Archive for the ‘Kayak Gap Year Abroad’ Category
Monday, February 21st, 2011
Tamara Semehen and Clay Whitaker take a creative writing course during the Patagonia Gap Year spring semester.
When it was discovered that Pucon Kayak Hostel guest Ken Zimmerman was a nature and composition writer professor for the University of Oregon and Lane Community College I immediately asked him to teach Clay Whitaker, Dan Warner, and Tamara Semehen of the Patagonia Gap Year program. It was an exciting opportunity to attend as Ken would share a couple of simple writing exercises.
Ken Zimmerman teaches creative and nature writing to Patagonia Gap Year students.
Ken chose two exercises to help the students writing.
Try Teloscope Writing
Teloscope writing was described as standing far off of a piece of nature and describe it. I chose a rotting dog house roof. After three minutes of writing the students were instructed to walk close to the object and continue to describe it’s detail. The exercise proved to illustrate varying levels of color and a simple technique to change perspective.
“Now Let’s Try an Exercise with Metaphor Use”
Ken had us choose an event in our lives that produced a distinct emotion. Since we all love kayaking our metaphor would be a kayak related event. Ken instructed, “Find a time on the river that produced the same emotion and describe your first emotional event with your kayak metaphorical event.” Think of your writing using this phrase, “It was like…” and complete the phrase. Ken’s lesson proved to be a fantastic learning experience and added inspiration to the young writers.
View more of David Hughes Blogs.
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Monday, February 7th, 2011
Hola from Chile! Our group of five just arrived here in Pichelemu after an awesome and eye-opening week in the Maipo valley. We had the opportunity to stay at Cascada de las Animas (a family owned adventure resort), and best of all get some work experience. During our stay we got into a raft guide lifestyle that included safety boating on the lower Rio Maipo. Since I had raft guide experience from the past summer it made me feel right at home. Our duties were to show up at 9 AM which turned into an extra little nap before things started to move around 10 o clock. We would help move rafts and shuttle them to the river, get equipment ready for the guests, and get our own kayaks and gear ready to go. We were lucky enough to work with two fellows from West Virginia that were down raft-guiding for the month to make enough money to head south to the dreamy Futalefu. The more english-speaking lads the better. We did two trips a day for three days which turned out to be quite exhausting. We were provided with three meals a day which were subtracted from our pay. At the end we walked away with some work abroad experience and enough pesos to last a couple days!
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Friday, July 2nd, 2010
By now you have heard about gap year and you have to admit you are intrigued. But is taking a gap year just before you goto college the right choice for you? Here are a few reasons.
Spend a week at the Seven Teacups Waterfall Camp. There are more than 70 clean waterfalls in the area. Your parents are going to love your photos and videos. Wahoo!!!
10. Taking a break may make you more productive? It’s not actually a break but it is a change from the “school system.” Research has shown that gap students are more likely to graduate college. The semester off kind of gets the lazy bug out of your system as you mature.
9. Learn Spanish. How cool is it to learn Spanish by speaking with your host family, negotiating your river shuttle, and speaking with Chileans your age.
Click here to learn more about “Chile Gap Year.”
8. Earn College Credit. New River Academy is an affiliate of the Seattle Central Community College. Through this program you have a pay/credit option for your Spanish course.
7. Discover your academic niche. So you don’t know what your career direction is. Well that is a big deal and that alone makes it hard for you to be motivated. The gap year addresses career options as you gain new perspectives.
6. Are you ready for college? Do you know how to study, schedule your time, wake yourself, budget, and cook. The gap year places you in an environment where you begin to work with peers planning group budget, meals, and learning how to live on your own.
5. You love to kayak. The Andes mountains are the second largest mountain range in the world. Melting snow flows west a couple of hundred kilometers to the Pacific. Hmmm, melting snow + gradient + short distance = OMG! I love to kayak Chile!
4. You’ve always wanted to learn photo or video. This is the time and the place. Video and photo courses prepare you within a new professional skill to earn money. That’s right many of our students immediately begin working for commercial companies making $$$.
3. You realize you need to mature. OK so you don’t care about making money, school, or career stuff. Trust us… that will come later. For now, let’s have a few discussions about what are your career and school options.
2. Gain a new perspective. The point is that you will gain more from your gap year than in any single year of university. Many students only begin to realize how much they learned and experienced during the university and career years after the gap experience.
1. Fun, fun, fun. A Georgia high school athlete survey asked, “What is the number one reason you participate in high school sports? The answer was not to win or to be a champion. The number one answer was, “to have fun.” Chile’s Patagonia is simply fantastico. You will make Chilean friends that will last a lifetime and explore in ways beyond your imagination.
It’s “Easy to Apply.”
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Friday, May 14th, 2010
This has been an amazing year and we have had many opportunities to take beautiful photos. We’ve been given assignments that involve us taking portraits, abstract things, leading lines, and many other things. Our most beautiful landscape photos definitely came from Chile though. This photo essay takes us through our whole school year. Where we first met all these new faces, some seemed nice right away and others a little crazy. Then, it continues on on our first adventures together in Canada. Afterwards, it moves us onto second quarter in Chile where we began to experience even more mind-blowing things. All these things drawing us closer together, helping us begin to become a family instead just a bunch of individuals. All the photos in Chile you can see the group begin to grow and transform into stronger people. In that beautiful country, the time began to blow by us and before we knew it our time there was done. Now, we end back up in this last quarter. Where we went a little abstract with our photos and also were finally able to show our stuff at the NOC Shoot-out. Lastly, our final photos leave us ending in Canada, with leading lines as my final assignment.
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Tags: chile whitewater, Go Huge Experiences, Huge Experiences, Kayak School, new river academy, ottawa canada, taylor cote, whitewater country, whitewater kayaking, whitewater photography
Posted in Academics, chile whitewater rivers, Culture, Kayak Gap Year Abroad, Kayak School, Kayaking, Photography, Whitewater Countries | Comments Off
Friday, May 14th, 2010
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This is a photo essay. Basically a compilation of photos that share a basic theme. My photo essay details our journey through this year, starting in Ottawa first quarter, and ending in West Virginia. I tried to end each section with a night photo, but that was a little difficult. I would like to point out that even though the last shot is not of anyone in our group I feel it describes how we as a group are.
Tags: Academics, Chile, Chile Rivers, Freestyle Kayaking, Gap Year, gap year abroad, go huge, Go Huge Experiences, high school, Huge Experiences, Huge Move Of the Day, kayak, Kayak School, Kayaking, matt hill, new river academy, Photography, whitewater, whitewater kayaking
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Friday, May 7th, 2010
The past week and a bit spent on the Ottawa River was pretty great. Garb came in which was a real treat, but is kind of strange for the spring. Baby face, corner wave, and push button were also great practice. The week though was pretty hard academically as most of us were and still are preparing for the AP exams that we we do this week here at Tino’s house. It was also a little hard as Lorenzo was not in the country so his classes had to communicate over webcam. We took a field trip also to the Canadian Technology and Science Museum, and I am sure you have all read the essays that we had to do for homework. The week weather wise was not preferable as there was some rain and there were a few days that were a little cold. We closed the time out with a trip to Niagara Falls where there were helicopters ridden, attractions visited, and falls scouted. That was our time spent.
Tags: Academics, Freestyle Kayaking, Gap Year, gap year abroad, go huge, Go Huge Experiences, go huge kayaking, high school, Huge Experiences, kayak, Kayak School, Kayaking, matt hill, new river academy, Ottawa river, Photography, whitewater kayaking
Posted in Academics, Culture, Intructional, Kayak Gap Year Abroad, Kayak School, Kayaking, Uncategorized, Whitewater Countries | Comments Off
Wednesday, April 28th, 2010
“Turn that light on.”
“Wake up!”
“Now tell me where you have hidden the gold!”
“Speak up!”
“Now tell me again and DON’T F****** MUMBLE!”
“Shock him.”
“Now tell me if there are traps.”
“Don’t talk to me like that!”
“Now tell me the right answer.”
“Get the bucket and drown him.”
“Let him up.”
“Now tell me about the traps.”
“Give me the right answers and get out of here quicker.”
“Now tell me how to disarm the traps.”
“I said speak up!”
“Now tell me again or things will get a lot worse.”
“Get me some pliers.”
“Now tell me what to do when I get into the cave.”
“Pull out his teeth.”
“Stop struggling or the pliers might slip.”
“Clean up that blood and tell me how to reach the gold.”
“DON’T F****** LIE TO ME!”
“Now tell me, was that so hard?”
“Untie him and throw him over board.”
“Don’t talk back to me. Understand that he is no longer useful to us.”
“Return to your posts and get this ship moving.”
“Understand that we will find that gold.”
Tags: Academics, Freestyle Kayaking, Gap Year, gap year abroad, Go Huge Experiences, Kayak School, Kayaking, matt hill, new river academy, whitewater, whitewater kayaking
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Tuesday, April 27th, 2010
The other day we took a field trip. We went to Ottawa, our nations proud capitol. Everyone was all excited because they wanted to see our parliament building that was made out of ice. They were however mad too though because they thought that Canada did not have roads yet so that it may take us a while to get there. They also were wondering about the lack of dog sleds in summer. Nothing Jess or I said or did would convince them of the fact that Canada is a well functioning country with advanced modern infrastructure and a nice list of achievements. We arrived at the Canadian Technologic and Science Museum. Every one was shocked at how every thing here was as nice or nicer, more like nicer than in the States. The museum itself was pretty sweet as there were many cool exhibits on Canadian achievements. I liked the trains. They were big. There were also sections on things like Canadian Space travel, the Canoe, and the first nuclear reactor in Canada, which I believe we had before the States. I enjoyed the exhibit on all the things that we invented, like the snowmobile, basket ball and a way to effectively produce insulin for diabetics. Every one seemed to become more accepting of how Canada was actually a country and they became less ignorant. However I think that most everyone thought of it as a joke. I don’t think that that is how you should treat your neighbor. Do you? Mostly I think it is from jealousy or something else along those lines. All that I have to say to them is: Stop making fun of us, eh? We know all aboot stuff, Ok, buddy? So stop. Please?
God save the Queen! And I will see you on the water!
Tags: Academics, Gap Year, gap year abroad, go huge, Go Huge Experiences, go huge kayaking, high school, Huge Experiences, Kayak School, matt hill
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Wednesday, April 14th, 2010
Our most recent assignment was to take different types of abstract photos using things like nature, man-made things, light, texture, and color. I have many photos from this assignment; these are some of my personal favorites.
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Tags: Photography, Photography Class
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Wednesday, April 14th, 2010
The recent photo project by Matt Hill about abstract photography. I think these images are pretty sweet.
See you on the water!
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Tags: Academics, Freestyle Kayaking, Gap Year, gap year abroad, go huge, Go Huge Experiences, go huge kayaking, high school, kayak, kayak high school, Kayak School, Kayaking, matt hill, new river academy, Photography, whitewater, whitewater kayaking
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