Grade 9 Bonding Trip
Day 1:
On the first day of our Grade 9 bonding trip, we left school after lunch and arrived at Pattaya in the afternoon. Then our first official bonding trip activity was the money game and drawing game. These activities showed how creative we can be while also being a warm up activity for our bonding weekend. The last for the day was speed chatting. It feels like a tradition of the bonding trips as it allows everyone in the grade to have a bit of time to chat with each other, especially for the ones that aren't really close or haven’t talked before.
Day 2:
On the morning of the second day, we went to the Pattaya Redemptorist School for the Blind. When we arrived, the chaperones told us to put blindfolds on and led us down the bus. We were greeted by a buddy who walked us up to the assembly hall. During the assembly, it was revealed that the buddies who led us up were blind but they knew exactly where slopes and stairs were and how many steps were on the stairs. It was truly astonishing how even when they were blind they were able to navigate like that. After the assembly finished, we went down to learn the lan-
guage of the blind, Braille. It was a perplexing combination of unnatural writing techniques and finding the corresponding letters. However, the girl who taught us was remarkably accurate. While we were all struggling to understand braille this blind girl was doing it so effortlessly. Next, we went to play Goalball (a mix of handball and bowling), a sport created for the blind. We had the privilege to learn and play against the national team's Goalball athletes. As an athlete, losing my sense of sight was a hard thing to overcome. It was amazing to see how precise the athletes were as they were able to save almost everything. From going to the blind school, I
learned that even with a disability those kids were able to have fun and make the best of their situation. I learned that we often take things for granted; and that even though we have all the necessities we still want more in order to be happy.
Day 3:
On the final day of our bonding weekend our two main activities were the gratitude letter which is like a tradition of our bonding trips and a session with Khun Varnnee
regarding bad words. In the gratitude letter, we write something about everyone on their papers on how we appreciate them as our schoolmates, classmates, friends, or best friends. It had us reflect on our past memories with different people and learn to appreciate them no matter if the past we might have had with them was great or not. Personally, I like this activity as it makes us learn to appreciate others and all the little messages our friends write will be kept in our memories forever.
Icon and Nia - G9