Continuing adventures and many more
It's been a while since I've updated! The good thing is, since I've been keeping a more accurate record of everything I'm doing in my bullet journal, I can easily remind myself what I've been doing. Which is super good because anybody who knows me knows that I have a very crappy memory and without keeping track of things, I easily forget what I did last week.
Which is totally why I need this to be my
Year of Documentation.
Anyway, since my last blog post, I've been doing a good healthy amount of stuff. On the 20th, I started my D&D group by teaching four people how to play and running through a first encounter for them. It was a lot of fun and people really enjoyed it so they started recruiting more people and the group outright exploded. Like I did not expect such a high response but we currently have a good 10 active members in our group and a couple more who are hoping to jump in eventually. On Thursday (22nd), a guy named Jared came over to make a character real quick and when he was done he was like, "let's play" and we did a spontaneous session that night with a couple of other people who were free and happened to be around. It was a blast! Even though everybody's characters almost died. But it was all good. People were so excited to play that they scheduled a session for that Friday, Saturday,
and Sunday. So I played D&D for four days in a row which was a ton of fun but partly exhausting. They've been getting super into the lore of the world, so I've been making a lot of stuff for it. So far, as of writing this (4/2/18) we've had 8 DND sessions and we've only been going for 19 days. Geez.
That's not to say I haven't been doing school work (in case you were concerned mom). I've just been free all day on the weekends and my bullet journal has actually helped me better track when I need to do each of my readings. Currently, I'm caught up on all my readings, which is good because I'm leaving for a trip soon (ROFO: Read On, Find Out).
Anyway, this Monday I set out on a trip with my Outdoor Ed class to Camp Bornhoffen which is north of Lismore in Queensland Australia. We took the back road there which was a lot of ups and downs and there were a couple of points where I wasn't sure the bus was going to make it up the hill because it was so steep. With the driver's foot to the floor, we were barely crawling. But we made it through the hills and further along our journey. Later, we were stopped at a bridge where they were doing construction and one of the construction workers came up to us and was like, "ummm...do you know that your trailer is open?" Yeah. The trailer. The one with all of our bags. Every bit of gear we had. Wide. Open. All of us who were on the trip (there was 22 of us) panicked and were super afraid that our bags had dropped out the back of the trailer on one of the hills.
Luckily, all of them were still there. We don't know how long it was open for, but it sure gave us a scare.
When we arrived, we had to cross a creek to get to our campsite. And when I say creek, I mean river. It was a river. About knee deep into rushing water we had to walk across with our packs on. Needless to say, it was a HOOT.
Our campsite had a lot of cow poo everywhere, but we managed. We set up tents, talked with Andre and Paul (our outdoor guides) about expectations for the trip (doing a little psudo-group-contract-thing), did some basic trust activities like jumping off a pole and trust falls and lifting each other, cooked dinner, told some ghost stories, and went to bed.
The next day, we set out to different activities. One was called the high V, where two people went up at a time and stood on two cables that were stretched across like a high wire. In order to stay stable and start walking, you had to lean on each other and trust them to hold your weight as you held theirs. As you walked down the cables though, they got further apart and you had to lean on each other more and more as you walked. There were a couple of people who made it the whole way - you were essentially parallel with the cable when you got to the end - but most people fell some 15 feet in and were lowered down by our belay. As someone who is not too much of a fan of heights, it was scary, but also a lot of fun.
The other activity involved us breaking up in groups with a map and compass and navigating through a farmland looking for little blue markers in various parts of the farm. It was like a little scavenger hunt, but over several acres. It was frustrating at times but I got the hang of it after a few times and that served as good practice for later that night, where we were given a map and compass and told to navigate to our new campsite on the map.
It was on the top of a mountain.
(((Well not the top top. And it wasn't a mountain, as much as it was just really a large hill. But it was steep and I was tired after climbing it so I'm going to call it a mountain god-damn it!)))
We hiked it though and set up camp on a little flat bed at the base of the highest point of Turtle Rock (the name of the aforementioned "mountain"). We cooked dinner and I became the coolest kid in the school because I had brought a small bottle of salt, garlic, and oregano mix that I had prepared to season my food with. I shared it around and everybody seemed to really appreciate it. That night was real great because I got to talk to some people that I had not really gotten a chance to talk to all that much and it was nice to just chill and have a meal with some new-ish people.
The next day, we packed up some of our stuff and hiked up the rest of Turtle rock. we did some exploration in a cave area that is in and around the rock face, and then rappelled down the cliff side. Essentially, the tied a rope to us that we used to descend vertically down the side of the cliff, which was crazy fun! (but also very terrifying) but also crazy fun! At the start it was weird because you had to do a trust fall with yourself to go from your feet on the top of the cliff to your feet on the side of the cliff and you climbed down. We all descended pretty slowly, but then our professor (Dr Steve as we'd begun to call him) showed us all up by leaping down in bounds and getting down in like 2 seconds.
The rest of the day consisted of packing up, hiking back, and catching the bus and going home (this time with the trailer for sure closed. We all checked. Twice.)
After that, the rest of the week and this weekend has been homework and classwork! I've got a big creative arts project due after study break that's worth 50% of my grade so I've been working on it. Unfortunately, I'll be in Bali over study break so I need to do most of the project this week before Thursday the 5th. Which makes the fact that it's a long weekend with everything closed Friday-Monday because of Easter a real pain in my side. I've got everything planned out though. The project consists of creating a 2 minute dance routine displaying a concept and a 3 minute drama displaying a concept. I've got the entire routine and drama planned out (I finished and edited my drama script today and mapped the whole dance a while ago and then also on Saturday) I just need to get in and record it as well as edit it together. I have 2 days to film (because of darn Easter Monday...CURSE YOU CHRISTIAN HOLIDAYS) which is tight but doable. I'm hoping to do some of the editing before I leave to. Which reminds me.
I"M GOING TO BALI FOR TEN DAYS!
AHHHHHHHHHH I'm so excited. It's going to be super rad. I'm going with Kayla, Max, and Keller (2 guys in my D&D group and one other gal who's been doing all of the planning for the trip) we booked our AirBnBs on Saturday (3/31) and then watched some conspiracy theory series. It was a good time. They are awesome people and I'm excited to spend ten days in Bali with them. Kayla and I really want to climb a mountain so we're determined to fit it into our trip.
Anyway, that's enough of me rambling. Tl;Dr: D&D is going REALLY well. I went on a 3 day trip into the outdoors (and tried out my new backpack). I went caving and rappelling and also learned how to navigate effectively. I have a big project I'm working on and Easter is inconveniently placed. Also, I'm going to Bali for 10 days, and I leave this Thursday. WOOT!