Alpha Group Day 16

We were up at 6:30 this morning and did some interesting PT, with the leadership coming up with creative exercises such as a conga line and dancing, then honed our ultimate Frisbee skills. We had our breakfast at IKEA, then said our goodbyes to our Hong Kong students. They will be missed! We posed for a group picture, then loaded the Sprinters and began our journey east. Our destination? La belle Montreal.

Making a stop in Kingston, we had a hot dog lunch at Costco where we also bought enough food to tide us over for the next few days. After a few more hours of driving, we finally reached Billy’s friend Charlie’s house in Montreal. Upon arrival, we began our quick cleanup of the house. However, because of some complications in regards to cooking, we had a late, but still delectable, dinner of pasta and stir-fry.

We have a jam-packed day ahead of us tomorrow, so goodnight, and stay tuned for our next update!

Calvin

Today did not start out well for displaying my leadership skills. As a one of the older senior students I should have been more detailed and directed everything before leaving the HQ. I have also lectured two students because their behaviours have not changed. I will never have to adjust my attitude for those two to listen to me. Also I must be stricter on the cleaning and daily tasks. The children have seemed to improved very little since most of the time we spent in the camp. In the last few days at the Alpha program I will try my best to improve the childrens attitudes.

Jennifer

Hi everybody! Greetings from me, my assorted pasta, sore feet, aching head from here in Montreal, in good old Quebec—or as someone from my Alpha group termed it: ‘French territory!’

We said our goodbyes to our friends from Hong Kong—Tiffany, Ye Reem, Marco, and Mike. I actually only arrived at 8 in the evening July 14^th, so I had not spent as much time with them, but still, I wish them all the best!

If you remember my blog posts from the West Expedition a few years previous, thank you for reading, and hello again! As well, you’ll have to forgive me for the complete lack of description in my post as I did not sleep a wink last night. Kicks and snores, lights and a guest appearance by Edwin just before midnight kept me awake and just praying for morning to come. Now, at the after-dinner clean-up, I’m just praying for them to go to sleep, go to sleep, please go to sleep. However, it seems that tonight will be another long haul.

We began the day with a light PT, then a Frisbee was brought out and we played for a while until… the fire ants attacked. I think the sleep deprivation may be getting to me; ignore my gratuitous Avatar: the Last Airbender fandom reference. Am I funny yet?

We had breakfast altogether at IKEA where we calmly discussed the impending zombie invasion over sausages and eggs. Imagine the incredulous expressions on the employees’ faces when we ordered and walked away with 25 IKEA breakfasts.

The rest of the day was spent mostly on the car besides the occasional rest stops.

We bought our lunch of hot dogs and fries at Costco (in Kingston, Ontario) as well as our meals for the next few days while we’re here in Montreal. I enjoyed our time in Costco, strangely enough. On my epic journey to find sliced cheddar cheese, I discovered that the rosbif and the ‘Kirkland’s’ logos fill me with a strange sense of nostalgia and greatly tickles my muse. And in the end, I discovered that Costco does not, indeed, have sliced cheddar cheese, but they offer a great selection of Swiss and Brie. Hrm. I must file this away for future reference.

After lunch, and stocking up on provisions, we were on the road again. Perhaps it was the sense of nostalgia still permeating my thoughts, or a sort of increased awareness due to my lack of sleep, but the sky, as we were driving along, looked absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. It was like dusty, periwinkle pastel, E major scale skies with swirls of white nacre clouds as hard, and as soft, as its origin of mother-of-pearl.

Charlie, Billy’s friend, was kind enough to allow us use of his house. Thank you, Charlie! It’s greatly appreciated! And speaking of appreciation, thank you for all of your help, Raymond, for rescuing our ‘assorted pasta’ from sticking to pots and saving our stir-fry from a bloody end. It took us quite a while to clean up and acquaint ourselves with the appliances. As of such, we had a very late dinner. And so, here we are, grouped around the table now. Thankfully, most everyone is asleep, or will be sleeping soon.

So night, everybody! You should be sleeping by now or else your sleep cycles will be, shall we say, “greatly disrupted!”

P.S. Mom, it’s been bugging me for the entire day, but I finally remembered! The book is called “Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos.” And I really honestly appreciate your cooking skills and how you can time things perfectly. So I am publicly announcing that I will be more considerate of meal times, so as not to mess up your timing of the cooking. Promise!

Alexandra

Today is day 16. For breakfast, we went to IKEA!!! It was so good!!! We also did P.T. It was tiring, we went from Edwin to Alaster, the Edwin to Alaster. It was reminded me of school, when I had to that, but in inning, Like the beep test. Then we said goodbye to the hong kong students, it was so sad and heartbreaking. We gave them hugs, and a big group hug. Then we took 6 hours on the sprinter to drive to Montreal. I was so bored but I talked to Edwin. I met him and he is cool and nice. We arrived at Montreal and unpacked. The place was really nice. For dinner, we have spaggatti. I bet that it would taste really good. P.S, tomorrow were visiting Montreal cities (downtown).

Howard

My morning started as my alarm rang and I looked at James’s pissed off face. Before I annoyed anyone else, I shut off my alarm. That was how my morning started before I’m fell asleep again. Eventually, I woke up again at the normal time. To wake us up, we had a small P.T. that involved a lot of walking. After the quick exercise, that felt like it was designed at the last minute. We went to Ikea for breakfast. And then… after a few final goodbyes, the hong kong students left. I’m so sad! I already miss them… I almost feel like crying. I miss all of them, Marco… Mike… Yereem… Tiffany… oh, and Geoffrey too. After they left, we had a long car ride. After 15 days of excitement, the 4 ½ hour ride was boring.

Kendra

Today was day 16. All we did was drive most of the time. For breakfast we had food IKEA. It was very good. Also today we had a new leadership come in called Edwin. After breakfast we said our goodbyes to the Hong Kong group and set off for our trip to Montreal. We took about 6 hrs of driving, drive some, stop for a while….. that was it until we reached Montreal. When we arrived around Quebec, almost everything was written in French. UHH!! I SUCK AT GRENCH!! Then, we drived for about 20 mins more and reached our destination. We did some clean up which reminded me back home where I don’t clean up. I’d say today was a pretty boring day.

Jason Wang

Today was my first day at Monticle for the leadership training. In the morning when everyone finally woke up we got the students to pack up their personal items. That task took much longer than expected but they managed to pack everything up within the time limit designated although I expected them to work much faster and effective. After packing up everything we went for PT (physical Training) which worked fairly well although certain members refused to take part in the activities. Half way into the PT we noticed there were many bugs infesting the cracks along the wall. Calvin and I then decided to spray the insect repelent along cracks during that time we (Calvin and I) noticed that who ever was using the mop failed to clean up but we failed to follow up with the plan of finding the people who used the mop, thus causing us to be warned about the failiure to follow up with these tasks. The rest of the day followed the schedule planned.

James

My bad morning started when I woke up, when Howard’s Iphone’ alarm activated and make people around him annoyed. I fell deeply annoyed. I fell deeply asleep after that accident. Once again, the leadership had to wake me and I felt so tired. I thought about howard and his thoughts about his new found friends leaving Canada. I wonder if he will go to Hong kong leaving Canada. I wonder if he will go to hong kong just to greet them, we spend most of our day sitting in a van while the driver follow the GPS to Montreal. One of our leaderships, Jennifer watches animes so I talked to her non-stop about popular animes. I’m sitting on the floor at one of Billy’s friend’s house trying to write more words.  

Quince

Todays we woke up at 6:30 A.M and today is the day where we are going to have camp in Montreal. The weather is raining, that is what I don’t want to happen in Canada. We also have PT in the morning. It is very tiring. Then we ride a sprinter to eat breakfast. That is when my friend howard miss a new found friend, because the hong kong people is leaving today, so he muss them. We have six to seven hours and I felt awfully boring, luckily I have friends to talk with in the sprinter. So I talk with them and I don’t felt that boring anymore. But it Is still boring. We came to the campsite in 6-7 p.m. we didn’t have dinner before 10 p.m. or later, so today’s it. Bye, p.s. I miss u guys.

Jason Wong

This morning we packed up for the Montreal and the HK team packed up to leave eventually for HK. We had to line up and go to each leadership and do a excerise we didn’t leave until 9:37 a.m. we went to Ikea in Toronto for breakfast. For breakfast we had scrambled eggs, two sausages, and two pancakes which was delicious. We went back on the highway for one hour. For our first pit stop in a small town. Later we went to Costco in Kington for lunch and resupply. We drove to house and cleaned up the place. We set up our sleeping bag and watched some t.v.. So far the team alpha is still cooking dinner.

Edwin

Today, this my first time doing big big leader training for my next 2 months. Today, |I am done no a good jobs. I make a lot of mistake, bad mistake. The first things happen is I did take care of what they are doing with their house job. They left the dirty bucket and too much bad stuff. Our whole team was getting discipline from it. I feel really bad about it. The second inciden that happen which is I playing with the little drinking problem with the kid and I speak all over the Monticle T-shirt, then Billy said I ate too slow. Overhall it not too good about my leader, for my first day. And in giving introduction I should speak slowly a give undroduton. I have to do it slow a wisely. Don’t act like cienal kid and I make a mess on my T-shirt. And really do your job make the kid are doing their jobs. No playing around and juse do your job, make sure everything is doing well. I will do better tomrrow.

Ryan

During leadership training I learned about budgeting our food. How important patience can be an important tool to get a person’s respect. Yelling at someone while sitting in the bus I learned and appreciated any things. I was beginning to get sleepy however so being forced to get an ice cap to keep my self awake so nothing bad arises. Overall I believed I did fine today and am hoping for tomorrow.

Christina

Today was a really good, great, awesome, extreme, day. This morning we woke up at 6:30 am. Then we had a tired, hot, fun, funny, exersize by walking to each instructors, then the instructors will tell you something to do. While we were on the buss, I was sleeping. Good dreams. My dream was about me going into a volcano and randomly, rocks shooting at me while I dodged all of them. I woke up because I got shot by a big big rock! After I woke up, Jenifer, Quince, Crystal, James, and I were playing 20 questions. We got off in Brossard, Montreal, Excitement is still going on for tomorrow!!

Crystal

Bonjour! Today we travelled from Toronto to Montreal in the morning, Raymond arranged an “physical” activity for us. It wasn’t as fun as I thought. After the activity, we had our “last breakfast” with the K students because they’re leaving (officially). We had breakfast at IKEA, it wasn’t that good. Not the best breakfast I’ve ever had. After breakfast, we said our goodbyes to the HK students and left for our trip to Montreal. We were on the highway for approx.. 6 hours and had washroom breaks at ONROUTE. We finally arrived at Billy’s friend’s house in Brossard. After a long time. Then we took ½ an hour to clean up the house.Tonight, the girls were in charge of cooking, and we finally had dinner at around 10 pm. Tomorrow we will be going to the city of Montreal and visit the great tourist attractions there.

Jonathan

Today, we drove from HQ all to Brossard, quebec in the sprinter. The drive was very tiring. Alone the way, we ate hot dogs at Costco in Kinston. It was delicious. Also, we stopped at some OnRoute service centres. The inside of the service centres was beautiful and there were a lot of stores and restaurants. Then we continued on driving for another couple of hours. The weather conditions are wet, wet, wet and really wet. Tomorrow is our second day in quebec. We will be going to old Montreal, the Montreal science centre, Chinatown and even more. P.s. the while camp did fitness training this morning.  

Jacky

As of today it is the first day of blogs for leaderships. It’s been a while since my blogs were written, but I’ll give it another go. As being leadership I have seen many students learn and grow up within the past two weeks. I believe that we the leadership we have accomplished a lot since the past week. I feel that we taught the kids some nessicities of being a leader. There are some portions of being a leader that myself need to lean/ enhance. This program is specialized for us leaders. I believe it will increase my leadership drastically because I am leading and being taught at the same time. This type of engagement feels proper like it is a part-time job. I feel like it will be a entertaining and exciting thing. I feel like it will be a entertaining and exciting thing. As for today I feel it started great in s in the morning. We did P.T. as a team, we shopped at costco, I feel very good, talking in the car for more then 6 hours, now we are resting. Group discussions with each other is entertaining. We met for the day now. 

Alastair

What did I do today… however it’s not so much what I did now, more like what I could have done better, what we could have done better being one of the leaders for this program. I haven’t written a “personal” blog yet for the summer program, but Billy decided it would be best if all the leaders did so, so that we could reflect on what we did and why we did it. So I’m not only writing for today, but for the entire program so far. I’ve learned a lot about leadership already, but this year, it was more about finding the balance between being strict and lenient. On one hand if we as leaders were too strict, many people would refuse to listen to us because we were “mean”. However, if we were too lenient, they would refuse to listen because we were too “nice”. I try to take an example from Billy here, when he’s nice, he does so without becoming lenient. We know what he wants, and we would do what he wants because Billy is good to us, but also because he is strict about perfection. Perhaps I’m not explaining myself very well…. Kenny, during our interview, suggested being nice all the time, but when something needs to get done, we become strict. While I agree that it may work, I feel that the inconsistency would confuse many students. We decided to try something else, since neither Calvin or I could find the middle ground yet (Jacky was already pretty good at it) we decided to balance each other out, when Calvin was being too strict, I would step in, when I was being too lenient, Calvin would step in and so on. It could work up to a certain point, but it has the major disadvantage of being entirely reliant on each other, that is to say that individually, we still need work. Anyways, now that Jason and Jennifer Wang have arrived, we can see a couple different styles of leadership. Who knows, we could probably learn from them, just as they could learn from us…