Speckled Green

So, back from year 10 camp, and what have we done? Not much I guess. (BTW, this post is for the people who read this who didn’t go, and for my own memory) Read more »

This is the 4th or so major project we did for IST. The Podcast. Most of us failed (in our minds), but we haven’t got our marks back yet, so…

Anyway, without consulting anyone what so ever, I’ve decided I’m gonna upload the video I completed. Unfortunately for Kevin Zhu and I, I’m uploading a version that I finished just this afternoon. The difference between this version and the one I showed in IST: music!!! Take away all the backing music except for Noots at the end, and that’s the basic original video. Oh, and Kevin, if you read this, I found the background file on my comp’s version, took a bit of digging around =]

I’ll update this post once I’ve uploaded it.
Edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxHiTQvTTU0

101, it’s post 101. Lol, 101…. get it?
sad, I know

Anyhows, DoE Hike was great!!! Time for a recap! Now, for those of you who are EXTREMELY BORED, you can read this. For the rest, don’t bother.

Read more »

Date: Friday 29th August, 2008
Aww, the last day. It had been such a great band tour so far, so sad that it had to end. So we had breakfast at an easy 8, and then packed up and loaded the bus. Soon we were off to our last performance on tour.

We arrived outside Laurieton Public School (which we stopped infront of on day 2) and proceded to setup. Besides a small debate between Tim (Graham) and Mark (Barnsley) over where the band should set up, the setting up was relatively uneventful. Two students from the school joined us (they both played clarinet) to play along with us. Druing the performance, spider pig once again made his appearance, this time the kids were really eager to get to him. When Tim (Kerr) came up to talk about his trombone, he and Mark did a little duet. At some point in some holidays, Tim had injured his arm, and so he had to devise a new of practicing his trombone: using his foot!. So both he and Mark got down on the ground and played a small duet together. Another point was when we played ‘The Stripper’ and spider pig got thrown around a bit. Near the end, it got passed to Sam, who later threw it into Jess’s tuba (bell). I really wish I could’ve seen that. Also, spot the Asian came up with 1 kid.

After that wonderful performance (they didn’t cheer as loud as Wirreanda Public School), we packed up and began our journey home. Tim and Anieta presented Mrs Matthews, Dr Croyle, Mark Barnsley and Cambell (the bus driver) with our gifts of appreatiation. They all got chocolate, Mark also got a DVD of ‘Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope’ (as he’s never seen Star Wars *gasp*, and so he joins the list of those very unforunate people), and Cambell also got a sign saying ‘World’s Best Driver’. How nice was that?

On the way home, we watched a few movies, like ‘Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure’ and ‘History of the World: Part 1′. Classics….

Lunch was back at Heatherbrae, and some of us went shopping for food again. At the shopping centre we spotted another Asian! After that we continued our way back home. After dropping off Mr Barnsley at his stop, we eventually got back to school. We unpacked the tour bus, and slowly made our way off to where we would go. And that was the end of Band Tour 2008.

Date: Thursday 28th August, 2008
Waking up later today at around 7 am, to get ready for breakfast at 8. Today we were going to play to the old folk at nursing homes. First stop: Port Macquarie Gardens Nursing Home.

We arrived around 9:30 after our great breakfast. Originally the plan was for the Stage Band to play for the old folk, and then the Flute ensemble and Clarinet ensemble would play as well, while the others mingle and/or talk with the people. Read more »

Date: Wednesday 27th August, 2008.
Waking up early for breakfast (at 6:30 am), we had a choice of half a fried tomato, bacon strips, scrambled (powdered) egg, cereals and toast. A great choice of food…. (The tomatoes and eggs were terrible!!). By 8:30 we had left Motto Farm Motel and were once again in the coach on the road, heading towards Port Macquarie. The day’s first performance was at Johns River Community Hall. Johns River Public was the school that watched us this time. We were expecting another school to come as well, but they ended up not coming. So we had 21 or so kids sitting down on the floor in front of us, staring at us, as we played our show (albeit a slightly shorter one this time). Mark got them up dancing in one of the pieces, it was fun to watch. Read more »

Hello all. Back from a wonderful band tour. I’ll just talk a bit about it, shall I?

Date: Tuesday 26th August, 2008.
As people slowly turn up at school, we milled about waiting for the tour band roll call which happened at 8:30 am. After Dr Cryole marked us all off, we moved all our gear down to the bus bay where we waited for our coach to turn up. 8:55 am, we start loading the coach with our bags and instruments/gear. By 9:30 am, we’re off on the 2008 Band Tour to the Mid-North Coast. Read more »

Stupid Windows Vista can’t upgrade properly, so I have to spend heaps of time fixing up all the settings… and wondering why I can’t seem to download anything, only to find out it was my anti-virus stuffed up!! Also, very tired after camp, and not feeling well doesn’t help.
Was tiring, now that I think about it. Four days of Hiking, camping and a few other activities placed in between. My group was group 5, and it was the smallest Duke of Ed group (and one of the two all boys groups). First day we did canoeing and our group was really slow… we only completed 3km in an hour and a half. And there was still 6km to go. So, since the instructor wanted us to get to the camp site before it was dark, she decided to call in a ride for us to take us as close as they could by road to our camp site. So we had to drag our boats up an awful slope, making my shoes even more soaked and muddy then they already were from dragging the canoes around, and causing us to be rather tired. Then we had to load the canoes onto the trailers and then take them off opposite our camp site so that we could drag them down the bank again, get in them, canoe slightly further up the river to tie up our canoes and disembark to our camp site…:( very tiring.
Anyways, next day, we canoed across the river again, dragged them back up the bank again, and then played touch till we we picked up and taken to ‘Rikki’s Gate’ where we were to start our hike. After lunch, we set off with our rucksacks and were heading to Orange Grove. But, alas, we were to get ourselves lost along the way and had to start ‘bush bashing’. We eventually got to a part where we had to slide down the rock face, and Kevin Liang decided to name it after something in a game he had played: ‘The Super Happy Fun Slide’ (Note the sarcasm with which it was named, because it wasn’t a very pleasant ‘slide’). Read more »

So, on Sunday I joined the several thousand people in Australia who volunteered to help collect for the Salvation Army’s Red Shield Appeal. This year, alot more people from Baulko signed up than last year, and even more wonderful, alot of them could actually come this year, compared to last year. At the collection point (where Anthony had set up his accounting system he programmed himself (he’s getting rather skilful…) the screens he had set up so people could see how much money they had collected was running on something he wrote up in 20 minutes at 9pm the night before! lol) I saw alot of people I know from our school. Read more »

And so here I am, back from my band camp with the school. We went to Crusaders Recreation Centre in Galston. It was quite good this year.
After school, a few of us started sorting out and moving the gear from the TLC Band Room to the bus bay Read more »