“Beep, beep, beep!” The dreaded sound of my alarm clock
filled my ears. At Shad Valley, every hour of sleep is precious and not
something that you can let go to waste. Every day is literally jam packed with
a plethora of fun and rewarding activities that are nonetheless tiring. Despite
the cumulative effect of these draining activities and my hate for early
mornings, I managed to drag myself out of bed with the anticipation of all the
exciting activities that lay ahead.
We are kept very busy and a quick glance at the schedule revealed
boxes upon boxes labeled “activity” or “lecture”. But as we tried to see if the
ink would give anything away about the nature of these activities, the generic
words only seemed to pop up and mock us. However, it is those pleasant
surprises that make a typical day at Shad Valley that much more exciting.
After starting off the day with an energizing and delicious
breakfast, we headed off to a pair of lectures. One was on number sets and the
other on archeology. In the latter, we were privileged with amazing pictures of
excavation sites and discovered how much archeology has revealed about our
history. After lunch, we had time to work on our house project after which we
were rewarded with extra recreational time coupled with a trip to the local
park. A variety of activities such as soccer, volleyball, basketball, Frisbee
and croquet were made available to us. To make things better, that was topped
off with a mouth-watering barbeque upon our return to the campus.
We had idea vetting today for our house project and so we
had more time to work on our house project before the big moment. When the time
came, we gathered around a panel of senior staff and shared our ideas. They
really challenged us to push ourselves in creating an innovative and practical
product that could stand on its own in the competitive market.
It is hard to believe that it was only one week ago from
today that we first woke up to the crisp Newfoundland air and began our journey
of crafting lifelong friendships and memories. In this one week, we've come a
long way in that journey and we’ll continue to grow in the weeks to come. With
the conclusion of another amazing day at Memorial University of Newfoundland, I
am happy to say that I had an awesome MUNday!!!
Jeremy Wong, Shad
Valley Memorial 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.
