a traditional Guy Fawkes dummy to throw on the fire. It was a fantastic way to take a break during study hours and enjoy the evening with fellow students, teachers, and CEI interns. This morning we had an exhilarating and strange morning exercise. The whole school joined in on a game of quidditch. There were soccer balls, footballs, frisbees, and a human snitch to comprise out match. It was a heap of fun and hopefully we will get to do it again.

Thursday evening, the Janulis family (Helena S’13) graciously hosted a reception at The Explorer’s Club in New York City for interested students and families and a number of alumni spanning from the most recent Spring 2013 semester to Spring 2004! Helena did a great job sharing her Island School experience with the full room of prospective Island School students. Throughout the night some of our older alumni also contributed stories and experiences from their time at IS. Thank you to the Janulis family for hosting such a successful evening!

To find out where we will be next, visit our website. For any questions about admissions or admissions receptions, email admissions@islandschool.org.

Happy Halloween from The Island School! It’s a little late but we’re ready to celebrate. On Thursday, we had some time to plan costumes with our Community Outreach buddies. Tonight the whole school is going to the Levy Preserve in Governor’s Harbor. On out Down Island Trip, we visited this natural plant haven and learned about many medicinal plants. However, we have more exciting plans from this evening. We are dressing up and attending a haunted house will all of the Deep Creek Middle School kids as well as some of the local kids.

After all that fun, I’m sure we will be tired. Good thing we have a sleep in tomorrow! I know everyone here is excited to wake up late and have a relaxing morning. I’ll probably go on the free dive tomorrow morning. Since learning to free dive, I have improved greatly. At first, I could only go down maybe 15 feet and everyone else was going through tunnels down at 50. It was a little discouraging at first, but with some tips from Maxey and my fellow students I began to get much better. Although I still can’t hold my breath too well, I’ve started to make it down to about 35 feet most dives. This is the case for many other budding divers, but we are all really improving and having fun and get up early to show it.

Tomorrow there will also be other activities. A few weeks ago we went to Deep Creek to play basketball one afternoon and my five on five team won! It was really fun and even though I only scored one basket I’d love to do it again. On the opposite end, last week there was a softball game versus some local kids and we got destroyed 28-4. Even so, it was really exciting and a great way to spend a Sunday. Who knows what I’ll do tomorrow? I might bike out into the inner loop and spend the day really exploring.