Lisa's+Reflection+Page

What is the best piece of advice you have ever received? "Always have confidence in yourself" A family member said this to me and it always makes me feel better when I’m going through a rough patch or not having a good day. Having confidence in yourself is good for you as it makes you feel better about yourself and you can enjoy life. Also having confidence in yourself makes you think of all the good things in your life instead of all the tiny flaws that you shouldn’t even think about. I have used this advice many times; Such as for example, when I’m doing a test I usually begin to freak out and say that I would fail and won’t get a high enough mark. However, afterwards when I’m sitting at my desk and I breath and relax, I say to myself “I can do it, I studied and I will try my best” which gives me a confidence boost and I try my hardest to finish and answer all my question as best as I can. Having this advice has got me through a lot of events that have happened in my life and I am pleased that someone told me this piece of advice and glad to know how much it has impacted me and the people around me.
 * Week 1 **

**﻿**** Week 2 ** What would happen if you threw a piece of trash on the ground? What if everyone did? I wouldn’t personally throw a piece of trash on the ground but if I did, the rubbish could travel a long distance and it could go into oceans where the piece of rubbish could be swallowed by an animal and it could choke to death which would mean there is one less of that animal in the ocean. The piece of rubbish could also do damage to the environment such as being put under the dirt on a farmland and that one piece of rubbish can take around 2-3 months even years to break down. If everyone in the world threw on the ground, earth would be a giant wasteland. The paths would be covered in rubbish and there would be no way to tell ALL the people in the world to stop, the rubbish can cause problems to the environment as the rubbish wouldn’t break down and start causing bacteria to form to make humans and animals sick, people could drop harmful and dangerous items in the piles of rubbish lying around. As for animals they could all choke and die form eating the rubbish, which would cause a problem for humans as cows may eat the rubbish and die which mean there is no beef for us in the world, other meats and poultry.

**﻿**** Week 3 ** What would you do if you saw a friend cheating - report it, confront the friend or nothing - and why? What do you think courage means? What do you think makes a good friend? If I saw a friend cheating, it would depend what they cheated on. For example on a test I would personally do nothing, as I wouldn’t know what to do I may confront them but I would most likely say nothing. Another example is if the person is cheating on their boyfriend/girlfriend, I would first make sure if its true or not so I don’t jump to conclusions, then I would confront them and tell them that if they don’t stay with that person then I would go up to their boyfriend/girlfriend and tell them what’s going on. To me courage means that you can face the things in life such as danger, difficulty, pain etc. without hesitation, bravery and fear. They can stand up for themselves and have confidence. A good friend is someone that is loyalty, friendly, has honesty and will always be there when I need his or her help. A good friend doesn’t talk behind another friends back, doesn’t start rumors about that person and doesn’t make fun of them for their appearance or personality.

**﻿**** Week 4 ** What is your most indispensable possession and why? My most indispensable possession is my laptop, it is important to me as it helps me with many things I need to do. My laptop allows me to do my homework with the Internet and Microsoft word, I can listen to music using iTunes and to download new songs, I can use the internet to browse and look up topics when I need too, I can also socialize with people via the internet and all my photos and memories are all on my laptop. My laptop has basically everything I need to do most of my daily tasks and it helps when I have questions and all I need to open up is an internet browser and I’m good to go to research what I need. Having a laptop is also good to use when I’m bored and have nothing to do. My laptop helps me socialize with people such as my mum as I have been teaching her how to use the laptop and give her basic skills such as opening browsers and listen to music. I also like my laptop as when I am on the go to my tutor classes or to a relative’s house, I can bring my laptop, as it is easy and light to carry and wont be a hassle to pack.

** Week 5 ** What do you think about people polluting the environment? I think that people polluting the environment is horrible as it mainly comes from factories and cars which are man made items. Humans cause a lot of pollution as we do things like littering, driving cars, having smoke come out of factories, using a lot of green house gases from using lights we don’t need and not turning electronic items off from the power point. People should do the right thing by throwing their rubbish in the bin, cleaning with green products, stop using plastic bags and use re-usable bags, turn off electronics that are not in use, take public transport such as busses and trains and to not destroy any natural plants. We need to look after the environment as we have a lot of environmental disasters happening around the world and if we don’t make a change, the earth in the next couple of years will change rapidly and that the children and people of the future won’t get the amazing environment like we do now in 2011. So we should all make small changes to what we do to the environment and we can start slow then gradually, step by step we can stop pollution once in for all and enjoy the natural resources we have.

** Week 6 ** How do you feel when you do something wrong? How do you feel when you do something that is very good? When I do something wrong such as making someone upset or by not following rules, I end up feeling guilty and want to say sorry to the person I did it to 100 times and hope that they forgive me, I don’t know how I manage to do something wrong and feel so guilty afterwards but I always do. For example, when I get into an argument with a friend and I upset her, I end up being upset at myself and I feel horrible and guilty. I try not to do bad things but it sometimes just happens so I try to say sorry and hope that the person I upset forgives me. When I do something good like give advice or do something for a friend, I feel accomplished and satisfied that I was able to help someone and make them happy. Just doing the littlest tasks such as helping someone carry their books or going with a friend to talk to someone makes me happy as I know I’m helping them in a way that’s not to hard and accomplishable. For example, since jade has been on crutches, I have helped her by carrying her books, putting down her chair in class and walking to places while she can sit and not have to get on her crutches and I feel like I’m helping her a lot.

**﻿**** Week 7 ** I wish there was a law that said... This would be a good law because... I wish there was a law that said smoking was fully banned. Although many people would disagree with this law, I believe it is a reasonable law as many people die from cancer due to smoking. When most people smoke they don’t realize what they are doing to their bodies, as you smoke your body weakens and you could get sick and maybe even worse cancer. Cancer is one of the reasons people loose lives of loved ones because of smoking. Smoking is not only bad for the smoker, but for children as swell, although children don’t smoke they can inhale the smoke, which can make the child sick. When I go past someone that is smoking I think to myself why did you start smoking? It’s disgusting! And when I am walking they decide to exhale the smoke and I can smell the toxin going through my lungs and I hate it and the smell. The fact that there are people my age deciding to smoke on a daily basis and they obviously know what they are doing to their bodies yet however also grosses me out because they have a big future ahead of themselves, yet they want to sit around and smoke with other people.

**﻿**** Week 8 ** When you are angry, how do you look? When are you happiest? When have you felt lonely? When do you feel proud? When I’m angry I show no emotion as I’m thinking about what made me angry and If someone asks me what’s wrong, I’d ignore them. When I’m feeling angry I would stay quiet and try not making eye contact with people. When I’m my happiest I am usually smiling and laughing, I am more social and energetic when I’m happy about something and I try to make the most of it as I like being happy then angry. I feel lonely when I am left by myself when I’m with people as when I don’t speak, no one would speak to me and I every time I talk to my friends they sometimes give me a vibe that says we have been talking about you and I don’t like you. So that is when I begin to feel lonely. I feel proud when I have accomplished something that is up to a satisfactory standard, beating someone in a competitive sport, getting a high mark in a test or getting complements on my work.

**﻿**** Week 9 ** Which quality do you dislike most about yourself - laziness, selfishness, childishness - and why? The qualities I do not like about myself is how mean and rude I can be, how I can get annoyed easily, not having a lot of self confidence and how shy I am. I get mean when a person becomes mean to me, I try not to say anything back but yelling at me is basically asking me to yell at you back. I can be rude when I am annoyed, for example if someone asks me a stupid question and then I get rude because they obviously didn’t listen. I get annoyed easily. (Same explanation as rude) I also get shy easily as I’m not used to talking in front of a whole group of people or meeting new people. When I’m meeting new people I freak out because I don’t know what to expect from the person and I don’t know what they think about me and when I talk in front of group of people, I get scared as the room goes quiet and everyone looks at me and I wonder if I’m going to make mistakes or just freak out.

**﻿**** Week 10 ** Why do you think prejudice exists in the world?

I think prejudice does exist in the world as almost everyone does it at some point in there life. An example of prejudice is when a Caucasian man and an Aboriginal man go to the hospital, the aboriginal man is drying of a shot to his chest and the Caucasian man has a simple cold. The doctor would choose to treat the Caucasian man which would make him prejudice and leave the Aboriginal man to death if he was not treated fast. Being prejudice is cruel and hurtful to others as it can hurt there feelings. Another Example of prejudice is that when there is one question and two people have different opinions, their opinions could lead to arguing and that could cause problems. For Adults, prejudice can be offensive and wrong yet for teenagers it would usually be jokes and never serious. I personally think that I am prejudice at times but I am never serious and if I do make the person I told upset, I would apologize and hope they forgive me. If a child learns about prejudice at a young age, they can hurt their friends and other children’s feelings and not realize what they are doing as they don’t fully know what it is. As they get older, they can continue being prejudice and they can become a bully which can mean that they may not have many friends in the high school year. __** ﻿ **__ __** PORTSEA CAMP EXPERIENCE **__

** 1. How were you feeling prior to this experience? ** I was feeling excited because we got to do a huge variety of activities like snorkeling and high ropes.

** 2. What were you nervous about? What were you excited about? ** I wasn't nervous about anything I was happy and excited.

** 3. What do you think St Mary's is trying to achieve by taking you on this experience? ** Saint Mary's was very nice to take us on this trip, as it was also the first time all of us would go on camp, as well so we all got to bond and have fun together, they were trying to make us achieve bonding and getting to know one another.

** 4. Do you think these experiences achieved these things? Why/ why not? ** Yes, they have made us get closer and we all have most likely found out about things about each other.

** 5. What was your favourite activity? Why? ** My favorite activity was the high ropes because I'm usually afraid of heights but I managed to complete the whole coarse and I was proud that I finished it and got over my fears.

** 6. What was your least favourite? Why? ** My least favourite was snorkeling because I was expecting to see more than just seaweed and sand.

** 7. Do you think this experience will help your time at St Mary's? Explain. ** Yes, it does help because I know use my mind skills more and I’m not as shy as I use to be.

** 8. Discuss something you learnt about yourself while on this experience. ** I learnt that I could overcome my fears more easily than I thought and that I could use my mental skills more.

** 9. Discuss something you learnt about someone else while on this experience. ** I learnt that all my peers will be there for me to help me through my problems and that everyone is friendly and supportive to one another.

** 10. How do you think you contributed to this experience? ** I thought I contributed in most of the activities well but in the initiative I didn't really participate well.

** 11. What do you think could be improved for next year’s portsea experience? ** I think that there should be more breaks in between the activities to have showers and that there were more activities and the camp went for longer.

**__ Community Links __**

** Monday 7th of March ** Today was our first day and it was interesting. We got to meet the residents and staff and we also got the tour of the Wyndham lodge. Today we had hair and beauty pampering, we all got to talk to the residents as we painted their nails and watch them as they got their hair done, afterwards we played board games with the residents and I got paired with a lady named Emma and we played match. At around 1:30, we went to get all the residents down to the main room where a woman named Helen came and did tai chi exercises which we got to join in and help the residents with. Over all the day was good and I had a great time.

** Wednesday 16th of March ** This morning when we came in we had to write on the whiteboards of what the residents were going to eat and what activities they were doing for the day. Over the past couple of days, people have treated me like I’m nothing and I started not to enjoy my time at the lodge, Some residents ignored me when I spoke to them (this was more then once) and the staff acted snobby and rude to me but to no-one else.

** Friday 18th of March ** Today is our last day of community links at the lodge. We got to go out of the lodge for the second time to The Italian Social Club, when we arrived we got to take the residents to the main room of the club and they got to have their morning tea and get prepared for the live entertainment. The singer was male and he sang classic favorites that the elderly enjoyed dancing and singing along too. When we came back to the lodge we had happy hour where the elderly got to sit in the main room and talk to one another, we got to serve them drinks and food and when we got to go home, Trish made a speech to congratulate us on our 2 weeks of community links and we sent our goodbyes.

**__ Melbourne Experience __** ** Victoria Market ** The Victoria Market was our first tour, we took the tram and we walked around the market. First we stopped by a table that was selling Australian souvenirs and we took some photos of the items that were available to purchase for our Japanese assessment. Afterwards, we walked around to our first stop, which was the churro van. We got to get out tickets out and received our free churro. Afterwards we found our checkpoint and got Mr. Binyon to sign our passports. We walked around for around 10 minutes and we got to see the fresh produce and unique items that were for sale, we then walked to the tram stop and we took the next tram back to Federation Square

** Lanes and Arcades **. Lanes and Arcades was the second tour that we did. When we were sent off it started to rain and pour, as we walked to out first checkpoint, Little Cupcake, were we went inside and presented out tickets to received a mini vanilla cupcakes which tasted really good! Afterwards we got to go down alleys and into a few stores and it was amazing how some of the shops had alleys right next to their stores from the inside. In the afternoon we went walked back to the Federation Square and got on a bus and went home.

** On the Waterfront ** On the second day of Melbourne Experience, we went to the waterfront. We got to walk along the river and on our way to the checkpoint, we stopped by boost juice to get out free drinks and have a break. As we walked to the checkpoint we stopped and looked at an area with names all around the walls and floors in the Immigration Museum’s tribute garden and took a few photos. We got our passports stamped and continued the tasks on the tour notes we were given which led us back to Federation Square for lunch.

After lunch, we went on our final tour, which was a walk in the park. We first walked through the city and soon afterwards we arrived at the park, as soon as we walked into the park we saw a possum coming out of a tree trunk and everyone was taking photos of the animal. When we walked in the park it was fresh and amazing to see something other than buildings in the city, soon we reached one of the places in our notes, which was Captain Cooks Cottage. After taking photos of the cottage we noticed a path that lead off the trail, we went down the path and it lead to a small pond with many native plants. We went back onto the trail and we saw the Fairy Garden, we took pictures of the garden and then we saw the café that was our checkpoint. As soon as we reached the café, we got out our tickets and got our free cookies, which were really good! We then got our passports stamped and continued on our tour. We followed our tour noted which eventually sent us back to Federation square were we all got on a bus and went back to Main campus.
 * A walk in the Park **

Overall, Melbourne experience was fun and I got to learn new things and hopefully next year’s students will enjoy the experience just as much as I did.