If there’s a theme I can think of to define this weekend, it would be memory.

So many of us, staff and students alike can get wrapped up in the busy week and sometimes perform the incredible feat of forgetting how to have fun. It happens to everyone. We get so busy with work that when someone tells us it’s time to relax, we hardly know what to do with ourselves.

Below, our boy Maximilian has all the enthusiasm to make it to the gym, but can be seen here doing what can only be watching an instructional video on the machine he is about to use.  But working out and exercise are a good way of getting ones mind off the present moment in a productive way.

Others are a little more experienced with their pass-times and look to practise things they are already familiar with in order to relax. Below, Richard and David can be seen at the cooking club, producing cupcakes.

Despite some heavy rain, the greens were open for business, and Kirill, Boris and Azamat took to the driving range to find some solace in sending some balls down range.

And above, Nihad revived efforts from last year in cycling to Geneva and back, while taking us along for the ride this Sunday!

It can be difficult to let go of the momentum of the week. So sometimes it takes some effort to relax. A slight paradox, but the truth none the same. And we at Olympus are revitalised for another wonderful week on campus.

All the best from Olympus Boarding House

The thing that separates the good schools from the great, is about how well they understand that what they teach, doesn’t just lie in the academic. For as high as our academic standards at C.D.L are and how hard our students work; what we pride ourselves on is an education that can prepare for when life truly begins.

And much like the academic, the basics is where it all comes together. Because maintaining a healthy body and mind doesn’t require much creativity. But it does require routine. Simple maintenance in the most obvious areas. Getting enough sleep. Eating well. Reducing time spend between them and electronics. And it’s easy to forget that. So at C.D.L, in our Wellness sessions we bring our boys at Olympus together to remind them about those healthy basics and getting them involved in revitalising their interest in them.

Featured below is a photograph of our C.D.L counsellor Jody supervising a mindfulness exercise.

The point of the exercise echoes what the point of the whole Wellness program is, to remind our boys of the most basic of things and take control of them.

The session Jody conducted was very similar to meditation. Our boys were asked to relax and to become as aware as they can of their bodies, guided through it by Jody. Eyes closed, they take a sensory journey from the top of their heads, all the way down their nerves, to the tips of their fingers and toes. To become aware of their breathing and their pulse.

The regular function of our bodies can so often become background noise to our busy daily activities, it’s valuable to revisit them. To be in control of our breathing and know how we’re actually feeling. And most of the time, it’s tired. And a lot of exhaustion can come from being stuck in ones head. But remembering to inhabit our bodies as a whole, can relax us and tell us the whole story about how we’re feeling.

Over this year, we will be revisiting many exercises in Wellness to teach our boys about the simple maintenance they can take care of to get better sleep and be more aware of what they need.

We hope that you all out there are taking the time to listen to your bodies as well and get the rest and relaxation that you need, as well.

Best wishes, from the Olympus Boarding Team.

Switzerland. What would Switzerland be without its mountains.

(above) James admires the Swiss Alps

Among all the ways people could class the ‘Swiss Boarding School’ experience, the tightly clustered valleys of the Swiss alps are a staple like no other and an appropriate metaphor for the experience schools like C.D.L offer. A microcosm of experience. Much like Boarding school seeks to reflect a modicum of what life after school will be like -filled with an independence that requires a lot of self reliance- Switzerland’s diversity of geography and culture at such a compact scale runs parallel to that. Self-reliance is the main subject we teach here, on a smaller, controlled scale. And our location in Switzerland compliments that to no end.

And to remind ourselves of that, there’s nothing we love more than taking our students up into the alpine cradle of this beautiful country for a host of exciting activities to create unforgettable experiences:

(above) On our first night in Leysin, the Grade 9 and 10 students were taken on the Night-Walk. Where we trekked a short way up into the hills at night to enjoy some time by the fire, under the stars. A moment of rest before the activity-laden Saturday, just a few hours away.

Activities were plentiful and varied. Above, our students embarked on a cross-country mountain-biking experience, riding the smooth green hills as well as the rocky crests that that hillside Leysin offers.

For more classically-minded riders, a completely different kind of bicycle was available.

Climbing activities varied from Indoor training, to a full-on trip to the Via Feratta to give students a proper taste of rock-face climbing. And Olympus is proud to say that our boys’ nerves held and all reached the summit.

While some activities offered a day of fun, others stretched further. Above we can see Nihad posing far higher up than any of our other boys reached over this weekend. Far up onto the Glacier 3000 formation, he and his group hiked for a full day and stayed overnight in the basecamp lodge. While lengthy, there’s no better way to get in contact with the raw beauty of the high icy peaks of the alps. The primordial frost, unthawed for thousands of years.

On Sunday, before lunch and our departure back to C.D.L, all students partook in group activities down by the Leysin leisure centre, from zorbing to Laser-tag.

Olympus is a boys dorm. And it’s of no surprise that boys play war. And they play it well.

With the easing of the COVID-19 restrictions and everyone at C.D.L working as hard as they can to put this pandemic into something close to the rear-view for our students, it’s been a huge and meaningful experience to curate this experience. And amazing for us to see them bring it all to life.

So despite our tired limbs making the climb onto the bus home easy, we all found energy that was trapped within us, eager to get out. And it carried us through an amazing weekend.

Wishing all of you the best from Olympus Boarding House!