#16 Hamper Helpers

I knew that there were some less fortunate people in Ingersoll but I had no idea the amount. What an eye opener it was! I liked that it wasn't really sad and "I feel sorry for them" it was fun, everyone was happy and it was great to see their smiles! All the people getting the hampers were very greatful and polite towards me. I learned that even if you don't get what you want, giving someone else what they want/need is worth so much more. Christmas is not about what you receive, its a time to make others happy. I am definitely doing this all day next year! Since I wasn't able to find a soup kitchen or anywhere like that to help out on Christmas, this was a great experience that I will always remember and continue to do throughout the years no matter where I am.
There were a few people that really touched my heart. Two gentlemen came together with nothing but a wagon and were so grateful for what they got! When I asked where they wanted the boxes and they directed me towards the wagon I realized how little they had, yet they were so happy. Another man and his wife that came were very nice. He was very happy and tried to help in whatever way he could.
Most of the staff was polite to me and they seemed to have good senses of humor, especially my main man, didn't catch his name but he was a good laugh.
-Maryellen..

Crying in the dark song

I also find the song Hear You Me by Jimmy Eat World very emotional because its the song I listened to while I stayed with my Aunt in the palliative unit. Whenever I listen to this song it makes me think of how much I miss her. 

Crying in the dark song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MOVEUSATkM

#15 Violinist in the Metro

I feel as though people don't take the time out of their day to appreciate simple things like when someone holds a door for you or asks how you are. This man performed one of the most famous pieces and no one even acknowledged it because we're all too busy to take time out of our busy schedules. No one would expect such a talented man to be playing in a metro station, therefore no one takes the time to realize or listen to who the man playing in the metro station really is. People need to appreciate life and what they have. Everyone gets overwhelmed and greedy sometimes, I know I do. The point is to not take life for granted. Take time out of your day to just relax, take a second to listen to the man at the metro station, you never know, he could be a famous musician. 
Sometimes I get so caught up with everything that I forget to say thank you and instead of realizing what I do have, I complain about what I don't have. I don't want to die thinking of all the things I wanted to do but never did. I want to know I did everything possible to help people, appreciate what I have and put smiles on other peoples faces. Life is too short to not accomplish what you want. I want to live every day to the fullest and make the most out of my life. I want to achieve EVERYTHING that's on my bucket list and help other people do the same. 

#14 My Last Lecture

1. Live everyday to the fullest because you never know what tomorrow will bring you.

2. Laugh lots.

3. Don't keep everything bottled up inside, let it out to the people you love, trust and care about.

4. Don't be afraid to love, just have a good time and let things go as they should.

5. Accomplish everything on your bucket list.

6. Apologize when you've done wrong and try to work things out, always ask what you can do to improve and actually try and improve!

7. Do what makes you happy and spend lots of time with the people you love whether they be friends, family, co workers, or whoever.

8. Don't let anyone try and change you. You are you so live life the way you want to not what other people would want you to do.

9. Be polite, it'll get you a lot further then those who are rude.

10. Have fun and RELAX. Give yourself a break from all your hard work.

11. Tell people what you want to tell them, don't be afraid. If you like someone, tell them that, maybe they like you. Stick up for yourself and what you believe in. When doing this remember rule number nine. 

12. Help people. Make someone's day and it'll make you feel a lot better.

13. This last one is one I need to follow more myself. Don't worry about things you cant fix. It's a waste of time, stresses you out = wrinkles, ulcers, bad habits, hair loss = not good.

If I knew I was dying, I would write letters to everyone who's made an impact on my life. I would tell my family and friends how much I love them and not to be sad because somewhere out there a new life is beginning. I'd tell them to be good so I could see them in heaven. 

I've learned that you can't change the past and no matter how bad you think your life is, there is always someone out there who has it a lot worse than you. Love everyone, don't hold grudges and make the best of the life you have.

#13 Gratitude

I think this chapter really shows how much we take things for granted. I am so happy to be travelling to Kenya this summer because I think it will help me realize how much I take my life for granted without even realizing it. My favorite part of this chapters was Laurie's story. If we had more people in the world that opened up there homes to the less fortunate without judging them then the world would be such a great place!

1. Ten things I am grateful for:

-music

-family

-friends

-phone

-tv

-food

-water (shower, drink)

-transportation (airplanes, cars, bikes)

-school

-clothes

I'm not too surprised with what I thought of, my friends and family are always there for me no matter what, I love them so much! Music and clothes for me describe who I am, couldn't live without some beats. I love travelling and my dad lives in Winnipeg so I need airplanes. Food, water, school are things I have to have. It's sad because not everyone in the world has that. My phone is how I communicate with people, couldn't live without it and tv is nice if you want to relax, same with music. 

2. I am grateful for my mom, grandma, aunt helen and uncle john, cousin emily, my dad, doctors, everyone I work with especially at the farm (love them to pieces, second family!) I am grateful for all my friends! I'm grateful for my leadership class who I'm going to miss a lot when this semester comes to an end and all my teachers.

3.The gifts I'm thankful for are my apartment, bed, heat, water, food, safety, love, education, travelling, the savings for university, ipod, laptop, tiffany earrings, leather jacket, ray bans, watch and a lot of other things too.

I feel like this chapter was good to read after everything with challenge day because that day really changed us, independently and as a class and school. Craig talks about 9/11 and how everyone had feelings of love and gratitude as well as sadness and anger. He says how people of every size, shape and colour were there to help each other out. Since challenge day, our class has come together so much. The day we spent with Miss. Painter it didn't matter what clique we came from, where we lived, what our background was. We accepted each other for who we are and comforted one another. I bonded with people who I haven't talked to much in the class, I talked to people who I used to be best friends with and some how I feel like everything was back to how it used to be. That day changed us more and made us more comfortable with each other than any of our energizers ever could have. 

Today

Today was quite the experience. I had an amazing time yesterday at challenge day and couldn't wait to bring it back to make the school a better place but couldn't help but notice all the negative comments and facebook status's towards the challenge day people. I understand that not everyone got to go to challenge day and everyone has problems and the people who didn't get to go to challenge day didn't necessarily get their problems solved. But the point of challenge day is to bring back the positiveness and trust and being able to open up to people. I'm really glad that the people in our class are beginning to have a better understanding of challenge day after our discussion. It was nice to see that after we did our "if you really knew me activity" everyone thought challenge day to be a better experience regardless if they went or not. I'm glad I got to share this experience with my class and see everyone open up and break down barriers. It definitely brought us closer as a class and I can't wait to see what the assembly tomorrow will bring and how are class will "make the change" happen. I'm super proud of everyone, and I hope everyone knows that even if they don't have someone at home to talk to that our classmates are accepting and won't judge anyone based on what they've been through - I won't anyways.
I think it'd be awesome if we could find a way to incorporate challenge day/if you really knew me through the whole school. 
Love you all and very proud! ...even though I'm not sure anyone can see this because I haven't quite figured out blogger yet..

#12

I can honestly say that this class has changed me. I'm able to deal with things better and I'm not so negative. Hard situations are life lessons that will make you stronger. This class has made me more confident in myself. I always want to do things and get more involved with the school because of my leadership class and the people in it. You don't have to be great at speeches to be a leader, being a leader can be as simple as putting a smile on someone's face by saying hi to them. Never judge someone before getting to know them. To develop as a leader I want to learn how else I can make a difference. I want to be able to make bigger differences, ones that will help influence more people and eventually change the world. To develop as a leader people need to be active in their community, join clubs or sports at school, meet and talk to people you haven't before, volunteer, pick up a piece of garbage, go out for Halloween for Hunger, get involved with me to we, donate things you don't use anymore. Being a leader is as simple as that. I want to make a difference, I try to be positive and nice to everyone. This year I've gotten so much more involved with the school. I joined me to we, went to stair climb, joined best buddies, I'm going to Kenya in the summer to build schools. Everything I've done, I've loved, not to mention the flash mob which was totally awesome! All these things make me a happier person because I'm proud of what I'm doing, I know that I'm making a difference and putting smiles on people's faces everyday.

#11 Haunted House

Project Design Skills:
Our group was assigned the room between the change room and showers. Mike Mix-Master and I got all the false walls and other materials needed to put up the false walls from drama for the mirror room. I cut A LOT of tin foil and attached it to the walls. I also strung the fishing line through the objects for the upside down room. Once the house was finished my job was to stand behind the wall and hold the strobe light or stick my arm out and scare people. I got a lot of bruises but it was nice to see everyone get scared (I say that in the nicest way possible). During clean up time we worked to take the tin foil down as a team and then I helped clean the food colouring off the shower walls.
Identifying and Dealing With Barriers:
During the haunted house the false wall fell down a few times on me and the tin foil fell off a lot. The sheet stapled to the ceiling fell down towards the end. It kind of made me mad how we all worked so hard to put this on for the students and they disrespected things so much. A few students hit my arm (hence the bruises) and some students purposely punched/hit the false walls and sheet. Some of them tried taking the tin foil off and then everyone had kids that made remarks like "oh this isn't scary". Justin was walking through the haunted house so we called him over and he put some of the tin foil back up before the next group came in. Travis and I had to rearrange the false wall so it wouldn't fall again. Another barrier was we didn't know where to put the false walls because of the supports but it worked out very well with the room behind them for us to hide. In the center I mentioned we could put sheets along the lights for a wall and everyone was very helpful with bringing those in.
Interpersonal Skills:
We all worked together well to think of ideas. Justin came up with some awesome ideas and we got the jobs done quick as a team. I tried to make sure that everyone got an input and liked what we were doing in the haunted house.
Understanding and Working with Diversity:
There were times when I didn't agree so I would say a different idea. There were times when none of us agreed with someone so we would all try and say "well that's a good idea but I think this might hold up a bit better!" Most of the times that worked but if not we just figured its not worth fighting about so I went with the idea I didn't like as long as the students were going to have fun.
Leadership Skills:
Teamwork - We worked as a team to accomplish everything. When things didn't work out then we came up with alternate ideas. Everyone in my group was constantly doing something to help out. We all worked together to hang up the stuff and take it down. Mike and I had a good system going with the tape and the tin foil as well as the shiny cardboard stuck on the sheet. One of us would go on one side to hold the board and the other on the other side to push the sheet against the tape.
Organized - I'm a very organized person. I like order. I made sure everyone knew what their job was when the students came through and were in their spots on time.
Open minded - When other people spoke their ideas I listened and inputted on what we could do to make their ideas even better.
Hard worker - I worked really hard on the haunted house, we all did! Even though i was tired after carrying the false walls up and down the stairs I kept pushing till the job was done.
Personal Management Skills:
The week of the haunted house was a really hard week for me so I know I wasn't as enthusiastic and positive as usual but I still put forward my best effort. I think I stayed on task and kept to myself. I didn't really need refocusing because I was fine to do things by myself so I didn't get side tracked. The only thing I struggled with was coming up with ideas from scratch. I'm not the most creative person so I work better when I can add things to other peoples ideas, that's when my ideas start to come.
Self Assessment Skills:
I think I did good. Everyone seemed to enjoy the haunted house. I would give myself a 17 or 18 because I was always working hard but I know other people were better leaders and brought in more things to help.

#10 Marc's Story

I think Marc's story is more inspiring than Craig's. He could've chosen to have the rich life on Wall Street but instead decided to change the lives of others. He made a better life for people who are less fortunate instead of putting himself first. He's a great guy for doing that. He treats everyone as though they are equal and truly cares about others. Craig said it was Marc who made him want to help the world by starting Free The Children. He's inspired so many people and will continue to do so.

#9 Craig's Story

I think Craig is a true hero. He took something so little, like a newspaper article and turned it into something big. He stood up for what he believed in which many of us don't do. If more people made a change in the world by taking action like he did then the world would be a much better place. 

#8 If you really knew me

I've watched 'If You Really Knew Me' a few times and I think this episode got through to me a lot more than the others. The kids on the show had tougher stories than the other episodes. These kids were leaders. After doing challenge day it showed how they wanted to make a difference and what they did to do so. They were there for each other just like everyone in a school community should be. They also helped so many other students after challenge day by teaching them not to judge just by simply eating lunch with them.
This school is similar because everyone out there has a story, no one has it perfect. We have similar cliques and I'm not sure about the other students but I know if our class did challenge day that we would want to make a difference at IDCI just like the other school did. The only differences are that some people from our school might not want to do challenge day. They might think they'll get judged for doing it because its 'not cool' to share your feelings and emotions even though it can really help some people.
I think that challenge day can really help our school to not be so quick to judge people. You can't judge someone by appearance before getting to really know them. I think a lot of people at our school have problems that they're to afraid to talk about. Our school has a lot of cliques and if we bonded with people that weren't in our clique then maybe people would actually want to come to school because they'd feel accepted by more people and could be themselves for whomever they may be.
I think it'd be a great opportunity to be a part of challenge day. I'm a pretty accepting person because I've been through a lot myself so I realize where people are coming from. I think it'd be nice to hear other people's stories so I know I'm not the only one. I'd also like to be one of the ones to help make a difference in the school. I want people to know that they're not alone when they go through tough time and that just because they may look different then someone else I won't judge them on that.
IDCI is doing challenge day so that everyone can feel accepted at our school. Everyone goes through stuff and we're doing challenge day so that people have more people to talk to when they need someone there for them. I think Mr. Cook and some of the teachers genuinely care about the students and that's why they're doing this.
I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO DO CHALLENGE DAY!:)

#7 Important Talk

Today we learned that if we're going to be a class and do fun things together then we all need to come together, get everyone involved and participate. We learned that we always try and bring everyone together so the whole school feels included but sometimes we're so focused on them that we forget to include everyone in our own class..we need to work together, EVERY single one of us if we want to make a difference. Some people aren't including everyone because they're afraid to get to know and work with people that aren't their good friends. The class could be so much better if we all got to know each other and could be happy working with anyone.
If teachers wanted us to work with only our friends then they would put us in groups with our friends. We have classes full of all different types of people to learn how to communicate with others that aren't necessarily like you. You may not be comfortable at first working with someone that's not in 'your group' but that's why we do warm ups to get to know each other.
I think we need to keep on doing our energizers to get more comfortable around each other as well as get pumped up. That will make us comfortable around each other but to make friends you have to 'cross the line' and open up to people which gains each others trust. I think if we knew a bit more about each other then we wouldn't be so quick to judge. Class mates would be able to put themselves into someone else's shoes which would lead to a better understanding of each other.

#5 Everything is amazing and nobody is happy

People have come up with so many inventions that now people just expect them and take all of the previous inventions for granted. Everyone wants more, nothing is enough. Having an iPod and a computer wasn't enough so now people have to go out and buy the iPad. People aren't happy with what they have because people are spoiled. Some people are handed everything in life and don't have to work for anything.
I don't think I'm spoiled or take that much for granted. Obviously there are times where I take stuff for granted and some people think I'm spoiled because I'm an only child but I come from a one income household. I've had a job since I was 12. I've always been taught if I want something then I buy it. When people offer to pay for things I feel guilty taking money that I haven't worked for, money that doesn't belong to me.

Knaan's Story

This article is so sad. No one should ever have to watch someone die. Especially not 3 children that are your best friends shot by someone your age that was forced to do so. Life expectancy in Somalia is 17 minutes within leaving the airport-that's horrible. People here aren't worrying about how long it is till they die, get raped or shot, how long they have to go without food-people in Somalia are. No one should have to live like that. He talks about how everyone looks like death. People have one life they should be cheerful and happy and confident that they wont die within the next five minutes. So many people take their life for granted. People complain that they're hungry because no one went to the grocery store and bought food meanwhile there are kids on the other side of the world living on the streets that haven't eaten for days or had fresh water their whole life. Knaan is right, he's very lucky. I believe he's been so lucky because god wanted him here to inspire others, he knew he was a fighter and he would fight for his country no matter what it takes! I am so inspired that Knaan didn't let his fame stop him from going over there. He's trying to make a difference, hes a true leader, leading people to a better place. WE are leaders, we can't expect other people to change the world if we don't try too. So next time you take something for granted just remember whats going on in Somalia.

Selflessness, humility and leadership

In my opinion "doing something for the school" is when YOU make a difference by doing something that will have a positive effect on the school. Whether your doing something as an individual or a group, if you can do something to make the school come together as one and have fun together then your a leader.
I would like to say no I don't elevate myself over others but honestly yes I do. I feel that if you try hard in life and make the right decisions compared to someone who doesn't try, skips school, and has no life lessons such as a job then yes you are better then that person because your going to go much farther in life and you try and want to succeed.
Sort of, I could've participated a lot more in previous years but I focused on my marks. I still showed my support at games, went to school events such as dances, relay for life, blue and white overnight, etc. This year I am becoming more involved with bomber buddies, me to we, as well as all the school events. I'm also going on the Kenya trip with D and would like to go on the Chicago art trip.
I think when your in a leadership class it makes you want to get more involved with the school so earlier years I may not have done everything i could for the school.
If you show respect then you'll get it in return. I think the grade nines should show us respect because we're welcoming them into our school and we've all been through it so its nothing new to us and there's nothing for them to be scared of.

Flagssss

For the flags assignment everyone participated and worked together really well. We all shared our ideas and did our own part by tracing our hands and then giving them to Alyssa to cut out. After that we all worked together to complete the flag.
I think we did this assignment to get to know each other by working with different people and seeing what ideas we could come up with, how creative we could get. A lot of the groups did similar things for there flags yet they all looked unique.

Leadership Song

Waving Flag - Young artists for Haiti http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB7L1BIDELc
I chose this song because he's sticking up for all the people that got hurt in Haiti. The lyrics in this song are inspirational and make people believe that everything will be okay. He's giving all the people a voice that didn't have one during this event. He gathered lots of different artists to show his support and raise money for Haiti which I think makes him a leader.

Thoughts on leadership

I'm really enjoying leadership! I think its a great class that we can all learn a lot of life skills from. We've got a good group of people and are all getting to know each other quite well!