Personal Odyssey Project Wrapup

We had the Personal Odyssey Celebration on Friday as planned. Before we set our stuff up, we sat in a circle while some of our teachers talked, each said the title of our personal odyssey, and ate cake that they gave us. Then we had 10 minutes or so to set up our stuff and get ready for the celebration. We had 3 setups per table, each from a different class of Humanities (our English, History, Language Arts-like class). After everyone was setup we all sat on the floor facing the stage and prepared to watch or perform in (depending on who it was) the performance section of the celebration. The rest of the grades came in and sat behind us and the teacher, parents, relatives, friends and other people who had come to see stood in the back and on the sides. Then one teacher announced the celebration and had students come up and do their presentations. We had one person go up and sing and play guitar, one person played a beautiful piano piece, one person performed a piece of spoken word poetry they wrote, one person juggled a soccer ball while a slideshow of photos played, etc. A bunch of people also had videos or slideshows of pictures that they played instead of coming up. We watched all the performances, videos, and slideshows and then went on the the exhibition of the rest of us.

We were allowed to set up whatever we wanted to present our odyssey. We could have however much or little we liked as long as it was reasonable (and safe) and we had a summary explaining the project somewhere. We also had to present our odysseys to people in shifts. They had everyone who was in Humanities group A present their projects first, B second, and C third. Basically, everyone would wander around and look at all the projects and the people who were presenting would stand by their presentations and talk about their projects with the people who came by. We would also answer questions and explain things. I am in Humanities group A, so I stood by mine first. I didn't have a lot of people talking to me, although some teachers did chat with me at the beginning. Most people watched the video I set up and sometimes commented on how good I was at volleyball, and how professional the video looked. Also, people who were on the volleyball team with me looked for themselves in the video.

Once I was allowed to roam, I looked at a bunch of my friends and classmates odysseys. It was very interesting to see what everyone had done, how it all turned out, and how they decided to present their projects. One of my friends did henna art as her personal odyssey, and for her presentation she was actually doing it on people, which made her a very popular place to visit. She had a line that was longer than a wall. She was in the first group to present, like me, and actually didn't get to go look at other people's projects because it took her the whole time to do this and she still didn't get to everyone! Another one of my friends did art as her personal odyssey, and had a thing that connected to her laptop that you could draw on and it would draw on the computer! It was amazing, and she let people actually try it out! People really liked that, too. A girl who was also set up at my table made 1000 paper cranes for her project, and brought in all her cranes as well as Japanese candy for people to try.

A bunch of people brought food for the celebration. Multiple people did cupcake making as their personal odysseys, and other people did cooking through family cookbooks, making recipes from a certain culture, or just had baking as a part of their odyssey, like a friend who was studying Germany as her odyssey and made German cake that she brought in. There was a lot of options, so I tried my friend's cake, and an apple pancake that another girl made.

It was very fun to see what everyone else had done, and let people see all my hard work and enjoy my setup. This was the time for recognition of my personal odyssey and I really enjoyed it. I was very happy with the experience.