Beach clean-up, kayaking, concert, movies. Weekend.

Considering that I spent most of last week being sick and miserable, this weekend was surprisingly exciting and fun. I'll try to give you an idea of what a good weekend at Pearson can look like.

Friday afternoon my marine science class went to a nearby beach to do a beach-cleanup. The previous class we learned about the great garbage patch in the ocean, and about the effect which plastic and other garbage has on the marine life. So to actually see this in action, our teacher went with us on a beach clean-up. After an hour of picking of lots of small plastic parts, beer cans, plastic bags and other more random stuff such as a baseball, flip-flops, take-away food cartons from the water and the beach, I was both super wet and quite sick of humanity.If anyone is interested in reading more about what marine science at Pearson is about, my teacher has a blog where she occasionally posts pictures of what we do on field trips or of what happens at the Pearson dock.

 https://pearsoncollegemarinescience.wordpress.com/

Saturday and Sunday morning I participated in a kayaking course for beginners, held by second-year students in the kayaking activity. The first day we spent in the swimming pool learning how to do rescues, which was pretty cool. Sunday we learned further skills, this time we practiced them in the bay. It was definitely worth waking up 7:00 on a weekend, neglecting homework and wear a wet wet-suit for several hours both days, which I think says a lot. Kayaking is awesome.



Saturday I also went to a session about ttt (trauma tapping technique) led by a person from Rwanda, who is currently visiting some staff at the school. It is a technique that is used in many countries to help people that have experienced trauma, but it can be used by anyone to relax and just feel better. The person works with an organization called "Peaceful heart network" and has been travelling to a lot of places to teach this method.

More about that here: http://peacefulheart.se/trauma-tapping-technique/

Later that day I went to an Afro-Carib dinner at a teacher's house, my visit there was quite spontaneous and unplanned, but nonetheless very nice. Ice cream and good conversations are never really wrong. Later in the evening, the second-year theater students performed their show "Black milk", which was quite a special and intense piece they had all written together. The rest of the night I spent watching a German movie (Fack ju Goethe) and eating German candy, talking to people while hanging out in one of the day room and going to bed way too late.

Sunday afternoon Saana from Sudan, Catriona from Scotland and me went to a baroque concert together with my host family. I have been trying to take advantage of and go to a few of the cultural events that are being organized in places near Pearson, both because I love going to concerts and because it is a nice chance to connect with people outside of Pearson. After eating chocolate cake and getting a loaf of bread from my host family, they drove us back to Pearson where we ate dinner and went to our house meetings. Unsurprisingly, I went to bed quite early that evening. Tired but happy. That by the way describes quite a lot of my days at this place.