Inside the giant Pink Lady.

*warning*

The following may contain minor grammatical errors. it also may contain car wrecks of sentences. im not going to proof read so suck it up and figure out what I was trying to say. Love Cel.

So not long after I finished my last blog post a girl came and sat next to me. The whole trip the rather jovial train driver had been threatening that the train was going to be COMPLETELY full. Sure enough, we hit Rochester and there was an all out brawl in aisles between people trying to get a seat. Not really, but if just one person was having a crappy day then I reckon there might have been. A young woman saw the spare seat next to me and I think there was mutual relief in our eyes when she sat down. After a reasonable amount of silence we started chatting. She is one year older than me and she was on her way to Albany to visit her boyfriend. She had never been on a train before so she was unnecessarily tense. Every time the train rattled she thought we were derailing and she was standing up ready to leave about 5 minutes before we pulled into the station because she was scared that the train would leave before she had time to get off. I guess I was like that the first time I had to get off the bus in year seven.

So my new friend Danae departed the train, promising to add me on Facebook and her spot was replaced by an old man who reminded me peculiarly of a cross between oma and opa. He was a retired political science professor. We had a great conversation and talked a lot about politics. My goodness I love politics. Mr ompa, whose name I never found out, and I chatted all the way to Penn station. Did you know that Penn station is short for Pennsylvania station? I did not know that. There was a cute little girl behind us who was singing Christmas carols and star spangled banner.

When I got off the train a guy who had been sitting in front of us asked me if I was meeting someone or knew where I needed to go. It was fairly out of the blue but I assured him that I was sorted and then attempted to find my way out of the maze of Penn station. All I can say is I now understand the usefulness of exit signs being giant, red and lit up.
And now for the tricky bit. Catching a taxi in nyc with a hiking pack, a backpack and no previous taxi experience. I found a little white haired lady an asked her how to go about it. She also had no idea, so we stuck together and translated for each other until we found a queue for a taxi. It turns out that 5 pm is exactly when all the taxis knock off. I'm not kidding either.
While we were in line some people tried telling us that we only had to pay 25 dollars for a five minute taxi ride. This seemed wrong but I had no point of reference so I asked a confident looking woman in a ridiculous fur hat about it. Madam fur hat became the personal tour guide of me and all my fellow morons in the near vicinity. When she left with a better offer the woman who had been standing in front of her struck up a conversation with lol (little old lady) and I. Oh, by this time lol and I had figured out that we weren't too far from each other so we were going to share a taxi. The woman in front of us, I'm going to call Mel Scott, was really cool. She was Scottish but had lived in Melbourne for eight years. They asked what brought me to nyc and I told them my plan, Mel thought it sounded great and lol exclaimed that I was the most grown up nineteen year old she had ever met. She said it almost disapprovingly. We waited in that line for an hour. Mel and I hit it off and it was great talking to an (almost) Aussie who had travelled a lot. Lol was a tad annoying.

After I made it to my hotel I walked down the street to a pizzeria joint for some dinner. I thought it would be fun taking myself out to dinner. It was just awkward silence because talking to myself just makes it awkward for everyone around me. I was sitting uncomfortably close to a father daughter dinner, so I eaves dropped on them. They were discussing a trip that the daughter wanted to take for spring break. she was trying to convince her dad that it was a good idea. The daughter mentioned surviving the school year, I could relate to that, then they started talking about her tumour and her health. Eek! I felt bad for eavesdroping then cos it got pretty serious. I think she literally meant survive the school year.
There are some perks to eating alone. I got to eat all the bread. I could eat as slowly or quickly as I wanted. ..and not much else. Still I was proud of myself for going out for a decent meal instead of sitting in my hotel room with my jar of nutella.
It is at this point that I will say that if someone wants to join me for the rest of my trip then I will shout you every single meal.

After my meal I hailed a cab. I. hailed. a. cab. All by myself! Cool cel slides into the back seat and says casually "times square please" then with a head toss of indifference she begins to look out the window vacantly. My cool movie mimicking cab antics finished when I realised just how carsick I felt. I have a taxi mantra, here's how it goes- "don't throw up cel. Don't throw up cel. Don't throw.." the smooth cel got even bumpier with the taxi driver and I's awkward conversation discussing where exactly in times square I wanted to be dropped off. (sentence carwreck? I think yes.)

When I got out of the cab I realised just how happy I was. Through completely my own doing I was standing in times square by myself soaking in the atmosphere and completely free to do whatever I wanted. I went into the mnm super store which was fun until I got stuck in there. That is one terrifying building. In all the corners and hidden behind giant mnms I found Prams and families trying to regroup and develop a game plan. I swear the only people who make it our of that store alive are those who have had some experience with urban warfare gaming. Luckily for me, the few LAN parties I have attended set me up for success when I planned my escape from the mnm palace of hell, as it will forever be remembered as.

After that ordeal I decided to get a coffee from Starbucks and walk around confidently with it in my Takeaway cup like a yuppie. That, too, was lots of fun until it started going cold and I had to scull it. Then I hailed another cab worked really really hard on not reaquianting myself with the coffee in my way back to the hotel.

That brings us to now, where there is an italian woman cussing to her computer like a madwoman, thinking that no-one can understand her.

No photos, because technology still sucks. You have no idea what I did just to get this to upload.

there is a cute boy sitting across the aisle, i think he is reading sci fi.

im on a train. AND the internet. best. thing. ever! we are currently stopped in the middle of nowhere because the level crossing isnt working so they have to do it manually or something like that. i guess its better than just plowing on ahead. trains stopping when they arent at stations always freaks me out because it makes me think that dementors are going to get on.
so i am currently on my way to NYC. i was feeling nervous a couple of days ago but now i'm excited. its going to be fun!
oh it just started snowing outside. how cute, i feel like im in a movie.

is it possible to walk too much? the shooting pain in my foot thinks so.

i keep thinking that i should type more about my holiday, and then i dont. i thought i would upload a couple of photos that i like. tomorrow im going to new york city. eek! i cant sleep, which is why im doing this.
Today Cory and I went for a walk together for TWO AND A HALF HOURS. it was lots of fun, we walked to literally every corner of houghton and then got lost in the woods. we chatted and fought and thought up some really cool ideas. the poor boy has never had roast pumpkin, can you imagine a life of such emptiness?
after hanging out with cory, sally, nancy, ally, deborah and I went to buffalo to drop me off :'( and do some shopping. after we went shopping and I bought the cutest most out of character dress ever we went to outback steakhouse. we told the waitress that it was sallys birthday tomorrow, but in australia its sallys birthday today because it is already tomorrow there. we scored her a free dessert and a terrifying rendition of happy birthday.
alrighty, thats all i feel like writing, here are some photos..

..never mind. technology hates me.

MOAR PICKTURES!!

 Me and my new friend Joyce were sitting at java waiting for the coffehouse to begin.












The nationalities of the cookie makers represented in our finest cookies. Andrea is from honduras.












Cookie decorating at christmas time is definitely something that should be brought to australia.

Claire, the murphys and I went to see hugo at the cinema. it was in 3d, we dont just naturally have great taste in semi hipster glasses. Oddly, the female protagonist, despite being 12 years old, kinda reminded me of me.

I love this sign. We have about a hundred photos from last time when granny couldnt keep her eyes open. it made me laugh.

Oh yeah, and I henna-ed my hair.

disjointed musings at altitude.

So I am nearing the end of my flight to the USA. When I got off at Sydney to connect I realised that I was looking at the front of a very long queue that I needed to be at the back of. Luckily, a girl from my form also happened to be flying to America today (not to be mistaken with tutty, who I knew was coming.) She gave me a sneaky oi and I slid into the front of the line with her. When I got on the plane I checked the back of the seats for a little screen but there was none! My lack of anxiousness regarding how the 13 hour flight would go was directly correlated with my self assurance that there would be little screens.

When I got seated the old man sitting one seat over acquainted himself with me, apparently he is going to a boxing conference with a buddy of his who is sitting directly in front of him. Next to old mans friend are two guys who are either Italian, African, Indian, or a combination of all. They got sloshed and giggled for the WHOLE TRIP. Man giggling, less irritating than beiber fever giggling, more irritating than silence.

It is nearly the end of my trip and I have gotton up ONCE! What is this? This is not the Cecelia we all know. Help I think being on a plane by myself is making me act grown up! Luckily there was a spare seat beside me otherwise I might have just imploded.

The biggest craziness of all was the four hours that I slept for. About an hour in I woke up and worried that someone had stolen my tablet, they hadn't. It was under my pillow, but after that I snuggled it.

I am trying my hardest to refrain from taking a photo out the window because even though I think its amazing, I know with certainty that nobody else cares. Its like standing at the top of a dune and taking a straight on picture of the beach. It is never a pretty as in real life.

...

So I have figured out how to get around lax with ease and no confusion.

1, wear a reasonably cute plane outfit

2, reasonably early on in waiting in the queue,  pull out a Rubik's cube and casually complete it.

3, wait a few moments then ask a general question pertaining to the customs form.

4, some interested person who has been paying attention to you since the Rubik's cube will try and help you.

5, if they are knowlegable, they will probably be keen to be a helpful as possible the whole way until you part ways.

6, if you aren't yet at you destination, repeat the process.

I know it sounds a lot like manipulative design but i accidentally discovered this method for getting around. A kindly bogan who does this trip twice a month helped me out. He lives halfway between sale and bairnsdale, has kids, and used to play Footy for omeo. Also apparently I am the first person he has ever seen complete the cube.

 ...

Flip! What have I done? I was just dreaming, planning this trip around the world and all of a sudden I'm sitting in Chicago. The thought of seeing my friends again is making me hyperventilate.

IM IN AMERICA! I can't just get mum to pick me up when this all turns out to be a terrible idea.

And on another note, I am burning up right now but everyone is wearing jackets and there may be a smattering on snow on the ground outside so I would look a little silly in a singlet.

The Americans can't understand me. I have already got an affected accent trying to let them know that I am from AUStralia and I would like some WAHterr. I have reverted to my old American way of saying than you and I'm not even the whole way across the country and I'm thinking in an American accent.

SIX DAYS TO GO! just sayin'

Do you ever go through phases of favourite photos? I do. At the moment my absolute favourite photo is this one.

It was taken at Mums 50^th birthday when all the Tyler/Dixon/McInerney Children (the youngest child is 17 and the oldest is 26. Three have university degrees, one has a serious Partner, five are working, four have had teaching positions, and six have their VCE. Hardly Children.)

were hanging out for the first time in a very long time. It was a great time filled with planking, wrestling, ImaginIff, cheating, fart scenarios and lots of raucous laughter. I think we had a better time than the adults did! This is my favourite picture..

And just because I like sharing photos:

Some of my other recent, and not so recent favourites have been..

I designed this last year when life sucked and I thought that people should be more aware. I keep meaning to send it to beyond blue seeing as how I stole their catch phrase and everything..

I wish I had a house so I could put this on the front door. I probably wouldnt actually do it, but I like the idea.

This picture is a bit seedy, which is fitting really. When I look at it usually i've scott a smile.

I always wanted to have a super tight posse of girlfriends. I love this photo because it was taken at a time when I did. Plus, we are gorgeous.

I have this photo framed on my wall. its so silly but it perfectly captured the moment. Jack's getting ready to slap the ribs out of Dylan, Dylan is telling me what he is going to do to me for a dare, patto is thinking that Dylan might actually be serious. Im feeling an acute amount of remorse mostly brought on by the thought of retribution.

I LOVE this picture. Patto is great, that night was great and we both look so happy.

That's all for now, I have things to do!

sebucskiburfostol

This is the COOLEST THING EVER!!! I love rubiks cubes. its about $85,000 worth of rubiks cubes.
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/5X1f6V/koikoikoi.com/2011/11/dream-big-by-peter-fecteau/

Why so quiet?

You may be wondering why I am not posting very frequently. it because the internet doesnt work at my house. I want to scream and curse an throw things at people. THE FRICKEN INTERNET WON'T WORK AND I AM TRYING TO PLAN A TRIP OVERSEAS!!!
So sorry, Until the internet works again and my trip is all planned there wont be many posts.

Probationary Nirvana

I am a genius. And I’m modest. But mostly I’m a genius.

Something that gets my goat (and the goats of every other P-Plater I am sure) is the fact that when fully licensed drivers drive our cars, they rip down, with reckless abandon, our precariously placed temperamental P-Plates.

Scenario 1: Mum gets into the car, realises Cecelia has been driving so leans across and rips off the P-plate, completely apathetic to which nooks and crannies the plate and suction caps land in. With this thoughtless act at its close, she drives away legally.

Scenario 2: Cecelia gets in her car and settles herself into place ready to drive. On final check she realises the person who last borrowed her* car has not had the courtesy to put back up her P-Plate. So Cecelia has to lean over, unlock the door, unbuckle herself, get out of the car, go around to the passenger side and begin frustrating task of searching for miniature suction cups. Once the suctions and plate are located, then comes the painstaking process of getting the cheap-skate suction to JUST STICK. Adding on the plate once this is complete can often send the process spiralling backwards as the suctions pop off from the pressure of the plate. Once Cecelia has finished this process and is well and truly late for wherever she was going to drive, she gets back into the driving position and begins her journey. Without a doubt, at some point into the journey, the P-Plate will dislodge and either half fall and hang threateningly for the remainder of the trip. Or, it will enthusiastically leap off the windscreen into the nether of the passenger side forcing Cecelia to; A, Drive illegally for the rest of the trip, or; B, Pull over and make her self even later by starting the whole sticking up process again.

So I have been struggling with this issue for the past year or so and Have tried numerous things to find a remedy for it.

1, drive without Plates and rely on the fact that I won’t get pulled over because there are no P-plates on my windscreen begging the police to pull me over.

2, shove the P-plate in the crack between the dash and the windscreen. Its not very visible and I would probably still get in trouble from the cops

Or 3, Use sticky tape to keep the plates up. This works at treat until Mr/Mrs Full licence comes along, pulls it off, and throws it onto the floor for it to get covered in lint and grime and lose all its stickiness. And it uses Bucketloads of sticky-tape.

So Behold! The P-Plate pocket!

A clear Pocket made of laminate that it stuck to the windscreen permanently. The P-plate is then able to slide in and out of the pocket with ease. It is Transparent, which means that there are no blind spots created for the full licence driver and No distractions around the plate for other drivers on the road.

New scenario A: Mum gets into the car, leans over and pulls the P plate out of its pocket, placing it carefully on the spare seat beside her, or, if it is occupied, into the top of the glove box.

New scenario B: Cel gets in the car, leans over to the glove box/passenger seat, grabs the P-plate and slides it with ease into its pocket, where it will remain for the whole journey.

**Please No-one steal this idea and earn millions of dollars from it. Or if you do, at least give me a decent cut of it**

*Yes Dad, I know It is not MY car, But I use it every single day.

Warning: See you next tuesday.

I have been working with a special needs school these past two days.

I was talking to a teacher today about one of the kids who attend the school not because he has any severe physical or intellectual disability but because of his behavioural problems. The teacher was telling me how they try and give him good role modelling but his home life is putting him at a massive disadvantage. He was telling me that he went to pick up this kid for camp and as left the house his dad yelled “just fuck off you stupid cunt!*”

I had a near physical reaction to this story not because he dropped the C-bomb at school but because it broke my heart.

During the 2 days working with disabled kids it consolidated to me that that is definitely not something I want to do, but when the teacher told me this story I realised that working with teenaged boys in this circumstance, no matter how heartbreaking it could be, is something that I am really passionate about.

It was a good experience because occasionally I wonder if I am sure about what I want to do. I most definitely am.

* Sorry Patto if you are reading this, and everyone else who finds the C-bomb offensive- but the remark is less cutting when it is watered down.

So sue me. No, please dont.

Rockclimbing is a pretty scary thing for most primary school kids. When you are leading a session of rockclimbing, it is vital that you make the children feel safe and encouraged. In order to aid future leaders in this endeavour I have compiled a list of things NOT to say when a child is either on, or about to climb a Rockwall:

-Im not very good at tying knots

-Ive dropped the rope, like, 700 times today

-Oh shit!

-Thank-goodness the new ropes have arrived, these ones are terrible

-Is your harness done up properly?

-Hold on

-Stop climbing for a second!

-Wait, im confused

-Huh? oh yeah ive got you

-On belay climb when… wait on..

I hope all future rockclimbing leaders find this list very useful and I categorically deny saying any, or all, of these things to children in the past two days.

Happy climbing!

B-Boys Fly girls Put your hands in the air!

When I was little, I decided that it was high time our family went on a holiday. I ran the idea by Mum and she asked me where I wanted to go. I thought about my favourite holiday destination ever; Siesta Resort.* Mum said if I could organise it then we could go. So I looked up their number in the phonebook and called to get a quote about how much it would cost a family of five to stay for two nights. Much to my anger, the woman on the other end seemed to think that, due to my 8 year old voice, I wasn’t actually serious about booking a holiday. Incensed, I decided that I wasn’t going to waste my time and (mums) money on a place that treated me so dismissively. Then I got distracted and forgot about my quest for a holiday.

The point of the story was that when I was 8 years old I wanted a holiday and I wasnt taken seriously. Now I am 19 and I am organising a holiday and everybody’s taking me seriously and it is SCARING THE FREAKING PANTS OFF ME! For example, Today I bought a ticket around the world. Yep, around the whole wide world. Now I have to book plane flights in between cities and I feel like I am doing something naughty or I am going to screw up the whole thing. I sit for 10 minutes staring a ticket on my computer screen knowing that it is what I want but struggling to grasp the fact that it is an ACTUAL ticket. Maybe if a ticket shot out of the big card slot in the side of my computer then it would help me make the connection between real life and the clicks of my mouse.

*It transpires that Siesta Resort is not a glamorous, ritzy resort in a far away land, it is actually in Albury and about two minutes drive where I play soccer. It really put a hole in the magic of it.

The song that is the title of this post always reminds me of Siesta Resort, my Siesta memories have a soundtrack.

NEVER let go of your T grip!

So, one of the days rafting I was in a boat with Pat and Luke. What a fantastic combination! It was by far my favourite day of rafting and I absolutely smashed the guiding, which is an amazing feeling!

I cant give a blow by blow account of the day but I will relay in a somewhat disjointed fashion my favourite parts of the trip.

The day started out with the funniest error of judgement that I have seen in a long time. We (me and Pat as crew, Luke guiding) were floating on some flat water above a rapid and Luke decided that he needed to get a better look at the rapid so he stood up on the pontoons (blown up edges of the boats). Its not hard to balance on these as long at as no-one is paddling. So Luke decides on the route he would like to take and calls a forward paddle. Pat and I respond with one strong forward stroke and hear a loud splash. Luke had forgotton to sit down! Now he was bobbing in the freezing water furious at his own stupidity. Pat and I couldn’t help him back in because we were debilitated with laughter. So we sat a roared with laughter while Luke ungracefully seal flopped his way back into the boat.

So when it was my turn to guide I was having a wonderful day! Nailing every rapid (It is important though, that I give lots of credit to my super strong, in sync, wonderfully funny crewmen.)

The following encounter demands a little prior knowledge on the readers part.
So the rapid is called the gobbler. It is aptly named because it you fall out on the gobbler then the big arse stopper will gobble you up and funnel you under an undercut rock and once you are there it is all bad news. When approaching a rapid you can either you backwards, or forwards. Don’t EVER go sidewards! It is a one way ticket to spectacular flipping footage.

So Myself, Pat and Luke are heading for the gobbler basking in the immense success of the previous rapid called waterfall (fairly self explanatory). When I accidentally hit a submerged rock. At this point it is worth mentioning that we are really quite close to going over the gobbler. So we hit this rock and it spins us backwards. I had two options: A, call a left turn to try and make the boat go forwards down the fast approaching rapid which probably wouldn’t work because the time it takes for the crew to react would mean that we would go down sideways; or B, Politely inform the crew that we would be completing the rapid backwards. I chose option B- Terrifying but slightly less likely to get us killed. Despite being the guide and thus maker of all decisions I addressed the crew in a very democratic manner..

“CAN WE TAKE THIS BACKWARDS??!!”

Luke was fairly opposed to the idea and responded succinctly with what we were all thinking

“NAH FUCK THAT!”

And we all simultaneously did the most powerful left turn I have ever seen and proceeded to fly down the rapid forwards, whilst screaming like 12 years olds at a sleepover (well, I know I was and I couldn’t hear anyone else.)

Once we were safe out of the Gobblers clutches Luke apologised for his momentary mutiny (a mutiny which I wasn’t at all opposed to) and blamed it mostly on the fact that he was too chicken to go down backwards. Thank goodness is all I can say, I personally was excreting bricks from my rear end at the thought of going backwards.

Previously in the day Pat was guiding us down a boulder garden when we hit a rock. The raft tipped sideways up the rock and, seeing that it might wrap, I jump/fell away from the boat to try and stop it wrapping (don’t question the logic, as I'm not sure I was right about it). So as I white water floated I managed to grab both Luke and My paddles, then I tried to swim to towards the eddy where there were other boats waiting. Do you know how immensely difficult it is to do an effective freestyle whilst holding a paddle in each hand.? Very very difficult, is the answer. So I somehow got to the eddy and was pulled up into the boat and a minute later a very shaken Luke also got pulled in. Pat, the bastard, had somehow managed to stay dry in the boat and we saw him raft on by to the next eddy with his abandoned ship. What happened during this incident that I wasn’t aware of at the time was while I jumped away from the raft, Luke got trapped between it and the rock as it started wrapping.* By the grace of god Pat managed to manoeuvre the boat off the rock before it wrapped and, in doing so, set Luke free. Had he not been so lucky.. sorry I cant continue that train of thought, my psychologist told me I’m not allowed to indulge in thoughts of ‘what if?’

Anyway, Everyone was safe so It was all ok.

With that in the back of your mind tune into the next story:

I was guiding and the boys thought it would be a fun Idea to stand up down a rapid, Being the guide, they asked for my permission. I was all for the idea- it is a nuts amount of fun standing up whilst going down a rapid. So we hurtle down this gorgy wave train and get to some calmer water at the end. Luke enquires as to how deep the water is. It wasn’t that deep and we continued to tootle along. At one point I ask if they want to sit down, (being my minions they have to follow orders until I relieve them of their obligations) Luke enthusiastically suggests we continue to stand. At this point we have arrived at a deep open pool of water. We stand around soaking up the serenity and waiting for the other boats to come down the rapid when Pat observes how deep the water is. “oh. Yeah.” Says Luke and he steps across the boat and pushes Pat out. Such a provocative act was so calmly executed that Pat had no defence. The other boats, who were following on behind us, came down to the scene of the crime and started yelling and demanding to see an act of retribution. Pat, with the help of his attacker, climbed back into the boat and told the hopeful onlookers that it was a perfectly legit move considering that he, Pat, had almost killed Luke a half hour ago.

And so the score was evened and we harmoniously continued (STILL standing) down the river.

That is all that I can write at the moment and Hopefully it has sated your desire to know how my holidays were.

*When you think about a raft wrapping imagine getting a rock, now get a little raft made out of plasticene. now carefully mould the plasticene raft around the grooves of the rock. That is what the water does to a real raft. It is a very painful, time consuming process trying to get it unstuck.

Glad that bout of separation anxiety is over.

I have my baby back! My computer was in Melbourne I was at home which is why there have been no blog updates even though HEAPS has been happening. It feels weird trying to write a blog from someone else’s computer. The sad thing about the amount of time that has elapsed is this: all the good stories that were in my head about the holidays have now decomposed into mere good memories. I will give it my best shot to remember and relay them.

Alas, I am a girl who gets excited by handbags.

So I have decided that in the coming weeks I am going to share with you my amazing collection of Rubik’s cubes and Rubik’s cube related paraphernalia. This idea was sparked when I received possibly the coolest gift ever- a Rubik’s cube handbag! It is perfect! The feature I like most about it is the fact that I can easily fit a Rubik’s cube in there and it doesn’t bulge out at a terrible angle, like it would with nearly every other handbag. Sandra and Elizabeth gave it to me for my birthday last night and it was by far my favourite part of the evening (this is saying something because the food was exquisite!)

I wish that I had Jessie's Girl.

do you want to watch a video that makes me happy and will make you laugh? Its of a group of year 11 students who are acting out Rick Springfield's video clip to 'Jessies girl.' Im sure they had a swell time making it and the person in charge of the well organised shenanigans will most likely become a famous directer one day. I hope so anyway. My favourite part is 3.05.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xICm-zg-i0s

The adventures of Cel and the Eski Kids Part 2

Morning:

Why did I think it was a good idea to go exploring with 12 kids in caves and around cliffs? I don’t think my heart rate has stayed so elevated for such an extended period of time. The worst moment was when, led by me, 12 students entered the cave and after climbing out a different exit, I could only count 11 students. By golly I thought I had screwed up bigtime! Turns out one of the kids up the back was feeling ill and so she and a parent told Barry that they weren’t going into the cave. Here was me thinking they’d climbed in a cubby hole and quietly fallen off a cliff.

But its all good. Everyone survived and no-one lost their looking after kids privileges.

Afternoon:

Enter the most determined child ever! The surprising thing about today’s subject is the fact that she is a girl. I am rarely inspired by primary school girls. She was loud and vastly annoying. So how it happened was this:
Dave and I are chilling at the top of the abseiling tower letting kids off when she came shaking her way through the cubby hole bawling her eyes out. She was TERRIFIED! It took a decent 5 minutes to get her off the ladder and sitting on the platform floor. And then finally finally we get her to stand up. Dave is being sooo encouraging and trying to get her to let go of the metal bar she was clinging to. She wasn’t having a bar of it (haha get it?) so she would let go for 2 seconds and grasp it again. Dave was very patient. Because there was no chance of her stepping away from the bar Dave finally said “you have done so well but given that you aren’t comfortable letting go of the bar I think we will have to be happy with how far you have gotten and maybe give abseiling a miss.” As soon as he said that she completely let go of the bar and looked at ease without it. Dave was shocked and agreed to keep going with her attempt to abseil. The second he agreed to keep going she clung back onto the bar for dear life. She was shit scared and more determined to abseil than anyone else I’ve ever seen.

The whole time we were coaxing her off the edge she didn’t make a fuss or try to climb back in, she just slowly went through the paces. Everytime she got overwhelmed and started getting sewing machine legs she would take a deep breath and calm down and keep going.

When she was halfway down the wall she was grinning like a Cheshire cat and was so pleased at having conquered her fears.

All I can say about this girl (other than all the other stuff I just said about her) is woe betide anyone who attempts to get in the way of her achieving what she has set her mind to.

I have the warm shiny feeling of having just been inspired.

The Adventures of Cel and the Eski Kids Part 1

This week marks the first week that I am group teacher, which means I am in charge of Kids for the whole camp!

I started the week out on a hefty 14 hours sleep. ‘14 hours??’ I hear you whisper, ‘how is it possible to sleep for 14 hours and get to work on time?’ Well I’ll let you in on the secret. Firstly you get 5 hours sleep on Friday and Saturday night, then you wake up early and go to church, then you go exploring in the warby ranges with your friends, then you come home, scream at you mother unnecessarily, storm to your room and throw yourself on the bed, contemplate getting up to yell some more and then fall asleep until the next morning.

Getting back to teaching though: I realised, when I was leading these kids around that despite me learning this year that primary school children aren’t evil soul sucking parasites I still don’t want to ever be a primary school teacher. One on one kids are alright but as a group they just stare at me blankly because apparently I use far too many big words. Maybe I’ll work with babies when I am older, that way I can use big words and they won’t know the difference.

So our first activity was flying fox. I was up the top hooking kids in for my first time. I tell you, the only thing more exhilarating than jumping off a cliff whilst attached to a flying fox is throwing someone else’s child off a cliff after attaching them to a flying fox. I swear after every kid jumped my heart skipped a beat and my head screamed “you didn’t attach them properly!!” But it’s ok because they all survived.

While I was attaching them I heard two gems of wisdom relating to fear. The first one was “My Mum told me that if you don’t jump off a cliff then you will never face your fears.” The second was far more succinct and slightly less coherent “If you have no fear then you can eat deer.”

This led me to believe that I must have fear because I haven’t gone near deer since the traumatic deer pancake incident of 2002.

Anyway, that is all for today. Tune in tomorrow for caving and climbing.

Moves like Jagger

I went for a joy ride to The Cathedrals today. This weekend was my assessment bushwalk for tafe and to be perfectly honest I was dreading it. Well, not dreading the walk so much, but the pre-walk assignment and the logistics of packing. I HATE packing for bushwalking. So im all set to go, I’ve had my ankle strapped and Im beginning to be excited about the walk. So the night before the walk (last night) I wake up in the middle of the night with my foot cranking sore. Next morning I get up and go and on the drive there my foot hurt so much that I was crying while I drived. (and yelling and wailing because there was no-one else around so I felt at liberty to do so.) When I got to base I talked to my trainer and he said that I couldn’t go if I couldn’t walk on it and I shouldn’t walk on it without tape because there is too much risk of re-injuring myself and doing more damage. And then he sent me home. HE sent me home. I think I am feeling a teeny tiny bit guilty about not doing the walk because of my grievances towards it previously in the week.  So essentially I just drove a 4 ½ hour round trip to hang out with my TAFE buddies. They’re cool so it was worth it, but I’m bummed I can’t spend the weekend with them.

Also, Listening to the radio for four hours straight makes me realise just how frequently they play ‘moves like Jagger’ by Maroon 5. After the fourth rendition I fear that it has permanently imprinted itself on my brain.

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I got my 18 for a year blog final piece printed off. It looks so cool! I am very happy with it!

Im a firefighter.

The thing about working with primary school kids is this: Sometimes, just sometimes, they are the cutest little creatures on earth! Cuter than poodle puppies.

The other day I was belaying kids up and down the rock wall at work. I was on one side and the visiting teacher was belaying on the other side. This one kid, lets call him Hayden*, was climbing up the wall. He was smashing it and was keen as mustard when, just near the top, he made the fatal mistake of looking down. It was all over. He was stuck to that wall like someone got loose with the hot glue gun. His teacher tried getting him down by yelling at him (do teachers seriously think this will work? Why do you go to teachers college if not to learn DON’T yell at a kid who is already crapping himself?). So then I had a go coaxing him to trust the rope, alas that was also to no avail. So the Amy had a shot talking to him from the top of the tower. Nothing would work. So its what happened next that was the cute bit..
Owen came and belayed me while I climbing up the wall over to him. When I got there I told him the he was safe and that we were going to go down together. So he sat on my knee and I wrapped my arms around him and we got lowered to the ground together. When he got to the bottom I gave him a big hug (yeah its against the rules, whatchya gonna do about it?) and untied him and he calmed down.

This whole kerfuffle made me feel really happy because, even though all I had done was rescue this kid from his self constructed psychological stranglehold he thought I had saved his life. It’s a nice feeling having someone think that you’ve saved their life. I think I might become a firefighter.

*not necessarily his real name

You haven't seen the last of me.

Ok, I’m addicted. The difference between this Blog and the last (www.cecelia-18.blogspot.com) is this time there are absolutely no rules. I fail to see why people are interested in my day to day life but they seem to be and I love talking and creating records of life, so having a blog allows me to do both of those things.