It has been a very exciting and busy time for the current Juniors of Padua Academy! Recently, all of the Juniors went on the annual retreat. When all of the Juniors got to the retreat, the first thing they did was pray. Since the main ideas of the day were leadership and working together as a team, the events, that followed were ice breaker games with their new small group.  After that, everyone picked a leader in the public eye and they talked about who they were/are and what made/makes them a leader. In this process, the girls also had to talk about what characteristics of leaders they see in each other. After that, they watched two scenes from the movie “Groundhog Day” and saw the transformation of a man who started off stubborn and only worried about himself and winning over a girl, and ended up a better person with more sensible responsibilities. Once that was over, the girls had to play a game silently where each small group had to build a structure out of newspaper that was strong enough to support a gallon of water and tall enough so that they could slide it under the structure. After lunch, everybody learned how to do the dance to “We Are All In This Together.” Junior Laurel Winston said that she thinks that a lot of Juniors had a great time, and that the retreat was really a lot of fun.

Laurel and her group of friends’ favorite part was when they were all dancing to “We’re All In This Together.” According to Laurel, the only thing that should be changed for next year is having the ability to pick your own small groups because it is easier to share and talk about things with people you know. Laurel said that the retreat helped her to recognize her gifts and talents more and made her realize that she should be sharing them with others.  Just like the Juniors, every class here at Padua has their own class retreats each year. They are always a great time and are very productive. The retreat was rated very highly among the Junior class.