A Day In The Life

Year 13 camp was the best camp I've ever been on in my liiiife, and that's a lot of camps, including various Easter camps, Soul Survivor, Parachute (okay maybe not Parachute '08, that was actually freakin' amazing) and of course heaps of school camps over the years. At around 9am on Monday the 1st of March, 180 of us went to Half Moon Bay on the bus. When we arrived we discovered that our ferry was having engine problems, and that we would have to wait two hours for the Waiheke ferry to arrive. So we all hung around the rich peoples' lawns and looked out over the harbour, and put on sunscreen and ate. Finally we were able to board the ferry and about half an hour later we had arrived on Motutapu Island, which is really not that far away, but the fact that it's an island somehow lends it a sense of isolation and awesomeness.

So we loaded our luggage onto a truck, and then began a six kilometre walk on a gravel track that went up and down through the dry sunny hills. (We thought we had it rough, but on our returning walk before we went home, we passed Rangitoto College, with ALL of their luggage on their backs. Thank you, Roskill, for having mercy on us.)

When we finally got to the camp, an ex-military camp nestled down by one of the beaches, the head instructor or overseer (who calls himself Troll, which is a thoroughly appropriate name) proceeded to give us a sort of warning/introduction lecture regarding matters such as sun protection. Away from the smog of the city, the hole in the ozone is a bigger problem, and temperatures go into the 30s. Troll claimed to have spent time dealing to girls with blisters on their shoulders the size of his fist, thus it is a camp rule that no one is permitted to go around during daytime with exposed shoulders. The punishment for that offence as well as the usual alcohol/drugs ban was an even longer 10.5km walk, with luggage, in the hot sun, alone, to the ferry. Funnily enough, people were really well-behaved at this camp.

So then we just launched straight into activities - our first one was the Survivor Challenge, which was a kind of assault course with two forts on either side, and you challenge another team. One of the obstacles is a cargo net that you have to crawl under, and I sacrificed comfort for technique, resulting in bleeding knees within the first half hour of our activity. I must admit I actually felt pretty ruthless. =p

And then we did Waka Ama, which is a kind of long canoe that fits eight people, and you all paddle, and it has an arm out to the left which stabilises it. We had to race the other team and we won, because Mr. Cornes, who was the teacher on our boat, has actually represented New Zealand in that very sport. Strange what you learn.

I'll just go through and list the other activities and give a short description.

Art - screenprinting t-shirts with designs to remind us of our camp.

Snorkelling - self-explanatory. We went down to a part of the beach called Stingray Alley but I saw no stingrays. Snorkelling out at Goat Island is far better... all we saw was a little group of snapper.

Kayaking - awesome fun. Paddled out to a little rocky island then played some games in the water. This was when the moment with Swanwick happened - if you've heard about the cicada incident, this is where it was at.

Sailing - omg. So fun and hilarious yet so frustrating. I would really really like to try it again with better instructions. MR. HORNE.

High ropes - let's not talk about this one. I climbed to the top of the centipede which is a sort of hanging pole with staples and footholds in it, and then I also climbed to the top of the wooden pole that connects up to the high beam. But there was no way I was walking over the top.

SEAL challenge - as in Navy Seals. Lol. A kayak was placed on the sand, we had to dig a hole underneath it to fit the entire group underneath the kayak and out the other side, without talking, without tools, and without touching the kayak. Every time someone slipped up, we had to run down to the water and do whatever the sadistic instructor requested - for example, lying down in the shallows (which were rocky, and covered in pointy razor-sharp oyster shells) and rolling three times to the left, three to the right... sit-ups, singing the national anthem... whole group going underwater... Then once we'd all climbed through we had to fill the hole under the kayak with water and all of us had to go through the water underneath. After all that, we had to play a game transporting pieces of a puzzle down a field without talking and without moving with the pieces. Then we had to carry our kayak through the swamp. Yes, so much fun.

Archery - again, it's obvious.

Confidence Course - destroys your confidence.

Beach Games - a failure of an activity. One game was "frisbee golf" in the grassy hills. Most of the time, me and Nic and Jono and Nandita were just looking for our damned frisbees. Then we played Invaders on the beach, which sort of petered out.

Pump - we had this last, on the last day. Hahaaaaa omg. The idea is light weights, loads of reps. We were flattened after that.

Raft-building - ours floated! We won.

Annnnd that's it I think. Ah wow. It was pretty amazing really. And all the good times at mealtimes when we sat out on the deck and just talked and joked, and then the skit night was great. I was relieved when it came to an end but also sad. It's one of the highlights of the year and now it's gone.

Except now I think I'm thoroughly at peace with the idea of leaving school. It has become tired - the routine is old and repetitive and nothing is new. That's not to say at all that I'm not going to absolutely make the most of this year - just that I will not feel a desire to stay at school.

In terms of changes to my future plans, I have been talking with my family and I think things will go as follows:

In December this year and January/February of next year I will work my butt off and earn lotsa money. Then in March I will go to Auckland Uni and start a conjoint BA/BfA degree. Then in June when the first semester ends, I will go to England as I have planned to for a long time, and spend a couple of months there - spending some time in Bristol and also having the Europe experience - visiting my exchange student friends whom I won't have seen for two years, and some family around France and Switzerland. It's nowhere near as long as I planned to go for, but with recent developments in my family, I know that there is all the time in the world for me to travel and "follow my dreams", whereas at this stage in my life I need to be here with/for my family as much as possible. After I come back I will work for the remainder of the year and into 2012, then resume my degree where I left off. Aaaaahh it's all so exciting and confusing and I really hope it all works out. I always knew my plans would have to change, thank God I'm such a flexible person. It has not yet put me into a tailspin. I think I'm okay with it all.

Does anyone even read this blog? Hahaha.