Quote of the Day: "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That's why we call it the present."
- Oogway (Kung Fu Panda)
Today in morning class, we took another step in our self reflection and began to write about our learning, teamwork, and other skills, and what we did relating to them before coming to SSL. This made me stop and think about the way I approach different topics, and what more I could do relating to them. It took a while at the start for me to think about what I did, but once I began to type things out, I managed to get quite a bit of information down.
During afternoon class, we did some orienteering. We were in a group of four (mixed from all four core groups) and began searching for different checkpoints, and got stamps from each one. Our team worked quite well in this lesson, and each colour 'course' that we took, we finished. When we were getting out final hole punch, we ran into some cows - since we were on the wrong side of the fence - and although it was a little 'intimidating' since it was quite a large herd of cows close by (because their water was there) and they were all staring at us, we got the last hole punch and got back to the school in an okay time. This lesson required a use of maps and self orientation, so we had to figure out how to read the (definitely not to scale) map, and find all the checkpoints. We also learned how think effectively, trying to find the shortest path through the course, so we could end up with a better time.
We had to move everything up like iDEARR and dinner, so we could have our evening class at an ice (methamphetamine) awareness meeting. During this 'lesson', we learned about how it differs to other drugs, the effects it can have, and how wrong we can be on judging teens and their drug use. Here I concluded that we often presume things about people, and sometimes it can be fairly stereotypical. It turns out that only 28% of teens have had at least 1 full drink of alcohol in their life aged 14-17, which was quite low in comparison to some of the suggestions - like 90 or 83% - that were going around the room. It taught us how much the media manipulates the outlook of certain things and how it can affect the readers, because newspapers and magazines state that it methamphetamine use is a growing epidemic, but what is actually happening is just a small group of users are causing a bit more trouble.
Overall, the main message that was spread was that, sometimes people focus too much on the helping and fixing, when usually preventing is a better solution. Prevention can help reduce and maybe even stop a certain problem, rather than having it grow and get out of hand.
WWW.Wednesday:
Today I learned quite a bit about communication, efficiency, but mainly how to look at the bigger picture. Many times, I - or other people - approach problems head on, without looking at what the main problem is, and the best way to solve it.
3 feelings that I felt today were:
Informed: Mainly when I managed to get to know a bit more about myself during the morning lesson, but also after the seminar on methamphetamines.
Frustrated: When our team for the orienteering couldn't find one of the stamps, and had to continue searching.
Concerned: When I was in the methamphetamine seminar and found out how much it affected users and people around them, as well as how long it takes them - on average - to seek proper treatment. I also felt slightly concerned during orienteering when we were so close to that many cows and some of them started running : ).