Swimming Term 1

In Term 1, we have swimming lessons on Tuesday every week.. For Year 7's and 8's, there is swimming extensions. Meaning if your considerably well at swimming, you can skip lessons and water safety, and choose from kayaking, snorkelling and diving lessons. I chose to be in kayaking. I wanted to be in kayaking because I thought it would be fun, but my Dad said to just do diving, so it would help me in swimming sports competitions, but I already chose kayaking. It was worth it, since we might do kayaking when I go to camp (OPC). The first few lessons we practiced a safety routine when we capsized in our kayak and how to enter the pool with your life jacket. The instructors said to tuck your knees under the knee guards for balance, then delicately slide out, leaning forward, and tap three times on the kayak so the instructors know your safe. But if you can't get out, you continue tapping. After this we went on the bubble machine. At first I was baffled at what they said. I then understood that it was an exercise, so you could feel what river rapids were like. We were told to huddle up together, there were approximately about ten of us. Next they activated the machine. It was reasonably strong since I was sent back to the corners of the vast five metre pool. I looked around to see that we were scattered across the pool, with our life jackets. I was amused at how strong it was. We were then asked to rate the aggressiveness of the burst of water out of ten. The average score they rated was five, some eight. They told us it was not even over half of one! Everyone was amazed. After we could catch up to the people who had lessons and now was in free time. We had about five minutes until we actually changed. I spent a few minutes there, people telling about what they did, and how fun it was. That was my typical swimming day. But for a few weeks it was cancelled due to a swimming meet apparently. And plus OPC Camp. But swimming enjoyable as the past seven years.

OPC Camp

OPC Camp stands for Outdoor Pursuits Centre. Year 8's go there for a week to boost up their confidence. I am now Year 8 (Grade 6), so I have to attend this event. I am feeling a bit concerned because of my gear, if I have everything or not. The activities there are almost once in a life time opportunity, with caving, tubing, camping, high ropes and more. So i have quite to look forward to and worry for. Anyway while the Year 8's are there, the Year 7's are doing EOTC (Education In The Classroom). They learn a lot and may explore an astronomy observatory, art museum, go on tramp up a mountain or visit a film festival. Well that was what I did when I was Year 7. I guess I could say I'm  excited about OPC Camp. It'll be fun.

Chrismas and New Year Holiday

My family is having a reunion on my Dad's side, with my cousins from London, Texas, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines. We plan to stay at a hotel near the beach and visit our newly built house. We haven't decided much on Christmas but on New Year we will light fireworks and go to Makati, Metro Manila to see the huge fireworks. 

College

I still have a year but college sounds a bit intimidating. All my cousins have given me advice but I'm stll not a assured. I will look forward to the independence and privledges but maybe teachers could be grumpy, I don't know. I wish good luck to the year 8's.

My Trip

Hey guys, my flight was okay, not bad. I'm now here in the Philippines. Singapore was great. There was a day when it was boiling hot, then in the afternoon it started raining hard. My hotel had five Asian Water Monitor Lizards and Asian Squirrels. A baby Monitor Lizard swam in the outdoor swimming pool. Nothing else happened much so yeah.

Dino Day Reflection

Dino Day was okay but the weather was miserable. It was wet and showering a bit. What we did was we got into groups of four or five and chose from a range of dinosaur figurines, researched them and made a short documentary on them. My group chose the ankylosaurus, stegosaurus and the pterodactyl. I didn't really like the filming part and the researching, I would of preferred just reading about them or drawing them. I'm typing this just after we finished our film, so I think if the weather clears up, we might have a game of Dino Dodgeball. I'm not sure how to play this game but hopefully it's as good as normal Dodgeball. Even though Dino Day isn't finished yet, I didn't really enjoy it much. It wasn't that bad but it was quite boring.

Fireworks Question

Do you like fireworks?