Deception Pass Retreat

For our first day of school this year at ORCA we went to a retreat at Deception Pass. Last year we went to the retreat also but we didn't go on the very first day of school last year. When we first got there we just hung around and talked to all of our friends. We haven't seen them for a whole Summer!!! After awhile we had a meeting with our English teacher. We found out that we had to lead a book discussion for the new ORCA students. So we got into our subgroups. I don't remember all of the younger kids but the older ones (my age group) were: Paul, Anna, Erik-John, and Patrick...I think that's all of them. Anyways, I am usually the quietest one in class. I don't really talk. However, none of the other "older" kids would contribute to the discussion so I was really the only one leading the discussion. I was very proud of myself because I usually don't do that kind of thing.

After the book talk we got cabin assignments. I got a waterfront cabin with Maddy, Kaitlin and Cortnee. It was really fun. We just hung out for awhile and when he got dark we headed down to a part of the Puget Sound because when it gets dark you can see bioluminecents in the water. Builuminecents are little fish things that glow in the dark. They are really cool looking. A lot of the students get in their bathingsuits and go swimming to see them. However, I prefer to just watch because I was sick. After that we walked back to the cabins and had a campfire on the beach. We made s'mores. YUM!!! That night Kaitlin, Maddy, Cortnee, and I stayed up really late talking. When we finally decided to head off to bed it was 1 or 1:30...idk. However, Maddy and I decided to sleep outside that night. Since we are in a waterfront cabin we just wanted to listen to the waves crash up against the shore. It actually wasn't too cold either. I actually really liked it and there weren't really any bugs so it was kinda nice.

The next day we got up and ate breakfast. Some people went on a hike before breakfast but I didn't go on the hike because I forgot my sneakers at home. All I had was flip flops and those aren't really good for hiking....So, after breakfast we had a discussion with Ardi (the leader of ORCA) about applying to colleges...I can't believe that it's already time to apply for colleges...AHHH!!! After that discussion we had to go clean up our cabin and load it into the car so we could be ready to leave by 11 so we could make it to EvCC in time for our Chemistry class.

After we were done packing up our stuff we had a team building activity. It was actually really fun. What we did is we each got a red folder and we were seperated into 5 teams. The rules were that we had to get across the field but we couldn't touch the ground so you would have to use your folder and the help of your other team members to get to the other side. However, you couldn't cross the finish line until EVERYBODY got to the end. Also, if one person from any of the groups touched the ground we would have to go back. It was so frustrating because our group was the best and we would almost get to the end (farther than anybody else) and then somebody would fall and we would all have to go back. But it was still really fun. Right after the activity Maddy, Kara, and I (Kara drove us) had to run to the car so we could get going so we could get to Chemistry on time. That was a really fun start of school!!!