Happy Birthday Ayam! Even on a rainy Saturday, good cake and good company keep Ayam smiling 🙂

With a smaller group than usual, we had a more informal House meeting. We chatted about everything in general, the past few days, the wellbeing projects, the plans for the break.

The difference between “peer pressure” and ” encouraging” was the topic to a small debate which allowed Aryan to learn the meaning of the word “connotation” 🙂

It was easy to find a consensus… in general, peer pressure is linked to something negative whilst encouraging is normally out of a good intention.

In Portugal we have a saying… “Conversations are like cherries”; you have one, and another one, and another one… and it was this way that we ended up doing a quick briefing on how these first weeks after the break have been. Ghassan confessed that it was taking him time to get back to his normal weekly pace but he was feeling more “focused” now.

These moments are quite invaluable, random conversations can be a source of appeasement and it’s good to share with the people who you live with.

For the Respect Week, all the Boarding Houses made an effort to show our Respect for environment and the places we call ours.

We have then organized a littler picking action with the rest of the Houses.

From Léman Ayam, Elmar, Iman and Raphael spent some time outside collecting rubish and cleaning up the beautiful pathwalk behind our school and the stream of water that runs along. The bag was fairly heavy of minor things who do not fit in a scenery like this. Mother nature is surely happy in Versoix.

There are no little efforts and the few bin bags CDL Boarding gathered represent the fact that if we all take care of nature a little bit, a difference can be seen.

Well done to all those who participated 🙂

A relevant topic of our Wellbeing session today.

We all have been exposed to peer pressure, we still are and somehow, in a way or another we end up conditioning our actions to please and be accepted. It all can happen in a very natural and subliminar way. It happens spontaneously and it’s hardly noticeable sometimes. It’s just there, wherever we go.

Anuar made a very relevant remark… as to how us, as adults, are still exposed to it. The conversation was enlightening and there are good news:

• As we grow older we tend to be more comfortable to say “no”
• There are positive types of pressure and these can be beneficial.

This topic feels like something absolutely natural, taken from our daily lives and it touches everyone in a deep and meaningful way.

… it smells deliciously 🙂

Iranian soup … Wellbeing at its best 🙂

“Here we only have one rule: never let it cool!”

-The Polar Express

Ghassan and Mark keeping warm inside the gym in these snowy times..

Last week we have started Pillar 3 of our Wellbeing Programme, which is about “building positive friendships”. One of the aspects of building friendships is having something in common. Whether it is a language, origins, beliefs, or interests, sharing an activity like Basketball is always a good idea to start!

Keep hitting those baskets guys…

We have now officially introduced our Pillar 3 on Making Positive Friendships.

Friendships are one of the most important elements of our lives. We are social beings and despite differences between us we can all agree that we need people around us to be fulfilled in our nature.

In Boarding this is even more emphasized. By being away from the family, the students are led to create strong bonds to lay the foundations of their “Boarding Family”. Peers, roommates, colleagues become like brothers, confidents, close friends… in some cases, inseparable for life. The nature of this connection is then authentic, genuine and forged by the circumstances and the kinship that the setting enhances.

These types of bonds are created by the capacity of listening and understanding each other. That’s how we find points of agreement or common interest. However it’s a process that takes time. Real friendships are not always easy to find and need to resist to the abrasive effect of arguments, disagreements and even time. If they resist to these elements, if they are capable of reinventing themselves through changes, maturity and distance… most likely they are real.