Perfect timing

Possibly the best timing for the SAT is May the 4th: Star Wars Day (May the 4th be with you!)
On the other hand, the worst day to have the SAT is your birthday. Happy belated birthday to Tanuvee, whose  birthday was last Saturday!

I myself did not take the SAT (Canadian win!) and spent my morning watching Doctor Who. Hehe, suckers.

Anyways, that afternoon, Nikita (Tanuvee's sister) came and picked us up for lunch. We drove out of bazaar and on to a super nice hotel. We ate some fantastic south Indian food and a huge chocolate cake Niki had brought up from Delhi.

The party guests

Mmm, South Indian food...

Sambar, idli, yellow rice, vada, uttapam, and tomato/coconut chutney

Of course, it's not south Indian without masala dosa!

Delicious cake.

Sisterly love=macaroons on your face

Tanuvee and Annabelle had to rush out to an advisor dinner, so the rest of us proceeded back to dorms for another relatively lazy evening.

That night, however, was the most EPIC of coffee bars, which had one half-hour of performances, followed by one hour of SWIMMING! This involoved me being the first to jump in, persuading a whole bunch of people that "really, it's not that cold", and pushing one Annabelle Patton into the pool fully clothed. She said that I could, though, so it's all right.

Fun times all around. However, I managed on my last dive to stub my toes on the ledge. I had not a lot of fun walikng back to midlands... Now they kinda look wierd, but whatever.

The following day, we had the French 5 class goodbye dinner. Since we've been studying Algeria recently, the theme was algerian food. Couscous, chicken, dates, and mint tea! Aside from the consumption of delicious food, we played Anomia, sat around gossiping in bith french and english, and lavished attention on mme Elsa's cat. She didn't seem to enjoy in much.

During that week, the most exciting thing was definitely the continuation of mine, Tanya and Tanu's chem project. We're making fireworks, and the first of them were made last week. Testing only two grams yielded some pretty fabulous resutls. 

Sigh... things I'll miss about India: being able to make gunpowder and fireworks without being questioned. Also, having all the necessary ingredients at your disposal.

I'm the least perfectionist of us all. This lead to a bit of... tension.

Of course, the weekend is always the time for excitement. This past weekend teh Wunkers and Mrs Fidler took Annabelle, Hope and I to Dehradun for sari shopping and general browsing around the city. I got another sari and a salwar suit for myself, as well as assorted gifts. It was a generally awesomely spent time.

They're so pretty....

Lunch! Roti, laccha parantha, cold coffee and palak channa! (Also, ketchup dispensers that look like penguins)

Palton bazaar

Retail therapy is a wonderful thing.

Sunday, church, and final school chapel at Woodstock! This service was dedicated to all the seniors and staff leaving this year, with biblical passages reflecting on the presence of God throughout our whole lives. No matter where we go, God is there.

Ok, I need to go make more fireworks!

Emily

PS 18 days as of today until I'm home. Eep!

Three weekends

Hello all,

Sorry I haven't written in a while! These past weeks have been incredibly hectic, but here's the lowdown on the excitement of the past three weekends.

Firstly, Woodstock held the third annual Jazz Jam. Jazz Jam is the Accidental's major performance, alongside Jazz Combo 1, 2, and 3, and the woodstock jazz band. Tables were set up in Parker Hall, with candles, mocktails and grade 9's as your servers for the evening. Overall we had a lot of fun. Numbers included "All That Jazz", "Black Magic Woman", "Watermelon Man" and many others. Acapella sang "Stand By Me" (I had a solo!), "I Just Haven't Met You Yet", "Man In The Mirror" and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". Also, some of the Aca-people sag their own solos, Like "My Funny Valentine", "Fly Me To The Moon", "She's Got A Way", and my favourite "It's All Right", which was a duet between Ashima and Rishi. Really funny and really sweet to see them. Their voices worked really well together.

All told, the concert lasted for 3 hours. Jazz overdose!


The weekend following that was one of the most fun weeks in the entire Woodstock calendar: Win Mumby all-India  basketball tournament. We had schools represented from all over the north, mostly Delhi, Dehradun and local hill stations. It was four days of crazy, hyped up and enthusiastic madness.
The games began on Wednesday and continued into Saturday, with the drama increasing every round. It became common practice for us to skip our study halls and go watch whatever match was happening at that point.

Girl's first game. We pretty much dominated the field until we went up against Modern School from Delhi, the school that eventually won the tournament.

I found the best people to sit with: Darcey & Adam, and Juliana

The fiercest player and most infamous participant in the tourament: Madhu.

Woodstock boys take the championship by a landslide!

There was a bit of controversey during the tournament: during the girl's semifinal, the Wellham Girl's coach was openly yelling at the referees (He was the head of the coaching association Woodstock hired, as we found out later). Apparently he was angry because they kept calling out fouls on the part of his girls. Our girls were looking like the clear winners, and after a shouting match between the coaches, the Wellham girls conceded the match. 9 minutes later, they came back onto the court and said "just kidding!" or something to that extent. They then proceeded to beat our team into the ground. They were also permitted to play in the final game. For the sake of our pride and our honour, I hope they're not invited to come back next year.

Speaking of the girl's game, this is where yours truly comes into the picture, as more than just a spectator! The halftime show for the girl's game was a japanese fisherman's dance, Soranbushi. Accopmanied by the Tora Daiko group (drumming ensemble) we had an awesome time dancing and feeling pretty darn bada**.

Here's the video: Woodstock Taiko Dance

(It says boys final, but they're lying)

And some pics by Darcey

The boy's final halftime show was Woodstock's first ever maarching band, performing Electric Feel by MGMT.


That evening, we gathered in Annabelle and Navika's room, with gifts and cake in tow, and at midnight  when Annabelle walked in, we welcomed her in with the loudest rendition of Happy Birthday as has ever been witnessed. We had stocked all the cupboards with balloons, and when we opened them they came cascading out. We also had silly string and snow foam. Hehehehe....

Assaulted by silly string!

The first of many cakes.

I remaned this weekend "Death By Chocolate Cake", since Tanuvee got her a cake from Rokeby, and then the next day we got another cake delivered from Rokeby, and then Ms Geeta made cake as she always does for anyone's birthday. It was intense.

My gift: Eggplant, pomegranates, potatoes, carrots, and snickers bars

Tanya's gift: strawberry soap

Snow foam

Happy 17th, Annabelle!

The sunday after, we spent the whole day in dorms and played Anomia for about 3 hours. We ordered pizza and ate a lot of cake. It was a good day.

This weekend, we had the Thought For Food story festival. Submissions were last month, and have been selected by anonymous judges to be performed. Submissions ranged from videos about post-war East Germany and stop motion skittle animation, to poetry about your favourite foods and short stories about family. There were also plays written by staff members, most of them I've classified as "existential" meaning, they don't really make any sense at all. My submission was my poem "Jesus, the Bread" which was about the different food references Jesus uses in the new testament.

(Find it here)

There was also a photography competition, with a lot of interesting works all centering on food, and the consumption or production thereof.

The festival went on for 3 days, with a lot of fun and general excitement. My reading was well received, and the plays were funny despite their confusing nature.

The Winterline foundation for the arts provided the prize money for the submissions: the prizes were delivered on Monday. I won for best poem!

Anyways, that's the past 3 weekends wrapped up neatly. May the next few weeks hold up to this standard!

Emily

PS As of today there is one month until my return!

And Pinch punch first of the month!

BBBS

Hello all!

This past friday Woodstock had its Big Brother Big Sister day. On this day, students who have signed up from the Senior school are paired up with kids from ECP-gr 5 and spend a few hours doing fun activities with their little brother/sister.

For this BBBS, I was partnered with a girl in kindergarten named Kezia. She was sweet, and a bit shy at first, but quickly opened up and enjoyed herself tremendously. For my part, I hadn't realized how much I missed being with kids! I am now more pumped than ever to come home and hire myself as a babysitter!

We started the afternoon with some getting to know you stuff: all the senior school students met up with their partners and were split off int their designated activities. For those of us ECP to grade 1, we were assigned pavement drawing!

Kezia and I drawing our names in the courtyard.

After a good chunk of time chalking (and reliving summer afternoons in the neighborhood I live in), my little sister and I went over to the junior playground for a game of "Monster" with Nina and her little brother. We also played in the sandbox under the climber, and had a swinging contest. 

Then, dinner! As soon as the call came Kezia leapt up and declared we should race to the dining hall. I accepted. She won.

Dinner was pizza, ice cream, and brownies, with rice and dahl if you're feeling particularly health concious. Oh, and coke/sprite was available as well. Yes, because it's a great idea to get a bunch of samll children completely hyped up on pure sugar...

Well anyway...

After dinner ECP-grade 3 was stationed in the gym. We designed an obstacle course in the gymnastics room, which all the kids really enjoyed, did relay races in the practice courts, and then the whole group of us fot together for dancing and a game called "Mingle". For the dances, we did "Peeling Bananas", "Macarena" and "Cha Cha Slide". 

Mingle was a great game to play with the kids. The way it worked is that we were all wandering around the gym aimlessly while Isabella sang "Mingle mingle mingle!" into the mike. Whenever she called "ONE!" we all had to sit down as quickly as possible. Last one down loses (I think the smaller ones among us held the advantage there). When she called "TWO" we had to either get on someone's back or have a samller one on our backs.

Hope and Kezia

THREE meant that you had to get into a pyramid with three people, FOUR you had to sit in a line of four people and sing "row your boat", and FIVE, you had to sit in a group of five with your backs to each other and arms linked. Much amusement all around.

After this last game it was time to leave. Thanks NHS (national honour society of WS) for organizing such a fun event!

And thanks to my little sister for just being awesome.

Emily

Kayaking

Once again, Hanifl center has made quarter break one of the best weeks of my life. This break's kayaking trip to Rishikesh, paddling on the Ganga, with some of the best people I've ever had the pleasure of being with.

We started out on Friday lunchtime, after our week of AP mock exams. All of us got into our separate vans and we left for Ganga base camp, home of the Himalayan River Runners.

On our way!

Base camp, aka paradise!

Tents set up along the river, two to a tent.

The day was beautiful, and we were all boiling after the long car ride, so we set up camp in our tents and went for a swim. That evening Mr Fidler (one of our excellent chaperones/instructors) showed us the proper way to swim in rapid conditions, and we practiced swimming in and out of eddies and current.

Something to note: Ganga water is cooooooold...

We came back and played a bunch of beach volleyball with the staff and an Australian family, who were rafting for a week. They were all a lot of fun, and pretty champ volleyball players!

Once it got dark, we set up the campfire and got a magnificent meal. The cook is amazing. 

Anyways, we sat around campfire swapping stories and stargazing for a while, then turned in to our sandy tents for a restful and enjoyable sleep.

Day two was our first kayak day. We all got fitted into our kayaks first thing after breakfast. Mine was a "dancer" and purple. I named it William. ;)

We spent the morning learning how to do basic things like wet exits (pulling the "holy crap strap") and t-rescues, which is where another kayak comes up to the side of the boat when it is inverted, and the underwater party uses the other's kayak to lever themselves back up.

I managed to do my first one ok, but the next few went rather terribly wrong. I couldn't figure out to where I was levering myself and ended up doing wet exits every time due to panic.

After lunch, we had some fun in the water swimming and playing with the underwater camera:

Sun on the water

Hair flips

Happy Hope is happy

Submerged

Mud covered

Attempting lifeguard rescues with PFD's does not really work

I found claaaaaaay!

 The afternoon, we learned the basics of eddying in and out of the current, which I did with some success. I will not deny though that there were a few flips involved in the learning process!

In the evening, we once again played volleyball...

...and were delighted by magic tricks performed by one of the staff members. After dinner we all gathered around in the meal tent and watched card tricks for half an hour! So much fun.

The next day was similar to the second, reviewing and going into more depth on all the stuff we had done the day before. I finally figured out t-rescues and didn't flip (unless intentionally) the whole day!

During the afternoon siesta I taught the group Anomia (the card game) and it was a smash hit! Shout out to Mum for that particular Christmas present!

The day was not without its misfortune though. Hope dislocated her shoulder while attempting a t-rescue, which was more than a little frightening for all involved!

The evening held the most excitement: Mr and Mrs Fidler told us the entire story of how they met, their relationship, engagement, and marriage. It was such a gorgeous story. I hope one day to have such a tale to boast!

Day four: time for a challenge! We drove a couple hours up to where the Ganga river begins. I taught the group "I'm Not Nebuchanezzer" which was also quite popular. Mum, you've got all the good games up your sleeve!

Our trusty jeep

Michael, Hope and Annabelle

Pants

Disembarking and wet-suiting

We put in by a staricase leading down to the river, at the same time as a hindu pilgrimage was reaching their destination. I felt wuite priviledged to witness the ceremony, but at the same time a little sacrilegious getting ready to paddle away on this sacred river.

The morning held some excitement and adventure. I flipped over within the first 5 minutes of setting out, panicked and did a wet exit rather than a t-rescue. I immediately regrette my decision, as I was quickly floating down the current whilst trying to hold on to my boat and paddle, and get into an eddy. Mr Fidler paddled up and helped me lever the boat onto the raft accompanying us. We balanced the kayak across the raft and I hopped back in...just in time for the raft and all the kayakers to go through our first rapid of the day. I was terrified out of my wits! 

Michael also flipped on that rapid. Unfortunately, he was at the back of the pack and therefore no one was able to t-rescue him. To his credit, though, he waited a good 30 seconds to be rescued before pulling the holy crap strap. 

His boat, or perhaps his daredevil habits (we'll never know for sure) caused him to become the most frequent flipper of everyone, earning the name "swimming boy" from our guide Rum. 

Ah, let me introduce Rum! He's a 33-year old Nepali man, an excellent kayaker, great mentor, and at heart is about 4 years old. He is endlessly amused by all our endeavours, and every time someone flips over, he screams "T-RESCUUUUUUUE!" at the top of his lungs and maniacally paddles over to the stricken kayaker. He also would splash us with his paddle and yell "CHISU PANI!" which is nepali for "cold water!" Yes indeed, Rum, that is cold water tricking down my back ;)

My small group for kayaking was myself, the 10th graders, Rum and Pants. We were thereafter known as "Rum's pants". The other group was the "Fidler Four".

Before lunch that day I flipped another two or three times, before finally managing a sizeable rapid on my own. All I can say is hooray for deep water kayak rescues! Also, when you're nervous singing Finding Nemo is really helpful.

After that rapid we stopped for a quick lunch and a river geography lesson. We climbed up a rather sketchy concrete tower in order to survey the river below us, and analyze proper kayaking in rapid techniques.

We set off again, and this time I managed to go the entire time without flipping. We tackled quite a few chalenging rapids, and I can say I definitely had the time of my life on said roller coasters! Who needs Canada's Wonderland, eh?

That afternoon we learned ferrying, which came in useful when we wanted to avoid the big rapids and stick to what was safe.

All in all, this learning, flipping, rapiding and eddying in and out took us until 4 pm. That's when we realized we still had about half the route still to do! Yikes!

We stopped for a quick refueling (packed chappatis are wonderful things) and set out on a nonstop, 1 1/2 hour paddling session. Apurv (who was on the raft) took some pretty sweet photos:

Meeee

Pants

View of the raft

Annabelle

This time of nonstop paddling was calm and peaceful, with a few bouts of excitement and sadness (we found a dead dog floating in the river). I can say I never experienced this kind of peace, exhileration and joy as I did that day.

We put in by a temple on the Ganga, as it provided us with a staircase to get up to the road. Please admire the tan line:

Hope Wright, ladies and gentlemen!

She also had a fabulous tape tan, since we had to tape her shoulder into place.

Our running joke was that every time we lost sight of her or she 

flipped over we would yell "I've lost Hope!" "I know, Wright?"

Not very original, but hey, who cares?

Camp that night was more subdued. We were all pretty exhausted after having paddled for about 8 hours, but we had welcome newcomers in the form of Willow and Rowan, friends from school who had gone on their own adventures for the beginning of 1/4 break, and decided to finish off with a couple day's worth of rafting. Hooray, people!

The next day, my first thoughts were of concern for my leg. After I got out of my kayak the day before, my leg had been totally numb from the thogh down , and a full night's sleep hadn't helped matters at all. I still have some numbness in my foot even now.

My seconf thoughts were of concern for Annabelle. She had been ill during the night and was definitely not feeling up to kayaking over rapids that morning. :(

We set out once again, this time travelling down the river a ways before putting in a half hour's drive from camp. The plan for the day was not as long, we were to kayak down the river to the town of Rishikesh, then get picked up by the van and taken back to camp in time for lunch, In the afternoon we were to go rafting, an activity we hoped Annabelle could partake in.

The only good thing about Annabelle's falling ill: I was allowed to use her kayak instead of the dancer, which helped enormously with my leg.

Yup, that's me!

The group

Mrs Fidler

Going through the rapids

Rum and Hope, with Pants in the background (and someone's hand, not sure who's).

Unfortunately we didn;t have as many exciting rapids this time, so a large chunk of time was spent floating lazily down the river, splashing each other with chisu pani, and doing t-rescues when the heat got to be too much (although after we got into the town it wasn't such a great idea. The river was pretty gross).

We got back just in time for lunch, siesta and a quick game of Anomia before we went rafting! Since the Tehri dam was open in the afternoon the water level was much higher, making for some fun rapids to go over!

Pants, our extra guide Ben and the Fidlers were with us in their kayaks. We were privileged to witness the biggest rapids Mrs Fidler had ever paddled!

Ready to go!

Having fun.

Chisu pani, mwahahaha!

Salina and Rowan

Swimming

Cliff jumping!

Ben, aka "Sexy Safety"

Accurate representation of how we felt after the day's activities.

That evening, we played beack volleyball, cricket, stargazed, and played mafia. We also played a 4 HOUR game of truth or dare, which had some...interesting challenges. We stayed up until about 2 am doing this, and we were all settling down to sleep around the fire, when a massive windstorm swept in. As we were on a beach, you can imagine this was pretty awful. We all quickly retreated to our tents!

Funny thing, Hope grabbed her pillow and blankets, and got in bed with Annabelle. They had an entire conversation before going to sleep, but come morning, I was the only one that remembered this occuring! Both of them woke up more than a little alarmed to find the other sleeping beside them!

That day, it was time to leave. we played one more game of Anomia before heading out. This drive took about twice as long, though, since we stopped in Dehradun for some lunch and grocery shopping. Michael got a drink from KFC that I'm sure was spiked with something. Once we started driving again he started acting really strangely, and the filter existing in most people's minds that catches quite a few... gems... completely vanished. He remembers nothing, of course. But we do... ;)

Once we arrived at school, Hope and I went to the health center to get our arm and leg checked out, respectively. Not much to report, pinched nerve nothing more. Hope was put in a sling for the next week and is doing fine. Not nearly as bad as activity week!

Now I'm back, missing the heat, the sand, the river, the food, and the company. Thank you, Hanifl center.

And thank you, for reading this extremely long, week-late post!

Love to all and everyone,

Emily