James Blog #1

I am James Manning, this is my third time/year attending a SOAR program. This is my first time attending a semester at Academy, but the past two summers I attended the Academic Discovery program. My second time attending A.D. I was took part in being I.L.S. Or Intensive Leadership Seminar. This is basically SOAR,s version of a Junior Counselor or Instructor. I helped my instructors and teammates through out the semester doing anything I could to learn and improve my leadership skills. I feel personally that I am a natural leader. However I am not the best leader.

My goal this semester at Academy is/was to improve my leadership skills to help be a asset to my team. It at times is rough and very straight up stern, but I am hoping to improve my ability to communicate properly with my teammates to help better our experience. I saw my leadership ability fail over this past expedition when I had a turn as “Yoda” one of the many roles we have in our group that we trade off to make sure work and jobs are fairly distributed. Yoda's job/ role is to be the leader of the team and basically be another instructor. He/she also sets time goals and makes sure the group is doing the necessary things. I figured when I was Yoda it would be difficult to be a leader seeing as though I am the youngest of the entire group. I was not detoured by the challenge, rather I welcomed it. As my second time being Yoda, I felt I messed up and wasn’t a huge help to the team and realized I made mistakes. During my turn as Yoda and I took time to evaluate myself and decide what I needed to work on. I also took time to observe my peers and how they handled the role.

 Most everyone here is very experienced in anything we do as they have all been here for the past semester and this is my first semester. Two of my teammates I look up to and admire as a role model are Zach (Tüd, pronounced “Tod”) and Harrison. They both are incredibly hardworking and great leaders when they try their best to do what they want. Harrison may have difficulties sometime maintaining his amazing status, but I  understand we all have the times when we cant stay amazing. I still will look up to him as a great friend and help him when possible as well as learn from him about anything.

 Zach is another story, he's been going to SOAR for a couple of years and is very experienced in almost everything we do. He's a great friend and a great role model. Him and I get along very well. He can usually always maintain his composure and work towards the big goal and help his teammates get there. He's a great asset to our team and I hope I can be as good of a leader as him.

During our expedition I got to be Yoda again and we had the best day on the “ex”.It was the fastest morning. We got ready to leave;the longest and fastest distance we went It was altogether a happy day, and it was the last day so we were getting out of the Everglades! I would say even though I was Yoda, Harrison and Zach were the two biggest reasons I was able to be a good leader, as they were helping me the entire day and helping by listening and being another great example besides me. They also were great co leaders and if we weren’t all working together I don’t think that day would have went the way it did, perfectly.

This was only my personal experience of how my team is and a brief history of me. I feel this will be my best yet, even though we have our difficulties as every team does.

Griffin - My Typewriter

Griffin O’Connor

Blog Post

                                                                 My Typewriter

            So the other day I found myself thinking and reminiscing about different things, and suddenly I remembered something, and it struck me as funny that I hadn’t thought about it since I had been home. Do you ever, in the midst of daydreaming, suddenly remember some aspect of your life that you just haven’t ever thought back to? I don’t mean things like “Oh no, I forgot to feed the dog this morning”, or “I just remembered that I have a dentist’s appointment on Tuesday”, but something more like “Hey, I didn’t I used to have a favorite stuffed animal?” or “Wait a minute, don’t I own a bicycle?” Normally, you won’t really think too much of the fact that this has managed to slip your mind for a few years because it will make sense that you forgot about it. Maybe, instead of a favorite stuffed animal, it was just another toy, and when you realize that you owned it as a kid, it won’t be surprising that you haven’t thought about it in 5 years because you rarely ever thought about when you were a kid. But every now and then, you remember something that used to be important or prominent to you a while ago, but until just a moment ago had disappeared from your thoughts. One of several times that this has happened to me was a couple of years ago, when I suddenly recalled that about 3-4 years ago I spent at least 3 months taking tennis lessons. The fact that this happened had completely slipped my mind. I just never really played or even thought about tennis after that, and so my mind never really revisited this. This is sort of what happened to me the other day when I was thinking about different things, when the thought just popped into my head that I own a typewriter! After this sudden, yet seemingly obvious realization, I was overcome with a feeling of nostalgia and excitement. It is one of my most prized possessions, but the thrill I felt is probably what it will feel like when I get home and see my dog again for the first time in 3 months, the feeling of seeing something familiar that is near and dear to your heart after being apart from it for a period of time. The entire time I have been here I haven’t thought for a second about it because it never was really relevant to any of my other thoughts at the time. If I were at home, I would see it every day and obsess over it and how beautiful I think it is. Finally I am getting to the point, which is to tell you the story of how I obtained this typewriter and why I love talking about it.

            It was the summer before last, and my dad had taken us on a road trip around the upper east coast. We were finally going back home, after spending our last day in Massachusetts, when I saw a local antique store in the town we had stopped in. I asked my dad if we could go in, since that had been one of the things I had wanted to do on this trip, and he said that we could stop in for a few minutes. Inside, the shop was rather small, but I quick look around told me that this was still a top-notch antique store, with a wide menagerie of interesting things. I began looking around at the different items, when I saw it. A beautiful typewriter, sitting on a table. I walked over, practically drooling over the keys. It was a wonderful machine, relatively small, compared to the other typewriters that would have been around in it’s time, but yet it still had lots of charm. I tested the keys, and they all worked perfectly. I hope that I can get something this nice when I’m older and have more money, I thought. Then, while I was admiring it, I noticed a little yellow circle on the corner of the case.

“$20”

I was dumbstruck. That couldn’t be the price! That was way too low for something that old! That was crazy! That was… in my budget. In a second I was up at the cash register, asking the man there if that price was correct. He walked over to the table and looked at it. Then he stood back, thought for a moment, and then said “Yeah, I guess.”

            I showed my dad and he was impressed by my find. I took it up to the register and paid for it, smiling the whole time. We put it in a box brought it back to the car. The entire ride back i was ecstatic, only thinking about how I had just gotten something so perfect for such a great price.

            When we got home, my dad and I did a little research, and found out a little bit about it. It was made in 1913, and it is so small because it was essentially the first laptop computer, being taken around places by reporters and the like. I’m not sure exactly how much it is worth, as there is a wide range of different prices that this model has gone for, but I can tell you this much: for $20, it was a steal.

Griffin's Blog 2014

Griffin O’Connor

2/10/14

Blog

I have so many different things that I have going on in my head on a given day. My brain constantly moves from one idea to another. My mind will focus on one thought and get caught up in it for a while, processing and forming it into coherency, but then after some time I will hit a wall, and all work on the idea gets put on hold while I move onto something else. The wall could be that I need to look up some information about something, or it may just be that I need to take a break for a bit. Sometimes I won’t even hit a wall, I will just move on because I was reminded of something else, and my brain will start down that path instead of continuing the one it’s on. Whatever the reason, eventually my mind will forget about the idea and start working on a new one, where the process starts all over again. Later, after some time, my head will revisit the original thought and obsess over it some more. Sometimes a hit the same wall as the first time, but usually I will be able to move on further with the thought after I have been able to take a break from it. I will work on it some more, developing the idea into something that is much further along than before. At this point I will have a set plan of what I want to do with the idea, how I will go about bringing into existence. Sadly though, most of my ideas die here. The plan will hit some unforeseen obstacle, and I will be stuck without a way to bring my idea into tangibility. Sometimes, however, I succeed in carrying out the plan, and my end result is exactly what I expected. It isn’t often that I am able to complete the cycle, (which I guess tells you something about my abilities to stay focused on one thing), but when I do, things turn out great, and I am always happy to show off the results. i love eating my toe jelly. i also eat babies for a mid night snack

Michael Powell

Recently I went to the Everglades. We stayed out there for six days. We started at Chokoloskee Bay. We then went six miles from Chokoloskee Bay to Lopez River Campground. From there we went eleven miles to the infamous Watson's Place. Edgar J. Watson lived there one-hundred years ago. He murdered fifty-seven men. The pool creeped me out there. From ther we went to Pavilion Key eight miles away. We had a blast! We looked for invasive species for science. Oh! By the way I am in charge of the Everglades section of the journey. From pavilion Key we went twelve, count em' twelve miles to Picnic Key. After that we went seven miles back up to Chokoloskeee Bay and out of the Glades. But, we had one more thing to do... SWIM WITH MANATEES! We arrived at River Ventures in Citrus County, Florida. We went in a van to Three Sisters Spring. We saw four manatees maybe more!!! Anyways stayyed tuned for more of our expeditions...

everglades blog by Tud

             Everglades Blog   BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBloooooop

 Bugs, sunburn, tanning, paddling, excessive singing, exotic conversations, and flubbery, blubbery manatees can pretty much sum up this entire expedition.

  We started our 6 day, everglades canoe expedition at Chocoloskee bay in everglades city. After we were all packed, regardless that it was windy and rainy, we set off on our journey into un known and un-charted territories.

  Our first day ( the rainy and windy day) we took on about 8 miles of our 43 mile trip through the Everglades battling wind, rain, tiredness, and exhaustion. But we sure did do it. And we did it good! This first day brought us to a campsite called Lopez River Camp ground where we spent exactly one night.

Second Day: Our second day couldn’t have been better, ( compared to the first that is) since the forecast decided to exclude the rain and wind and chose to be our friends by letting out the sun shine. Even though this day was an 11 mile paddling day, it was much easier to enjoy. The camp site we arrived to was called The Watsons Place which has a true story involving mystery and murder and a man by the name of Edgar J Watson, but I don’t have time to tell it unfortunately. On the bad side though, this site had the most bugs, so you can probably guess why we were efficient getting out of there.

Third Day: this third day was on we had been waiting for! We were headed to Pavilion key which was nothing less than a beach in paradise. It was mostly windy so the bugs were not bad at all, we saw and eclipse which was amazing, and we caught some sweet puffer fish. Also what made it more spectacular was that we got to stay 2 nights here since the next day was our break day.

Fifth Day: today we pulled out of Pavilion with sad faces but still with excitement because we had one more day, and then we were out of there. On this day we paddled 12 miles to a key called Picnic Key where we ran into a shark swimming out of a cove created by the key itself. We spent one night there, like the majority of our sites then the next day, headed back to Chocoloskee bay, which was a final 6 miles.

  I have personally done this expedition before and knew what we were going to do. But each even with this being the second time, I experienced new things that made all the difference between a good, and a bad expedition.

    

What I've Learned About Me (So Far) - Harrison Kight

Believe it or not, I’ve actually learned a lot about myself since I first got here on September 6, 2013. First, I have found out just how well I can handle frustrating situation. Sure, I still have my moments. (Everyone does, after all!) However, they do not occur nearly as often as they used to; and when they do, I can recover from them much more efficiently than before. Second, I have discovered how many people I can relate to with the same “issues” that I have. I’ve made lots of close friends here, and I know I’m good at making friends. Despite this, I did not know that they are very similar to myself in terms of mindsets and interests. This is a very cool fact, and I am happy to have them as friends, especially since I am “stuck” with them for the year! Also, I have unlocked many exceptional communication skills. I always figured that I was very talented at this. But when I improvised a full speech for a presentation on the fly at the end of last semester, I knew that there was something special about my speaking skills! Most importantly, I’m starting to get a clear picture on what field I want to work in when I become an adult. I still want to start out as a worker at the Apple Store Genius Bar, and I still hope to work as a software designer at the Apple headquarters in California. But when I arrived at the Academy, I realized that I also want to work as a nonprofit youth minister at home. My friends back in Charlotte, NC have affected me so much over the past few years that I want to follow the same path as them. If I did not come here, I wouldn’t have [easily] discovered this, or thought about how much I am capable of performing these skills at such a high level.

Jake's SOAR Blog

Jake Midgett       2/10/14     SOAR Blog

          Have you ever done something with someone else but get a different feeling? That’s what SOAR is like for me. SOAR is totally different from traditional schools. It’s different because every two weeks you go on an expedition somewhere in the U.S. and one of the expeditions that you go on is outside of the United States. There are multiple benefits to attend SOAR. One benefit is when you are on expeditions you are exposed to different kinds of cultures. Another benefit when at SOAR is that they teach you how to maintain a budget.