Wellbeing 

As we come toward the end of the year we have many heightened emotions. We have lots of excitement and anticipation over the holidays, Christmas celebrations, and summertime activities that are upcoming. These emotions related to happiness are intensified as the year hurtles towards it end. At the same time, emotions related to sadness may also be intensifying, as we move into a time when we have less structure, we won't have access to the wellbeing and teacher support we have at school, and we won't see our school friends everyday. It's normal at this time of year for our emotions to be pulling us in all sorts of directions. We need to remember to look after our wellbeing over this time period, even when we're feeling happy about all the excitement of summer.

You may like to use the wellbeing check in each day (the same one that's also up in Ben's office). You can use this to track how you're feeling each day and ensure you're not getting overwhelmed with either feelings of happiness or sadness. 

From 25 November, the world has been engaged in the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, running until 10 December which is Human Rights Day.

Violence against women continues to occur at an alarming scale in every country in the world. Too often it is accepted as normal behaviour and the global culture of discrimination against women allows violence to occur with impunity. However, violence against women is a global problem and it requires global action. Calls for action like the 16 days of Activism are crucial because they shine a spotlight on the issue of violence against women. They are a moment to create public awareness about what needs to change to prevent it from happening in the first place at local, national, regional and international levels.

Orange door is a local service that can support families in many areas including gender-based violence and domestic violence concerns. 

We also encourage everyone to engage in actions for happiness throughout December. When everyone contributes towards everyone else's happiness. We build a stronger community of happy, healthy people. 

Thanks,

Ben Kilby

Philosophy Camp

As part of an introduction to philosophy, Ben invited a select small group to Melbourne to participate in an event at Melbourne Museum, where we came together to look at exactly what philosophy is and when and what it is used for,

We set off from Edenhope College at 9:30 on the 16th of November. We took a bus from Edenhope to Ballarat, where we got off and got on a train that took us to Melbourne. After the train we walked to the hotel, where we dropped off our bags and made our way to the National Gallery of Victoria. We walked around a bit and looked at the artwork in the gallery.

Then we made our way to the University of Melbourne. Once we got to the university, we got a proper introduction to philosophy for Dr. Klaus Jahn, a lecture at the University. We learnt that the study of philosophy is pretty much summed up as ‘thinking about thinking’ or ‘taking into consideration why we think the way we do and the reasoning behind our opinions.’

Then we went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We went to an American burger restaurant, then went back to the hotel and eventually to sleep.

In the morning, if we got up early we had the opportunity to go swimming in the hotel pool. Then we went to our read to get ready and pack up. We went to Melbourne Museum to the main event with six other schools. We did that from 10 until 2 and had lunch there. Then we presented what we had discussed in our mixed-school groups and left. 

We made our way to the train station with our stuff to get on our way back to Edenhope. We got back at 9:30 which was a little later than expected.

Overall it was a really good experience, giving us an opportunity to go to the city. Everyone really enjoyed it and had a great time.

Lolah Joubert