Welcome to Ivy Ridge… Ivy Ridge has a lot of rules. You wake up at 7:00am every morning. You have to jump out of bed and run to the bathroom. You only have 7 minutes to get dressed and brush your teeth. There are typically 20-25 girls and 5 sinks so you have to push people out of the way to get to the sink. When you are done, you have to wait for your buddy and then go back to your room. You then have 8 minutes to fold your clothes, make your bed, get all of your stuff ready for the day. Your room needs to be perfect or you will get an unsatisfactory inspection -5 points. Before you leave your room you need to make sure your blinds are up and your lights are off or you will get a disrespect to property (neglect) -25 points. When you are done with your room you need to line up in the hallway. You need to make sure you are in line structure, which is feet together, hands at your side, facing forward or you will get a late -5 points. We count off and then we walk through the chapel (they hold church service for the town, not us) and down the stairs to the shoe room. We are not allowed to wear our shoes in Dorm 2 (where we sleep) or else we will get a cat-4 (Category 4 corrections you lose all your points and go to worksheets for 6 hours) If you wear your shoes in Dorm 2 it’s a cat 4 run plans. Worksheets is when you sit in structure-back straight, feet flat on the floor and copy rules over and over again. If you don’t have points to cover a correction you go or if you get a cat 4 or 5. After we get our shoes we line up for the bus.
The bus takes us a few feet to Dorm 1, where the cafeteria is. The boy’s dorms are in Dorm 1 so you need to be careful because if you look at a boy it’s a BRV (Blatant rule violation -50points). You can also get a BRV if you look out any windows or through doorways. We walk down the hall to the cafeteria, when you walk down the hallways you always need to count off through the doors and around corners. If you are a bunk leader, your buddy always stands in front of you and says “bunk” and you say 1 or 2 or 3 or whatever every time you walk through a doorway or turn a corner. it’s a BRV to talk in the hall to anyone. If at anytime you speak without permission it’s an unauthorized communication -25 points. There are different levels and if you talk to someone and your levels added together doesn’t equal 4- it is a cat 4 run plans. (example level 1 and level 2 can never talk) when you get to the cafeteria it’s cat-4 silence. You always have to take the last tray of food, for breakfast we normally eat cereal and it’s normally really gross like bran flakes. We have the option of taking one fruit, but the fruit is normally nasty. When you get your food you can either have one cup of juice or two cups of milk. If you do something different, or if you take any tray other than the last it’s an NFD (not following directions -25 points) You also need to be careful not to drop anything or else you will get an unsatisfactory effort -5 points. You go to your table but you have to wait for permission to sit down. You also need to make sure you took 2 napkins. Not one, not three but exactly 2. If you don’t it’s a disrespect to property-25 points. You have to eat 80% of your food or else it’s a BRV, if you don’t even attempt to eat it’s a cat-4 refusal.
When we finish breakfast we walk to the third building “the library”, buts it’s not really a library. We go upstairs and sit in a circle and we wait for the family representative to come. Her name is Miss Kelly. She is the one who talks to our moms once a week and brings us mail. For an hour, from 8am to 9am we have group. Everyone has a “Share day” and on their “Share day” we have 5 minutes to talk about what is going on with you and how you are feeling. After group we have emotional growth video for 30 minutes. They are normally from the 80s and hysterically stupid. Unfortunately it’s a BRV to fall asleep and a disrupting school to not pay attention.
After the video we have school until 11:30am, everyone is in different grades and different subjects. School is completely independent. There is one teacher who comes in the classroom for about 30 minutes and helps you if she has time, but you are really on your own. You can sign up for peer help, but they only allow 5 minutes for someone to help you. If you look up from your school work for more than 20 seconds it’s a disrupting school -25 points. At 11:30am we have reading time. You have to read until lunch at 12:00pm.
At noon we walk over to dorm 1, back to the cafeteria, it’s the same deal as breakfast. We need to be out of the cafeteria by 12:30 so we can go to gym. If you didn’t bring your gym clothes it’s a disrespect to property (neglect) -25 points. Gym is the best part of the day because we normally play basketball. It’s the only time we have to take aggression out. A lot of the time we get horseplay -5 points because we knock each other over and try to tackle people for the ball. That actually could be a major mischief -50 points because that is the consequence for touching another person.
After gym we have another 1/2 an hour of school until testing at 2. Everyone has a track, which is the number of tests you have to pass each week. For example I have to pass 3 chapter tests each week. If I don’t, I get an academic deficiency -50 points. For this hour you can take as many tests as you can and are ready for. If you take a book into the testing room, bring a black pen into the testing room, take a blue pen out of the testing room, take the same form twice, talk in the testing room or anything like that, it’s a cat-4 cheating. At 3 testing is over and we go to do school until 5.
At 5 we eat dinner over at dorm 1 and then do fitness. Fitness is Nazi-style fitness and it’s horrible. After fitness we have an educational video for an hour and then we do our evaluations. Evals are how we get points. If you are a bunk leader you typically get 15-20 points a day, if you’re a buddy, you get 10-15. You give yourself either a 1 or a 2 on different areas. Such as attitude and cooperation. At around 8 we go back over to dorm 2 and shower and get ready to sleep. It’s a BRV to talk in Dorm 2 and a cat-4 to talk to someone in the rooms or to shut the door or to have more than 4 people in your room. Shut down is at 9:30. If your eyes are open past 9:30 it’s a breaking shutdown -50 points . Goodnight, until it’s time to do it all over tomorrow.