This Thursday we had to go on a self-organized trip in local area. During this trip we should improve our skiing abilities, practice how to start a fire and test our personal equipment. Last but not least, we should have funJ My morning was not fun at all. I got um at 7:45 to be punctual in class. In front of Spicheren I met Line, we went upstairs and both of us were wondering why the classroom is locked and no one is there 5 minutes before class. We checked Fronter and found out that we mixed the date. The IT-course we expected to be this morning will be one week later. So, I checked Facebook due to finding out when Marek, Saedis, Joey, Jill and I will meet. Unfortunately, the meeting point was at 10:30 in front of Spicheren. Going home was no option, therefore I prepared my skies very carefully but still I had to wait for over 45 minutes. My mood got even worse because almost every group member arrived up to 10 minutes late. The thing that beats everything was that they had not waxed their skies. With an approximately delay of 20-30 minutes we were ready to start. The plan was going to Jegersberg, do the 4 kilometre track, make a fire and have lunch and do the track again. The weather conditions were really good, the snow was a little bit icy. As we arrived at the clearing we picked up Michael. His group had to skip the track due to an injury. He joined us and we started. Until the first slope everything went well. In my opinion, this slope is the deepest and hardest slope of the entire track but we all got down without falling. Jill was the last person standing on top. She was scared of the depth and was not able to defeat the fear. So, I went up again because I wanted to help her. I understood her fear due to the lack of skiing experience. I have seen me as one of the better skier of the group and therefore felt responsible of her and the group that was waiting at the bottom of the slope. I tried to explain her the “pizza-technic” because, in my opinion, it was the easiest technic to come down the hill in a slow way. It took several minutes to convince and improve her self-confidence and prevent her from going back. Finally, Jill defeated her fear and did really well. Unfortunately she fell very badly on her hip on the last meters due to panic because someone was in her way. We were encouraging and comforting her and on the same time we were really proud of her. I told Jill that she will fall more often on the track but she should not give up because her skills will improve. I predicted that she is able to notice an improvement at the end of the track and that was exactly what happened. At the third slope she was not falling anymore. It took us a very long time to do the whole track which was on the one hand very unsatisfactory for me because I was very cold and could do the track in half of the time we did it. One the other hand I tried to be understanding and a teacher in some way for the ones with less experience than me. I think this worked well because Marek attested me that I was very patient.

Finally, we arrived at the fireplace and met Michael again who followed a faster group after the first slope. We were making fire with a flint and it worked! I brought some dried pieces of wood with me and collected bark of a birch. Meanwhile, Joey and Saedis made small snippets out of the tried wood and Jill collected leaves. After that, Marek and Joey tried alternately to start the fire with a flint and I tried to keep the tinder in position. This was perfect teamwork! A couple of minutes later we had a self-made fire and lunch together. We were talking, joking and warming up ourselves. After lunch, Joey, Marek, Michael and I did the 4 kilometre track again and went home afterwards.

All in all, the day started in a bad way but became a really good one in the end. In retrospective and according to the group dynamics lecture, I think I acted like a groupleader. My aim was to help the group members and keep the group together. Therefore I denied the suggestions to follow Michael and the faster group that passed us.