- Expedition: Sep 29 - Oct 4, 2013
- Stephie
- New Village Girls Academy
- Yosemite National Park: Yosemite Valley & Wawona
To me wilderness means nature, peace, animals, and all that good stuff. It means a lot of things like camping out, hiking, and just outdoor activities. It also means relaxation and stress relief for me. The quietness helps me free my mind from everything bad that’s going on. A big part of wilderness is animals of course. I really like animals and I feel like we don’t respect them enough. We chop down their homes and I think tha’s not okay because they were here before us and this is their land just as much as it is ours and we take advantage of most animals because they’re helpless when it comes down to humans vs. them.
Being in the wilderness taught me a few stuff about womanhood. Or has made me realize a lot of stuff. Like sticking together rather than excluding or categorizing each other because we are all women and we often judge each other or compete with each other rather than looking out for one another. I believe that us women have to stick up and be there for one another instead of being shady with each other. I think there’s not enough respect within women and the wilderness has taught me to respect each other because if we don’t then who will? If our own women, our own gender, doesn’t respect one another then how do we expect to be respected by anyone else? Yosemite respects animals and the trees and everything that has to do with wilderness because they care so it’s really made me think about how women aren’t respected a lot, not only by men, but by women, too, and I really think that has to change.
I think one of my strengths this week was being positive the majority of the time. I could have let circumstances get the best of me, but I didn’t.
I think another of my strengths was letting go. I didn’t let the drama from home not let me enjoy my time here.
I think a very important strength was that I really allowed myself for this experience to help me with stuff back home and I realized a lot of stuff that I hadn’t realized before.
All my strengths can really help me accomplish my goals and dreams because being positive is very important. Thinking good things for myself and others around me is very important because life is going to throw a lot of challenges and staying positive is always a good way to go through. Letting go is also very important because holding grudges isn’t doing anyone harm but yourself and holding on to things can also get in the way of you moving forward an accomplishing your dreams. Allowing yourself to learn from new experiences is a very good strength for me because changes can be really hard for me, but I realize that changes can really change your life.
Some of the people that I met that are inspiring are Ruth and Elspie because you guys could’ve easily been really mean to us because of the shutdown, but they did everything they could so we could enjoy our time.
