Today is a day of reflection. It has been a tough few days, and your homesickness and the reality of your situation is starting to sink in. Consider Cristina’s situation described in her blog (http://cristinamillan.blog.com/2006/10/) when living in the extreme conditions of Antarctica, and consider how she writes about her experience. Also, consider the kind of memories that come to Ralph’s mind throughout chapter 5.
Each member of the island must write a “reflection” or “blog entry” about their experience so far. Remember, you must pretend you are on this island, so write about the island not the wiki. The entries must be two paragraphs long (7-9 sentences). At the top of your paragraphs, include your name. You must also answer the following questions within your paragraphs:
What kinds of foods do you miss? What do you miss from your room? Anything else you took for granted that you now lack?
What is it like working with people you don’t know that well? When has order broken down?
What kind of issues have you had to resolve as group and individually?
What happened to the people who got sick/hurt? Did you get sick/hurt?
Do you think you will be rescued? Why or why not?
How do you entertain yourself/yourselves in times of boredom?
Section [04] Members
Stranded on the island has gotten me thinking about all the things I took advantage of. Every day when I came home from school, my sister and I would split a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. I would do anything right now for just a nibble of a sandwich. I also took advantage of the variety of food around my house. Here, on this island, you have to fight to get a well-balanced meal. I miss my room and the enormous amount of pillows on my bed. I used to be very irritated when it came to cleaning my room. Now, I would clean my room all day just to spend time inside it. It is a little difficult working with unfamiliar people, but I am making the best of it. I try very hard to be the peacemaker and prevent arguments among the group. Unfortunately, fights till break out. For example, yesterday a hunter argued with our leader over the best way to show leadership. We did resolve this conflict as a group through a meeting and compromising.
I am lucky, though, because I have not gotten sick yet. Most of the group has. About a week ago, a flu went around causing high fevers and extreme migraines. It was horrible trying to tend to them without the proper medicines. I honestly do not believe we will get rescued. Our signal fire keeps going out and most of us are thinking the worst. It has only been four days, yet we are giving up! The only thing keeping me sane is the ocean, which I use for my own personal entertainment. I have developed many games involving shells and fish. I will admit I have developed some skill. (Hannah Wille)
8:18 AM
At first it was little, a few pains, a few tugging at my heartstrings but by now it is pulling, tugging and stretching. These is a vague hole in my heart that gets larger as time goes on. My memories are painfully clear, I remember mother and her smiling face waking me up in the morning, my father reading his paper at his desk. It is the little things I miss, my books, my clean linen bed, and the familiar surroundings of my house. This island still feels like a dream, I keep waiting for me to start awake and be safely on the plane. But every time I wake up I hear the buzzing of flies and cawing of a far off bird. The first few days we were in stunned acceptation of the situation feeling free and in control.
However the third day on this island something happened. Something that reminded us of how little we are really in control. It came like a wild animal, roaring, lashing out, and leaving a path of destruction in its wake. The hurricane, all power that we had gained, all our ideas, washed away with our shelter, clean water and dry wood. It left us like the island cold, wet and completely venerable in both senses. We are going to rebuild our community with less pride and more caution. Bit by bit we are maturing
The more time we spend on this island the more adult we become, willingly or not . (Arianna Riggs)
Andy Klingler
The first day or two that we were on the island I thought that it was going to be an adventure. The rolling streams and vast forests just waiting to be explored . Surrounded by open ocean, hundreds of miles separating me from the problems and responsibilities of the real world. The possiblities seemed endless. By day four its starting to get old. My day is full but monotonous. I have to constantly scour for food and water. Their are so many chores and not a lot of free time. Yesterday a storm swept over our island leaving shelters, debris scattered everywhere. It contaminated our water source and left our wood water logged. We had a lot of trouble coming up with ideas to fix these misfortunes.
Lying in my shelter at night I stay awake for hours thinking about home. The foods like, steak and pizza. I miss the things I took for granted. Just the feeling of safety and security in my own home. I miss the sense that there was always food, three times a day I could expect some kind of sumstanence. On the island I have to constantly worry about how much food we have. Finally I miss the consistentness of society. I miss for the most part knowing exactly what I am going to do the next day and that I am going to be ok in the morning. Even now I still maintain the hope that we will soon be rescued. That hope keeps us going it gives us a common goal, so that when we don't get along we still have our hope to hold us together.
I have been on this island for about four days now. In times of boredom, I usually go for walks around the island and check up on the weather to see if I can tell if there will be any changes. If I'm not doing this, then I am sitting on the beach, thinking about ways to help the island. I miss so much from my home, things I thought I would never miss. I miss my mom's cooking and my not-so successful attempts at cooking. I miss all of the meals my mom would cook for me and my family and how I was able to get whatever food I wanted whenever I wanted. I also miss my bedroom, which was where I went to relax and, although it was usually pretty messy, I wouldn’t mind having to clean it every day just to be able to be back in it.
The people I'm with are pretty easy to work with even though we just met and we seem to get things done successfully. There has only been one small mix-up and that was with the location of our shelters which we fixed after the hurricane. When the hurricane swept through, no one got hurt, thankfully. We moved our shelters, which had been put on the beach as a mix-up in location, and they are now between the base of the volcano and the stream, which is more protected. No one got hurt or sick thankfully so we did not have to worry about that. I think there is a small chance of us getting rescued even though we have no way to contact the civilized world but there will hopefully be a ship that goes by that we can signal to come rescue us. (Libby Ferris)
Peter Schlafly-
The four days on the island have been long and hard. There has been a large storm and the sleep has not been well. The storm was awful; it ruined our shelter and made all of our firewood wet. We had to rebuild our shelters and the water was contaminated, so we have to boil all of the water. The storm was a huge obstacle but we seem to be dealing with it. We did divide into jobs which have shown to be a good idea, my job is to maintain and build the shelters. It is not a fun job but it is necessary so I need to do it. We have made plans for a group of possible things that could go wrong. I am missing my own bed, my family and many other things. It is hard out here on this island because I have nothing that is really fun to do that I haven’t already done.
I hope that we get picked up from this island because I am really homesick and cannot live on this island much longer. I can never get good sleep anymore. All I do is lay on the uncomfortable ground under the makeshift shelter and think about what the rest of my family is doing right then. I think about what they are eating compared to the occasional meat I am eating and mostly fruits and vegetables. I think that one of the main reasons I am so homesick is because I spend so much of my time thinking about my family, house and friends. I am gradually losing hope that we will be picked up from this island we are stranded on. The longer I am stranded here I am losing more hope. I just want to be picked up from this island and taken home to my friends and family.
Section [06] Members
Nealey Wallis
In the beginning, we all thought that being stranded on an island would be fun, and we could all bond together. Now that we have endured problems and setbacks, I am now tired of being stranded. I want to go back to civilization, back to my family, back to my life. I miss eating different food, and having all of our resources at our hands, instead of having to find a way to do everything. Working with other people was fun at the beginning, because we all wanted to work together. After a while, we all began to think of different ideas, which caused friction on the island. We all had to learn to accept other people’s ideas, and learn to combine ideas as well. Although there have been rough times, our group works well together.
No one on our island has become sick or had gotten hurt. Earlier this week, we had a hurricane come to our island. We had to take different actions to save ourselves and what we had. Now that we know the consequences of natural disasters, we have made a list of different precautions incase it would happen again. On the island, we play different games that we have found. We also fish and hunt. In our free time, we enjoy playing in the ocean and finding new places on the island. I hope and believe that someone will find us.
Blair Koeneman
Looking back on how everything used to be, I miss having every resource I needed to live available. It is hard to not have a phone next to me to call my family or friends. I always wish for my warm, cozy bed when it is time to go to bed and all there is to sleep on is a pile of leaves. In times of boredom, the only recreational things to do are swimming in the ocean and building sand castles. However, there is not much free time because of all the jobs we have to do. Miscommunication and misunderstanding make it hard to work with people I don’t know well. We often argue because of a variety of ideas. There is not much time to be a kid while we are stranded because there are no adults. I think we will be rescued because of the fire we are always using since some members are comforted by having a fire since it reminds them of home. Also, leaders in our group are keeping us on task and keeping our spirits up. There is a very positive atmosphere on the island so I think we have a good chance of being rescued.
Yesterday, a hurricane came and destroyed our shelters, our clean water, and ruined the wood. All our hard work was for nothing; we had to start from scratch. However, we are overcoming this unfortunate event and working as a group to do what we can to survive. The hunters are roaming the island to find the remaining boar, which is easier now because some are injured and many of the trees are cleared out because of the storm making it easier to see. The Builders are fixing the damage of the shelters, the water and firewood gatherers are working to sanitize the water, and the leader is making sure everyone is doing their job. Luckily we were slightly prepared for this disaster because they noticed signs in the weather. So we were not caught completely off guard but we definitely did not expect a hurricane, and fortunately no one got hurt because of our shelters.
Parker Goldman
I feel that while on the island I have learned many things but I miss a ton. I miss pizza and the foods that I am unable to make while being stranded on the island. But I also am thinking about the little snacks I miss such as when I get home from school I would usually eat an apple. I also miss watching television which allows me to know what is going on in the world. For me I like the fact that I get to work with new people. I like this because I am an outgoing person that likes to make new friends. Although that I like to make new friends we have had disagreements that we have had to sort out. For example we have had disagreements about what peoples jobs are because some people don’t like the job they are given. But over all we have had good cooperation and have been able to sort these things out.
We just recently had a hurricane hit our island which caused many people to become injured. These people have laid in their tents and tried to recover. I think that we will be rescued because I feel that because we were shoot down that the airline would know and send a search crew. This would improve the chances that we would have on becoming rescued. While we are on the island waiting to be rescued we become board and do not have much to do. This makes us upset and in a bad mood because we don’t have the normal things that we usually have to entertain ourselves. But we do have the ocean in which that we can swim in, which can take our minds off the other things going on around us.
Section [9] Members
Elizabeth Lund
Now what, what do we do? Those questions pounded in my head. At first we thought it would be okay. We were safe, on a large island with lots of resources, good water, and no huge issues. That was then. Now…now we don’t have our shelter, we don’t have food since it was washed away, our water is contaminated, and there are great areas where there simply are no trees because they were washed into the river and the ocean. This made everything seem real. Not that it seemed false before, but we thought it would be fine. We happily and excitedly built shelters, we all learned how to open coconuts, we started a fire and managed to keep it going. Well, now it’s out. Completely. And in the darkness I keep thinking and going back to how my life was before our plane crashed and we ended up drinking coconut milk and eating boar meat. This is making me think of all the food I had. We would have good food every day. Thoughts of pizza, candy, chocolate, ice cream, apples, steak, and milk make my mouth water. The thought of my room with a soft bed makes me long for something nice to sleep on. I miss soap and showering, my computer, and my friends. I especially miss my family. I just wish I could have my parents and siblings next to me, just one more time!
Now I’m working with people I don’t know and have never met. We made a few decisions and things turned for the better. But then a monstrous hurricane came and now everything we had was gone. There’s tension and there are people who just will not listen to anyone. Order got destroyed with the shelters. Nobody really got hurt aside from scrapes and cuts which is very fortunate. But we really need to watch for the water and dead animals. I think we’ve almost lost hope on recue, almost. But we will still try as hard as possible to keep our fire going and strong. That’s the only thing keeping us from insanity from boredom. We must keep the fire going or else go out as well.
[Blog entries]
Dabin Choe
It has already been three days, and we have had no signs of other life on this island. I have now realized how much I have taken for granted throughout my life. I miss having nice, hot meals and I miss my warm bed. I miss my family and friends back at home. It is so strange trying to control and work with these new people that I have never met before. We don’t want to listen to each other, so order has officially broken down within the group. The one thing that we all have agreed on is that we must keep a fire going so ships can see us and rescue us.
Since we landed on this island , there have been many conflicts, both small and large. Along with having a dysfunctional group, we have suffered from a category 3 hurricane. Now we have no shelter, and all our food has been poisoned. We are in bad shape, and now I am thinking that we will never be rescued off of the island. During my time on the island, I have learned how to make a shabby shelter, and how to cook fish and make fires. I wish I was back at home. Now all that is left for our group is the fire, and the possibility of rescue it represents.