Allie Naayer

End of the Season

November 25, 2022 / allienaayer / 0 Comments

As the weather has officially turned cold, the sailing season has also officially ended. Our team is closing up the compound gates until after the Christmas break! This also coincidently coincided with the ending of these blogs. For my final blog, I wanted to write about everything I feel I’ve learned over the last three months about sailing and journaling. So, here it goes.

Sailing

I started this sailing season with knowing absolutely zero about sailing or sailboats. However, overtime I got the opportunity to learn about how a sailboat works, and how sailing works. The sailboat glides through the water using two types of sails, which are called a main sail and a jib sail. The main sail controls the stern of the ship, whereas the jib controls the bow which maneuvers the ship. There is a tiller and rudder board, which are used for navigation. The tiller is control by a person called the skipper. The skipper not only controls the tiller and steering, but also the main sail. Other than the skipper, there is a person who controls the jib sail. This person is called a crew (my job!). A crew is also in charge of watching the water and any object or other boat in the way, as well as balance of the boat through body weight. The boat itself that our team used was called a 420 dinghy, a simple two-person boat that is excellent for learning on.

Other than the boat itself, I also learned about wind direction and the difference of sailing wind creates. There are different ways your boat could be hitting the wind, and each way differs how your sail are. If your boat is heading downwind, your sails need to be as far out as possible, in order to catch as much wind as needed. However, if you are heading upwind you want your sails to be as far in as possible, to cut through the wind and gain immense speed. Then, when a boat is in irons it means it is directly towards the wind and, usually, gaining almost no speed.

Other than wind direction, my team went over so many different drills and maneuvers. Here are a couple drills I had the opportunity of learning with my team. First off, tacking. One of the most basic maneuvers within sailing. It simply is switching directions. To do this, the skipper must switch the main sail while the crew switches the jib. While this happens, both must move to the other side of the boat in order to keep it upright on the water. This skill then progressed to a rolling tack, which involves tipping the boat as far as possible, tacking, and moving to the opposite side of the boat. This causes more speed to be gained, similar to an acceleration drill. An acceleration drill is a rolling tack without tacking. It gains speed while going the same direction you were going in before. Not a single one of these things did I know about before stepping foot into these sail boats, but I think they are all so fun to learn!

Journaling

I thought I would reflect on my journey of blogging so far, and how it affected my learning process. Honestly, I think being able to blog about my learning allowed me to process, understand, and grasp my learning so much better. Every week, I took time to sit down and write about my learning. This gave me a chance to reflect and put into words how I felt while learning, and what it meant to me, instead of brushing it off and moving on. Not only did it help me process after the learning took place, but I also noticed myself thinking about what I was learning as I was in sailing practice. I constantly found myself think “I have to add this into my blog!’. Overall, it was such a nice change of pace in learning to be able to simply reflect on learning.

And with that I close off this blog for the time being! I hope it inspired you to get out and try new things, especially if that new thing involves the ocean!

Ocean and beach view, with scattered drift wood. — one of my favourite photos I took by the water

Weekly Reflection 10 – Canva Learning Lab

November 22, 2022 / allienaayer / 0 Comments

Our class was transferred into a zoom class this past week, and we had a couple options of different things we could do. Out of these options, I chose to do a learning lab on canva (https://www.canva.com/). Canva is a design tool that can be used for so many different purposes, and has templates as well as the freedom of changing things to your liking. I have used canva a few times for projects in high school, and a little bit here and there in university, but nothing crazy. I was super curious about how canva could be utilized as a teacher to benefit classroom management and assist in teaching.

In the learning lab, it showcased different steps in creating posters, brochures, and more on canva. This allowed me to relearn some aspects I forgot canva had, as well as see some new things I hadn’t known before. After this, I got to watch a YouTube video that showed how to create your own ‘virtual classroom’. At first, I was intrigued to see what a virtual classroom could do to assist in a class. I decided to look at some other resources to explain why they use virtual classrooms, and I found some great websites. For example, one stated that these have “taken the education community by storm”, and how they can be used as learning hubs (https://www.edutopia.org/article/educators-turn-bitmoji-build-community-and-engagement/). Other websites also discuss how it can allow students to feel more connected when logging in from home, or can be used as a fun and engaging start to the morning in class. It is essentially a way to deliver information to students that is easy, and fun!

I got to work on my own version of a ‘virtual classroom’, after watching the tutorial in the YouTube video given to us. I tried to incorporate different areas for text, like the main chalk board as well as the side panels. This could eventually be used for presenting information, or links embedded to other pages. I also wanted it to reflect my values and myself in a way that I like! So, I tried to incorporate plants and things with outdoor elements. I didn’t fill all the shelves, for I couldn’t fully figure out what I wanted to do with them. So if anyone has anymore ideas, feel free to comment them down below!

A virtual classroom, with a chalkboard in the middle. It includes a couch, teacher's desk, plants, and shelfs containing books and pens. — My virtual classroom I created using Canva!

I think this is a super engaging tool, and can be changed and edited so easily on the fly during school. Overall, I believe students would love to have this as a start to the mornings, I know I would’ve as a kid!

I’m excited to see other ways that canva can be used for teachers, and potentially use it within my future classroom!

Weekly Reflection 9 – Gamification and Indigenous Pedagogy in the Classroom

November 18, 2022 / allienaayer / 1 Comment

Tina O’Keefe zoomed into our educational technology class this past week, and discussed some aspects of gamification within the classroom. Following this, we played around with a website called ‘Hour of Code’. We were also able to discuss the implication of Indigenous pedagogy in the classroom, which was based around the question of “how do we embed authentically and with care?”. Through this blog, I will discuss both of these topics and what they mean to me, as well as how I think they could be useful in a future classroom and school.

Gamification

I think the idea of gamification within a classroom can be super beneficial in today’s society, technology type games are rising in homes, which means it is in turn rising in classrooms. I loved being able to understand the difference between gamification and gamified learning experiences. Here is what the article, Gamification and Game Based Learning, explains it: “In short, gamification applies game elements or a game framework to existing learning activities; game-based learning designs learning activities that are intrinsically game-like” (https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-resources/teaching-tips/educational-technologies/all/gamification-and-game-based-learning). Tina O’Keefe, who teaches high school, was able to show us how her google classrooms are set up, which were super interesting to see. She allows her students to essentially go through the class as they please, and all the classes are very accessible and include topics from all different forms of robotics to film. She also discussed and displayed some other resources she uses in her class, like google read and write, which I had never heard of before! Tina also explained about the increase of code in classrooms, and how she teaches it in her classes. She gave us some resources to use when teaching code and typing, like Nitro Type, Scratch, and Microbits.

I think both game-based learning and gamification can be used within certain contexts to create a more accessible and desired learning experience for students in all different grades. I also adored being able to learn about Minecraft within a class setting, since I used to play it as a kid with my siblings all the time! It allows for virtual trips, creation of their town or school, and so much more! I would the idea of allowing students to explore and design in a context like Minecraft in a way that encourages student engagement and also aligns very well with the new BC curriculum!

Hour of Code

We got some time to play around with the website called Hour of Code, and see how it would work for students in learning basic coding. I’ve linked the website here: https://hourofcode.com/ca/learn. We were asked to choose a game which we think would target a certain grade category we are interested in. I decided to look for something around grade 3 or 4. I found a game called ‘Code Club’, and I decided to discuss it here as I think it was engaging and could be super beneficial in classrooms. It essentially has you create a character (by coding), then your character goes through different areas to collect badges after doing different coding tasks for your character, like designing a shirt or making a movie using your character. The instructions are super clear, and the type of coding is simple enough, but also pushes the idea of the base of how coding works.

Here’s what the ‘worlds’ in the game look like, take notice of how it uses scratch and python!

And here’s an example of what the coding side of things look like (including my little avatar I created)!

Overall, I think would be a great way to introduce some core concepts of coding, like what happens to ordered codes, and how each codes works off of each other, with still being fun and easy to understand. I think a grade three class would love this idea and way of learning! The website also links teacher notes to each game, which is also very beneficial.

Indigenous Pedagogy

Teaching and understanding of Indigenous knowledge was also brought up to further our understanding of how we can authentically teach it to our students. We were given the article, The Five R’s, which discusses how online learning can be a form of Indigenous learning. The article, https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Five-R%E2%80%99s-for-Indigenizing-Online-Learning%3A-A-of-Tessaro-Restoule/c8a720b0be9d4384cd41151e32fe9246ae022304, is a great source to understand how we can implement these ideas into our classroom and it’s online learning. I was interested in reading about all of the ‘R’s’ stating and how they come into play within Indigenous Pedagogy, but I resonated with ‘Relevance’. I know how relevant Indigenous knowledge and studies are to our society and school, but I was curious to hear about how the article would discuss online learning in this. It mentioned that Indigenous studies must ‘go beyond books’ (137). It discussed how utilizing an online format (with hands on activities and other forms that touched on the oral traditions of the Indigenous peoples) is important to create a space that is relevant to everyday use of the principles, instead of just books and theory. Overall, the article had a great way of informing the idea of how online education shouldn’t be far from Indigenous Pedagogy, and how it can be implemented.

Educational Technology Presentation

November 17, 2022 / allienaayer / 0 Comments

Child overlooking a garden and taking a photo of flowers on a smartphone. — Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Embedded below in this blog is our Educational Technology Presentation, which was created by Lexi, Jo, Kari, and myself about the use of technology to advance outdoor learning. Our inquiry question was “How can Educators engage students with the outdoor environment through the use of technology?”, which I found very interesting and had a lot of viable and accessible resources. We believe outdoor education is important in so many ways in the classroom, and with the rise of technology at home and in schools it is crucial (and much more engaging to some!) if we embed technological aspects into outdoor ed. In this presentation, we discussed the pros, cons, and risks of this as well, which included cost of technology, being able to present information without ruining habitats, access to technology, and more. After this, we researched some interesting websites and apps that could be used in a classroom, like different identification apps, and some competition and findings websites. In the video, we were able to showcase each website we found and how it can relate to students learning. We incorporated some other lesson plans we researched and thought of into this project as well, which are all free and as accessible as possible. Another interesting aspect of this was how relatable and intertwined this topic is with Indigenous Education. I believe by enabling students access to learning about this topic through experience in the natural world is key to bettering the understanding they have. Overall, I loved being able to learn more about this topic which I am passionate about, and how it can be accessible within my future pedagogies. I hope this video is beneficial for everyone else’s learning in regards to creating outdoor education and the coexistence of technology.

Rudder Board and Tiller

November 15, 2022 / allienaayer / 1 Comment

Washington and California hosted two amazing regattas this past weekend, both with excellent wind and sun! My team was headed to Washington, and the race team to California. However, since it was reading break I was back visiting my family in my hometown, so I had to miss it. Luckily, I was able to see some pictures and it looked like it went great!

Instead of going to the practice of the week, since we didn’t have one, I decided to discuss in this blog my findings about how the boat maneuvers the water, as well as what I’ve learned so far about sailing and myself.

Parts of the Boat

I took this picture, which I’ve attached down below, and it showcases two major parts of our sailboats. The bottom one is a tiller, the one that has a slim stick component, and the top is the rudder board. In the image, the blue bag is a ‘sail bag’, which is pretty straight forward and it is the bag for our sails. These are called the rudder board and the tiller. In order for the boat to be steered, both of these get attached to the back of the 420. The tiller comes up to the boat, which acts as a sort of steering tool. The rudder board stays placed in the water, and is what moves to steer the boat. This board is always a flat smooth surface in order to glide the boat through the water. Without these two parts of the boat, it wouldn’t be possible to navigate the boat in any way while sailing. It is crucial that these are also set up in a correct manner, so guidance while doing it for your first time is necessary! Once on the water, the skipper can move the tiller to move the rudder board around. When the tiller moves left, the boat goes rights. When the tiller moves right, the boat goes left. This can be confusing at first, but it makes sense if you imagine water hitting the rudder board at certain angles.

A sailboat rudderboard and tiller lying in the grass. — Rudder Board and Tiller

What I’ve Learned So Far

If you asked me what I was learning while taking on the challenge of sailing, I would probably chatter on about some sailing terms and maneuvers I’ve learned over the last few months. Maybe I would talk about rolling tacks, or how to accelerate on a 420 sail boat, but I decided to challenge myself to think about what I’ve learned about myself.

I’ve learned how I handle certain types of stress, how my body recharges after being outside, and how important learning is to me. First off, sailing in certain weather conditions, or with intense drills can cause the risk of capsizing to increase. This in turn creates stress for both the skipper and crew, however, this stress is good stress. It pushes me to learn how to do certain maneuvers better, while managing the stressed feeling. Sailing also gave my body an outlet to get outside for a period of time, which has proven to be super important to my recharge. After sailing, I may feel exhausted, but it’s a good exhausted! Finally, sailing has made me realize how much I enjoy learning things I feel passionate about, and like doing. In the last little while, I’ve felt detached to a lot of my studies, and felt as if I don’t feel passionate or excited about materials I am learning. However, sailing reminded me how much I desire to learn, especially on the water!

Sailing may take time, patience, and a lot of courage, but it’s given me so many skills that can translate to my personal life.

Weekly Reflection 8 – Innovation in Education

November 9, 2022 / allienaayer / 0 Comments

Innovation within classrooms and education has always been something interesting to me, and I loved being able to hear about a school which is putting some of these ideas into practice. Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry (PSII) was created by Jeff Hopkins to allow students to love learning without a ‘proper’ classroom. We also were able to discuss the ideas of blended, online, and multimedia education, which allowed us to see pros and cons to both sides.

PSII

Learning about PSII from the person who created it and knows it best, Jeff Hopkins, was a very cool experience. Jeff was passionate about what he does, and it showed through the way he discussed PSII. A school like PSII, that focuses on being unlike the mainstream school districts, is honestly what I see a lot of our future schools leaning towards. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think every school in the next five years are going to suddenly stop having blocks and structure, but I think aspects of schools like PSII will creep in. PSII utilizes many different ways of learning that can help students who work better in a non-mainstream class. For example, they have two main areas for work and collaboration. One area is set up in a way that students may converse, kind of similar to a coffee shop. The other is an area that is a quiet zone, in which you could hear a pin drop. Students aren’t forced or told to go to one room or the other, but simply given the freedom to go where they need in that moment. This model of schooling allows for learners to not only feel more in control of what they do, but also enables them to learn in a way that works for them. On PSII’s website, which I’ve linked here: https://learningstorm.org/who-is-psii-for/, it states that it isn’t “an alternative school or a “special ed” school, or a correspondence school, or a vocational school”, but that it aims to “serve learners of all kinds”. Even for a private school, PSII does not cost an arm and an leg, which leaves it open ended for learners of all backgrounds and income. This aspect of the school is so important in building a positive community of all kinds of learners. Learners in a school like this follow an inquiry project, which can range from writing a novel to animation and everything in between! This project guides them into different areas of learning.

Online Learning

After being able to hear from Jeff Hopkins about his experiences with the school, the class discussed our experiences with remote learning. Overall, a majority of my online learning experience was through COVID. My teachers, other staff, and us students were underprepared for this remote learning to start. Therefore, it wasn’t my favourite experience. I also felt as if I just simply didn’t learn as well online. I was constantly distracted, bored, or confused. Our assignments felt pointless and online classes felt even more pointless. However, once entering university, I took one online asynchronous class in my first semester, and more later on. This class was amazing! I learned so much, and was able to grasp content easily. I think having a class where I could take my time learning at my own pace was perfect with my increasingly busy life. So, taking both these experiences I learned a lot about blended and remote learning. First off, I learned how important having strategies to counteract the feelings of boredom, lostness, and more are when doing an online class. Also, how good a balance is with in person and online, personally. I loved having a good mix, I could work at my own pace alone, but I was also able to interact with others about my findings and thoughts, I think another main component to online classes is the course site used. It should be accessible, and easy to use. If it isn’t, there should be easy-to-access instructional videos in place for the use of the website or online classroom. This doesn’t only help the student, but also any parents who want to navigate the course site as well.

Learning is very dependent on the individual and how they find learning works best for them. This could be a traditional classroom, a school like PSII, online learning, blended, or asynchronous. Whatever it ends up being, it should be a space where the students feels welcomed and able to learn in a way that suits them.

Tipping the Boat

November 9, 2022 / allienaayer / 2 Comments

Sunday morning I woke up and looked outside to the scattering of branches and leaves across the roads and our backyards, the wind of the night before had created so much chaos it seemed! Not only that, but it seemed to still be howling. I knew right away that sailing that day was probably not going to happen, which made me so upset! My coach texted us all and warned us of the wind, and the chance of sailing being impossible, or dangerous. The knots were looking as high as 25 and 30, which is insanely fast. Therefore, I didn’t know if I would be sailing that day until an hour before when all of a sudden the sky looked beautiful and the wind slowed down to barely 8 knots! We rushed down to the beach, where a few of our teammates gathered, and we started rigging the boats. At first, there were so few of us who made it to practice that I assumed we would just cancel, but our coach told us it was just a better learning opportunity for one on one help! She was totally right, and we headed out to the ocean.

The ocean was freezing. My feet felt like icicles as we tried to remove the dolly from underneath the boat and hop in. After we managed to get in, my feet never warmed up. I guess this is why proper sailing gear is so important! Besides this, we had so much fun out on the water! We focused on two new skills of the day, roll tacking and acceleration.

Roll Tacking

Roll tacking is basically a tack that involves more movement within the boat, which can cause more speed for the boat. It may be more tricky than a regular tack, but it has much better speed momentum. This can be super important within a race. Doing a rolling tack essentially allows for less use of the rudder, which can give a nice push to the boat. How you roll tack is all in the movement of body weight. It acts as a normal tack in regard to how you maneuver both the main sail and the jib, but in order to make it a rolling tack you need to have both the crew and skipper fully leaning towards one side before tipping the boat back flat. Here are some more detailed steps to roll tacking:

Sail close-hauled
Heel to leeward and start heading up
Sail should luff as you enter irons
Roll boat to windward
Boom will cross and sail should be on new tack
Cross the boat and hike it flat

These may not make sense, as it uses a lot of sailing lingo, however, it is essentially switching the sails to the other side of the boat by almost tipping the boat, and then tipping it abruptly back. At first, I was scared of starting rolling tacks, as they mean the boat must be tipped further into the water than I’ve ever been, but it was so fun once I got the hang of it! Our coach was able to give us guidance throughout learning it, which was super helpful.

Acceleration

The final thing we discussed and learned today was how to accelerate in the sail boat. This required similar movements to roll tacking, but didn’t mean flipping the sails. So, it essentially just involves as bearing off, and tilting the boat as far as possible, then flipping it up as fast as possible. This skill was easier after learning how to roll tack, and was also fun! To show us just how far we could tip our boat before it capsizes, our coach came into our boat and tipped it as close to the water as she could (I know scary right!), but she was correct in saying that the boat can be flipped so far before capsizing! As long as the rudder board doesn’t go parallel to the water, it’s all good! So, we kept trying to see how far we could tip our boat, and how fast we could accelerate it. Key skills like this are exactly what I love learning, so it was so nice to be able to get out on the water and learn them.

Overall, the day was filled with being able to learn new skills, even though they may have scared me at first!

Here’s a photo of the boat I got to sail this weekend (not rigged yet, don’t worry we put sails on it!), and the gorgeous sun that came out right as we were able to leave!

A 420 sail boat before it gets rigged with sails, while the sun is shining down from very blue skies. — A photo I took of our boat!

Weekly Reflection 7 – Accessibility

November 3, 2022 / allienaayer / 1 Comment

This past week, we had the opportunity to listen to Tracy Humphreys speak about the opportunities that BCEdAccess gives to students. It was very informational being able to hear the different aspects of creating an inclusive space for students of all needs. At the beginning of the presentation, Tracy handed out different coloured sticky notes to each of us. She then proceeded to ask the students with certain coloured sticky notes to leave the class, since she wouldn’t have the resources or ability to present to all of us. She used this as an example of what happens in real world classrooms where some teachers either aren’t able to, or don’t have to resources to teach students with IEP’s. During the presentation, and the class afterwards, there were three main things I thought of or learned.

First off, Tracy gave a great explanation about what BCEdAccess can do for students, teachers, and families supporting someone with disabilities or complex learning all throughout British Columbia. The group’s goal is to be able to support people in order to allow students with complex needs and learning to succeed and reach their full potential in the BC school system. They have resources for many people, and also do presentations and conferences all over the province. Another thing they work towards to being in communication with many different politics in order to implement better regulations for the community regarding complex learners. I was looking at the BCEdAccess page, and it has a lot of letters of advocacy linked for viewing, so if you would like to take a lot at it I have linked it here: https://bcedaccess.com/letters-of-advocacy/

Secondly, I learned about how important having and using IEP’s are, and other resources to identify how to assist students in the best way possible for them. IEP’s are Individualized Education Plans, which are essentially files that indicate certain needs or information for a few students within a class. This can be a range of things from use of manipulatives, to relationships with other students, and more. Every one of our teachers have said that use of IEP’s are super important within a classroom, and in order to get the best experience of learnings for our learners. However, they also have stated how sometimes an IEP can have very minimal information for a variety of reasons. Another key way of understanding how you can assist a student in their learning is by simply asking them. A key phrase I think I love is “How can I help you have success in today’s learning?”, I think this allows an open space for students to explain their thoughts and best practices. Overall, it is key to give the student options in how they learn, and how they can have success in a classroom.

Finally, we discussed how important little things to us, like adding alternate text in our blogs, can make a huge difference in someone else’s life. People who are visually impaired can use devices and tools in order to get websites read to them, which can be very beneficially in their lives. However, without proper image alternate text, they are usually unable to know what images on a screen are indicating. It takes less than two minutes for us to be able to write up text on an image that’ll portray it correctly, but it could make our blogs and websites much more accessible to those who are visually unable to understand the image.

The community of BCEdAccess is such important in regulating the needs of students with disabilities, complex learners, and their families. This group is a huge support for people all over BC, and I am so blessed to be able to hear about all the good they are doing.

Sailing in Rainy Skies

November 1, 2022 / allienaayer / 7 Comments

Slowly as the days go on, it is harder to get myself out of the house and to sailing practice. It’s not that I don’t want to go, but it is the weather. When we first started sailing as a team, it was always sunny skies and t-shirts and shorts weather. Being on the water then was fun, and exciting. Now, it is rainy, cold, and cloudy. The rain makes me want to stay inside where it’s warm and dry, with a movie and a hot chocolate. However, weather will always be unpredictable and it can’t be the determining factor of whether I sail or not.

Our coach messaged us and let us know that if it was down-pouring, there would be no way we could sail. However, right as sailing was about to start, the skies slightly cleared and the rain slowed to just a sputter. So, we bundled up in warm clothes and headed to Cadboro Bay for another couple hours on the water.

Right when we got there, we discussed as a team the possibility of capsizing. If you’ve read my last posts, you might remember how capsizing is one of my biggest fears when it comes to sailing. I don’t ever want to be in the moment where I have to swim in the freezing ocean and attempt to flip my sailboat back right side up. We discussed what to do if we flip over, and then rigged up our boats in the rain.

The biggest thing I had to focus on this week to make tight tacks and be able to keep the boat on top of the water was my body positioning. Even though my skipper is the main balance of the boat when he shifts his body positioning, in weather like this I have to be super careful as well. If I shift to the wrong side, the wind will grab my sails and flip us over. So, I kept telling myself to focus on which side my sails were flipping to, either starboard or port, and to follow them. Luckily, this worked and my skipper and I never capsized our boat!

Looking back on this practice, I realized how important teamwork is within the boat. There was one moment about half way through practice that my skipper and I didn’t use proper communication to understand when we were tacking, so my skipper moved the main sail before I could rotate the jib in time. This caused not only an extremely slow tack, but also a capsizing scare. My heart was beating so fast, but after this we talked about how insanely important that teamwork and communication was. Then, we were able to focus on teamwork for the following tacks. This was extremely important to be reminded of, so I’m glad we as a team had this learning experience.

We may have gotten soaking wet and so cold, but overall we were able to learn how to navigate lousy weather as a team, and it was for sure a good practice!

A sailboat in the ocean underneath cloudy skies, with two people hanging out the side of the boat in lifejackets. — Some of my teammates tacking and attempting not to capsize! Taken by our teammate Dylan.

Taking Time for Community

October 27, 2022 / allienaayer / 0 Comments

To be honest, I was really struggling with writing this blog this week. I’m usually very good with gathering my thoughts and ideas about my time and putting them onto a page. However, this week I didn’t end up making it to sailing practice. Then, I had the biggest writer’s block about what to write in my sailing blog when I didn’t even sail.

At first, I wanted to justify why I didn’t go sailing in a way that sounded genuine and, honestly, not lazy. Then, I thought about how I should be authentic in this blog and real. I was feeling pretty burnt out last Sunday, and the weather was cold and wet, and my skipper wasn’t attending, and I overall wasn’t feeling like sailing. I wanted to tell myself to suck it up and go, but then I thought about how important my feelings were. I needed to read my body and take a day off, which I did.

However, during this day off I realized even though most of those excuses were true, it wasn’t the real main reason I didn’t go. The main reason was my roommates. They were all going to watch a movie and be together before starting off our busy week again, and I needed that. I needed them. I then and there realized how important taking time for my community is. Whether this means pushing some other priorities away, then be it. My roommates, friends, and family are my recharge. They give me energy and life. Even as simple as a movie night is, it is what recharges my battery and allows me to continue on for the rest of the week.

So that’s what I did. I watched a stupid movie with them, and ate popcorn. We just sat, watched, and laughed together. Something so meaningless, yet the main thing keeping me going. The little moments I get to share with my community and those I love. I thought I would share a few pictures of my roommates and I, which brings me so much comfort! They are seriously the most caring people I’ve ever met in my life, I could go on and on. For example, as I was writing this, one of my roommates made me hot chocolate “just ’cause”.

This blog may not be normal, or have anything to do with sailing, but it’s what I wanted to write about and that’s what this blog is truly for. It’s for growth, and learning. I learned how important my community is to my growth and I. So, that’s my thoughts of this week, and I encourage everyone to take a moment and thank those around you who have helped you recharge.