Today was a great day for Shad Valley Carleton. To begin,
after the usual quotidian Shad News and Shad Blogging committee updates, we had
an inspiring lecture from a familiar face: Al Pilcher. In this talk he focused
on the determination and the perception of life by providing the example of a
father who took his disabled son on many sports ventures. It certainly was
eye-opening and poignant when we saw the perseverance and dedication of the
father.
Next we proceeded to committee time where we worked in our
respective committees: being in the blogging committee, we spend the hour and a
half covering all the Shad Speaks that were done in the past weeks and finished
just barely.
Afterward, we went to the Architecture Pit for some relaxing
yoga. For some of us it wasn't as relaxing since our bodies weren't nearly
flexible enough to do some of the poses. We could all agree, however, that the
corpse pose (lying down on the ground) was the most relaxing since it provided
us with the opportunity to catch up on lost sleep.
We had a setup for Open Day after lunch where we began to
prepare for the arrival of parents, lecturers, etc. to view the Shad Valley
Carleton work. The theme this year was deemed "Journey through the Shad
Body" where different rooms of Prescott were assigned different body
parts. For example, I am currently sitting in the study lounge, which is the
eyes of Shad Valley Carleton. My group worked on a Rube Goldberg machine, and
quite frankly, it is much harder than it looks.
So we then listened to a lecture by Sam Dube and Dr. Kate
Oakley, which was a great lecture closing. Talking about goal setting and
speaking on motivation, Sam certainly has inspired us with his talks. Kate
talked about her artwork, which was beautiful, full of meaning, and simply
amazing.
We then had to clean up our rooms, which was a difficult
task to do, not only because they were so messy, but because none of us wanted
to leave. But the rooms ended up tidy, and after some House time, where Yellow
House shared some honest and true feelings, we went to the Architecture Pit for
a Late Night hosted by Blue House. It was in the theme of a campfire and we
watched slide-shows of our memories here at Shad Valley.
Needless to say, today was both the saddest day of Shad Valley
so far, and the happiest. Let's make the best out of tomorrow Shad Valley Carleton.
Andy Xia, Shad Valley
Carleton 2012
You can discover what students experience day-to-day in their own words by following our Shad Valley daily student blog. From July 2 to July 27, participants from our 10 university campuses across Canada share how the program unfolds. The blog offers a unique look into the inspiring nature of the program and the activities that take place throughout the month.
