This Summer was one heck of a ride. . . but I'd practically say this was the best summer ever and I enjoyed it a ton! It might be quite the exaggeration to say it was the best but compared to all the summers in the past, this one was the most fun and most eventful.
Discovering things can really change you. A few months back I found out about Leadership, I was intrigued to learn more. Though honestly. . .I didn't really want to join Leadership at first because it sounded difficult. So, I decided to give more thought to it and as I did, I decided to do Leadership because after all, I was told that if something was easy, everyone would be doing it. Also, I wanted to try something new and step out of my comfort zone. I wanted to make middle school memorable for me in a way. In addition, I wanted to join Leadership because I believe that creating leadership skills now will bring me success and help me in the future. When the day of my interview came, I couldn't sleep the day before my interview because I was so excited. Before my interview, the nervousness I had begun to build up, but I began to try convert that into excitement. When my interview was finished, I was so relieved, and I was longing to know if I had gotten in or not. However, as I waited, I began to overthink and put myself down. But I realized thinking like that wouldn't do me any good so I waited till Monday for the email that would resolve all the thoughts in my head.
When I had gotten the email and found out I had gotten into leadership, I was overjoyed. I waited eagerly for the beginning of summer bridge and when it was just around the corner, I pondered on how the first day would go. I asked myself, "What kind of people I'd meet?" and "Will anyone I know be there?"
On June 7, which was the first day of summer bridge, I went to the cafeteria, and I saw lots of people and teachers. I didn't know if they were all leadership or if they were here for something else. I found out later on that the other people who were present were there for other things. Like extra credit or just some programs and that they were split into different groups. As the teachers began to collect those people, I was able to figure out that the people left were the ones in leadership. I sat by Cassell since he got here before me, and I thought it was kind of funny that he always sat away from everyone else. As I looked further down, I saw Sienna, Alex, Mikayla, Jewelyn, Jayna, Leyla, and Gabby. When I saw Jewelyn and Jayna, I had a feeling that I had seen them somewhere. I though they just had "one of those faces," but Cassell told me that he had seen Jewelyn before at Holomua so I suspected that Jayna came from Holomua as well. It was nice to know that I recognized some people. When Ms. deGuzman got us and we went to the circle of benches, we all introduced ourselves. I recognized some names from the 8th graders that came from Holomua. We said our names and grade that we were moving into. As each person introduced themselves, I was only able to memorize a handful of names. I only remembered, Mal, Gabby, Leyla, Alex, and Jayden.
Memorizing things right away wasn't really something I'm great at. As we went into A101 Ms. deGuzman let us sit on any table we wanted to. Me and Cassell sat in the very back. Which was pretty sad in my opinion, but it was the closest to the door. Though it was completely awkward, and the silence was deafening. It was so quiet!! I really wanted to talk to someone other than Cassell so badly, but I just felt too shy to do so. The first thing we were instructed to do was our Leadership notebook covers. I was surprised when I had discovered that there weren't many restrictions to what you could put on your cover. Even the silliest ideas or craziest thoughts could be on your cover. My cover contained of my favorite things and favorite colors. I drew a picture of Hatsune Miku and added stars and flowers to my notebook. When I saw other people's notebooks, they looked really cool and unique. Some people had simple designs and other people had funny designs. Cassell's design was just some dogs with sunglasses with a duck wearing a wig. I thought it was completely random, but I liked his design. The next thing that we did was our flags. The flags were used for stamps from Bridge. You got stamps from daily attendance and from participating or winning in the games we played. The flags really helped me learn and memorize more names a bit better. My flag was purple, and I wrote my name in a cool font and drew stars around it. While we were doing our flags, we went to break, and I got to talk to some of the 8th graders. Though I mostly talked to Cassell the entire time. At the end of the day, we wrote a reflection on what we learned and how we felt about Bridge. We continued to do that throughout the entire Summer Bridge. The first day was very intriguing and it was interesting to see most of the people I would be working with this year.
The second day I realized our flags were put up and because of it I was able to figure out how to spell each person's name and that made things easier for me. I really liked Mal and Leyla's flags. Later we began to write in our bridge notebooks. We wrote about core values. After we wrote, Ms. deGuzman gave us a paper with a value on it and we had to define it and say how we would apply it to our life and this school year. Throughout the entire Summer Bridge, we did various activities that helped us bond with each other and prepared us for our workdays. One of the activities we did was frisbee golf. In that game you are supposed to get the frisbee in the basket the least number of times. Basically, golf but with a frisbee. I remember before we played the real game, we got to practice throwing the frisbee and man was that something! I decided to pair up with Cassell and that was probably the silliest decision ever. Cassell kept throwing the frisbee at the tree, up the tree, in the tree, literally everywhere. It didn't even fly straight at me. Cassell calls it his "Power Throw." I'm pretty sure that when we started playing and when he was paired with Mal, he somehow managed to make it fly right on top of the roof!! I was paired with Dominic at the time and our teamwork was alright. There was a good amount of communication between us. Our goal was to not be last place and we were successful after a couple of rounds. Another thing we did was Connect 4. I remember it as clear as day. In that game you were asked a question and whoever raised their flag and answered correctly got to put a piece in to the stand. When it was my turn, I went up against Mal. Ms. deGuzman asked us "Who was the first president?" and Me and Mal were completely clueless. That wasn't really one of my smartest moments, . . . but I managed to get the answer correct! Which was surprising! Social Studies is definitely not something I'm good at remembering. My favorite game out of them all was Capture the Flag, but it was finding a cone blindfolded. That was ridiculous! Dominic fell over so many times! Cassell hit his leg! Mal kept pointing even though the people blindfolded couldn't see. At to top it off . . .Ms. deGuzman made a video of it!! It was so silly!
We did many other games like Scavenger Hunt, Simon Says, and Doctor. In addition, we made school tour, and dos and don'ts TikToks, also took pictures for the 'Ilima TV backgrounds, learned about making TV Intros, and we even learned how to fly the drone. The Drone was called "The Eye in The Sky." We got our Retreat forms, and we also obtained our calendars for Leadership. During Bridge, we also began making a school tour video. I was part of the group that did the script for the tour got to film some scenes of campus and got to edit them with my group. In my group was, Jabez, Reese, Alex, and Biaani. Bridge really made talking to everyone easier and made me feel more like I belonged with everyone else. I enjoyed Bridge a whole lot.
When Bridge was over, we had a one-week break before workdays. That break had flown by and on the first day of workdays we cleaned out the cages. They were so disorganized and there was red dirt inside of them. We had to get the dirt swept out and organize things. I remember one of the 8th graders asked me if I was afraid of workdays or if I was afraid of any of the 8th graders. Honestly, I wasn't really. I knew workdays was going to cleaning out stuff and doing other tasks, so I wasn't really nervous about it. I was mostly only nervous about standing around and doing nothing. I wasn't really scared of the 8th graders either. Since I knew some of them from beginning or bridge it wasn't that bad. Along with that, Bridge helped me bond with them, and they were each really special and different people in their own ways. Also, when we got in the cages, I noticed there was a sheep looking animal prop by the cages. However, to my surprise it was actually supposed to be a cow!! Though it didn't seem that believable. . . Throughout workdays we cleaned up the office in A101, sorted the cabinets, fixed the bulletin boards, and cleaned up A102. We learned about how to do set up Music and things you can have on your playlist, how to set up TV and how making sure everything works, and ID printer. I learned that PD means paid dues and PDYB means that they paid their dues and yearbook. I also learned that I was in Period 3. In Period 3 was Alex, Reese, Biaani, Cassell, Dominic, and Me. During workdays we had breaks and during those breaks Me and majority of everyone else would go to either 7 Eleven or Mcdonalds. Mark ran so fast when we went to Mcdonalds, and we would all try to either catch up or just walk behind.
I enjoyed every time we ran across the street trying to get to each place. Each break we had either ended in us rushing back to A101 or us telling each other to hurry up. I never got to hang out with my friends like this a lot nor did my parents have to time arrange many things with my friends' parents. Most of the times timing wasn't great at all or my parents just weren't in the mood or had the time. So being able to do so during workdays was almost a whole new thing to me and it was great.
After an entire week of workdays, we had the Meet ‘n Greet with the Alumni. Honestly, I was a bit curious and eager to get to know about them. The first thing we did on the Meet 'n greet Open House was put our phones into a basket. Afterwards we separated into different groups. In my group, we had Jabez, Sienna, Audrey, and Gabrielle. Sadly, Audrey wasn't there so they’re only the four of us. When we were told to make a team name, Sienna and Jabez tried to come up with different names but after discussing we finally settled on naming our team "Quartet." We even made a sign of our team's name, and we all colored it together. After we finished, each team needed to present their sign. Everyone began to present one by one, and we were rushing to add more and get things done. I quickly drew animals that represented each one of us. Gabrielle was a butterfly, Sienna and I were cats, and Jabez was a Penguin. As we all talked together, I got to know about Gabrielle. She's sounds super nice and encouraging!! I enjoy talking to her a lot! After we presented, we began to play Capture the Flag with the alumni. Capture the flag was quite interesting. Everyone was yelling and trying to direct their teammate to the cone. During one of the rounds, I'm pretty sure someone closed the gate so that the teams wouldn't be able to get the cone outside of the gate. It was so crazy!! I was laughing so hard. I was pretty much tearing up. After that we did Synchronized Swimming. In summary of this, we had to make a dance out of an audio. The audio started off with some circus music then it switched to baby shark. The first half, which was the circus part, made me think of the Greatest Showman! We spent a long time discussing what we would do and how we would dance. Synchronized Swimming was a bit difficult if I’m being completely honest. . . But thanks to my great teammates, things were somewhat easier than I expected. I wish I could've done more activities with the Alumni at the time to know them better because I still felt like I know them well enough. Regardless, I got to know some bits of the Alumni and it would be easier to work with them during Schedule Pickup.
During Schedule Pickup I was one of the ID runners. In my job, you had to get the IDs from the ID machines and give them to the ID Makers. It was quite an easy job actually. I was afraid I would've messed up or not be any help to the others. The first day of Schedule Pickup was for the 8th graders. Things were going quite well until one of the ID printers had stopped functioning and had a problem, so we had to close up that station temporarily. It was really busy during the beginning of the day but gradually over time the line began to get somewhat slower. The station that was closed down managed to get back on its feet and was working again. The station I was at closed down and from time to time we would help with the line if the other station was being overloaded. When my station closed down for that day, we had to help out in the kitchen. Me and Cassell were switching to give each other a break. Since the line had lessened a lot than from the start of the day, I began to talk with the other people. I talked to Alex, Jewelyn, Mal, Jabez, and Sienna. Alex kept saying Hi to me which I thought was pretty random, but I played along and said Hi back. I talked more people but only for a little while. Eventually I also saw my auntie getting her ID. I also recognized some of the 8th graders from Holomua. Compared to how they looked in 6th grade, it was interesting to see how different some of them looked. After we finished, we got to eat afterwards. We pushed the tables and set up things and we ate Terri Burger. It wasn't that bad and after standing up for so long, eating something really made me feel better. The next day of schedule pickup was practically the same. Except it was for the 7th graders and this time my station didn't close down. Also, the people who didn't help in the kitchen the day before were helping instead. During the schedule pickup I saw lots of my friends and my cousins. I managed to say hi which was really nice. We also didn't have many problems and it was less quiet than the day before with us and the Alumni. I got to talk to them for a bit and that made me feel less bored during the day. When we finished schedule pickup that day, we cleaned up again and set up the tables and we all ate spam bowl. It was yummy especially with the furikake. Schedule pickup was not very fun, but it wasn't very boring either.
After schedule pickup we had extended schedule pickup. Extended schedule pickup was for the people to pick up their planners or get their IDs in case they missed out last week. During that week we had rotating shifts. I was a bit confused on how the rotation worked but thankfully Reese explained that it was like a braid. First was 9-11, then 8-10. and finally, 10-12:30. That was the order that my period's shifts went in. Not much really happened during extended schedule pickup except for snacks for our field trip, teacher meeting, and the Staff IDS. But I did get to talk with everyone more. I watched some Mickey Mouse with Alex and Reese, and I even watched Barbie with Leyla and I even got to talk to her about art. Which was super enjoyable for me. Schedule Pickup was a bit bland but at least at the end of it all was our long-awaited end of Summer Field Trip.
On August 4, we had our End of the Summer Field Trip, and that trip was really something special! The day before our field trip, I made muffins with my mom for me to bring to the Field Trip. I also had to ravage through my entire closet to find an orange shirt! I was unsuccessful in finding one, so my mom brought me to Ross to buy a shirt. I really appreciate my mom for doing so. I didn’t want to wear a neon orange shirt! Nothing was wrong with it, but neon isn’t really my favorite. . .On the day of the field trip, I was so excited, but I was a bit frightened for the Bio Cube presenting. I got there at 10 AM which was super early. For some reason Cassell was there before me and he kept saying things like “what if I came at the wrong time” or “if he is doing something wrong.” I had to keep telling him that we were fine. He was such a worrywart. Later on, we saw Jewelyn and Ms. deGuzman and we helped with the coolers. As time passed, more people began to arrive. I realized I should’ve worn shorts for this trip, but I was wearing pants. I really should have thought ahead. When Sienna came, she showed us all her cool goggles. They were very interesting goggles. Leyla showed us a video of her singing and it was fantastic. I absolutely would listen to it on loop if it were on Spotify. I also managed to get Gabby, Leyla, Jayna, and other people’s numbers! I was really nervous to ask for it but once I had their numbers in my contact list, I laughed at myself and wondered what I was even scared of. Everyone brought different kinds of snacks. Jabez brought homemade cookies, Leyla brought rainbow rice crispies, Mikayla brought French rolls, some people came with beef jerky, small cupcakes, chips, and many other things. When majority of Leadership arrived, we began to put our phones into the hands of Ms. deGuzman. As we were going to the bus, I realized that I didn’t know who I’d be sitting next to. So, when I went inside, I decided to sit by myself because I wanted the entire space to myself. As we all began to board the bus, Mark came almost last minute with his volleyball and croissants. Soon the bus began to move, and I talked to Cassell a bit during the ride. It began to rain, and I saw the rain hit the window I sat by. When we were almost there, Biaani asked me if I wanted to join Strictly Ill. She said it wasn’t for professional dancers like the ones in Royal Prodigies, but it was for fun. I thought it was kind of random, but I decided to say that I might join. I probably would like to put more thought into it but right now I believe that I would like to try it. Throughout the bus ride, there were moments where everyone would go silent and that was mostly when the bus stopped. Other times everyone was talking loudly and talking about various of different things.
When we got to the Ala Moana Regional Park, it was around 1 PM and it was raining but luckily the rain was just only passing. Mr. Ing had come earlier to claim our spot at the park, so we walked to our spot, and we all put our snacks and bags on the table. Mr. Ing then told us about where we couldn’t pass, where there are no rocks, how we couldn’t go to the bathroom alone, and basically how we should act and safety. Jayden and Dominic went to play volleyball with Mark’s ball. Shortly after they began to start playing, I joined in. Though occasionally I would walk away and come back to play again. As we continued to pass the ball back and forth, Cassell joined in then Jewelyn and Jayna came into the circle. Remember Cassell’s “Power Throw” that I mentioned? Well, it is making its comeback!! We played volleyball and whenever Cassell served, the ball rarely went forward, and it always went diagonally. Cassell kept hitting the ball so hard that it almost got stuck in the tree. I warned him so many times to not get it stuck and to not hit it so hard. No matter how many times I warned him, he still began to hit the ball hard. He really needed to learn how to control how much force he put into his hits. . . It was slightly annoying telling him the same thing over even though I already knew he was kind of already hardheaded. When we got bored of volleyball, we played Monkey in the middle. I’m not really a fan of monkey in the middle so I sort of left Jayna midway. I went to grab a drink and I was watching Jewelyn, Cassell, Dominic, Jayden, and Jayna play without me. I also saw three couples taking their wedding photos! They were really cute! I wondered if this park was popular for those photos. Anyway, everything was going well until Cassell actually got Mark’s ball stuck in the tree!! I swear if Cassell actually listened to me it wouldn’t have happened! I literally called Cassell dumb multiple times, and I laughed a lot the entire time. Now that Cassell had gotten the ball jammed into the tree’s branches, we could only focus on getting it out before Mark got back from swimming. I began to watch as Dominic, Cassell, Jewelyn, and Jayden were throwing water bottles to try hit the ball and get it freed from the tree's grasp. Cassell even took off his shoe and threw it in the air. I kept laughing and Ms. deGuzman, Mr. Ing, and some of the Alumni were watching as our situation was like a TV Show and were laughing too. It was pretty ridiculous if you ask me. Anyway, when 30 minutes passed, I was literally about to climb the tree but there were some huge red ants on it, and it was practically impossible to get the ball from climbing the tree. Honestly, I just wanted to sit in the tree, but I just didn't want to get bit by one. Mark also came back and tried to get it out of the tree. After like a few hours, Mr. Ing and the Alumni decided to help get the ball unstuck. Eventually, Mark finally got the ball out of the tree and Cassell had earned the nickname, "Grimace."
After the ball was unstuck, I went to the water, and I found rocks for Jabez and Mark. The bottom of my jeans was soaked but it didn't bother me because they would dry anyway. We were going to bury Cassell, but Sienna ended up being covered in sand. A little later a girl came. Turns out her name was Olivia! Mr. Ing mentioned her before our field trip and I didn't know she was incredibly pretty, and she was super kind too. Alex and Olivia seemed to get along really well which was great. Eventually I began to play volleyball again but with another volleyball and with Leyla, Mark, Olivia, Mikayla, and Sienna. Sometimes Jabez would join in, but he would dash right back into the water. Anyway, playing volleyball on the sand was fun because it meant I could dive for the ball without scraping my knee or getting any minor injuries. Though I did get sand in my hair and on my forehead. I also got sunburnt which was my fault since I didn't but on sunscreen. Thankfully Reesee gave me some and Jewelyn let me borrow some lotion. After we all ate food at 5 PM and it was pretty good. I didn't finish all my food, but I was somewhat close to doing so. We had free time for a bit then we started to clean up when it was nearing 7-8 PM. We took down the tents, we organized the snacks, and we got our things ready to go to Magic Island. But before we headed over, we did our Bio Cube presentation. So, the current class was paired up with one Alumni and the Alumni would listen to us present. I was a bit anxious because everyone kept saying that the Alumni would "crush you to bits." but to me that seemed like quite the stretch. I was paired up with Jayna, Olivia, and Jansen. Jansen had a Kirby hat on. When I presented, I tried to remember what my 6th grade teacher told me before. I tried to resist fidgeting a lot, stuttering, or looking down at my box but I did it anyway. I was quite disappointed in myself. We only had to talk about the obstacle side which was relieving because I didn't want to present the entire cube. When I finished, Jansen began to tell us things we should fix about our presentation. I wasn't really confident in mines because I made lots of mistakes that I probably wouldn't have if I really practiced memorizing my bio cube. Moving back to the topic at hand, Jansen told us we should always introduce ourselves. We should say our name and our position if we have any. He also told us that we shouldn't look down at our cube a lot, we should prevent ourselves from stuttering or fidgeting a lot, and that we should speak louder. Basically, everything my 6th grade teacher told me to do. I also think I really should have tried to memorize the things on my bio cube. The bio cube presentations weren't even scary at all! Seriously I don't even know why I overthink these things.
Eventually everyone finished and we began to go to Magic Island. We also got our phones returned to us after we completed the presentation. We all walked together to watch the fireworks. During the fireworks, Reesee, Leyla, Olivia, Zhalea, Biaani, Mikayla, Alex and I took a polaroid picture. We all sat on Leyla and Biaani's towels as we watched the fireworks. I wish we could've gotten a better view of some of the fireworks because people kept walking in our way which was really tedious.
The fireworks were really nice to watch. Sadly, it only lasted about four minutes, but I got a video of the entire thing. Luckily for me, there were only a few parts where people kept walking in front of us, and I managed to get an alright recording. This bonding fieldtrip was really great. I really do feel like I got to know some of the Alumni better than before and I feel more comfortable talking to them. On our bus ride back to 'Ilima, I sat in the back, and I texted in the group chat that I was added into on Instagram. I talked to Leyla, Olivia, Reesee, basically everyone who was in Strictly Ill. I got to use my air pods in the bus, and I listened to my favorite songs. I was a bit tired, and I almost fell asleep, but I didn't. On the trip back to school, Reesee and Leyla kept saying things together and they sounded like seagulls. I kept giggling in the back of the bus. That bus ride felt like only 10 minutes! It literally flew by. When we got off the bus, I said goodbye to everyone and went home. I stayed up all night after that. I really couldn't sleep! That field trip was one of the ones that I would probably always remember. Not only because it was new but because it was super eventful too. That was only my summary of Summer, now let's move on to things about my journey so far.
There were a lot of good things that happened this entire summer. There are probably many highlights of my journey so far, but the moments that I find have the most significance is Bridge and the Meet 'n Greet. Both let me learn more about everyone in Leadership. It helped me become friends with majority of the people in Leadership. I honestly never thought I would feel comfortable with such new people. Even though I met them only just one or two months ago, it feels like I've known them for over half a year already. The silence on day one compared to the liveliness on our field trip contrasts so much. Leadership really brought me out of my shell! I'm no longer as shy as I used to be and I'm very comfortable with everyone else. Another one is the field trip. That one really had an enormous impact on me. I know I'm repeating but I really do feel more better with everyone else because of trip. Moving on. . . some of the low lights of my journey so far is that I had difficulty sharing my all of my ideas with everyone during our banner and yearbook and not talking a lot during schedule pickup. I remember when we had to share for yearbook, and I didn't say the other idea I had, and I said something bland instead. I'm not sure why I didn't share but I guess it was because it seemed a bit too difficult to put as the real yearbook theme. For banners it was slightly better, but I just didn't have a good idea or a good way to describe my idea. So, I just said "Stars" without elaborating. During schedule pickup, I wanted to talk to the Alumni about various things, but I only managed to ask them their name and their hobbies. I was quite disappointed in myself for being afraid to ask them simple questions about themselves. However, on the bright side, our summer fieldtrip really made me feel better about that. Summer really made me learn lots of things too.
This summer taught me a ton of things. Three main things that I learned is that if you think of Leadership was a class, you will struggle, the second one is that you should always finish what you've started, and the last one is that being yourself is probably the best thing you can do in middle school. You shouldn't build your life solely on how people see you. People's opinions shouldn't matter, and you shouldn't take things personally. If you think of Leadership as a class, you will tumble and fall. Thinking Leadership as a class will make you procrastinate or dread assignments. Just think of blogs as things that you just do for fun or for you to remember things instead of assignments that are just taunting you. Moving on to the second main thing. . . it is finishing what you started. When you start something, it's only right for you to finish it completely. Nothing left out or thrown under the rug. I used to not finish things completely and it would suddenly rise back up to the surface of things and that really annoyed me. Being yourself is another big thing I have learned. Being yourself is probably what will make you the happiest. It's clearly way better than shaping your personality, and who you are as a person, around others' opinions. I used to do this is elementary and speaking from my experience. I was not happy at all. I always wanted people to have good opinions about me, but I realized that's practically impossible because not everyone will like you regardless of how hard you try. In Leadership, I realized that everyone was equally different in many ways. I never thought that this summer would make me experience so many different things.
This summer was quite the eventful one. To bring this blog to a close and to wrap it up completely, I want to thank everyone who helped me get this far. Even though it's only the beginning of a new year and it really isn't a long journey yet. It's only just the very start. I'm glad I decided to take this opportunity for Leadership for it has helped me learned plenty of things, make new friends, and feel at ease so far. I'm eager for the start of this great year. I hope I can continue to build bonds with everyone, learn more important lessons, and use everything I've learned to make this school year a better one than the last. This was a great summer everyone! I really enjoyed this one a lot and I hope you all did too!
Written by Riselle Guillermo!
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