Tag: school

Honors Ski Trip

Daphne PsaledakisLeave a comment

For the past three years, I have signed up to go on the Honors Ski Trip. Every year it’s just as much fun, if not more.

We start the week on Monday with a six-hour van ride from school to Yosemite. As awful as that seems, the drive really isn’t that bad. On Tuesday, we normally go skiing. This year, we did a seven mile loop.

It’s safe to say that towards the end of the ski I was seriously considering sitting down and not getting back up. Nordic Skiing, if you’ve never tried it, is way harder than you think.

On Wednesday, we set off on what was supposed to be a hike of a little more than a mile long. We ended up hiking three and a half miles of what felt like vertical switchbacks. Basically, we scaled a mountain. Five days later, my calves are still just a little bit sore.

On Thursday, we went on another hike, which was really more of a walk as everyone was so tired from the day before. We did however lose the trail, and wound up bushwhacking through the redwood forest for a little bit.

On Friday, we packed back up and set off on the six-hour van ride back to school. Upon arriving and unpacking the vans, I’m pretty sure everyone just about crashed.

Although there wasn’t as much skiing this trip due to the weather as there has been in years past, it was still really fun. For me, the trip isn’t about the skiing or the hiking. It’s about the time we spend together in the cabins, hot tubbing and playing inappropriate or Chinese card games. We all laugh and have fun. We hang out with people we normally wouldn’t when at school. It’s not a trip you have to go on with your best friends — you can go by yourself and it will still be just as much fun.

The Right Stars

indigoshellLeave a comment

Up on a large hill, or a small mountain (wars have been fought), you would expect the view to be utterly amazing.

And it is.

The mornings can surprise you; you may walk into a cloud of mist with the sun shining through powerfully and cloaking the campus in gold. Some days the sky is a magnifying glass to a sun, blinding white, and permanent sunglasses are needed by everyone.

Nighttime is difficult. The campus lightly shines in yellow, star-like lamps that scatter almost randomly across stairs or walkways, and often overpower the stars.

To stargaze on campus means you must search high and low for the best, unlit spots. There are two areas that I have concluded to be the best spots for the right stars.

The first spot is the lower field, or the big field, while we’re playing glow-in-the-dark capture the flag. I have found out that, if I just stop what I’m doing and lay down on my back, the rest of my team will follow. If you lie down on the right spot the campus lights will not hinder your eyesight, and the stars will shine to their full extent.

The second spot, an easier spot to reach, is the newly built staircase. At night when the sun has fully set and things are quiet, perhaps at 9pm or so, there is a particular step on the staircase that you can stand on and the trees around you will block out the campus lights. Then, if you look up, it looks like the stars are framed by the trees.

No I did not sneak out of the dorm at 9pm to watch the stars.

Break

Daphne PsaledakisLeave a comment

You know that feeling when you’ve been going strong, getting everything done in time, and doing a bang-up job of it, and then all of a sudden, BAM, you’re sick, exhausted, run down, and ready for a break?

Yeah, well that happened to me about two days ago.

I’ve been doing pretty well in school, and I’ve actually been ahead of my work for once, which never happens. But all of a sudden I got really run down, and now I can not wait for break. Thankfully, there’s only one more day.

And even more exciting, I’m not going home to Aspen, Colorado, but to Santa Monica, which let me tell you, is a heck of a lot warmer right now. My plans for break aren’t anything crazy, but my dad is driving out with my dog, who is a total sweetheart and who I can’t wait to see.

I can’t wait to see my dad either of course.

I plan on relaxing as much as I can, and eating a ton of food. And then the week after break, I’m going on the Honors Ski Trip. The ski trip is led by the headmaster, and we spend a week in Yosemite cross-country skiing and hiking. It’s a blast, and turns my one week vacation into two. By the time I’m back in school, I’ll be ready to kick my schoolwork’s butt for the next five weeks, before I break down again right before spring break.

Rinse and repeat.

Shadow

indigoshellLeave a comment

It’s a snake. She’s black too, but the kind of black the night sky is. She’s dark. She’s vivid. She’s powerful.

She’s real. She can never leave you, and sometimes, you want her to leave you. She can be your strength, and she can be your weakness.

She speaks your mind when you lose it, she’s there when your sibling’s a bother, she’s there when you don’t understand something.

She fights. She will fight hard, and when you think she’s done fighting, she will fight even more.

Her enemy is Conscience. Conscience makes her mad, and Conscience makes her strong. She fights Conscience with all she has.

The longer she fights, the less control she possesses. She looses herself in an effort to protect, she grows stronger and out of control.

Fangs, venom, whipping tail, flared hood, she fights Conscience and eventually she fights you. Your body turns from heavy to angry.

She is Anger. Anger must be held back. She must be held back. Nothing can hold back Anger.

She rises, hissing, spitting, glowing, menacing, fighting Conscience and fighting you. She’ll fight you and everyone and everything around you.

DESTROY

Her Anger will infect you.

ATTACK

You will be a danger to be around.

KILL

You can’t fight fire with fire. You must drown it with water.

Imagine never finding water.

Conscience

indigoshell1 Comment

It’s a butterfly. It’s black, all black, with misty, soft, glowy, fuzzy edges, like the edges of a shadow.

You can’t really hear it, it’s there. You begin to let your guard down, it’s there. You let your mind wander, it’s there.

It speaks to you. Stop trying, it says, you don’t need to be with others. Just go, it says, just go alone, sit alone, eat alone.

So you go alone. You sit alone, You eat alone. Then you leave alone.

It flies next to you. You don’t need to look up, it’s just there. It grows. It always grows. It lands on your shoulder, your head, your chest. It’s heavy, too heavy. Don’t fall, you tell yourself, don’t fall. Just fall, it replies, just fall.

It’s a heavy load, it is. In class it keeps your head down. In walking it keeps your shoulders hunched. In sleep it keeps your body curled.

The others, they try to keep it away. They fight, claws, fangs, hooves, venom, they fight hard. It keeps coming back. It keeps speaking.

You’re not good at this, it says, you’re not good at that. You’re good at being bad, it says, that’s a better way to think about it.

It still grows, it’s still there. It covers you with it’s wings, it pushes you down. You can get back up but it pushes you down harder. Stay down, just stay down, it says, stay down, stay low, then you can’t get any lower.

You can still get lower, but man, it doesn’t know that.

My Trip to Belize

Daphne PsaledakisLeave a comment

In sixth grade, my school led a trip with a handful of students to Belize. We were to spend the first week of our trip building a cafeteria for a school, and the second week touring the beautiful country. Before leaving, I was very nervous. I was traveling to a different country without my parents. Not only was that scary, but the thought of building a cafeteria was daunting as well. The trip turned out to be amazing.

We all met at the airport and did the usual, going through security, catching our plane, and flying to Belize. The minute we stepped off the plane, I was hit by the humidity. It was so hot. Nonetheless, we collected our bags and got on the bus to where we were staying.

The first week, we mainly focused our energy on building the cafeteria. We worked in shifts – half of us would build while the other half spent time with the kids from the school, either in classrooms or on the playground (which was really more of a field of dry dirt).

The builders mixed cement and set the cinderblocks to make up the foundation of the cafeteria. It was grueling work, especially in the heat of the day. The group that was resting and spending time with the students from the school would get a chance to know an amazing group of kids, until it was again their turn to start building.

Despite the hardship and poverty that the students at the school lived in, they were happy. They had fun learning how to do handsprings across the field of dirt, or just sitting and talking with us.  They were unbelievably appreciative of what we were doing for them. It’s not as if we were building a state-of-the-art cafeteria. It was made up of three foot walls of cinderblock and poles that held a rood up above it. But to them, it was beautiful. I have never met anyone as appreciative as they were, especially at their age.

The second week was spent touring the country. We first drove up to a small lodge up in the mountains, and spent a couple days exploring the rainforest and caves around us. We then drove down to the coast and took a boat to a tiny island, where we explored and went on prolonged snorkeling excursions.

After the amazing couple of days we spent at the island, we packed up our bags – for good this time – and headed back to the airport. The trip was amazing. It was fun, educational, and rewarding all at once. The experience will remain with me for a long, long time.

Endings

displacedlocalLeave a comment

So it is essentially the end of the school year at this point and a lot has changed over the last year. I have lived a year of new experiences.

At the beginning I was excited, but fear always gripped the back of my throat. Over time that feeling faded after acquiring new friends and finding a real home at OVS.

Writing these blogs and journalism in general has helped me more than I would have liked to admit. I am entering a lot of projects this summer pertaining to writing and I fell like a much more confident writer.

I have learned incredible things this year and I want to use this opportunity to thank everyone that helped me this year.

End of the year work

callmemaybe321 Comment

Most people would think that as the school winds down, so would the work load.

Umm, that is a negative.

Quite the opposite has happened to me.

I feel like right now is the most work I have had in a while.

It could be that I am suffer from pre senioritis, which is an issue because I’m a junior….

Well whatever.

Message to teachers.

Stop it!

I want to be relaxing and studying for finals, not doing projects and writing essays, that was what most of the year was for, now please let me relax and ride out the rest of the year.

I would like to imagine my last weeks of junior year with myself on a tropical beach, soaking up sun, drinking something with a tiny umbrella in it, and watching cute girls in bikinis walk by.

Not sitting in a classroom, doing busy work so that we feel like we’ve accomplished more, when really we’re doing the same old stuff.

If I didn’t care about my grades so much and how that effected my future I would go on strike.

And also what is this going to school on Memorial Day.

I feel that it is un American and as an American I should have the opportunity to opt out of school on this day sans consequence, but whatever.

I will be in class bright in early while others are at the beach or BBQing enjoying the day.

Colleges start with ME.

eternity1030Leave a comment

As my junior year is coming to an end, my English class recently began to focus on the college stuff.

Ms. Boismenue came to my English class yesterday to introduce all of us a scary thing called “college essay.” Although I’ve heard how important it is for the application process of colleges, I could still feel the power of it which made me feel nervous and of course, stressful. 

However, as Ms.Boismenue and our English teacher Ms.Wilson explained to us more details about the process, I felt it was the most important process but also the most interesting part of the colleges applications.

Ms.Boismenue then handed to us a list of some traditional and creative essay topics from some colleges the past few years, and asked us to actually pick one of them and plan to write. There were about ten topics and this one caught me eyes – “It has been said in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes. Describe your fifteen minutes. ” (from NYU, 2007)

We were told that for all the college essays, they want to know a real “YOU” from your writing which shows them how their school fits you the most and why you are different from other numerous applicants.

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It’s a Whole New Year

Daphne PsaledakisLeave a comment

Most people measure their years beginning and ending at New Year’s Eve. But when you’re in school, Summer marks the beginning of a new year. You have three months off, to relax, sleep, recuperate from the endless studies and homework. Then in the fall, you go back to school and you start a new year.

Some people never want the year to end. They want to stay near their friends, and they don’t want things to change.

For me, it’s different.

At the beginning of every year I’m excited for what it will bring. For the new friends I will make, and the new things that I’ll learn. But a couple months in, I start getting tired. Tired of school, and of a lot of the people at school.

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