Bogged down

Came back from a Year 9 Canoe Camp on Wednesday night past. I was so buggered... first thing I did when I stepped into my flat, I just wanted to sleep.

But being the good person that I am... I unpacked first and sorted out my laundry - things that stink to high heaven, and things that don't stink that much. In fact, I still haven't went out to do my laundry at the laundromat. Thursday was work day for me and I had a five in a row classes. Somehow I managed to get through it all... but the paperwork is going to tie me up this weekend.

Anyways, about the canoe camp, what a wonderful and great all expenses paid holiday! Hahaha... it didn't seem to be work because I was having so much fun. But if I think about it, it is a lot of work. From 7am to 11pm, I'm always watching and keeping the boys in line and making sure they were safe and acting safe. Lots of mental drain.

Plus the physical toll. Paddling a canoe may seem to be an idyllic activity, but on this trip it was like exercise... ^.^ I guess one of the most painful thing you would notice is the sore and aching back. And then you throw in the extra obstacle of having the wind blow AGAINST you as you paddle down the river.

Oh, by the way, we were paddling down the Lower Glenelg River that connects to the sea, so the river water was a bit salty.

Camping wasn't as hardcore as I expected... the campsites were pretty good - they had flushing toilets!!! But the first night there were no showers so I took a swim in the river and dried off in front of the camp fire.

Incident's at the camp? I guess it goes down in the books for the school that I bogged and bottom out the ute. As the group paddle down the river to the other camp site, one teacher is to drive the ute ahead first so that when the group arrived, the ute would bring the teacher that drives the bus back to the starting point to take the bus to the next campsite. I was first to drive the ute and happily I did.

Now I must say that it has been a long time since I drove, but once I hopped into the ute, started it up and drove off I was feeling great. I had my Ipod shuffle going and driving to the upbeat rhythm. I was suppose to go to a landing point called Deuchters first to see the group paddle past to Wilson Hall. As I drove down the track I suddenly came upon a sign that said Wilson Hall. I thought... 'Oh, I must have missed Deuchters!' so I turned back around. After a while of driving I didn't see any other sign so I decided to u-turn back to Wilson Hall and wait there. I looked up ahead from a top of a small hill and thought it would be safe to do the u-turn on the bottom as it had a nice shoulder. Just as I did the u-turn I immediately thought to myself 'Crap!' as the ute front right wheel slipped in the soft sand.

I tried to rock the ute out of the u-turn, but I ended up getting it wedge right in the middle on top of the sandy shoulder with both back wheels spinning.

And the panic waves washed over my head. I chanted panicky daimoku... and calmed down a bit. I tried to dig it out with the shovel, put sticks on the wheels... nothing worked. So I threw my hands up, locked the ute and walked back to Wilson Hall to wait for the group.

20 painful minutes later the group came down the river to find out that I had bogged the ute. But it was alright, I got the boys to help me dig it out - all in all - took about 30 minutes to do it. Of course for the next two days the boys were giving me shit about it. In fact, every since I came back to school, students from all classes would come up to asked if I bogged the ute.

After going through all that, I pretty much felt that the other stuff that happen at camp was very trivial.

Now I gotta go back and do some correcting... almost 1 inch think of homework, tests and workbooks to mark this weekend.

Hi-ho, hi-ho it's off to work I go!