Stories + Recent Happenings.

Hello everyone!

Firstly, a couple of quick updates on stuff that's been happening lately.

I've recently put up my Four Chords, 100 Songs, Original Audio video, which I've been working on for quite a while, and can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4k62X4Kx7o
I think it's pretty awesome, and I'd love for it to get out there a bit :)

I've barely been doing anything with my music lately - I really haven't written anything, I haven't gigged at all, and it's been bugging me a fair bit. Thankfully, I've gotten this video up ^^^ which is something, but I'd really like to work on a bit more of my own stuff.

I'm also graduating from uni in a week from yesterday; which is pretty cool. Going to be good to catch up with everyone again, see what they're up to. Even though it will really be only for a few hours, but that's OK. Think it will be good. :)

There's probably more stuff that I'm not thinking of, but that will do for now. There are a couple of posts that I want to do that I haven't done yet, but I'll leave those for those posts.

On another tack, however. I've been doing a lot of camps lately, and there's been so many good moments, so many great stories. And I was just lamenting to a friend that there's just so many, it's getting difficult to remember them all. So they suggested putting it down here. Which makes sense and stuff, which makes me annoyed that I didn't think of it :P But anyway. I've been busy, OK? :P So yeah. Going to relate a few of the better moments of camps insofar. No names, I'm afraid, just because it's better that way.

Probably one of the best moments I've had so far was on a TAFE camp. It was a canoe trip out in Kangaroo Valley, and a few of us had decided to sleep in the canoes. I was pretty keen, I'd never done it before. We had just gone for a night paddle before that, actually, and that was pretty awesome. You pretty much just laid down in the canoe and looked at the stars. So peaceful. And sleeping in the canoe was just the same, really - it was so amazing being able to sleep like that, looking up at the stars. Would be awesome to have a glass roof or something just for that.... It is a little squishy on the sides, but it wasn't that much of an issue.
What was interesting, though, was what happened before we went to sleep. A point for beforehand: whenever we get out of the canoes, we tie them up with rope. Either that or pull them up onto the bank, but that can damage the bank. Also easier tying them up if there's not so much space, or a difficult bank to get up. But that's just a quick aside. We were getting into the canoes, and I had already put my sleeping mat and sleeping bag in, and then I got in. I got into the sleeping bag and started to lay down, and then I started to feel as if the canoe was moving - I thought I could see the landscape moving. So I sat up to discover that the canoe hadn't been tied up properly with the other canoes. I turned back towards the bank to find that I had already drifted about five metres. "Uh...guys?" We all laughed pretty hard then. I wasn't scared at all - it wasn't like there was much of a current - but I didn't have a paddle, so I had to use my hands to work my way back over to the bank. We joked about that quite a fair bit after that.

Aside from that, most of it's been little things. One girl at the last camp I went on thought for a moment that a red belly black was a spider. Close, but no cigar. She had a fair few of those moments, actually, but it was good. Made it interesting.
Another time, I was helping run the flying fox, and there was one girl who was really scared of going on. And it was a pretty big flying fox - you had to go up a hill to get to where you started, and the rest of us would wait at the bottom. And if you saw the end bit, there was quite a jolt. I believe the word "ragdoll" may have been used more than once. But we managed to convince her to get a harness on, and go up to the top. Then she got clipped in once. She debated about it, went so close for ages, they were really talking her into it and egging her on - she was in for about half an hour, then couldn't do it. A couple more people went through, she got clipped in a second time. Again, she couldn't do it. She got clipped in a third time, and finally did it. You know what one of the first things was that she said afterwards? "Can I do it again?" And she did, without hesitation. She loved it.
One of the best camps I've had so far was on the cabin side of Crosslands. Same camp as the last one, actually. I probably have it as one of my favourites because we were in cabins, we had cooks (one an actual proper cook - son of one of the Boomerang employees), and they had a piano there :D And I was playing that piano a fair bit, as you can imagine. And the kids really liked that - they were singing along with me sometimes, and a couple of other kids were playing as well, a couple more practiced than me.
On most camps that we've been on so far, whenever we haven't been in cabins, I've done the wake-up call. My go-to songs for this insofar have been The Circle Of Life, and a combination of Oh, What A Beautiful Morning and Oklahoma!, which have both gone down quite well. One of the best responses I had was one morning, one of the kids said it felt like he was waking up in Africa :) Another one said that he wanted to record it and use it as his alarm on his phone :D

Another thing that I've been able to do a couple of times now is Initiatives, which have been quite fun to run. So far, I've done Tarp Turnover and Acid River. And, of course, being me, it can't be that simple. Because you can explain them in about five seconds, but then it's no fun. I have to do a story ;)
So, with Tarp Turnover - all you have to do is get everyone on the tarp; flip it over without anyone touching the ground; fold in half similarly; repeat steps 2 and 3 until either time runs out or they can't do it any more. I however, come up with a much more interesting explanation.
"Over here, guys! Quick, on to the platform! OK, is everyone here? Good. Well, I've got some good news, and some bad news. Bad news is, we're flowing down an underground river of molten lava. The good news is, however, that we've managed to find a Lava Resistant Platform (or LRP for short), and, in fact, the only one around. So good job, guys! Problem is, with these platforms, that they're not perfect - the lava does manage to slowly eat through the platform. As such, it needs to be flipped regularly, to decrease the lava wear. Of course, being human, we can't really step in the lava - we tend to disintegrate fairly rapidly. I am wearing lava boots, but I have the only pair, and I can't take them off, because they're molded specifically to my feet. So you're going to need to flip the LRP completely, without stepping in the lava. You can carry each other if you want, but unfortunately the cave is too low for you to go on each other's shoulders." "OK, so you've flipped the LRP over. Fantastic! But, being weak, we now need to fold it in half, in order to increase its strength." "And now we need to flip it again!" Etc.
With Acid River - you have to get from point A to point B, using some foam mats. You have to be stepping on the foam mats all the time, and you can't put a mat down without having part of your body on it. If you don't, you lose the mat. There's one less mat than people. This became something more like this.
"Congratulations! You are among the first of a team of explorers on Mars. However, we have encountered a bit of a problem. Our barrel - which contains some invaluable supplies - has washed over a bit thataway. Thakfully, it has caught on a bit of a snag, so it's staying where it is for now; but we still need to go and get it. Unfortunately, it is in the middle of a giant acid lake. The thing is with us and acid, that we tend to boil and bubble and burst when we mix. I'm wearing special Acid Boots, so I'm OK. No, you can't wear them, there's only one pair and they don't come off. And no, I can't get the barrel for you, because it's too heavy for just me. We're all going to need to go and get it. Thankfully, the Science Faculty did consider this eventuality. They have provided us with a limited number of Weight Supporting Acid Resistant Platforms, or WSARPs for short (though people tend to just call them acid mats). Because they're weight-supporting, they can hold our weight; since they're acid resistant, they can do so in the acid; however, they are not current resistant. If you put them down in the lake without putting part of your body on them first, they will get carried away and we won't be able to get them back." "Fantastic! You've gotten to the barrel. Now, we need to get all of us and the barrel over to that point over there [about twice as far]. And, because of the wear these platforms are getting, if you aren't carrying the barrel, you need to be on just one foot at a time. You can change from one to the other, but you can't have one foot on two separate mats at the same time. You can jump between the two, but only one foot at a time. Thankfully, the barrel can be used to weigh down mats, or even to sit on, since it seems to be acid resistant as well."
So yeah, I had fun doing those.

There are so many more stories, but I really can't remember them all. As well as that, I don't have the space or time to write them all! I've already written quite a bit, so I'll leave it there, but I'll try to put up more fairly regularly.

:)