I take my hat off to you

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sarahhottinger

Monday, 20 August 2012

Year 12 Retreat

The Year 12 Retreat was amazing. I really cannot capture the experience in any other words. It was definitely beyond amazing, but let's just stick with that. After bonding with just about everyone during the retreat, our grade is definitely closer and more aware of our need to work together. Seriously, QASMT's seniors 2012 are the finest. I didn't bring a camera to camp - my phone took about 10 photos, though, so I will be using other people's photos from facebook.

Wednesday:

Arrived at school at around 8:30. Took the back seat of the bus with the Viets, Angela and Spandan. Toowoomba is a lovely drive and the scenery is beautiful!

After arriving, we got our cabins (4 person cabin of the Viets and Amanda) and unpacked before meeting up. Because it was a military based camp, we had to do 40 pushups as a whole cohort for being too slow /yay for fit kids. We got split up into our camp groups and went off to our first activities which were the log and Colditz.

Colditz was basically a race against time where the instructor would turn on his headlights for five seconds and after they turned off, you're free to move. The aim was to get the whole team down a tunnel and up and out of the other side. It was the smallest tunnel, pitch black and there were pipes as obstacles to climb over halfway. Echo did it pretty okay though :P

Then dinner.

After dinner we cleaned up a bit and met in the main hall. Ms. Goggi then read the warm fuzzy story to us before allowing us to make our own bags and warm fuzzies. As this was happening, the teachers began to hand out letters from our parents. This was the most emotional time of the camp, and in my opinion, my life. I will never forget the feeling of not receiving a letter from my parents during my final high school camp as everyone read theirs teary eyed. We all comforted eachother and the atmosphere was just full of so much love and support.

Spent the night having a warm fuzzy party with the Viets and Amanda instead of partying it up with all our junk food. Was definitely worth it.

Thursday

Breakfast was really good. Like, I think the whole camp was just really decent camp food. Anyways, we had bacon, eggs, baked beans and toast (as well as cereals and stuff). First activity of the morning was the Vietnam Tunnel Rats activity. The guy telling us the story was like "We'll begin with talking about the Vietnam War" -all eyes on Franky and I- LOL :( It was like a series of twisted tunnels and water tanks.

Then had the bridge activity. Seriously, the photo does not even begin to illustrate how shaky it was up there :( I was the first one to go with Ben and we didn't fall /aw yeah!

Then the Western Front.

Had burgers and chips for lunch. Then headed out to do the Kakoda trail. Seriously, it was just thick, thick mud that was everywhere. Briefly, it was a 100m-ish track of pools of mud separated by walls of dirt that were too high to climb without groping of other group members (which ceased to be a problem about 30 seconds in).

I hope you can see how thick the mud was from this photo.

This wall. Trust me, it is so much harder than it looks. We, Echo company, had to help Delta get across so we waited patiently for them to go before beginning our climb. Varady and I's conversation went a little bit like this:

Me (after standing there for about 20 minutes): Dude it's so cold.

Varady: I know right.

Mishtah: You better start moving before you get frostbite.

Varady: OH SHIT. I don't know what frostbite is but it sounds bad OH SHIT -starts jogging on the spot in the mud-

ECHO COMPANY! -seal sounds accompanied by the flapping of hands-

To clean off, we went to this shower in this dam thing. We thought it was really warm, but it was actually just cold water that only seemed warm because we'd been in water that was like 5 degrees or something.

Since Echo was the last company to go through due to alphabetical order, we hit the showers last and I had to wait literally 1+ hours to get to the shower. Being the last was good though, I took like a 15 minute shower and got to shampoo my hair and everything whilst everyone else was timed for 3 minutes :') it was pretty much a game of "Ooh, I found more cuts guys... Oop, more bruises... Holy crap how did the mud get there???"

Had dinner.

BAM NIGHTWALK. Holy crap, scariest time of my life, like, if you're afraid of heights omg. The first thing was this slide that was like from the top of the cliff to the bottom. You know those huge slides you see on facebook posted up by those silly facebook groups who fish for likes? Yeah, like those. Except it was like a giant plastic tarp just laid out over a cliff with no edges/boundaries keeping you from falling off the slide. Kind of like this (but maybe a few metres shorter), but at night:

Oh yeah, and we had to get a patient on a stretcher down it, too.

Then the rest of the night was up cliffs and down valleys all carrying a patient on a stretcher. We got to this deep valley at the bottom of a ledge of a cliff we were sitting on and the guy told us we had to sacrifice people to stand in the water and carry the stretcher over while the rest of the team swing over the other side of the valley on a rope. It was a troll omg. After that, our last obstacle was seriously, climbing up a 50m, VERTICAL cliff with our patient. Nearly died. After, we just sat around discussing our achievements and experiences. The whole time, the sounds of un vache (a cow (inside joke with Riya))'s mooing was getting closer and louder. Walked back to camp through a paddick. Something started rustling in the bushes and there was a black shadow. I turned on my torch and BAM there was a wild horse there and it started running. Shone torches around and we were in a paddick full of wild horses. Got back to camp, wrote more warm fuzzies, drank milo, ate muffins.

Me: GUYS LET'S PARTY TONIGHT SINCE IT'S THE LAST NIGHT AND WE HAVE SO MUCH FOOD!

Pam: YEAH!!!!!!
Cindy: YEAH!!!!!!!

-20 minutes later-

Me: Just, let me have a nap, wake me up in 20 minutes okay.

I woke up at like 2:30am and was like wtf, we missed our party. So Pam set an alarm for an early morning party a 5am. When that alarm went off, everyone was like SHUT IT OFF. KILL IT WITH FIRE. So no party, and a tonne of left over food. But seriously, that day was the most tiring day ever and we all woke up feeling sore all over.

Friday

Had breakfast. First thing we did was watch a presentation on the Wars and basically see what was written on their gravestones. They were the most beautiful bible verses, and I feel so helpless knowing that my gravestone will never have as much meaning behind it as they did. Here's one of my favourites:

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." - II Timothy 4:7

Next, we moved onto the hall where we were all given a book in which became our Senior Memoirs Book.

Lastly, we finished off with a huge flour bomb fight before heading home :) I scored two "goals" for our team and won the first game :D

Me wearing an Adam shirt (which my Mum made me out of my Dad's old shirt :3)

That's all. If you made it to here, I love you and you deserve a medallion. Hope y'all enjoyed reading my recount from year 12 camp. I seriously recommend it to anyone who goes to QASMT and is contemplating whether or not to go.

Goodnight all, have a lovely Tuesday tomorrow!

sarahhottinger
	Monday, 20 August 2012 Year 12 Retreat The Year 12 Retreat was amazing. I really cannot capture the experience in any other words. It was definitely beyond amazing, but let's just stick with that. After bonding with just about everyone during the retreat, our grade is definitely closer and more aware of our need to work together. Seriously, QASMT's seniors 2012 are the finest. I didn't bring a camera to camp - my phone took about 10 photos, though, so I will be using other people's photos from facebook. Wednesday: Arrived at school at around 8:30. Took the back seat of the bus with the Viets, Angela and Spandan. Toowoomba is a lovely drive and the scenery is beautiful! After arriving, we got our cabins (4 person cabin of the Viets and Amanda) and unpacked before meeting up. Because it was a military based camp, we had to do 40 pushups as a whole cohort for being too slow /yay for fit kids. We got split up into our camp groups and went off to our first activities which were the log and Colditz. Colditz was basically a race against time where the instructor would turn on his headlights for five seconds and after they turned off, you're free to move. The aim was to get the whole team down a tunnel and up and out of the other side. It was the smallest tunnel, pitch black and there were pipes as obstacles to climb over halfway. Echo did it pretty okay though :P Then dinner. After dinner we cleaned up a bit and met in the main hall. Ms. Goggi then read the warm fuzzy story to us before allowing us to make our own bags and warm fuzzies. As this was happening, the teachers began to hand out letters from our parents. This was the most emotional time of the camp, and in my opinion, my life. I will never forget the feeling of not receiving a letter from my parents during my final high school camp as everyone read theirs teary eyed. We all comforted eachother and the atmosphere was just full of so much love and support. Spent the night having a warm fuzzy party with the Viets and Amanda instead of partying it up with all our junk food. Was definitely worth it. Thursday Breakfast was really good. Like, I think the whole camp was just really decent camp food. Anyways, we had bacon, eggs, baked beans and toast (as well as cereals and stuff). First activity of the morning was the Vietnam Tunnel Rats activity. The guy telling us the story was like "We'll begin with talking about the Vietnam War" -all eyes on Franky and I- LOL :( It was like a series of twisted tunnels and water tanks. Then had the bridge activity. Seriously, the photo does not even begin to illustrate how shaky it was up there :( I was the first one to go with Ben and we didn't fall /aw yeah! Then the Western Front. Had burgers and chips for lunch. Then headed out to do the Kakoda trail. Seriously, it was just thick, thick mud that was everywhere. Briefly, it was a 100m-ish track of pools of mud separated by walls of dirt that were too high to climb without groping of other group members (which ceased to be a problem about 30 seconds in). I hope you can see how thick the mud was from this photo. This wall. Trust me, it is so much harder than it looks. We, Echo company, had to help Delta get across so we waited patiently for them to go before beginning our climb. Varady and I's conversation went a little bit like this: Me (after standing there for about 20 minutes): Dude it's so cold. Varady: I know right. Mishtah: You better start moving before you get frostbite. Varady: OH SHIT. I don't know what frostbite is but it sounds bad OH SHIT -starts jogging on the spot in the mud- ECHO COMPANY! -seal sounds accompanied by the flapping of hands- To clean off, we went to this shower in this dam thing. We thought it was really warm, but it was actually just cold water that only seemed warm because we'd been in water that was like 5 degrees or something. Since Echo was the last company to go through due to alphabetical order, we hit the showers last and I had to wait literally 1+ hours to get to the shower. Being the last was good though, I took like a 15 minute shower and got to shampoo my hair and everything whilst everyone else was timed for 3 minutes :') it was pretty much a game of "Ooh, I found more cuts guys... Oop, more bruises... Holy crap how did the mud get there???" Had dinner. BAM NIGHTWALK. Holy crap, scariest time of my life, like, if you're afraid of heights omg. The first thing was this slide that was like from the top of the cliff to the bottom. You know those huge slides you see on facebook posted up by those silly facebook groups who fish for likes? Yeah, like those. Except it was like a giant plastic tarp just laid out over a cliff with no edges/boundaries keeping you from falling off the slide. Kind of like this (but maybe a few metres shorter), but at night: Oh yeah, and we had to get a patient on a stretcher down it, too. Then the rest of the night was up cliffs and down valleys all carrying a patient on a stretcher. We got to this deep valley at the bottom of a ledge of a cliff we were sitting on and the guy told us we had to sacrifice people to stand in the water and carry the stretcher over while the rest of the team swing over the other side of the valley on a rope. It was a troll omg. After that, our last obstacle was seriously, climbing up a 50m, VERTICAL cliff with our patient. Nearly died. After, we just sat around discussing our achievements and experiences. The whole time, the sounds of un vache (a cow (inside joke with Riya))'s mooing was getting closer and louder. Walked back to camp through a paddick. Something started rustling in the bushes and there was a black shadow. I turned on my torch and BAM there was a wild horse there and it started running. Shone torches around and we were in a paddick full of wild horses. Got back to camp, wrote more warm fuzzies, drank milo, ate muffins. Me: GUYS LET'S PARTY TONIGHT SINCE IT'S THE LAST NIGHT AND WE HAVE SO MUCH FOOD! Pam: YEAH!!!!!! Cindy: YEAH!!!!!!! -20 minutes later- Me: Just, let me have a nap, wake me up in 20 minutes okay. I woke up at like 2:30am and was like wtf, we missed our party. So Pam set an alarm for an early morning party a 5am. When that alarm went off, everyone was like SHUT IT OFF. KILL IT WITH FIRE. So no party, and a tonne of left over food. But seriously, that day was the most tiring day ever and we all woke up feeling sore all over. Friday Had breakfast. First thing we did was watch a presentation on the Wars and basically see what was written on their gravestones. They were the most beautiful bible verses, and I feel so helpless knowing that my gravestone will never have as much meaning behind it as they did. Here's one of my favourites: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." - II Timothy 4:7 Next, we moved onto the hall where we were all given a book in which became our Senior Memoirs Book. Lastly, we finished off with a huge flour bomb fight before heading home :) I scored two "goals" for our team and won the first game :D Me wearing an Adam shirt (which my Mum made me out of my Dad's old shirt :3) That's all. If you made it to here, I love you and you deserve a medallion. Hope y'all enjoyed reading my recount from year 12 camp. I seriously recommend it to anyone who goes to QASMT and is contemplating whether or not to go. Goodnight all, have a lovely Tuesday tomorrow!