Not Your Typical Day at the Beach

Today I had to wake up really early for the beach. I was super excited but it was cloudy out which was a bit of a bummer but I hoped that it would get sunnier as the day went on. The morning was a bit hectic because all of the other ILCers decided that they weren't going to come because they needed to do homework. I decided that I wanted to go anyways because I would have time tonight to do work and I didn't want to miss out on a beach day. There were a few other people who I really liked from my class going so I was excited to hang out with them.

I had to wait in line for the bus for a long time but we finally loaded in and were off at about 9:15. When we got to the beach at about 10 it was still cloudy out. Coming from the Bay Area I am used to cloudy beaches so it actually felt nice and reminded me of home. There were a few sprinkles but the weather wasn't too bad.

I was hanging out with four girls from my class: Emma, Isabel, Leslie, and Utana. They are super nice and interesting so I was glad to be able to spend the day at the beach with them. We found a nice patch of empty beach to lay down on and relax. 

I was able to have some time to sit and draw. At first it was really cold but then we decided to be adventurous and brave the waters. This was a great decision the water felt amazing. We ended up swimming for about half an hour. Swimming felt so relaxing and free compared to the complete structure that I felt the rest of my trip. Eventually we grew tired of the relentless pounding of the waves and headed back up to our blankets.

We decided to rinse off the salty water to get nice and clean before going back and laying in the sand. We all stuffed in two showers and felt very refreshed and warmed up by the hot water. 

We decided to go check out the snack bar for lunch options but unfortunately the food was terrible. I got a turkey burger but it just tasted like a breakfast mystery meat patty on some buns. There were no toppings on the burger. I couldn't stand to eat the whole burger so I looked around for a trash can. We then realized that there were no trash cans anywhere. This was kind of a confusing conflict. They said that it was to promote a clean beach but I thought in reality it would just lead to more litter because people wouldn't have anywhere to throw their trash away. Eventually the people in the snack shack offered to throw it away for us so we didn't have to carry it around all day.

My sketch of the beach

We all went back to the beach and laid down on the sand. The sun was finally starting to come out. As soon as I had gotten into my book I started to feel big cold raindrops splashing on me. We tried to brave the rain for the first few minutes but then it came down harder and harder. Eventually we grabbed our stuff and dashed into a building to wait out the rain. When the rain had finished we headed back to the beach and napped until we had to leave. Luckily they had shortened the day so that I could get back an hour earlier. This was great because it gave me time to work on my action plan and finish my other homework.

Once I got back to the dorms I went on a run down by the river with my friend Tyler. After our run I came back to the dorms showered and worked on my Action Plan for an hour then went to go get dinner. After dinner I had to go to a community meeting with my dorm.

Protecting ourselves from the rain

The meeting was interesting but also long. Some speakers came to share service projects that they have been involved in. This was interesting but not helpful for my particular Action Plan. I felt like it would have been more useful for me to have gotten to use that time to do more work on the Action Plan. When we got back to the dorms it was already pretty late and I knew that I wanted to get to bed early. I sat down and tried to do a bit more work then decided to call it a night. Tomorrow I have a busy day with class in the morning and afternoon and then a mandatory workshop.