P.S.

I've been counting down the days till we leave for weeks - Ray is now counting down the days till we get back so she can see Jordy again :-)

Cya

Cya! We're off to Queensland! We leave at about 10am 2moz. I think. It was something like that, anyway.

I'm done with school for the term. I'm done with work for the term. I'm done with winter for the next three weeks! :-) I'm even mostly packed!

We're spending a week on the goldcoast - doing the theme parks and stuff. We're gonna go to Wet'n'Wild, Movie World and Sea World - all the Warner bros ones. Then we're doing Australia Zoo and spending a night with Nathan and Julie before heading up to the Whitsundays. We're spending another week at Airlie Beach and catching up with Mathew and Liz in Towsville! I'll tell you all about it when I get back!

One Week

In one week I'll be in queensland.

In one week it'll be sunny, not raining.

In one week I'll be checking out our first hotel.

In one week we'll be deciding which theme park to visit first.

In one week my life will be perfect! Well...almost :-)

Rachel

Isn't she amazing! And this isn't even one of her bests! They're all to big to scan into the computer! My personal fav is her painting of me and the bf I'll never have :-) He's really hot!

Camp! :-)

So much better than my grade 8 camp! It was amazing! I went absailing and fishing and there was this massive flying fox like the gumleaves ones except bigger and better! We had a ball - we were like a cross between kids and teachers - we got to do the fun stuff with the grade 8s and then muck around with the teachers inbetween.

Our grade 8s were good. the worst thing they brought with them was Red Bull. And they slept at night. The other group was up at midnight and apparently brought alcahol (but they were smart enough not to get caught).

Funny Moments:

Jarvo is our sport teacher. We're mean to him (most of the time) and he's mean to us (half of the time). But he's fun and we all like him. Smithy is also our sport teacher and he's equally cool.

Well, Jarvo was poking Kelsey with a fire poker. Kelsey grabbed hold of the end of the fire poker. Jarvo strated dragging Kelsey across the floor of the camp centre. Ellen grabbed hold of Kelsey's legs to make Jarvo work harder. Kelsey let go of the fire poker.

Let me just point out that the floor was made of cement. Cold hard cement.

Jarvo went flying! He landed on his butt about 5m away! We were all laughing our heads of, along with all the other teachers and any grade 8s who were lucky enough to see it! Jarvo was ropable! :-)

Later in the day we went absailing. Kelsey and Emma went with one group, Me and Jacqui and Ellen went with the other group. Kelsey got back and was telling us how there was a surprise out there for us. Then she took me aside and told me how Jarvo had tried to throw a water bomb at her when she was absailing, and how he was planning to do the same for Ellen. As pay back for the fire poker thing and also as pay back because they're always anoying him in class (but in a good way). I told Jacqui. He missed Kelsey, but he definately wasn't planning on missing again!

The grade 8s all went first, then the teachers, then us. It was a 20m cliff face, and we were suspended on two ropes, the absailing one which we controlled and Jarvo's safety line, which he controlled.

The worst thing he did to me was shake the rope a bit at the start, which was scary, but nothing compared to poor Ellen!

Here's some photos of me absailing:Ok. So Jacqui went after me, and then it was Ellen's turn. She's scared of hights. She was up on top of the cliff about to start and Jarvo was shaking the rope, just like he was with me. He says its the quietest he's ever seen Ellen - right then when she was about to tackle a 20m cliff.

She got going well, and got down about 5m before it got interesting. We were watching from below with the grade 8s, who we'd all told what was going to happen. Ellen was the only one who didn't know! Jarvo apears above her with a huge orange water balloon. We're all watching and screaming, 'Look up Ellen! Look up!' She does. Then she freezes. I can't even describe the expression on her face. She kinda went white and shocked and frozen all at once. Anyway, Jarvo stood there for a while, admiring her expression, the dropped it. It hit her right in the middle of her stomach. Just a reminder: she is 15m above the ground, suspended by two ropes. And she was wearing a white tank top. Poor Ellen! And then Jarvo was back, with another water bomb! But this time he chucked it at us! It landed half on my leg and half on one of the grade 8s. Ellen started moving again and was almost at the base of the cliff when Jarvo stood on her safety line! So it wouldn't let her down any further! She just had to sit there and yell at him untill he decided to let her down. It was all hilarious, even Ellan agrees with us there!

We all had to walk back to camp though, and Ellen froze. Even with my and Jacqui's jackets on she went all shivery and couldn't talk. Here's a photo of her warming up by the fire back at camp:


We were also the queens of wierd fashion. The first night we all wore our bikini tops over our clothes, just to entertain everyone. It worked! The teachers thought it was hirarious (Jarvo and Smithy in particular) and the grade 8s agreed. We also wore beanies if we had them, and scarfs in whatever wierd way we thought was funny. Oh yeah! And Ellen wore her leatard! I don't have any photos of that, so you'll have to settel for this one of Jacqui.

The second night Kelsey and Ellen formed the turban club. None of the rest of us had the right scarves for that!
And we even all survived the car trip back with Mrs Watts! It actually wasn't too bad! We apent half of it talking about gumleaves - because the flying fox and rope courses and Spring Beach reminded us all of it. And then we just talked about whatever we felt like! We even talked to Mrs Watts for a bit (instead of pretending like she wasn't there)! We asked her about the schools she'd taught at and which she liked best and stuff. Hopefully we didn't spoil our chances of prefect too badly!

My verdict on grade 8 camp as leaders: AWESOME! Totally worth it!

And congrats to all of you! I have a feeling that was rather a long post, full of rather a lot of words!

NAPLAN vs camp

Well, these next three days I was ment to be spending as a leader on grade 8 camp. These next three days I'm also ment to be doing NAPLAN testing.

the testing was going to be cancelled. The teachers union was going to stop it cause of the myschool website and everything. But no. We find out two days before it happens that its on, and its over our camp.

NAPLAN is compulsary. It has to be done this week, from Tuesday to Friday. Everyone did two today, writting and spelling+grammer. The five of us camp leaders also did Reading comprehension. The hardest bit for me was the spelling. You all know how bad I am at that!

So yeah, we just have the two maths ones to do on friday. We have to travel back from camp early, with Mrs Watts. The principle. And no doubt she'll take the opportunity to interrogate us about our prefect-ish-ness. What if I say something wrong! Do you have any idea how scary this will be!

But we still get to go on camp for two days. We leave 2moz. So all we really miss out on is cleaning up, and who wants to do that anyway?! :-)

Misc

Grandma came and Grandma went. I survived. I slept (or not) in the twins room. I officially hate thin foam matresses.

Jacqui met Grandma, and she pretended to be all nice and sweet and grandma-ish. She even refrained from giving out sloppy kisses and biting ears! But then, on the other hand, Jacqui is starting to doubt the survear-ness of my grandma problems. Which rate 11 on a scale of 1 to 10.

I only got into one big extended arguement with her. It started cause we were watching Australia, and she was saying how the stolen generation wasn't actually like that. How the Aboriginal mothers were happy to send their children of to English schools. How they wanted their kids to learn the valuable life skill the Europeans had to offer. How the Kids were fighting for possistions. Says Grandma.

Um, no. What kind of mothers want to send their kids of and never see them again? And they were learning! They were learning how to survive as an Aboriginal. They didn't need white-people schools! With reading and Writing and Maths!

But no, says Grandma. Aboriginal mothers are different from us. They don't mind who's looking after their kids as long as their being looked after. They were happy to hand their kids over to the church!

Hmm, yes. That really makes sense. Stupid racist old fool.

I was at band all day today. As in, I wasn't at church today. And we were talking about it infront of her before she left. And she started lecturing me on being a good christian! Cause she can really talk, can't she!!!

I could go on and on about this forever, but your probably all sick of it as is, so I'll stop.

I went to band today. We're really progressing! We've got 5 pieces working well and another 7 that are getting there! New Zealand is becoming more and more realistic!

I'm going on grade 8 camp next week! If you remember, our grade 8 camp was really bad, but this one's gonna be awesome! It goes for two nights (not one) and its and Spring Beach (rather than Orana) in Orford (not Lauderdale)! They get to do absailing and kiaching and rockclimbing and all these other cool things. And we're going as leaders! Me, Jacqui, Kelsey, Ellen and Emma! We were picked over a bunch of grade 10s and several other grade 9s! Pretty good, don't you think! :-) And it gives us a good idea of who they're gonna think about for prefect!

And finally, we are of to Queensland for 16 days over the June Holidays! More details coming soon!