August 31st, 2009

Been a week since the last update, so though I'd better update it today.

Been busy with homework the last couple of days. Lots of assignments to do.
English essay for Tuesday
History of Technology report for Friday
Marine Studies presentation and report for sometime this week
2*Chemistry report for Friday
So plenty of stuff to do, even if I'm not particularly interested in actually doing it... I guess they're giving us all these assignments because the September break is coming up soon (2½ week, 18th of September), just like back home. Always before the holidays...
The entire class will be going to Whitsunday Islands in the September break. It's something the school has arranged, and they're paying $500, we'll be paying the remaining $390. It seems we've gotten a much better deal than the class that went last year. Included in the $390 we have to pay is:
Jet-Skiing
Para-Gliding
Some other stuff I don't remember
Lots of food!
Really looking forward to it. After the Whitsunday trip is over, we still have 10 days left of the holiday. I think most of us are planning to go to the Gold Coast. Would be fun if we all went. We can get some group discount, so the trip down there, which will most likely be by bus, probably won't be all that expensive. Also, we're going to Dreamworld straight after the holiday, the first Monday after. It so happens that Dreamworld is situated in the Gold Coast, so we've been thinking that we could stay till Monday, go to Dreamworld with the school, and then go back home. I don't know if that last part will come true, I actually don't think it is, but oh well.

Had been invited to an Aussie party this Saturday, but I didn't really feel like going, the homework I had been doing (the English essay, damn that thing, probably one of the most annoying essays ever. Took me 2 hours to write the first 200 words) had exhausted me, so I decided to stay home. I think Mathis was glad, he didn't really want to go either. But next time, I'll go.

So, today we went whale watching. Had to get up at 5.30 to get ready, and be at Boat Harbour by 7. I think some of the others had to get up earlier though, as most of them had to be at the school at 6.45, and then a bus would take them to Boat Harbour. So for once, we didn't have to get up earlier than anybody else for some school arrangement.

Oh, and haircuts are pretty cheap down here. I got a haircut for $20 last Friday, and apparently I could have gotten it for $16 if I had just flash my student ID. Oh well, $4 isn't that much, but I'll have to remember it next time. I had originally planned on getting the haircut at the school, but you had to make an appointment for that, and I couldn't really find time in my schedule.

Anyway, till next time... see ya! /wave
Oh, will add pictures from the Whale Watching trip some time later this week

August 24th, 2009

Update!

The entire class was at Scrub Hill today. It's an aboriginal community farm, not far from the school. They had... 80 acres of land, I believe, and it was all filled with plants. And some pretty rare plants among them. It was pretty interesting, but nothing I couldn't have lived without. We weren't there for very long anyway. After school, my group stayed in the classroom and worked on an International Technology and Culture assignment. We finished off about... 15.30, I think. When the gym opened at 16, I went down there to workout, and try my new program for the first time.
The first program I had, was made the very first time we got down there. I guess the program was okay, it just didn't fit me, so therefore I kept adding stuff to it, trying to make it harder. That didn't really work. So, last Wednesday, I had a new program made (my old one had somehow gone missing anyway). A student called Elliot made it for me. I told him the old one hadn't really fit me, and that I wanted to focus on my leg/ankle instead of just an overall workout. So he made up a new program for me, that I made on my computer, and uploaded here. I made the program from memory, so it might not be entirely accurate (I'm 100% sure it's not accurate, I forgot the numbers on most of the machines down there, and I might have forgotten to ad something. Oh, and the sit-ups aren't really on my program, but I do them anyway) The exercises are in no specific order, as the order depends on which machines are free, and what I feel like doing.
Anyway, the new program is awesome, much harder and much better than the old one. Think it took my about 1 hour and 15 minutes to go through all of it today. Now I just have to work on finding the best possible order of the exercises.

Other stuff going on the past week... not much. BBQ at the school Sunday. For all the international students and their homestay parents. International students included the Asian student, who also study in the W-block. So, we played football (soccer). Had a tournament. 4 teams. The all-danish team won it all^^ the other teams were mixed Danes/Aussies/Asians. Afterwards, food! Sausages, burgers, chips, dip, lots of stuff. Was pretty fun, but didn't take very long. We got there at 10, and were back on at about 14, I think

Haven't done much else this week... oh! Besides being at a netcafe Thursday. Some guys started talking about hosting a lan-party Thursday in school, and they discussed possible locations for it. Couldn't really come up with anything legal, with enough space. Then they thought of a netcafe. So, they asked in class how many of us were up for it, and pretty much all the boys were. They went to the netcafe and talked to them, they had enough room, and the price was $20 for a lock-down, i.e. an entire night. So, that's what we did. An entire night at M.I.A Gaming. Was awesome. Played lots of Call of Duty 2 (which was actually the most fun, had some pretty close matches), Warcraft 3 (of course) and some other games. And, of course, I watched the Guild Wars 2 trailer. It was, simply, awesome. It can be found at the official Guild Wars 2 site (here), for anybody that might want to see it. And yeah, we had school the day after, and yeah, all of us were tired. All 21 boys. 23 boys in class and 4 girls, so quite a few showed up. None of the girls though. It was all worth it though.

Not much left to tell for this week, I guess. Oh, one thing left. We finally decided on a design for our jersey. It's a jersey everybody in class will be getting. With their name or something on the back. First picture is the design (obviously) and the second one is with the names for the backs of the jersey. Most of them are for our class, but some of the teachers get one each year as well. $60 each, so I guess it's not so bad...

Anyway, see ya next time!
/wave

August 18th, 2009

I actually tried updating a couple of days ago, but after I wrote it all down, it all crashed... Usually Blogger saves the posts, in case it should crash, but it didn't this time, so I lost quite a bit... I pretty much have to update my blog today, been almost a week. Or maybe it has been a week... anyway. GW2 info has been released today, so my post might not be as awesome as it usually is :D GWG post here GW2 website here. Really excited about this, there should be some more info later this week, so I'll probably be refreshing the GW2 site and Mike O'Brien 's Wiki page all week long, and following Gamescom very closely.

So... haven't been doing a lot the last couple of days, aside from the usual. Played poker last Friday. Went to where Niklas and Birk lives. Their homestay parents were out for the weekend, and the son in the house, Anthony, had arranged a poker game with some of his mates, and Niklas invited me and some other Danes to join. $10 entry fee. 13 people played, probably a little more Danes than Aussies, some of them showed up too late (a couple of Danes did as well). Winner gets $100 and 2nd gets $30. We started at two tables, and when we were four left at each table, we moved to one. I ended up as #5. I could probably have gone further, had a pretty good hand, went all-in, but the opponent had a better hand. Oh well. I ended up as dealer for the last three instead. The last three being Jesper, Niklas and an Aussie called Iceman, or Ice. The game lasted pretty long, think just those three sat at the table for an hour or two. They then decided, that whoever came first and second would split the money, to avoid staying there all night (which Mathis and I did anyway). Niklas then lost shortly after, so Ice and Jesper each won $65, so they earned $55 that night, pretty nice, eh?
Anyway, it was fun, even though it lasted forever. Afterwards, we just talked, listened to music and stuff. Went to bed at around 3 o'clock, slept there. Was back home at about 10 the next day.

Sunday was Seafood Festival. Mathis and I met with Jesper at the Boat Club, very close to where the festival was. Not as much seafood as I thought, lots of other food as well. Stevns (Anders Stevns, classmate) and his homestay had a pancake stand, so we went to get some. DAMN they were good. After that we just walked around, checking it all out, and then we got lunch, seafood for me and Mathis, Jesper got a... Super Bacon and Cheese Burger... and they weren't kidding 'bout the bacon. More bacon than I've ever seen in a burger...

Anyway, I guess that's it for today. Gonna get a haircut this Thursday, at the school... by students... for free! Wonder how that'll go:P
See ya! /wave

August 11th, 2009

Ah... sorry 'bout that everybody. I promised the pictures would be up yesterday, but they weren't. I had trouble uploading them to my Photobucket account (the imagehost that lets me post my pictures here). I could only upload one picture at a time, and it simply took me too long. Wasn't done by midnight yesterday, so I decided to wait for today. Still took quite a while to upload the pictures today. Even the compressed versions. By the way, if you want me to upload higher resolution of any of the pictures, just tell me, and I'll do so^^

Some of you might already have seen the pictures that my classmates have uploaded to FaceBook, and to those of you, these probably won't be a lot of new pictures, we've all been the same places, and seen almost the same stuff. You might also notice that the pictures on FaceBook, is better quality, or most of them at least. Quite a few people brought some pretty awesome cameras. But as far as I'm concerned, we'll all be sharing pictures when we get back anyway. I believe that's what they did last year.

So! The pictures: (clicking the thumbnails won't make them bigger, that's the size of the pictures, I compressed them quite a bit:P)

The trip to Fraser, by Barge




Random pictures taken after leaving the barge




Lake McKenzie









(the teachers and some of the students at the beach of the lake)



From the first camp in the forest

(a goanna! There were actually a few of them, but I decided to just upload one. There were a few at the second camp as well)(clicking this one WILL make it bigger... I forgot to compress it)



The walk to Pine Valley




Lake Wabby Sandblown



I recorded some videos there as well, on a classmate's camera, just waiting to get them^^

Middle Rocks

(Indian Head visible, the big cliff)





From Indian Head




(Wabby Point, out there)




(from up Indian Head, not actually allowed to go that close, but we did anyway)





Sandblown near 2nd camp

(obligatory sunset picture, was a little too late actually, but that was because of my little walkabout^^)


(Unfortunately I couldn't get a proper picture up there. The three guys in the picture (from left: Kasper, Emil and Johan) and I were the only four people to go up there. The view was incredible. The hillside behind those three was almost vertical, and below was a lot of trees, simply awesome)

Waiting for the boat

(Blue Soldier Crab, I believe, there were a ton of them at the beach in Kingfisher Bay. When you walked out (low tide) the entire beach moved)

Last shot for this time. Not a lot, I guess, but the others aren't much different. Unfortunately, I am, once again, out of time. Midnight here and yet another school day tomorrow. And gym. Will tell about some of the other stuff tomorrow, of if I have problems again, sometime later. I have other stuff to do after all:P

So, see ya
/wave

August 9th, 2009

So... people have been telling me to upload pictures of the trip to Fraser Island... and I will put them up! Just not today... not really in the mood, it's been a slooooow weekend, so the pictures will be up tomorrow, unless I'm too tired after training (not likely). I can tell you about the trip though. It was awesome.

Got up at 5 Tuesday morning, packed the last things and stuff like that, and was at the school at around 6. Not a lot of people had shown up when Mathis and I got there. We helped the teachers pack the trailer and other stuff. Once everybody showed up and had their stuff packed on top of the 4wd's (four-wheel-drives just in case anybody didn't know), we left for the barge that was supposed to take us over. Back the way Mathis and I had just come, strangely enough, oh well.

The barge was slow. Very slow, don't know when we got to Fraser, but not before 9.30, I think. Anyway, once we got there, it looked pretty decent, nothing special. We arrived at Kingfisher Bay by the way. I liked the way they'd hidden the entire resort, though. Was almost impossible to see it from the sea, they had actually left a lot of trees. Kingfisher Bay Resort looked awesome, but unfortunately, that wasn't the place we were staying... we had about 15 minutes around the resort, to buy stuff, look around and such. I bought a dessert bowl and knife/spoon/fork as I forgot to bring any. Was fairly expensive, but I guess that's to be expected from a place like that.

Anyway, off we go again. Oh by the way, Mathis and I were in Doc's car. 11 people in our car. 8 students in the back, 2 students in the front, and one driver. Not much room in there, but it was awesome nonetheless. Driving in a normal car will never be fun again. The roads on Fraser were simply awesome! Only a few places with asphalt, on of them being the Kingfisher Bay Resort, the rest of it was sand. And not the kind of sand we have on the beaches in Denmark, this sand was WAY finer than what we have back home, therefore, much more fun to drive in. As said, I was in Doc's car, and I'm glad. We were the last in the "convoy", and Doc kept falling behind, and the catching up again, awesome. Only one car got stuck, that was Terri, our Marine Studies teacher. Only reason he got stuck, was 'cause of the trailer behind his 4wd. Doc had to pull him free.

The first day, we stopped at Lake McKenzie. Quote from here: "It is a 'perched' lake, which means it contains only rainwater, no groundwater, is not fed by streams and does not flow to the ocean. The sand and organic matter at the base of the lake form an impervious layer, preventing rainwater from draining away." So, yea. That's some pretty damn clean water. So clean, actually, that it can't sustain any life. Took quite a few pictures of the lake, it's damn awesome. I kinda want to go there again.

Not sure how long we spent at the lake, but the next stop was Central Station, where we were going to camp for the night. In the middle of the rainforest actually. Once the tents and all that were up, we had to go for a walk. We went to Pine Valley. Not really sure what was so special about Pine Valley, but at least the walk was nice. Except the last stretch... most of us were pretty exhausted by then. And not just the students.

Had dinner when we got back to the camp. BBQ! Chicken and potatoes and... peas and corn. Was decent. After that, not much to do but play cards. It gets dark really fast here. Especially in the rainforest. We started out with some Piggy (don't ask me about that game, not about to explain it, and I sucked at it). Then Mark and I decided we wanted to play 4-man Whist (I think that's what it's called in English, and Mark is a classmate), so we taught Mathis and Stevns (Anders Stevns, another classmate), and then Emil and Marianne (guess what? More classmates!) showed up, and wanted to learn to play the game too. None of them were really great, but Emil was probably the best of them. We played a couple of games, until it was 9 o'clock, and then Terri had to turn the lights off... damn 9 pm curfew...

Quite a few of my classmates were sick, actually, including the two that slept in the same tent as me (Lars and Jesper). Both of them were asleep when I got in bed...

I slept horribly. I always do when I camp. I could have the greatest tent and air bed in the world, and I'd still sleep horribly. So, that was the first day of the trip on Fraser.

Seems this post has a fair length. I wasn't really in the mood for this today, but I did it anyway^^ Will be posting pictures tomorrow, and telling about the last couple of days. Don't miss out on the next episode! Including spiders, snakes, me going on walkabout and going loco!

/wave

August 3rd, 2009

Update!

Got myself some running shoes last Friday. A pair of ASICS. Cost me $160, not so bad, would've been $200 back in Denmark. They're great to walk in, and I guess I can't really say how good they are to run in, till I've been doing a little more running. Also bought some supplies for the Fraser trip. Licorice, chips and fudge! Damn cheap at Sam's Warehouse:P

Saturday we had our first Confined Water Dive. Met at the pool at 8, went home again at around 15-16, I think. Spent 6 hours in the water. Even with wetsuits on in a heated pool, it gets a little chilly in the end. Had to do lots of stuff in the water, and had to set up our equipment 3 times before we could even take it on. Most of the stuff we had to do was pretty simple, but some of the other stuff was kinda hard. Especially considering that the max depth of the pool was 1.5m.

It was fun, though. Next dive will be the weekend after the next. According to the book, we're supposed to have 3-4 Confined Water Dives (i.e. in the pool), but due to the depth of the pool, we'll have to do an Open Water Dive much sooner. Which will then be... the weekend after the next. We'll be staying above 12 meters for the next two Open Water Dives, and we'll be going down to 18m  in the last one. Looking forward to it, but also a lil' nervous:P

Was pretty exhausted afterwards... therefore, I didn't do much Sunday.

Monday, went to the gym, ran for the first time in years! The speed was too low, though, so I couldn't run properly. Have to remember that for next time, but it was great to actually run again. Took some determination to actually run, after I've been telling myself for ages that I couldn't run. Ah well, next time I'll set the speed higher^^

Have to go to bed early today, gotta get up at 5 tomorrow. The entire class is leaving for Fraser Island, where we'll be spending the days from Tuesday-Friday, gonna be awesome. I'll try to take lots of pictures, but I can't promise I won't forget sometimes^^

I'll see ya Friday I guess

/wave