Jade Down Under

It's been another week since I posted anything but this is because I've been away on grade eight camp. You heard me right. Four days with 91 grade eight students. It was a great time where I got to know more about the grade eights and learn a few more names.
The event I was helping to run is called Team Challenges. The group members (approximately 14 students per group) must work together to find a solution to a problem they've been placed in. In the picture below the students are very close at solving the problem.
The situation was that they were astronauts and they had lost something very valuable in a large crater filled with lava. The item they had lost was on a small island in the middle of the lava crater, only enough room for the item itself. The kids had to throw a rope between a V in the tree and have a team member crawl out to retrieve the bucket which symbolized the valuable item. As these are grade eight children I have only posted pictures which to do not reveal their faces. Unfortunately I have some great 'posed' pictures but can't post them.


Another event was the rock climbing wall.


In this event there were two teams competing. One team was standing on the sidelines and chucking wet sponges at the other team, who were running up and down the hill retrieving tennis balls. If you were hit with a wet sponge while holding a tennis ball you had to go back to the start.



This is the catapulting event. This was one of the more difficult events to manage as the kids had to follow instructions on how to assemble their catapult. Ms. Nakanishi and I spent a lot of time going group to group to help them. They eventually got to sling tennis balls and water balloons at each other.


This event was called the punctured drum. The goal was to overfill the drum with water. The catch, it had TONS of holes in it. Team members had to use their fingers to cover the holes while other team members filled the drum. It was a wet, wet, wet challenge. I helped out on the last day and walked to my cabin dripping wet, good times.


This is the other team mates trying to cover the holes. A very wet job.



We also had a 'garbage bag ball,' where everyone had to make a gown or a suit out of garbage bags. Here are some of the teachers making their outfits.


This is the final product. This is only 10 out of 12 teachers...that's including myself... the prac. student.



And here are the other two. Hustler and Williamson; PE teachers. Two of the grade eight students put some effort into making these guys look.... pretty?


I arrived home from camp yesterday around 4:30pm; I was wiped. I ended up going to bed around 8pm and woke up at 9 this morning, Good Friday. Luckily I have enough groceries to last me until tomorrow as I was too tired to run out grocery shopping when I got home yesterday. Liz left this morning for Brisbane and my floor is empty except for Tim and I. I think my Easter dinner will consist of something simple.... perhaps chicken... and salad. Boring, I know, but easy for one. Below are a couple more photos from the past few weeks. I slacked off on posting so today's post is extra long.....

Before grade eight camp we had Earth hour.... all lights to be shut off and an hour of darkness. Tim and I were the two who participated on our floor. We had my flashlight/radio....


A cup of tea....


And of course, juggling.
Also, a few days before we had a pleasant surprise from our dear res. cat, Puss. I was sitting in my room and heard my floor mate say, 'we have a cat!' Of course I jumped out of bed (where I was watching a movie) and hung out with our guest. This is a special occasion as we only leave our front door open occasionally and we live on the second floor!

She liked rubbing up on Tim.



She hung around for a while before sauntering back downstairs. I hope she comes back soon, it was nice having her. I was really close to cat-napping her... but I refrained....


The week previous Liz and I participated in the Butt Littering Campaign for the City of Townsville; we handed out pocket ashtrays to convince people not to litter their butts. In the photo below are some of the volunteers posing for a photo. There are over 4 billion cigarette butts littered in Australia each year. Unfortunately the butts end up washing into the waterways and ocean creating a deadly food source for turtles and fish. The sea creatures end up eating the cigarettes, which they cannot digest, and end up dying of starvation. Very sad. The Townsville bulletin took photos of a turtle from Reef HQ trying to eat a fake cigarette (held by a diver) to show they will eat anything!!! Not only does the cigarette butts kill the wildlife but obviously pollutes the beautiful water. Hopefully the mass amounts of butt holders we handed out will prevent some of the damage done by cigarettes.