~Chris Zhang, Class of 2022

Fun, music, and community…

Kindness kindles kinship and kinship kindles a sense of community.” 

― Abhijit Naskar

It was a cold, sunny afternoon. The other 8th graders and I were gathered, sitting on the steps at Windsor Mountain. We had just arrived a couple of minutes ago after a boring one and a half hour bus ride. The bees and flies swarmed around us, causing nervousness amongst the crowd. I didn’t know what to expect. It was a camp in the middle of the woods and I feared that they wouldn’t have any modern technology. Little did I know that I would get to spend time with my classmates, play wonderful music, and have more fun than anything I had done in years.

On Thursday night of our trip to Windsor Mountain, everyone played a game called Taskmaster. The objective of the game was to get the most points for your team, which was your advisory. Each team would be given a series of tasks, and the Taskmaster would give the most points to the team he thought did the best. Our first task was announced earlier that day: to bring something green. Our team, The Believers, did not prepare anything beforehand, so we just grabbed a pile of moss right before the game began. I thought we were going to get a really low score, but since so many other people brought leaves, we managed to get a seven out of nine. For the rest of the tasks, we needed to nominate someone to represent the team. There were various tasks, including telling time, drawing upside-down, lip reading, and more. We were doing tasks one after the other, but then something different happened. The Taskmaster pulled all the advisors outside for a couple of minutes and when they came back, they put a goal with balls around it. The first team to get eleven points would win and each advisor would show their team’s score using their fingers. When the game started, every nominee started frantically throwing the balls into the goal. The whole room was filled with countless thuds, but no advisor had indicated that anyone had scored. A few minutes passed when an advisor suddenly raised a finger. Everybody was in shock, but the nominees just kept throwing the balls. When the game ended, it was revealed that the way to score was very simple: to touch your head with the ball. Evan Beetham, the person who had figured it out, had never thought that getting the ball into the goal was the way to score. From the very beginning, he tried to do random things, and I think that it was very impressive. Overall, the night was very exciting and fun. It helped everyone bond with each other. Even when I wasn’t the nominee, it was still fun to watch my teammates compete and score points. This experience helped me get to know my classmates better and will be a long lasting memory.

On the first day of our trip to Windsor Mountain, everyone sat on the steps to listen to the councilors. After some quick introductions, they assigned activities to every advisory. My advisory was assigned to a music activity. After we were informed of our activity, we stood up and followed two councilors into a room filled with guitars. Everyone swarmed over to them and grabbed one. I picked a fairly big one and followed everyone back to the deck. After I sat down on the deck again, I tried to strum the guitar, but it felt very uncomfortable. The side of the guitar was very high so I had to put my arm in a weird position. We were first taught how to play a G chord. It was very uncomfortable to put my fingers in the right place, but I managed to play it without much problem. After, we learned D, E minor, and C. I could play each individual chord fine, but after I switched a chord, I would always forget how to play the previous ones. At the end of the activity, we slowly played wagon wheel. Overall, it was a good experience even though we couldn’t play very fast. It was my first time playing guitar and it was great learning how to play a string instrument. 

The 8th graders of The Fenn School went on a trip to Windsor Mountain. After eating dinner on the second day, we had a little time to hang out on the deck. There were many things that we could do: Connect Four, Tennis, Pickleball, Ping Pong, and Tetherball. I didn’t know what to do, so I just wandered around and eventually picked up a Ping Pong paddle. Some time after, I started playing Ping Pong with Jimmy. The paddle’s handle felt very short in my hand so it was very difficult for me to hold it. I had never played Ping Pong before, so everything I did relied on my reflexes. I didn’t even know the rules. Everything I knew about Ping Pong was from watching other people play. Even though I was completely new, I was doing pretty well and I even hit some really good shots. It was very fun and I was a little disappointed when we had to leave. It was a very joyful and interesting experience since I had never played before. I had lots of fun and I wish that it could have lasted longer.

Immerse yourself in music. Embrace your community.

The fun will follow.