Skating

The third activity that the 8HVW OEE class did was skating at the Killarney Community Centre. The focus was on learning and improving everyone's individual skating skill. People could skate casually or they could play ice hockey on the other side of the rink. Most people did a mixture of both, and had fun doing it.

This was possibly the best OEE activity that I have done all year, because I learned the most. Prior to the 3 ice skating sessions, I had only played ice hockey once in my life. After the 3 sessions, I had become almost impossibly better, being able to finally skate and shoot the puck at the same time, which is something that I used to think was incredibly hard to do. I also learned how to quickly change directions while skating, which came in handy while I was playing hockey, mostly during breakaways and defense.

During the skating sessions, the part of the IB Learner Profile that I showed the most was being caring. I would often help people at becoming better skaters, and helping them when they fell down.

"A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be."
-Wayne Gretzky  

Indoor Rock Climbing

After the three sailing sessions were finished, indoor rock climbing was next on the list. The class went rock climbing 3 times at the Cliffhanger facility in Vancouver. Everyone tried various walls, and some had greater success than others. People were given the challenge of doing colour routes instead of just "rainbow-ing" the wall. The walls ranged from an easy 5.6 to an extremely challenging 5.12.

This was not the first time that I had been rock climbing, but the facility was certainly the largest and best that I have been in so far. I managed to complete two 5.9 colour routes, which was a fairly impressive achievement for me. I tried as many walls as I could, and I also tried bouldering. It was a good learning experience for me, and I got to improve my climbing immensely by trying out the more challenging routes and walls.

During the 3 rock climbing sessions, I learned to be a bigger risk-talker. This was because it was necessary for me to take some risks when I had to make a decision on how I would climb the wall, and sometimes neither option was an easy one.

"I love climbing because it feels so good when I stop..."
-Karl Baba

Sailing

At the beginning of the year, the 8HVW OEE group went sailing at Jericho beach three times. The first sailing day was mostly just an opportunity to get acquainted with the instructors and learn some basic sailing skills. On day two, there was a greater focus on the skills needed to successfully sail the sailboat, and many more skills were learned, as well as new information about the sailboat, wind direction and sailing direction. On the third and final day, several groups capsized their boats and practiced getting back in properly.

This was the first time that I have gone sailing. It was a good experience for me and I learned a lot about the topic of sailing. The most memorable moment I had was probably the time when I somehow managed to fall out of my group's sailboat and get completely soaked in the process. Looking back, sailing was a very fun thing to do.

Over the course of the 3 sailing sessions, the attribute that I would say I have developed most is the skill of being a Communicator. I say this because while I was on the sailboat, I had to communicate with others in order to steer and control the ship, since it was not a one-man job. 

"He enters the port with a full sail."
-Virgil