mazzanet's Lair

Here I am once again.
I was going to blog last night, I got told to too (heh), but I totally forgot during my normal blogging time.
So here I am, lying in bed, on my laptop, watching 24 on TV which is being streamed live to my laptop over my home wireless network. Pure magic.
On Saturday afternoon I did end up going for a stroll around town doing some geocaching. The coordinates took me right around town, from work to the lookout tower in Rosiland park, to the Chinese museum and finally to One Tree Hill lookout. All done by foot too, it was a nice walk.
Work that morning was pretty hectic with the beginning of our Father's Day special, so busy that I need to go in after school a few nights this week.
Sunday was spent at work. After work I went for another geocache which I found to be somewhere near the tram museum, but I didn't find it. I'll have another look another time.
Today was Community Service day for me. It's a school-organised program for us to supposedly see that there's people out there less fortunate than us. Supposedly being the key word here. The day was spent putting bread in plastic bags, sorting plastic bags, washing windows, unpacking trucks, eating 10 cajun McNuggets at once (they're not very spicey at all) and having a coffee provided by the people at an op-shop who thought I was working too hard. It was a funish day, better than doing work at school at least.
Only a few more 'odd' days and everything will be back to normal, though production is coming up fast, and then I'll be back to trying to post almost everyday.
Take care.

Today was the last day of both a week of work placement and my extra two week holiday (consisting of Mittagundi and work placement/experience). A well deserved rest, back to normal 'schooling' on Monday. Actually, normal starts on Tuesdayish or maybe Thursday. On Monday I'm doing 'community service' at some op shop for the whole day and on Wednesday I'm down in Melbourne for the state Science Engineering Challenge. I've also got a VCE interview/meeting on Tuesday to discuss and choose my subjects next year which will somewhat decide my life. So many decisions...
So this past week was my work placement week. I did it at my normal workplace instead of somewhere else due to a stuff-up on someone-who-won't-be-named's (not me) behalf. It was a great week with me learning a lot (including zipping up jacket pockets while running, earlier in the week I dropped my mobile down a stormwater drain), meeting a broad range of people (including some of the smartest and richest people in Bendigo) and improving my own opinion of myself and what I'm capable of doing. It was a great experience indeed.
I'm working tomorrow morning as usual and then in the afternoon I might go orienteering but will probably end up visiting my other work for a bit and then go for some geocache hunting. I would go into a lengthy description of what it is but I'll leave this to do the explaining.
*falls asleep*

For the past week, I've been up in the Bogong high plains at an outdoor education camp called Mittagundi. I was actually going to post while on the 7 hour bus trip going up there last Saturday but I had little mobile signal and a dodgy battery.
Mittagundi was an awesome experience, spending 3 days up in the snow and 2 days helping out around the farm. The centre itself is an almost fully self-sufficient - all the water comes from a spring in the mountains, livestock for food, gardens and an orchid for food and electricity used very sparingly (which only comes from small diesel generators) with most appliances running off gas or water. A condition for entering the camp was to put away and not use 'modern day' technology like mobiles, music players, etc.
For a quick breakdown...
Sunday was mostly spent traveling there. In the late afternoon when we arrived, we got all the gear packed ready to go up to the snow the next day.
Monday was spent hiking up the mountain to McNamaras hut which is one of many huts in the Alpine National Park. We stayed the night at the hut camped outside in tents in subzero temperatures, though I managed to keep myself warm most of the time.
Tuesday was the 'play day' which was spent doing some cross-country skiing around the top of the mountains.
Wednesday was spent skiing back down to the centre which was then followed by nice warm showers and relaxing. Thursday and Friday were both farm days where we helped out doing various jobs around the centre. I did some fencing - putting up fences and hanging gates (with handtools only I might add) on Thursday and some gardening on Friday.
Today was naturally spent cleaning up around the place and heading home.
The meals at Mittagundi were also really good, 5 meals every day. Breakfasts consisted of porridge, morning and afternoon teas both consisted of an 'exotic' cake, lunches of soups and dinners of things ranging from roasts to pasta dishes.
Overall the experience was thrilling, resulting in me putting my name down to go on a follow-up course later on.
Now to sleep and them wake up at 9 to go to work...

Last editted: 00:32:20 Sun 07 Aug 2005