Where angels dare tread...

Cadet Camp. We had it last year, we had it this year, we'll have it next year. Coming into this year's camp, I was feeling slightly apprehensive, what with what had happened last year. (Fire, injuries, massive brawls with weapons, drugs, etc). To be honest, this camp wasn't really anything like that. It wasn't fun, that's for sure, but it wasn't nearly as bad as last year, from a rank's point of view. That's the other difference between last year's camp and this year's: Last year, I was a cadet, doing what I was told and just getting through it. This year, I am a corporal, so not only did I have to do all the hikes and activities, I had to make sure that the cadets did pretty much what they were supposed to be doing, and were getting engaged...not an easy task.

But let me tell you about the camp from a more chronological point of view. There may be some inaccuracies, since for the majority of the camp I was either tired out of my mind, sleeping, eating, walking or attempting futilely to get the Year 9's to do what the hell they were told.

On day one, after a relatively short bus-ride, we all jumped out of the bus, stiff-legged and weary. First thing was first: Walk about 5km to camp carrying all of our stuff. The pack's weren't too heavy, maybe 30kg max, but that didn't stop all the cadets from complaining 'till they were blue in the face. It didn't take too long to get back to camp, however, and the boys were soon sitting on the side of the road, looking angrily at the HQ tent and the portaloos that they would probably be becoming very familiar with over the next few days.

There is something I must explain...one major difference between this camp and last year's.
The Cicadas.

I spell Cicadas with a capital C because they went, from the start of the camp to the end, from insects, to an aspect of the camp. A theme, if you will. One of the components that served to make the boys hate the camp. The reason? Imagine the loudest noise you have ever heard being made from something natural. This was as loud as that, times...10? They were so loud, and so many, that the high-pitched screeching they made emanated from the trees in which they resided, bounced off everything, and came at you from all directions. So, rather than being a high-pitched screeching from the trees, it sounded almost as if it were coming from the inside of your ear. A high pitched, piercing, throbbing scream that was enough to drive anyone crazy. The only sanctuary was to wear a hat, which blocked out the noise that was coming from above.

Cicadas weren't the only fun insect that was around the campsite either, no no no. There was a myriad of creepy-crawlies all over the place. Bush-cockroaches, beetles, worms, flies, weevils, true bugs, ants, scorpions and SPIDERS. There was definately at least one spider per 10cm squared on the ground. If you picked up a large handful of dirt, the odds were that you had also picked up a spider. The majority of them were quite small, smaller than a fingernail, but there was also quite a few funnel-webs, huntsmans, black house spiders, white-tails and trapdoors if you preferred something bigger to crawl on you while you slept. I'm not afraid of spiders at all, but I would prefer it if something that can bite me would come and face me like a man, rather than falling on my shoulder when I'm least expecting it.

Anyway, back to the chronology.

The first day, we really didn't do anything other than get set up and introduced. We went for a little walk that night, just a couple of km, and we went to bed.
On day two, we took a considerably longer walk. It was probably about 10-15km..I'm not exactly sure, but it took us about 4-5 hours. There was quite a bit of cross-country stuff. It wasn't too eventful, it was more of a dreary trudge than anything else. We played spotlight that night.
Day three: Abseiling and a game of situation spotlight. I, Nick and Tom didn't participate in abseiling, Nick and I electing to spend most of the time sleeping. After all, we had just been on an abseiling and rock-climbing camp, and this was a pretty small abseil. It wasn't all that great hiking up and back to the rock, but that wasn't that bad either. The situation spotlight, however, was a little more interesting.
The target: A glowstick. Weapons-grade uranium, important documents, blueprints, evidence, whatever. Each squad had to go and get it, and bring it back to HQ. It was pretty much pitch-dark, save for the moonlight, and it would involve a lot of cross-country movement, since there were about five guards stationed near the glowstick. Two were patrolling the road near where the glowstick was, two were stationed at intersections to catch out unwary squads, and one (Nick) was placed just off the path into the bush near the glowstick, with his torch off...waiting. Our squad got mostly lost, ending up at HQ with no glowstick. Two of our squad broke off, grabbed the glowstick and got caught. This meant our entire squad was out...but then, no-one got the glowstick. Too many guards I guess. We all went to bed and slept soundly.
Day four was slightly more eventful. It was to be the day that I would remember the best, since it was the only day that anything really bad happened. Everyone was to be making bush-shelters, out of logs, sticks, bark and ferns. They would be sleeping in those that night, even though it was going to rain. Rank didn't have to sleep in the shelters, but we did have to have everyone's bag thrown into our tent. (By tent, I mean hoochie, a piece of water-proof canvas thrown over a string suspended between two trees and pegged to the ground) So the rain was one bad thing that happened that day. But that stopped after a few hours, so it wasn't anything too disastrous.
The other bad thing that happened was a fight that broke out near to the campfire. Paul broke wind (An odd thing for a fight to start over, but oh well), Oscar said "Doorknob" (An odd thing for a fight to start over, but oh well) and began punching paul repedatively. In case you don't know, which you probably don't, Doorknob is an idiotic rule thought up by some genius a while ago. If someone farts, and doesn't say "Safety", and someone else says "Doorknob", the person who says Doorknob gets to punch the offender until they touch a doorknob. Why you would say that out in the BUSH, where there AREN'T any doorknobs, I have no idea...pretty sadistic, if you ask me.
Anyway, Oscar's started punching paul repedatively. Paul has hit at Oscar with his hat, to brush him away, and he must have hit him with a hard part of the hat, or somthing, because Oscar then proceeded to kick Paul in the back. Hard. The toe of his shoe connected and I winced as Paul recoiled from the blow, yelled, and got up to charge at Oscar. It was at this point, (A little late, I know, but better late than never) that I got up, cursing under my breath, and ran in between the two. The break of eye-contact was enough to stop the proceedings. Paul ran off into the Bush a way. I instructed Oscar to come with me to HQ, and walked him over. The teachers (Officers, Leutenant Emmet and Keslar) wished to first know why he had burned a hole in someone else's tent, and then wanted to know why he was there. I left him at this point. After a while, he came to get Paul, who was still in the bush. He was qute upset. He obviously wasn't going to want to talk to the teachers for a little while. After maybe another half-an-hour, Mr. Keslar came and collected Paul, bringing him over to HQ. I don't know exactly what happened to Oscar, but I do know that he was isolated for the rest of the camp - no social contact. I suppose that's the step down from being sent home. That was pretty much it for day four, except for a very short hike through the bush.
Day five: Everyone was going home. The cadets were pretty exited, and many play-fights and tree-pushing downs were happening. The rank and officers had pretty much resigned to leaving late, but surprisingly, everyone banded together and got the campsite packed-up and cleaned pretty quickly. We left exactly on schedule, and got onto the busses at about 1:00. We got back to school at about 2:30. I won't go into what happened in the time between that and me getting home at 4:30, but I'll just say that it's a 10 minute drive, and Nonna needs new glasses.

That's pretty much it. I'm tired of typing now, so I'm going to go and watch Claymore.
Ja ne.

An Intermittent Calm...

Well, exams are over. Of course, such an extraordinary event cannot go unblogged about, so I will now proceed to briefly outline my week of examinny goodness.

Day 1: 19th November, 2007.
Yes, the week had finally come. Exams were upon us. This came with a feeling of slight resignation, as I realised that I probably wouldn't be doing much worthwhile stuff this week. I did, however, feel slightly glad that I wouldn't be at school anywhere nearly as long as normal, and this meant more studying/relaxing time and less strenuous thinking time.
It's not all bad I suppose.
The first day was IT Multimedia, a flash exam, and Maths.

I'll start with the flash exam. Let me just say this: I have been working with flash for approximately a fifth of my life. 3 years. I seriously doubted that I would be having any trouble with this exam, but, just in case, I studied for it anyway. One does not want to become complacent. Well, the exam was about as easy as I thought it was. I got everything completed with about 30 minutes to spare, and then I began adding some extra-features, to grab some extra marks. This venture was, however, interrupted, as my keyboard went, for lack of a better word, apeshit. Every. Single. Key. Got. Randomly. Assigned. An. ASCII. Code. This meant, basically, that I typed the letter "A", and got the very useful "◄". Attempts at typing "Symbol 1" were met with the output of "^○(F┘dÚ". I tried going onto a different computer, to no avail. So, resigned to my efforts thus far, I took out my 'cube and began twiddling with that while waiting for the exam to end.

Next up was maths. I went in feeling fairly confident, I left feeling even more confident. I found it surprisingly easy. I am reasonably sure I will get a pretty good mark there.


Day 2: 20th November, 2007.
I was free for all of Tuesday, which was definitely a welcome reprise. I spent the majority of the day studying for my Commerce exam on Wednesday, but I did brush over a few key chapters in Macbeth, for good measure. I also started playing Call of Duty 2 again.

Day 3: 21st November, 2007.
I woke up late, did some last minute study, and headed out the door to start my second day of exams. Commerce was reasonably easy, but I suppose the whole reason I'm doing that subject is because it is easy.

English was...annoying. Although I do enjoy English, because of Mr Vernon being the monolithic pillar of negative-inspirational energy, I really couldn't be screwed producing anything of value for him. I churned out 3 B+ essays, and spent the rest of the time looking out the window. I suppose the only good part is the fact that never again will I have to quail under the Silver Fox's negative aura.

Day 4: 22nd November, 2007.
Well, IT Programming today. Fun AND challenging. A great subject choice. I walked into the exam at midday, walked out an hour-and-a-half later. It was quite an entertaining exam, since I rather enjoy programming, and I went quite well. Not really much to say.

Day 5: 23rd November, 2007.
Final day, final exam. Science. Biology. 3/4 work. It was a hard exam, but I knew most of the material that was on it, so it went fairly well. I was expecting a pretty good mark until I turned the paper over at the end and realised that I had missed the last page. Worth 7 marks - 14%.
My entire consciousness t that point: "Shit."
So now I am expecting a very mediocre mark. But oh well, that's the way the wafer crumbles.

And at that, the exams were over, quite abruptly. Now I have two days of peace before marching off to Cadet Camp '07, which should be...fun...
As long as it's anything like last year, with the bush-fires, building shelters out of sticks and sleeping under them in the rain, walking for 7 hours with 20kg strapped to your back, sleeping and waking up with spiders all over you, falling onto a tree only to disturb a NEST of huntsman's which begin crawling all over you...
Only this year, I get to be the one to deal with all the dickhead year 9's who consider me as much of a disciplinary leader as they do the pus-covered congealed blob of festering blood that they just picked off their scabbed elbow, before examining it critically and flicking it down into the dirt for someone to puzzle over later.

Yeah..should be good. Wish me luck...very, VERY good luck.

eGames '07

Well, yesterday was the big day. eGames expo - Australia's largest gaming exhibition was coming again, to the Melbourne Exhibition Center, known affectionately as "Jeff's Shed".
Nick and I had agreed to go together. I would pick him up at his house, and we would proceed to the expo. As we pulled up on Jeff's Shed, I found myself again marveling at the sheer size of the building. I have been many times, but each time I visit I am struck anew by it's awe-inspiring monolithic...ness.
After hurrying down to Southbank to get some lunch and back, I could barely contain my apprehension for what eGames would hold for me this year. Last year it was great fun to play the games that had not come out yet, but that was about as far as the worth of the expo had gone for me. Now that I am interested in breaking into the gaming industry, the courses I will need and the contacts and skills I will need to establish, I knew that this year's expo would prove far more valuable.

As we opened the doors to the Exhibition Center, my eyes widened instinctively, just so I could grasp as much of the view presented to me as possible. The ceiling was easily 50 meters high, and facing me was a corridor which would take easily 10 minutes to walk down. Neither of us were sure which of the many exhibition rooms eGames was being held in, but as we walked down that massive corridor, we soon found what we were looking for. After a surprisingly short line, we walked, almost reverently, into the expo. I was hit by a sensory tidal-wave.
The most prevelant sense was noise. A combination of the exited voices of over 500 people, otaku, gamers, cosplayers, industry-people, officials screaming into microphones, games being played loudly on surround-sound keyboards and the general ambiance of enough footsteps to mistake the crowd for a stampede was enough to make me almost stop walking forward. However, before I could process this mass of noise assaulting my eardrums, I adjusted, and everything just became a loud drone. This didn't stop me from having to yell whenever I wanted to talk to Nick, however.
Before really moving forward, I looked around. It was clear that there were very many things to see this year. Nintendo had a small, slightly disappointing area right at the front, where they were last year. They really only had old games that I had already played many times, so I didn't visit that area at all during the time I was there. Industry and education stalls lined the two side-walls, and I had a bit of a look at these while walking around. It was interesting to see just what it might be like for me in the years to come, as I am shaped to become the game-producing machine I will hopefully turn out to be. The back wall was a competition-area. Team Immunity, Australia's most noted gaming-clan had a large stage set up, with 10 state-of-the-art gaming PC's set up. It seemed that they were taking on a few players in various games. I had a look at how that was progressing a little later-on, I saw that they had inverted their controls and were using only pistols, and were still completely obliterating all of their opponents. I briefly considered giving it a go myself, but decided I had better things to do than wait in a massive line in order to play Source against a group of professional gamers for five minutes. There was also a Halo-3 area, but that too had tremendous lines. The center of the area was a hodgepodge of various companies. Hardware, Software, Game-Developers, Vendors, even an anime-vendor, who I recognised from last-year's eGames. Probably the most interesting feature of the center was very close to the Team-Immunity stage. Crysis - one of the biggest releases for the gaming industry this year, was being showcased. 8 PC's were running single-player Crysis, 5 were running MultiPlayer. I wanted to try it, but knowing that it will be some time before I will be able to play it, my PC being the equivalent of CSIRAC in comparison to what is needed to run Crysis, I decided to only give single-player a quick go, before going to play COD2/Quake3, which was running in an area adjacent to the Crysis multi-player area. Nick, having a PC that is good enough to play it, for the most part, played quite a lot of Crysis. There was a competition running every hour, in which five contestants had a match of Crysis, first to 20 kills. The winner gained the ultimate prize-a free copy of Crysis. Needless to say, the response to this was phenomenal. When the commentator spoke the words: "NOW WHO WANTS A FREE COPY OF CRYSIS?!!??!!!", 50 people simultaneously exploded, jumping, screaming, begging to be chosen to be in the running. The loudest, wildest-looking fans were chosen, and the one who displayed the most skill would be the one to take home the game. While I was playing COD2 and Quake, nick was training, seeking to gain the skills required in order to win this competition. I must say, I wished him the best, but doubted that he would be chosen over the horde of ecstatic fans who looked like they would kill for a copy. The first competition began, and ended, with disappointment.

Nick said that he would watch Team Immunity compete against "The Community" (A bunch of n00bs selected from the audience), so I decided to go and have a look at a presentation that was about to begin: "The gaming industry - What goes into it, what comes out of it."
It was actually surprisingly fascinating and informative. I learned many things which I believe will be invaluable when I go and try to break into the industry itself. I got quite a lot out of that presentation.

After that, I went and found nick, and we walked around for a little longer. Nick said he would go train at Crysis some more, and I decided to go and play Quake3.
I found that game surprisingly easy. I had never played before, but after coming first twice in a row, I had decided that either I was awesome, or everyone else was a total n00b. Someone behind me, who had been watching, asked: "Oh my god, dude, you're totally awesome! How long have you been playing Quake?!!" to which I replied: "This is my first time. How do you switch weapons?" He just looked at me. I figured it out eventually though. Once the round was over, I got off to give someone else a go, and went to look at other people's computers, to see if they were as sucky as the seemed.
I found myself shaking my head at how horrible they were. I was almost entranced by how much they sucked at the game. I was suddenly and unpleasantly broken out of this reverie by a loud, blaring voice coming out of a speaker next to my head.

"OK! THE NEXT, AND LAST CRYSIS COMPETITION IS ABOUT TO BEGIN!!! COME OVER HERE IF YOU WANT TO WIN A COPY OF CRYSIS!!!!!"

A large crowd almost instantaneously formed around the Crysis booth. I spied nick over on the far side, in the outskirts of the crowd, behind some sort of microphone-stand. Knowing nick, I sort-of doubted that he would make it into the competition, so I decided to go back to watching Quake. I heard people being chosen one by one, each time my heart sinking further as I knew Nick had not been chosen. Finally, it was announced that the contestants had been chosen, and the competition was about to begin. I decided to go and have a look, to see what was going on. I couldn't believe my eyes as I saw none-other than Nick, sitting at the furthest computer, a concentrating look on his face.

I must admit, I was quite surprised, but I couldn't keep a grin off my face. I almost ran over to where he was, standing next to the computer. He did not turn to look at me, concentrating as he was, but I knew that he had noticed I was there. I watched him play. I watched him dominate. It was really great seeing a friend of mine beat down other gamers to win something. A few times I was scared that he might suddenly trip up and lose, but after seeing him obliterate two people with one rocket, I was pretty confident that he would win, and so were the commentators. Finally, he needed three more kills to win. He was ahead by four, and it looked like the game was his. *BANG!* two to go. Before the commentator had even finished saying the sentence, it became one to go. 30 seconds later, and it was all over. Nick actively relaxed in his chair, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I glanced at my watch. 4:30. Nick was going to be late for choir, but I don't think either of use really cared at that point.

Nick gave his details to an official from the company, who said Nick would be receiving Crysis in the mail. Nick was at first disappointed that he couldn't take a copy home with him, but I pointed out that I probably wouldn't feel comfortable carrying a copy of Crysis around with me, and he agreed that neither would he.
On the walk back to Flinder's Street Station, we grabbed a drink, as after all that yelling and screaming, both of us were barely capable of speech. The train ride passed quite quickly, and as soon as it had all started, I was home.

Exhausted, I collapsed on my bed, and studied. >_<
Hehe...long post. :P

Yes...

It's that time of year again...exams are on the way, about a week away, in fact. Everyone has suddenly come to their senses about how much work they should be doing and have begun to study furiously. Well....most people anyway.
It's a time which, for some, is completely unbearable. Different people deal with exams different ways. I, for one, have never really been all that stressed about exams, even from the first one I ever had, back in year seven. It's looking around me and seeing the utter chaos that seems to be going through people's minds that I begin to wonder...am I really the one in the right here? I thought that not stressing too much would be a good thing. Don't get me wrong, I'm studying...I'm studying for about three hours per-night. But lots of other people are studying at lunchtime and recess, studying before school, studying without taking breaks. I was a little worried for them until I wondered whether that was what I should be doing...

I certainly hope it isn't, for if it is, I could be in a little-bit of trouble...
The very fact that I am posting this rather than continuing with my ITP Evaluation says something about how frantically I'm working.

But I am reasonably confident that I will go pretty well in my exams...I'm looking forward to it being over-and-done with. After exams, I will have the rest of the year to myself...well........except for Cadet-Camp, Promotions-Week and the Senior-Leadership-Course (To become a sergeant.)

Ja ne.