Journal #32

Although it sounds dumb, Snowball was an experience that gave me emotional growth. Snowball, a drug and alcohol prevention retreat, takes place usually three times a year at schools such as Glenwood High School, Sacred Heart-Griffin High School, and Springfield Southeast High School. My first Snowball was in November of 2009, and it really opened my eyes to a lot of new opportunities. Although I usually do not open myself up to people emotionally, I found myself becoming comfortable with these people I had never met and telling them my story. It made me some incredibly good friends that allow me to just talk to them whenever I want, and they are some of the greatest people I have ever met in my life.

Recently, I went to SHG's snowball. It was the second Snowball at SHG that I had attended, and it was my fifth Snowball overall. Since I am extremely outgoing and not shy, I ended up being staff, which basically means that I was in charge of a group of kids and basically just led discussion. It was so much fun. Snowball is an extremely emotional experience, and while leading group discussion, I learned a lot of things about my peers. Some people in the group had experienced so many awful things that no one should ever have to go through. It made me look at my own life a little and realize how good I have it; I do not have the constant everyday struggles that some of the kids I talked to have to deal with every single day of their lives.

Snowball is also very self eye opening. There are activities such as Cross the Line, in which the codirectors are on one side of the gym and all of the participants and staff are lined up on the out of bounds line. The codirectors read of situations, such as "Cross the line if you have a happy home life." This is a very emotional experience for a lot of people; one learns things about themselves that they usually try to hide from everyone else. I know that personally it always kind of shocks me as I am finally honest with myself and I see the reactions of others. People always become closer through these kinds of experiences; some of my very very best friends have been made because of these experiences. Although it does sound kind of dumb, Snowball has definitely changed my life.