Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog! This is the first post of 2023, and it’s a little overdue. I’m writing this on the very last day of winter break as I have been sick for the past two weeks. Anyway, let us get to the post. About a month ago, we revisited the Loon Lake facilities for a field study. Unfortunately, I had to leave a few days early, so I will be writing about my time there and what I learned. My overall goal of going there was to try and find a deeper connection with myself. Throughout this short post, I will explain some of the activities we did, as well as what I learned.

To be honest, I went into this field study with a very closed mindset. I had already been to Loon Lake and didn’t feel the need to go again. However, after the first few hours there, I was glad that I went. The very first thing we established for ourselves was goals. In my opinion, this was one of the most important things that we did during our time there. It gave us something to work towards and it constantly kept that motivation in the back of my mind while I was there.

Here are the goals I had set for myself:

1. Make new memories

2. Get skills to become a better and stronger leader

3. Try new activities with an open mind

Something that I still look at and think about today, is a quote that we picked out on a bookmark. My quote was:

”All things at first appear difficult”

-Chinese Proverb

We were supposed to pick a quote that resonated with us. So, the reason that I picked this one is that it’s simple. Life right now seems so complicated that taking a minute to appreciate that simple things felt important to me.

I think an activity that we did at Loon Lake that I learned the most from, was a tube and marble game. We had sort of half-cut paper towel rolls and a marble. Everyone had their own half-cut paper towel roll and the goal for your team was to try and get your marble from one end of the space to the other without dropping it. After going a few rounds, the leaders gave out blindfolds to one person in each team, which of course threw off the dynamic. Your team still had to include that person in the exercise so that meant you had to go slower and help that person a lot. Me, I was the one who was given a blindfold. I was kind of just standing there waiting for someone to move my tube into place so the marble to pass through. I was completely helpless. This let me have two completely different perspectives on the activity.

Another activity that made me think differently was the low ropes course. For this, you had to put your trust in other people and rely on them to keep you going. For example, there was one section of the course where you were walking backwards along a tightrope. Everyone who was in the group was along either side pushing you up and helping you make it to the end. On a different section of the ropes course, it was like playing ‘the floor is lava”. We had to get everyone across these ropes without anyone touching the ground, and only two people go across at a time. It took us a while, but eventually, after enough adapting and tweaks to our system, we finally got everyone across unharmed.

I think the third most influential thing that we did was make out personal credo. A credo is “a statement of beliefs of values that guides someone’s decisions and actions. It is a guiding principle or set of principles. A credo defines what you stand for”. My credo is this:

I value honesty and trust. I am present in the moment. I believe in having purpose and intention with everything I do. I stand for what I believe in and defend what is right.

As you can see in the picture below, my personal statement was revised many times until I found the right wording:

I also made an image to go with my credo which was made into a sticker. You can see that below ⬇️

 

Overall, I am very glad that I went to Loon Lake. I think that it was a great experience to look at things in my life differently. I think that it brought me closer to a lot of my friends. I learned about my strengths and my weaknesses in life. I learned about reflection and how powerful words can be. I also learned that I am not as good at word games as I thought I was and that I am really good at Go Fish 🙂

Thanks for reading
my reflection on the Loon Lake trip. Check out some pictures that I got below ⬇️

Best wishes,

-Dana