Blog 2- Norval

Yesterday, the whole Middle School went to a place called Norval somewhere near Toronto. The idea of the trip was to establish a larger sense community by doing activities that involved a lot of teamwork.
The activity that my team did the best at was the third activity we did, which was the one in which there was something like six platforms, with two people standing on each one. The point of this activity was to get yourself and your partner to another platform two platforms away from your own. The problem was that the only way to get yourself to your destination was to walk on a tight rope around a foot off the ground. The only things to help you get to the middle, in which there was some ropes for you to get to your new platforms, was a rope attached to the tree your platform was on that went about half of the way to the middle. Our group did very well at this activity because most of the people in my group had pretty good balance, and could make it a meter or two without a rope to hold on to. And with only a bit of confusion at the middle where all the ropes interlocked and people had to move around each other, we made it through this challenge in less than ten minutes.
The challenge our group had the most trouble with was the fourth challenge we did. It was the one where there was a six or seven meter high wooden pole with a tire at the bottom that we had to try to get off the pole without using any props. At the beginning we thought all we would have to do would be to just try to lift the tire off the pole by making a human pyramid and the person at the top would only have to take it off. The problem with that idea was that our pyramid wasn't tall enough. Then we tried two or three other ideas using the same concept, but none of them worked. So then, since we only had a few minutes left, we decided to put Jenny and Blayne on top of the tire, push the tire as far up the pole as we could and have them hang on to the top of the pole. Then we tried to pass them up the tire, but since they couldn't cling onto the pole and get the tire off it at the same time, that plan failed. Then we ran out of time, so we couldn't get the tire off the pole at all.
My overall impression of the day was that I really enjoyed everything there and would love to go back next year, but since there wasn't really any large activities, but instead many smaller ones, I think the trip is sadly forgettable. I mean, every day of your life you don't remember all the small things you did like what you did during recess or after school, that even though they were fun at the time, you would never be able to remember them in even just a few weeks.