Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

12 hours into the 42 hour retreat and there are already a lot of things that still have to be ironed out. For one thing, I would recommend that the students be housed in the dorms instead of the cottages.

There is too much privacy and security in those cottages at night that I'm sure makes all the students break whatever serenity of reflection they're supposed to have for these days.

Even if the students assured us, for instance, that the lone girl would be sleeping in her room alone, the boys - including her boyfriend - hanging around her room all that time before lights out was still suspicious. It wouldn't be the case if they were all in the dorms, and the single girl not allowed, in the first place.

There is also the repetitive tardiness in going to the sessions from after breaks, where the students still go back to their cottages and hang out for beyond the limit they were given.

It wouldn't be the case if the students were all in the dorms and could be retrieved in one go instead of the facilitators (two to four) running all over up to ten cottages.

Maybe the retreat should be made as part of the requirement of the Religion Four class, instead of being separate. That could also make the students afraid to not follow their teacher, because there's always the threat of getting a failing grade in the retreat hanging over their head unless they comply.

There's also a need for some bit of preparation among the students before the retreat.

A lot of the students still have no idea about what they're supposed to do here, and they always show up with stuff like they're going on a beach trip or a picnic, but no internal readiness.

Maybe, because of what Brother Kenneth is talking to them about, which is on transition between school and jobs, then they can be made to reflect on this since the start of their last term.

That's definitely one way for this to have meaning for them: to have the huge burden of the potential of the future looming over them.

Session 2029 wants to be more strict in stressing to the students their freedom. Class dismissed.