1. Describe an activity, interest, experience or achievement in your life that has been particularly meaningful to you.
Building tree houses used to be my childhood specialty. Running through the woods of Finland with my friends, looking for trees that were in the perfect arrangement and distance apart, finding materials, and negotiating with "rival groups" over territory were all part of what I loved. These are experiences that every kid should go through.
I can still remember how much I loved building tree houses; we would build one with my friends every summer. Our goal was to build each new one higher and larger! The challenges were great and that was only half the fun.
Another problem was finding enough material to build a tree house with. This was a real challenge since we were young kids with not even enough money to even buy nails. We had to be very resourceful and create something out of nothing finding uses for what other people would call garbage.
English: tree
Tree house built for children
English: Tree house "STARS", Kermenguy castle Fran...What you might overlook as just children playing were at times "diplomatic negotiations" where different "groups" of kids would lay claims to territories, engage in "war", and sabotage other tree houses. As a kid building tree houses seemed just like normal life and play but it has helped develop me into a more resourceful and meaningful person. Everything we did as children might not have had meaning but reverberates now as I have gotten older.
How simple life was as a child growing up was, just build bigger tree houses and try and protect them was your only worry. Too bad life's worries grow with age and the only way to manage them is to try and remember how you coped with the smaller problems as a child.