DCC/Africa Aid Formal 2007

GET THERE.

Whiz

I wrote before about the Ads on My Everest. Well. I now have one that beats them all in the weirdness factor...

THIS was what was displayed today. I didn't think I'd written about that topic at any point here... It seems I thought wrong.

Grandma

Yes. That is the bottom of a set of antlers growing out of Grandma. Jealous?

Camp

Last week I was helping out on the Serpell Primary School/aka best school in the world Grade 6 camp, alongside LP and MW. Twas a fun weekend of heat, horses, harneses, hats, humour and harassment. Maybe not that last one... but maybe yes.

We were at the Coonawarra Farm Resort in Stratford, with 109 boys and girls, 9 teachers and we 3 volunteers. Basically, we just did whatever the kids did, with a little bit of safety checking on the side. Or, in my case, moving a ladder back and forth, climbing up and down, and helping kids get out of their wedgied harneses at the flying fox. Other than that, we just played games with them like soccer/frisbee/volleyball/I was going to write something mildly humorous here, but it was a bit offensive. End.

Also, there were special events at night. Notables were the movie night, when we watched "The Brothers Grimm", and the disco night. I don't know where they got their perception of 'dressing up' from, but it was about 80% fluoro, 60% short skirts, 10% flashing belts, 40% massive pink eye shadow and 90% boys not caring. Unashamedly, I also wore fluoro? But at least my shirt said something that is from a time closer to the disco era than anything theirs said.

I was mostly impressed with their choice of music/one song that mixed every song in the universe into it. NOT impressed with their choice of dancing. There is some dance called "the shuffle" which they challenged me to do, and it was ridiculous and stupid. It's pretty much the Moonwalk, without the sliding effect that makes it cool. And you only ever go backwards. It's just like marching and waving your hands while going backwards. It requires less talent than Bindi Irwin to do. Apologies to any fans out there.

We formed a circle on the floor. MW calls me a circle addict, because I pretended to breakdance and impress the Year 6's. But that was nothing. The highlight of my night was dancing with a young man named Boris, who is a shy little kid from Hong Kong that doesn't speak much English and doesn't speak much to everyone. He certainly unleashed the dragon that night, because his circle count was up around the 20s, and everyone was shouting "Go Boris!" to the rhythm I can only describe as the same as "Go Ricki!" on Ricki Lake. Sad? I think not. If you know what rhythm I mean, you can join my club. Boris' move was to run on the spot and flail his arms like he was skipping. I'm going to steal it.

Also. A girl got her friend to tell me she likes me. I was totally. impressed. That's how I'm going to propose one day.

Things to know:

• It is annoying to sit on a bus watching Shrek, and have every single line recited to you ten seconds before they happen by the kids sitting behind you.
• My horse Puddles was awesome. It peed on, bit, nudged and farted in the faces of all the other horses. It was also the biggest.
• Teachers are totally not like how I remembered them. It's funny seeing them away from kids.
• Eating toothpaste is apparently the thing to do.
• The camp disco night is like the formal. Getting a date is serious business. Stealing a date is completely legal.
• Do not offhandedly say, "Sure" when a girl asks you to the disco. Especially if you are 19. And she 12. They get upset when you do not walk them into said disco.
• You make it up to them by swinging the skipping rope for them and their friends the next day. Ha.
• "The Brothers Grimm" is a twisted movie. Especially the bit with the Gingerbread Man.
• I hate flies.

Four Crowded Hours

Yesterday I went with K, my brother J, and K's friend J2 to see Crowded House. It was awesome awesome awesome. The only downside was that I got gastro, and so I sat with dinosaurs tearing up my insides. (Story may have been exaggerated to add dramatic effect).

They were supported by an Irish group called The Walls & Australians Augie March. The Walls were ok, I wasn't really listening. Was kinda trying to sleep during that bit, on account of dinosaurs. Augie March were like how I feel about Augie March cds. I love some songs, and the rest of them aren't great to me. It feels a bit lame to say, but truthfully, the songs I enjoyed the most where the ones everybody knows. But I guess that's why people know them - because they're the most enjoyable. Anyway. Augie March played "There's No Such Place" - which is a beautiful song that I really like - and "One Crowded Hour" - hence the title + Crowded House, and these last two performances were good.

Crowded House came on and the crowd went nuts. I didn't know most of their songs from the latest album, but that was ok. They had cool lighting and after each song, a new image or prop would be added to the background - there was a giant snake eating a man, skyscrapers that came out of the ground, a tree, a caravan, a chandelier and some stuff I can't remember.

Best bits:

• Crowd singalongs. During the really popular songs, the band would stop, or just Neil Finn would play keys or acoustic, while the crowd sang. In such a big place - Rod Laver Arena - it was an awesome sound. They did it for "Fall At Your Feet", "Don't Dream, It's Over", "Weather With You" and "Better Be Home Soon". It was coolness.
• Their keys/backup guitar/backup vocals guy also played the melodica. I love. Mum gave one to me to play when I was a kid.
• When the band went off stage, to milk an encore, a whole group of dogs got released onto the stage. They fetched something and then left. This wasn't really a best bit, but was so weird I though I should mention it.
• During the final song - "Better Be Home Soon" - Neil Finn remarked on how people used to wave lighters and now it's mobile phones. He had all the lights turned down and the whole crowd lit up their lighters or phones and waved them. It looked awesome to see thousands of lights in darkness while everybody sang.

It was a fun night, and I really enjoyed seeing some good music. I even forgot about the raptors in my intestines for a while.

Blogiversary #1

Well here we are. One year from my Very First post. Now that this blog has reached its century, it's time to take a recap of the past year of magical/sub-par posts. I will just link to a few of my blogs that I enjoyed doing, that challenged me, that others seemed to enjoy, etc etc. It's all very self-indulgent. Soon I'll do the same, but of all the other people's blogs that I read.

Blog I found hardest to write: Letter/Follow-Up
This one is a tie. In April, one of my favourite teachers ever died, and I regretted something I had not done, which was to write her a letter. I felt crap about only writing it here, I wasn't sure if it was something that should have been put on a blog, and I struggled greatly to find the words to write for it, because even now, I don't think they do her any justice at all. I also thought it was interesting that the very post just before Letter was Free. Simple. - a blog I wrote about being extremely happy and carefree... and a few days later, I came crashing back down... Life's twisted that way.

The other one, strangely enough, was the follow-up blog to the letter. I had no idea how to follow up such an open, emotive post without ruining it, or taking away from its seriousness. I joke around a lot, and write some stupid things here, but I wanted that one to be very serious. I don't think the follow up did anything good either, but I didn't want to just stop, or get stuck writing very serious blogs all the time.

Blog I am most glad I wrote: Letter

Blog that amused me most while writing:
Deliverance
30 Things I Miss About Primary School
Tetris
Funny Cos It's True (also because of my misundertanding Jono's comment as being a lecture)
Thoughts
Chain
Ramble
Ramble #2
Kid Who Ruins Primary School Games...
Depressed Ex Kids Game Show Host
Trouble in Guess Who Town
Since I laugh at most things I do/think/say more than others, I'd say most of the posts. Yes, no modesty here. You can vote on which amused you most, if any.

Blog that promised much more than I could deliver: The Standard Three/Mr. Men
Well. I liked the idea of the three wishes, but I just failed to be able to come up with stuff. And so it sits... and waits... and dies a little with every new blog I write. And Mr. Men... was just a crap idea. Ha.

Blog with the most comments: WYR #3/Duke both on 20 comments.
I think WYR #3 would have won, since Duke racked up a lot of comments thanks to the unceasing commenting of one Simon Albury, in the quest to make Duke the leader. These were followed closely by WYR #2 (18 comments), The Standard Three (17), and Wisdom From Agent K (17). Most of these are pretty silly, so out of the more serious ones on M.E., Consumption probably rates highest at 12.

I would find more categories, and put up more links, but then this would be huge, pretty much every post would be linked, and it would be already far more self-indulgent than it already it.

So Happy First Blogiversary My Everest. I hope you've enjoyed reading my rubbish. I'll leave you with this important service announcement: If my blog were a human... it would still poo its pants. Hooray!