The beginning of the end
(30th Blog post. Never thought I'd get this far).
Less than 2 weeks to go. I can't help but count down each of the days in my head.
Dad's already started to pack his bags, not sure if I should too.
First up, paintball (2/11).It was rainy, it was slippery, it was cold, it was foggy, it was amazing.
The 4 hours that I spent down at the Ganga campus to play paintball was some of the most fun I've had here. I ended up playing 3 games, 2 of which were victories. The mask kept fogging up and I couldn't see where I was shooting, but I was the runner and run I did. The games were capture the flag. I ended up getting 3 out of the 5 flag captures for the matches. In one of our matches, it was 3 vs 3. We ended up scoring 3 flags, all of which I scored. Afterwards, one of the people on the other team told me afterwards when walking back to dorm 'You're so fast. I looked away for one moment then when I look back you've already taken the flag.' (The guy who said that did shoot me in the butt as I was running with the flag once though). I don't mean to sound proud, but I was pleased that I found something I'm good at.
Getting 3 flag captures in one game won us a free trip to subway.
That night though, I found myself potted with little red and grey spots. Getting hit in game wasn't painful but when you're trying to get to sleep that night, the internal damage really shows itself. The bruises on my bottom were not painful luckily.
Here are some of the photo's from the day.
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| The battle ground |
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| Monkeys watched from above |
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| The beauty of Ganga campus |
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| The team |
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| The shoes and sox were ruined (Yes, I did get shot on the ankle) |
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| A good conclusion to a great day |
It was great playing paintball, though when I return to Aus I don't think I can play till 18. I wish I could do it again.
It's Diwali!! The festival of lights.
Diwali is the celebration of Rama’s victorious return
after defeating the Sri Lankan Gods and returning from exile. They lit the
entire city with little candles and oil, it turned into using crackers.
Apparently it’s like a war zone in the cities. There would be fireworks that fill up the entire sky.
You can smell the explosives in the air at night.
On Sunday (3rd), I went with a group of other people to visit a temple on Diwali. The group consisted of around 20 girls and 2 boys (myself included). Although I think that there's quite a few Hindu boy's in the school, they didn't come on this trip. We weren't allowed to take photo's inside the temple, but outside was quite pretty too.
There were quite a few shops. Some selling sacrifices of flowers and food, and little gift shops.
Here's some of the photo's:
Inside the temple was some great classical Indian architecture with carved pillars and sculptures. The main deity for the temple was a peacock with a spear. I hear that there's millions of Hindu god's, so I guess it's possible to have a peacock with a spear as one of them.
We arrived back from the temple at 5. Went back to dorm and relaxed for a bit. It was then dinner time. Dinner was normal/average, no special feast like at Hogwarts.
After dinner at 6:45 was the school fireworks. It was down on an oval called Bendy next to the school. We all got a good view, and so did the locals. The show went for about 20 minutes and was really impressed at the show. It doesn't quite compare to Sydney at the Opening Ceremony in 2000 but still entertained everyone who watched, especially when a spinning cracker would hurtle towards the school (and us).
Here's some of the pics:
The rest of the evening was great. We had our own celebration and watched some soccer.
Whenever I say soccer, there's always a couple of people (mainly Ishaan and Anant) that correct me.
I can't wait to show them proper football, Aussie style.
We've had a simulator MUN conference here in Kodai.
It was like a UN conference, where we all sat down representing a country and debated a topic.
I was representing Turkey for the conference. The topics were death penalty for minors, religious minority violence and balancing media freedom. Out of the 2 meetings we have that ran for 2 hours each, we only covered the death penalty for minors topic. For me it was a great experience, seeing how the UN works, and understanding why it can be so difficult to get a resolution passed. I know now why it takes them forever to make a decision.
My partner and myself in the activity mainly sat back and watched as the world argued around us.
I've been thinking about bringing it back to Aus, because I haven't heard anything about it at Carey. It's a great group and I think anyone who takes part will benefit.
It's one of those things I am glad I was fortunate enough to take part in.
On Friday the 8th was the school winter concert. All the schools bands and orchestra's played. I was in the Wind band and Advanced band. It was great listening to the music and remembering my performances at Carey. The groups played really well and am really proud of my fellow percussionists. I was personally very happy with my performance, and received a couple of congratulations from people afterwards.
After the performance we moved the snare drum and xylophone into a private practise room for me to practise for my music tuition scholarship audition that will happen when I return to school.
In the mean time though, there's no more band practise which means I can enjoy longer breakfasts with vegemite toast.
Lately I've been having strange dreams about my return to Aus. I dream that I'm returning to school or church for the first time. I'm relieved to be back because everyones happy. My most recent dream was going into a band practise and seeing Mr Digby (a music teacher) there, and he said "Ash! I'm glad you're back, we needed you".
It's the sense of need that is common in each of my dreams. I find that people always said that they needed me, and that makes me concerned. I know that they don't really need me. In the case of music there's tons of other percussionists, so I'm definitely not needed there.
So if I know I'm not needed, why do I tell myself that I am.
Maybe I want to be needed, that I want to feel important?
I'm worried that I'm creating this sense of need to try and bring me back to Aus easier, that it's my heart trying to trick itself into wanting to go back.
When I wake from these dreams, I look up and see the slanted tin roof above my head, and know that for a little longer, I am happy.
On Saturday, I had a slightly crazy time. It started with breakfast and then going to Youthrise Social Experience. Social experience (SoEx) is community service opportunities. They are organised each saturday mainly by the NHS (National Honours Society) and YouthRise. I haven't been to a Youthrise SoEx before, since I'd always had hiking on, so it was my first time going.
We went to the Sacred Heart School which was about 15 minutes drive from school. Once there we tried to get some games going. We couldn't find a ball so we used my hankie in a game called dog and bone (aka numbers). To play the game everyone is first split into 2 groups. You are allocated a number, and if your number is called out you need to grab the bone (my hankie) which is in the middle. Once you have the bone the other person who has the same number can tag you and the hankie does back in the middle and a new number is called out.
After that we started to do running games around the church. That was good until one kid tripped and fell. I was running with them then afterwards they'd all come up to me and tell me how they went in the race.
Although it was my first time there, I started to get to know them. It's something about their bright, open smiles of pure joy that makes it show in you. The 2 hours I had playing soccer (aka football) and running with the kids was one of the best moments of my time here. I hope that I can bring my camera next time to try and capture the beauty of the situation. The weather was so great that morning that I've ended up with an annoying sunburn on the back of my neck.
After returning to school myself and a friend from dorm called Dora delivered romantic and friendship cards that were addressed to people in dorm.
Then I went down to lunch. Whilst there, I had a great time with some other people talking about great memories from field trip.
Then at 1:10 I went and did SoEx which was a food drop off at Mercy home. I have done it several times before but I couldn't when hiking took over my Saturdays. We dropped off the excess food from lunch and then went and saw a go-cart that a couple of grade 12's were making as a CAS creativity project. They had made it from the ground up. It reminded me of all the possibilities that the IB program encourages.
Then once I got back I handed in my photo's for the Photo exhibition that will happen on Thursday for printing. As a exclusive to this blog, I present a sneak-peek to my exhibition photo's.
Some of them were from in class photography class shoots but others were from great moments throughout my time.
On that Saturday night was the choirs concert. All the different choirs groups performed for an hour. It was a great evening with some Christmas classics and modern mood too. There was even some dancing from Mr Vancil (The choir conductor) that I saw.
Now some stuff I'm going to do in the coming week or so.
On Sunday (3rd), I went with a group of other people to visit a temple on Diwali. The group consisted of around 20 girls and 2 boys (myself included). Although I think that there's quite a few Hindu boy's in the school, they didn't come on this trip. We weren't allowed to take photo's inside the temple, but outside was quite pretty too.
There were quite a few shops. Some selling sacrifices of flowers and food, and little gift shops.
Here's some of the photo's:
 |
| The variates of shoes that waited outside |
Inside the temple was some great classical Indian architecture with carved pillars and sculptures. The main deity for the temple was a peacock with a spear. I hear that there's millions of Hindu god's, so I guess it's possible to have a peacock with a spear as one of them.
We arrived back from the temple at 5. Went back to dorm and relaxed for a bit. It was then dinner time. Dinner was normal/average, no special feast like at Hogwarts.
After dinner at 6:45 was the school fireworks. It was down on an oval called Bendy next to the school. We all got a good view, and so did the locals. The show went for about 20 minutes and was really impressed at the show. It doesn't quite compare to Sydney at the Opening Ceremony in 2000 but still entertained everyone who watched, especially when a spinning cracker would hurtle towards the school (and us).
Here's some of the pics:
The rest of the evening was great. We had our own celebration and watched some soccer.
Whenever I say soccer, there's always a couple of people (mainly Ishaan and Anant) that correct me.
I can't wait to show them proper football, Aussie style.
We've had a simulator MUN conference here in Kodai.
It was like a UN conference, where we all sat down representing a country and debated a topic.
I was representing Turkey for the conference. The topics were death penalty for minors, religious minority violence and balancing media freedom. Out of the 2 meetings we have that ran for 2 hours each, we only covered the death penalty for minors topic. For me it was a great experience, seeing how the UN works, and understanding why it can be so difficult to get a resolution passed. I know now why it takes them forever to make a decision.
My partner and myself in the activity mainly sat back and watched as the world argued around us.
I've been thinking about bringing it back to Aus, because I haven't heard anything about it at Carey. It's a great group and I think anyone who takes part will benefit.
It's one of those things I am glad I was fortunate enough to take part in.
On Friday the 8th was the school winter concert. All the schools bands and orchestra's played. I was in the Wind band and Advanced band. It was great listening to the music and remembering my performances at Carey. The groups played really well and am really proud of my fellow percussionists. I was personally very happy with my performance, and received a couple of congratulations from people afterwards.
After the performance we moved the snare drum and xylophone into a private practise room for me to practise for my music tuition scholarship audition that will happen when I return to school.
In the mean time though, there's no more band practise which means I can enjoy longer breakfasts with vegemite toast.
Lately I've been having strange dreams about my return to Aus. I dream that I'm returning to school or church for the first time. I'm relieved to be back because everyones happy. My most recent dream was going into a band practise and seeing Mr Digby (a music teacher) there, and he said "Ash! I'm glad you're back, we needed you".
It's the sense of need that is common in each of my dreams. I find that people always said that they needed me, and that makes me concerned. I know that they don't really need me. In the case of music there's tons of other percussionists, so I'm definitely not needed there.
So if I know I'm not needed, why do I tell myself that I am.
Maybe I want to be needed, that I want to feel important?
I'm worried that I'm creating this sense of need to try and bring me back to Aus easier, that it's my heart trying to trick itself into wanting to go back.
When I wake from these dreams, I look up and see the slanted tin roof above my head, and know that for a little longer, I am happy.
On Saturday, I had a slightly crazy time. It started with breakfast and then going to Youthrise Social Experience. Social experience (SoEx) is community service opportunities. They are organised each saturday mainly by the NHS (National Honours Society) and YouthRise. I haven't been to a Youthrise SoEx before, since I'd always had hiking on, so it was my first time going.
We went to the Sacred Heart School which was about 15 minutes drive from school. Once there we tried to get some games going. We couldn't find a ball so we used my hankie in a game called dog and bone (aka numbers). To play the game everyone is first split into 2 groups. You are allocated a number, and if your number is called out you need to grab the bone (my hankie) which is in the middle. Once you have the bone the other person who has the same number can tag you and the hankie does back in the middle and a new number is called out.
After that we started to do running games around the church. That was good until one kid tripped and fell. I was running with them then afterwards they'd all come up to me and tell me how they went in the race.
Although it was my first time there, I started to get to know them. It's something about their bright, open smiles of pure joy that makes it show in you. The 2 hours I had playing soccer (aka football) and running with the kids was one of the best moments of my time here. I hope that I can bring my camera next time to try and capture the beauty of the situation. The weather was so great that morning that I've ended up with an annoying sunburn on the back of my neck.
After returning to school myself and a friend from dorm called Dora delivered romantic and friendship cards that were addressed to people in dorm.
Then I went down to lunch. Whilst there, I had a great time with some other people talking about great memories from field trip.
Then at 1:10 I went and did SoEx which was a food drop off at Mercy home. I have done it several times before but I couldn't when hiking took over my Saturdays. We dropped off the excess food from lunch and then went and saw a go-cart that a couple of grade 12's were making as a CAS creativity project. They had made it from the ground up. It reminded me of all the possibilities that the IB program encourages.
Then once I got back I handed in my photo's for the Photo exhibition that will happen on Thursday for printing. As a exclusive to this blog, I present a sneak-peek to my exhibition photo's.
Some of them were from in class photography class shoots but others were from great moments throughout my time.
On that Saturday night was the choirs concert. All the different choirs groups performed for an hour. It was a great evening with some Christmas classics and modern mood too. There was even some dancing from Mr Vancil (The choir conductor) that I saw.
Now some stuff I'm going to do in the coming week or so.
- I'm going to share some of my testimony for 5min or so in church next week.
- Catchup with the students that are coming to Australia on exchange and get to know them.
- Get ready for exams
- Do a bit of exploring before dad arrives
- Try make the most of my remaining time.
- Start packing my bags
I think I'll write another blog, the finale before I leave Kodai, so this I hope isn't the last one.
In my travels with dad in North India, together we'll record our journeys through words and photos. Then, once theres some time, we'll write it up together (I expect that you may be a little bored of my writing style, so I'll let dad add some of his 'dad jokes'/views to the mix).
I hope you have a great week, whether that be studying for exams, writing reports or thinking about your christmas wish list (I've already started).
Seeya soon.
If you want to get in contact with me about anything, please feel free
to email me at: comanduash@gmail.com
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