Feathers, Passports and Pinhole Cameras

Last week we had a new session of Girl Talk themed "the future!" where we began a group conversation around "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  The answers were varied and many of the girls were surprised the big sister's had answers since they are already "grown ups" in their eyes.

Some of these aspirations included: opening a bakery, being happy, having a family, being a lawyer, helping people, fashion designer, forensic scientist, having a beach house bigger than Justin Beiber, etc. This conversation was pretty simple, but it was really fun for the girls to share their ideas to hear them from others.  It was especially fun to hear that we ALL have hopes and dreams, no matter how old we are.  It was also especially funny when Tesni told them she was going to go to grad school for art education and everyone was confused because, as they said, "you already are an art teacher." 

Then everyone started off with an activity where you balance a peacock feather on your finger. It's a very simple activity, but really fun and with a great message. First everyone was told to try to balance the feather while they looked at their finger. This was hard and almost everyone had trouble. Then we all tried by looking at the eye of the peacock and it was suddenly a lot easier!

 

Everyone talked about how this could be a metaphor for our goals in life. Focusing on the "eye" or the goal instead of being overwhelmed by all of the steps we have to take to get there. Focus on the big picture everyday; don't get too caught up in the minute details that can lead to stress, fear or frustration. Everyone wanted to keep their feather!

Then we did an activity in our journals to think about where we will be in 4 years (high school for little sisters), 8 years,15 years, and 20 years. Both big and little sisters participated in writing these in their journals.  Then we talked in pairs about our little sister's big, ultimate goal. They thought about this and then broke down the steps needed in order to get to that ultimate goal.

Based on this the ladies created a "passport" with each page dedicated to each of the steps needed in order to complete our goal. We hope that they will keep these as a reminder for the steps they need to take to reach their hopes and dreams. Or we hope that one day they will find this again and check things off that they've completed.  It was fun listening to the pairs break down their goals into realistic steps. One little sister's goal was to be an accessories designer, and her big sister thought of a few necessary steps like going to college at an art school, and getting an internship at a design firm, etc. Another little sister wants to be a lawyer so her big sister was talking to her about going to law school and passing the bar!

Everyone had break outside this week again. Liana and Tesni brought some candy back from their recent trip to Iceland, which of course everyone was very excited about. The photography class was finishing up their pinhole camera photography this week. This is definitely one of the all-time favorite photography projects for the SOHO girls. The pairs work together to create  camera out of an old oatmeal container that was entirely light-tight except for one pinhole in the front.  Then the "took photos" outside directly onto photo-paper that is mounted on the inside of the container.

\

The art portion of this day was mainly to finish things up as well as we could! We've missed a few days because of snow so we had a few sewing projects going on and a few pairs working on wood-burning their lap desks.  Thankfully, there was a lot of teamwork all around and the majority of projects were finished!