During the Year 9 OLP, I tried to try new things, both to encourage myself and others to just go for it and not overthink a situation, which i think. Abseiling was scary for some people, including myself. But instead of thinking of everything that could go wrong, As i used to do, i chose to just do it. What i found amazing was how serene the whole gorge was once you just trust the rope and carabiners. I encouraged alot of people to do the same, and this improved everyones experience of the abseil and the gorge as a whole. During the rock climb back up, i decided to climb as well, helping with the b-laying as well.

The whole gorge I kept morale by making jokes and having conversations with people i wouldn’t usually, hopefully lifting their spirits. At placid pool, i encouraged members of my group to take the jump, giving them reasons for why they are capable of it and that they will probably only be here once.

InnovatED was an important lesson to me about the ability to work in a team and rely on them when you should. My ability to code in HTML is balanced by my lack of design skills, and my team members filled that void. This showed me that being a lone wolf is difficult in this kind of work, which as a software engineer is almost always the case. In some of these group tasks, there isn’t always a definite leader, so you need to learn to give people instructions when they need some, let people do their work others, and speak out about issues with the process when no one else wants to. An example of instructions giving was when i needed to remind a team member to research some group activities for Nulsen group to do. He wasn’t quite sure where to find these so i directed him to an online directory of Perth yellowpages, and let him do the rest because if i’m just doing work for someone else why not just take on the work and let them do work that better suits them. Teamwork and talking to your team members is very important to creating a good end-product, so i am glad i have experienced a real life like situation for contract work in a team, as it taught me teamwork and leadership skills i can use for the rest of my life.