Father Charles from St.Mary's church organised a sponsored walk to raise money for CAFOD. It started early by taking a group of us to a church service in Colwyn Bay and we started the walk after mass. There was a group from a school from Flint that we went with. The walk was from Colwyn Bay to Rhyl back to St.Mary's church. It took just over five hours and we had a good talk with the students from Flint school. It was also ironic that they were the same group that we went to the same retreat in year 10 with.
I wanted to do this sponsored walk because it helps people in need of help. It helps the poor and also it was good exercise. I did finish the walk and by the next day my legs were aching so much that it hurt to walk up the stairs. But I would have done it again because it goes toward a good cause. The only difficulty I faced was being really pessimistic and thinking I want a lift or why is it so far away. But being with other students and friends made it worth while. I think this activity showed commitment and endurance because it was a long activity and you are volunteering so you are giving up your own time.
The money goes forward to help developing countries which I think is the right thing to do because if we don't help people that need help then we are just being selfish and it's just not good for the world either because they'll be lagging behind when we have the resources to help them.
If I were to do this again next year I would definitely advertise the event for others to join because that way you can raise more money and raise more awareness about the developing countries. This activity has helped me to organise my own events to raise money for our chosen charities in the IB.
We went to Manchester early morning to go to some talks that also included being hypnotized. The talks were quite interesting but I didn't agree with all what was said. For example they said that vitamins were completely useless. I think they do help people and from experience has helped me too and I think just the way they said that is was useless was too much of a statement. But the disagreement I had made me listen more and I guess I enjoyed it more. There was a lot of people who came and the room was almost full of students and tutors. The hypnotist that came wanted some participants but I didn't qualify with the initial test that he did which showed if we were suggestible people. There was this test where we had to imagine closing the light and we had to close our eyes and if you were suggestible you couldn't open your eyes until he said you could. But I could open my eyes which meant I wasn't suggestible. I think I was not suggestible because I was very aware and knew that I was in control of myself. I was very suspicious of everything he did so I guess that made me a less reliable participant.
This hypnotist part of the day was very funny and very interesting because there were some people that did everything he suggested to them. I was wondering if they were actors or just doing everything he said to be funny but it did look like they weren't acting. It sort of makes you think about different kinds of people and how you could manipulate others for your own good or to help. You can hypnotize a person to forget a traumatic event or you can hypnotize someone to do something bad. So it sort of makes you think about morals and peoples intentions. 
