Teen Ranch

Jhazel                             Wednesday, November 13, 2013

 Ms.Babb

                   Teen Ranch, the Highlight of My Year

                "We all take different paths in life, but no matter where we go, we take a little of each other everywhere." This is the quote I think about when I think of Teen Ranch or anywhere just in general. Where ever I go, I make myself feel comfortable no matter what.  All my experiences with horseback riding, cabin life, and the bonfire, I made myself feel comfortable. It's easy to get comfortable at Teen Ranch. Teen Ranch was definitely the highlight of my Grade 7 school year.

The first thing that I want to talk about is our cabin. Our cabin was the Dunn Room which had Prestine, Azia, Asia-Marie, Dakari, Dianne, Makayla, Praveena, and me in it. Out of all of us, I was the loudest and I'm not ashamed because I'd rather be loud than be quiet, like Makayla. She was the quietest probably because we were acting differently than she's used to. I mean we weren't acting badly or anything but she wasn't used to what we did. Throughout the week though, she got more comfortable and started talking more.  We also made her feel comfortable around us by talking, looking around the Coach House, taking pictures altogether (obviously before the teachers took our phones), and by telling stories and laughing at them. We all talked a lot at night which made us wake up a bit late in the morning. 6 of us got ready quick and on time while 2 others got ready slowly and a ended up bit tardy. While we got ready, we talked about the dreams we had and my favourite one out of them all was Asia-Marie's. Apparently she was running away from the police because they thought she was mental and she had to keep running faster because the police was catching up to her which caused her to breathe/ pant really loud or heavily not only in her dream, but in real life (which woke me up)!

The second thing that I want to talk about is the bonfire, which was probably my third favourite activity out of the other two. On the way to the bonfire, it was really dark and scary so the guys decided to hide behind the trees and jump out and scare us. Mr.Leitmann did, too. He pretended that he was Slenderman and hid behind trees and scared us. I actually didn't see him scare the other people because I was on the other side of where he was but by the sounds of the screams, I'm guessing it was pretty scary. When we finally reached the bonfire area, we sat down and waited until Mr.Leitmann started the fire. Once the fire was ready to roast food with, almost everyone got hotdogs and roasted the hotdogs by the fire. Eventually, the fire went out because of how close people were putting the hotdogs to the fire, but after a while we stopped putting the hotdogs too close and the fire never went out. I didn't roast any hotdogs so when the teachers said "Time to roast marshmallows!" I literally ran into the line. Mr.Leitmann gave me two marshmallows and I went straight to the fire to roast them. My marshmallow got burnt but it still tasted good. The smoke was the worst part of it because it kept getting into my eyes which made me tear really badly but I got a treat in the end either way!

The last thing I want to talk about is horseback riding! My horses name was Rosie and she was so adorable and sweet! She had brown hair and a blonde tail. She was really tall, which was okay with me because I like tall horses.  Agatha taught us how to ride horses which is another reason why I didn't fall off Rosie. It was pretty easy to control/guide the horses, but I really don't like when they stop for grass, water or apples. Especially when we were in the fields! Although Rosie didn't really go down to eat, she did stop whenever she had to pee or poo which is disgusting because the poo smells really bad and it's really gross when you watch them poo. When I was riding Rosie, nothing bad really happened to me, but I did get scared when we went trotting. I'm lucky nothing happened to me, but Azia on the other hand… her horse sort of went crazy and ran up the hill where there were bare naked branches! I was really worried for her but she told us that she was fine. Other than that, horseback riding was such a thrill for me.

Teen Ranch, probably out of most trips, is my favourite trip of the school year. Although Teen Ranch was the only trip I've went on so far, I feel like it will be my favourite trip for the whole school year, my lifetime maybe! Horseback riding will always be my favourite part of Teen Ranch because of how nice the horses were to me and how Rosie was really sweet. The bonfire is something I will probably remember annually because it's the first bonfire I've ever had with the students in my grade, and I'll NEVER forget when Asia-Marie was breathing so hard in her dream, that it woke all us up! "One travels more usefully when alone, because one reflects more."