Did you get to know someone new on the trip? Explain.
What is something that surprised you about yourself or about someone else?
Describe a time when you faced a challenge on the trip. How did you overcome it?
How did you show personal responsibility on this trip?
What was it like to be away from your family for a week?
What did the community service activity help you understand about people less privlleged than you?
How was this trip helped you to become more aware of your own strengths and areas for growth?
How has this trip helped you appreciate nature?
Describe a time when you faced a challenge on the trip. How did you overcome it?
I think that I faced a lot of different challenges on my trip to Chiang Mai, including rock climbing, playing with little kids, the confidence course. I had a big challenge in rock climbing, mostly because I was about 3/4 the way up the wall, and there was this part of the rock climbing wall that the rocks were really small, so it was really easy to loose your balance, once I got there, I kept on trying, but even though I kept trying, and even if I succeeded I didn’t have enough balance and I would fall back to where I was before. The way I have overcome this challenge was by never giving up, and taking advice from my peers, such as how to get up there, and by trying different ways to get up there, after a tiring few minutes of trying, I finally got to the top and rang the bell!! I felt really good, since I did keep on trying and I didn’t give up when I couldn’t get to the top. What challenge I had playing with the little kids, is that they didn’t speak a lot of english, that was why it was hard for us to communicate what games to play. At first, we first tried by showing them how to play “tag”, but the problem was that since we couldn’t speak in their language and they couldn’t speak in ours, they thought we would just be chasing each other for fun. So my groupmates, they decided that we would play a lot more simple games, but first, we needed time to think about how to show them or what other games to play. Since we needed time, and we knew we couldn’t just leave the kids there, we decided to buy them ice-cream to stall time, but mostly so they could have a nice treat on a hot day. After the quick break, instead of separating the boys and the girls like last time, we decided to let them play together, so we decided to play “Duck, Duck, Goose”, since this game was quite simple, and we did show them a few times, they understood how to play, but the only problem was that they didn’t know the words “duck, duck, goose”, so than instead of having them say it, whenever they tapped someone and started running, we had to immediately run, but overall we were able to communicate with them quite well, but we needed a lot more simple games. Finally, another challenge I had was doing the confidence course. The confidence course is basically where there were a bunch of dangerous but fun things, like rope climbing, going on the balance beam, monkey bars, rings, which was all done over a pool of dirty water, and if you couldn’t complete it, you would fall into the water. At first when I saw the confidence course, I was so scared, not only because if looked hard, but because you would fall into dirty water. After I saw a few people do it, I actually decided to try to look at the positive side of doing the confidence course, which was, having to fall in the water, even if it was dirty, I have never fell into water, besides diving, so I actually thought it might be kind of fun. I persuaded myself to do the confidence course by looking at the positive side of doing this course, and in the end, even though I didn’t pass it, I had to admit that it was pretty fun – which was falling in the water!!! 
What did the community service activity help you understand about people less privileged than you?
It did help me understand that there will always be people who are more less privileged than me, and it also made me realize what I actually have and what I have to be thankful for what I have, which is a nice family, and a good school to go to, and have a roof over my head. Since I am more privileged than some others, I think that with that privilege, I can use it by going to other poor countries, and helping them, such as when I went on this trip, I was able to go and entertain little kids, and help build parts of their school, even though this wasn’t the most exciting activity, this was one of my favorite activities, which was playing with the kids, and it will probably be the most memorable one. Besides showing me that I should be thankful and help the less privileged, I think that besides helping them with building their schools or entertaining them, donating some of your money to them could help a lot, and also donating our clothing!
What was it like to be away from your family for a week?
What was it like to be away form my family was a little difficult at times, because this is the first time where I am away from my family for 6 days, before this trip, I have been away from my family for 5 days at camp. I did get a little homesick at times, but than since there were so many different activities to do, and because I wasn’t used to the heat in Chiang Mai, it actually distracted me from being homesick, because I was too focused on being annoyed of the heat, and focusing on giving 100% into the activities that I did, so it did help me from being homesick. Even though that distracted, I did miss my family, but not miss it so much that I would die without them, but I did want to go back at home at times, since I wasn’t used to anything in Chiang Mai. At about day 3, I started missing my family, and wishing I could be at home, using my computer! Even though I had times that I missed my family, sometimes I felt the need to be away from them, that way I would learn how to be more independent, because I wouldn’t always have my family there, always helping me, because if that happened than I wouldn’t know how to do things, since my family would always do it for me. Overall, it wasn’t easy to be away from my family for a week, but I was glad that it was a challenge that I could overcome!! 
I think that throughout this trip, I was a caring person, because I did help or try to my friend, Alanna, felt homesick, and she missed her family a lot, and she started crying, because she wish that she could be at home, spending time with her family. So when she started tearing up, I did go try my best and comfort her, and tell her what was the positive sides about this trip, such as you would learn to be more independent, and in this trip, you would be able to try new things, such as learning how to survive in the jungle, playing with little kids, helping a local school build parts of their school. Even thought I tried to help comfort her, she was just missing her family, so than, since her mom said that she could call her, I told Alanna to call her mom and talk to her, but since Alanna didn’t want her mother to worry, so she decided not to call her. After about 20 minutes, she calmed down and she was fine. Also, usually, when somebody has gotten hurt, even if they aren’t my closest friends, than I would still worry about them, like asking them “Were they alright?”. Also, when two of my friends were fighting, and one of them was getting hurt, I went and comforted her, and tried to make her laugh by doing silly things, and it worked, she didn’t feel 100% happier, but she felt better than she felt before. I think that I was caring a lot about how others feel, and I tried my best to comfort the friends who were a little closer to me.
I think another attribute I have shown is being a Risk-Taker, because there were a lot of things that I haven’t done before, such as in doing community service by helping a school. I have done community service by going to visit elderly people once every month or so, and talking to them, but I have never tried by doing community service by helping build a school. Also, I think I was risk-taker when we had to go to the market, and buy the ingredients, since the people in the market only spoke Thai, and very little English, so I think that going to the market and trying to communicate in a language that I am not sure about saying, was pretty risk-taking of me. Also, not only about that, but also playing with the kids, I was actually a risk-taker to try and communicate with the kids we were playing with, but even though they didn’t understand, I think that it was brave of me to try and be friendly. Besides communication, I think that I also was a risk-taker in rock climbing, because once I saw the rock climbing wall that we would climb, at first, I thought that I wouldn’t even be able to climb to the top and ring the bell, but than, after I saw that a lot of people have completed it, I decided that no matter what, I had to try my best to get to the top. At first, I was scared because the climbing wall looked so tall, but than, I decided that I would reach that bell, and I would not look down, that way I wouldn’t get too nervous about falling down.
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Another game we played was quite easy, but very difficult for me, it was where we would separate into our normal 2 groups, which is group 5 and group 6, and I was in group 6. We had to line up in 2 lines facing each other, and than the first person on group 5 and the first person on group 6 would play rock, paper, scissors, and than in front of us is a helmet, and a stick, so whoever loses in rock, paper, scissors, has to grab the helmet and put it on their head, before the person who wins, takes the stick and whacks it on your head. For the first time, I managed to duck from getting hit by the stick but than, my helmet wasn’t on properly, so than I lost and had to go to the other team. For the second time, when was grabbing my helmet and lifting it to my head, the other person grabbed the sticked and whacked the helmet, causing my hands to lose grip of it. The 3rd and final game we played, was a very often known game, where we separated into groups of 3, and than each group lines up in a line, and than the instructor tells the person at the end of the line a few words, than that person has to act it out, to the person in front of him/her, and it keeps going until the start of the line. Than the person at the front of the line has to guess what the short sentence is. When we were watching other groups do this game, I found it very interesting, watching how people changes the original action throughout what’s happening in the line. While we were playing the sala games, there was a storm, where it rained a lot and it was so windy, so because of this storm, it caused a blackout!!!!! The worse thing about having a blackout at night is that, we had to use flashlights to take a bath, and since it was about from 26°C – 35°C there, and since there was no electricity, we had no air-conditioning, and than we were forced to sleep, and because we just got to Chiang Mai, we weren’t used to the heat, so that night, we couldn’t sleep at all, but luckily at about 11:50, the power was back on and one of the teachers came in to help us switch on the air-conditioning! And after that, we were able to sleep.
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