Speckled Green

1:30 am: what’s the time? … aw man…

3:20 am: let me guess, sometime before six…

5:50 am: why do I wake up so early?

Roll around in bed a bit, listen to my iPod, read a book… geezz, 6:30 seems so far away. When it finally came, up I was, brush my teeth, get changed, pack my bag (I was bored, really bored). Breakfast, once again, one of the first in line, breakfast was early today. After the hearty breakfast, we went to finish packing our bags and to get ready for the ‘Eco-challenge’. Funnily, the Eco-challenge had little to do with anything environment related. It was a challenge for the activity groups to do as many activites as they can to score as many points as they can.

We started off with the rope climb. You had to climb 10m of a narrow ‘rope’ ladder (it was made of steel…) and reach the top and touch the supporting beam. To get the points, 5 of us had to climb up it. First went Edmund, who climbed the traditional way, hold it side-ways and climb up. After a slow start, and swinging around a bit, he got to the top at ‘average’ speed (what is ‘average’ speed anyway?). Next was Benny. Halfway up, he must’ve either started getting tired, or looked down, cause he started getting a bit jittery, and took longer to go up, despite doing what Edmund did to get up. Simon, always being different, decided to climb up it straight on, like a normal ladder, and quickly got to the top (he was the fastest person in our group, no surprises).  Quickly after him was Mitch, who followed Simon’s example, and quickly scaled the ladder. I also followed suit, and was quickly up there. It surprised me how easy it was to get up there, and how much the ladder would swing around. And climbing up 10m, and then looking down when you’re at the top of the ladder, it can look a bit far down. It reminded me of the leap-of-faith we did at Vision Valley.

Next, we rushed over to the Balancing beam, where we spent over half an hour trying to balance ourselves on a see-saw which was in lengths of 1:2. It was difficult, and we had several attmepts, both times having people sit ontop of each other to try and balance the weight. In the end, we had us spread evenly across the beam, with Stuart sitting on the logs in the middle and Deva sitting on him, and having Sandra on the end as a moving weight to make it all balance.

The wall was next, and once again, we did it very quickly. Skipping over to Nitro, where we once again all got across. Simon almost got us a bonus point by giving the instructor there ‘A Whole New World’ on his phone, but then he must’ve forgotten…. I think… cause we didn’t get that bonus point. Archery next, and we got a few bulls-eyes (thanks to Piranavan and Nicole, mainly, I think…. I can’t remember, but Piranavan got a few, I know). Ben, Simon, Jasmin and I were sharing the same bow, and with 4 arrows at a time, it was once shot a turn. I must’ve been the only one there to remember all the rules that they ingrained in me about saftey with archery (They were really concerned about it when I was at the SAGALA camp…. that’s the Salvation Army for you), but we still had fun. Simon wasn’t that good (he couldn’t see with out his glasses, not a target that far away…). Most of my shots hit the target, but my first one wasn’t powerful enough (I’ve forgotten how much effort you need in archery!), which I think is a good achievement for someone who’s only done archery 3 times in their life…

Next we went to the puzzles, where we took a whole 2 minutes to work out how to seperate 2 metal ‘rings’. Half/most of the group was trying this and that, and Stuart then just walked in, and said “here, let me just pull this up like this…” and, there you go, one puzzle solved! We were going to do another activity, but then our 2 hour time-limit was up. After all this, our group came 4th, with 18 points. After lunch, we all boarded the busses, and began the hour and a bit journey home. This time round, some people were more inclined to sleeping, and I did that for a short while, before pulling out Simon’s book to read for a while, and then talking to people around me. Half way through the bus ride, Jasmin stole my hat…. and so I stole it back. Then she stole it again, and again, and again…. after all this, I finally got my hat back, but it had a small rip where a seam had come out…. (so at home I repaired it…) Then was the hard part of saying goodbye to everyone, and having to go home, giving Prosha a lift on the way… and picking up my brother.

All in all, it was an enjoyable camp, and I thank everyone who help organise it and run it!

Wake up at 5:30 am….
Not my earliest… but Still early. At 6:30, I start moving about. At 7, that’s when we all get up. Some people have showers, others brush their teeth after not doing it last night. Then it’s time to go outside to line up for breakfast. The people with the special diets once again get to go to the front…. but I’m not jelaous.. After a hearty breakfast, we went to our next activity, Flying Fox. What fun it was, a great 50m long flying fox! Well, I think it was 50m….

Afterwards, a quick morning tea before Absailing. 10m wall for me. Jasmin took the 5m because noone else was… Ben and I went up together, just cause he wasn’t bothered going up on his own (it’s a tad bit boring up there waiting all the time…). Sandra took the 5m wall, and took a while to get started, I think because she has a slight uneasyness with the thought and feel of starting to absail. While that was happening, the guys were playing around with the rope that was strung between 2 trees (it was for holding the harnesses while a group was there) like doing chin-ups (Simon did heaps, I stopped early so I wouldn’t get sore hands… Simon got the sore hands….) or using it to do flips. Ben was like “Do a flip on it” I do the flip, using the tree infront of it. Simon said I was a cheater. Ben then said “Do it with out the tree.” I did it. Once again they called me a hacker…. just cause they can’t do it that well…….

Lunch (yet again stuck in the middle of the long line…) and then off to the beach! (Oh, wait, is that good? It was like it was going to rain…) where we started off with body boarding. Some people had to go back and get their rash-shirts… that might’ve been slightly annoying…. then we went into the surf! Gee, it was cold.. After 20-somthing minutes, my leg got a cramp (It hurt alright) but I eventually moved back to the shore, where later I got ANOTHER cramp (why me?!), which almost ruined my time at the beach. My leg was sore for the rest of the time there (but I got used to it…… eventually…….), so I missed out on learning to surf. Instead, after they did a little surf-safety and taught people how to paddle and stand, I went with the rest of the people who didn’t/couldn’t do surfing at that moment (most of us were just sick of the freezing water) and went to sit down. In the end we got Jolene to stand in a small pit we had dug, and then piled up sand around her, so that she ended up being buried up to her knees ( the best we’ve had for camp for someone standing up). It was funny to see the short people stand around her and be taller than her!

Back to school for freetime and dinner, then heaps and heaps of free time before we went on a night walk to the headlands. The walk there was wonderful, nice deserted beach, and a wonderful view of the coast from the headland. The wind was blowing, and all these people with jackets… it wasn’t cold, that’s why half of us were in t-shirts. Then we had to go back, which was a shame, but back we went. Talking to a friend or two on the way back, out walking most of the pack, and being first in line for supper! Isn’t 6 meals a day great?

To bed, and this time, no long talks, we just went straight to sleep. Thankgoodness for that.

So, after frantically (sorta) packing my bag over the weekend, and getting driven to school early, I went on a school camp, with the rest of year 8, to the Collaroy Centre of the Salvation Army. The main reason why we were having this camp was because Mrs Pigram, our year advisor, wanted to take us somewhere to learn surfing (which I ended up missing out on), but also to give our grade the responsibility of leadership and organisation, something our grade needs more of.

After roll call, some things from the teachers about how they expect our behaviour to be, and getting onto the bus, we were finally off. An hour and a bit long bus ride, where a couple of seat swaps, loud talking, feeling like this trip is going forever and yet so short, and playing cards (I still don’t quite get the game Big 2, someone teach me one day, perhaps?) When we got there, we milled about as we got organised, then had morning tea. After shifting our bags to our cabin rooms, we walked down to the beach. There we had some games of beach volleyball, beach soccer, flags (which I didn’t get to do… such a shame, and I might’ve won…) and a quick review on surf saftey. After that, we went back to the camp for lucnh.

After lunch we had our first activites. First off we went to canoeing. There, I went with Jasmin (who said she knew how to paddle. I didn’t.) and we went out, and I quickly got the hang of it (Thankgoodness) and promtply started making us go in circles! WOOT! While we were canoeing, a few of us tried some, …unusal… racing, which ended up with Edmund in the water after capsizing. Soon after, Ben asked Simon “Hey, do you want to capsize?” as a joke. Simon, like normal said “Yeah ok!”. What made this worse was when they did actually capsize after that… and Simon lost his glasses to the lake. After helping take the canoe back to an island in the middle of the lake, we headed back to shore. There, as she was getting out, Nicole tipped over and ‘capsized’. Poor Nicole…

Getting out, I was interested to see that I wasn’t as wet as I expected I might be.. I thought that I might have splashed myself a bit more. As it was, my pants and shoes were only slightly wet. Then our supervisor decided he’d get us to play a game called ‘The Magic Knife’ He goes (and points at people with each word, just for the effect) ‘This is the maigic knife, the magic knife, the magic knife. This is the magic knife, who did it kill?” and then he’d tell us who it killed. He then wanted us to guess it. In the end, it was Jasmin and I who we accredited with working it out (I told Jasmin, cause she asked me, I found out by overhearing one camp leader comfirming with the other when she caught on to how it worked.). Way for overhearing! That goes with something I hold onto. Think and Listen, and you will learn.

After going back, and having a quick afternoon tea, we went to our next activity, Challenge. There we first got onto a beam, and had to organise ourselves by D.O.B., without speaking to each other or touching the ground to move around (we cheated, we whispered when he wasn’t listening, and quickly swapped (sometimes) when he wasn’t looking.). That was fun, interesting, and hard.

After that was the maze, where 2 people had to navigate a third person who was blind-folded without proper words (some people used chinese, but the leader doesn’t know that…). That can become slightly hard with everyone else shouting as well…. I lead Simon down the wrong path for fun, so Ben got him to go through the rope fence

Next was Nitro, where we had to get people from one side to a 1.5m2 tarpolen on the other side by (it was just plain ground underneath) by swinging on a rope. Add to that that we all have to stand on it (we had Kapilan and the largest group) and you have to take a can of water across with out it spilling anything……… you get the picture…

After that was the ‘Wall’ were you have to get one person up a 3m wall, then he/she can help the next person up, and then they can help the rest up. The last person has to jump up cause only 2 people can be ontop, and the rest can’t help once they’re over the wall…. Simon was last in our group every time cause he can jump the highest (I can probably jump as high as him) and is relatively lighter than me…. actually he’s heavier, but he can do the jump grab better than me. Then we had to go get ready for dinner… the line takes ages to go through and be served…

afterwards, we had a little spare time before Night Games in the conference room. There we played a few random games before going to our rooms for 1 & 1/2 hours before lights out. As expected, all the boys were talking about sex related things for AGES! Finally, they shut up at 11:30, when I finally drifted off to sleep at midnight… as I was the one who always answered someone who asked ‘what’s the time’ I was tasked with getting people up…. despite Ben being our ‘Room Rep.’…