Whew.... What a week. My last convention competing with most of the home schoolers.
It was an interesting week, hectic but fun at the same time. The evening rallies were great as usual, and characteristically challenging.
I shall do my best to remember things in the correct order. :)
We arrived on Sunday, around 11:00 (I think), found our room, and settled in. Others were slowly arriving, so we started touring around the site, those of us who had been to the last south pac in Philip Island six years ago remembering and reminiscing. I (and I think Moshe) went to try out the pianos, and found that although the piano in the vocal room was nice (apart from the left hand being ever so much louder than the right..), the piano in the instrumental room was, in want of a better word, 'twangy'. Quite hard to get used to, and a bit of a bother in regards to dynamics. The piano stool also wasn't adjustable., so that made it a bit hard.
We had lunch (which was fish and chips from a place elsewhere on the island).
ACHS had a choir practice in the vocal room, which was the first time we had all sung together. It sounded ok, but I think a lot of people were a bit distracted. The sponsors then had their meeting, and then it was dinner time. After dinner, we headed to the opening rally. I can't remember much about the rally unfortunately, except that the message was about people being created to be in God's presence.
We all headed for bed, and once we got to our room we sat around for a bit looking at, figuring out and gulping at our schedules.
Monday. Everyone headed to breakfast, but a few of us weren't real hungry, so we just talked. Moshe and I had our dramatic dialogue at 11:27, so we spent the morning trying to fit a practice in around his other events. The dialogue went well, probably the best we've performed it. That could have been partly due to the fact that I kept forgetting when and where Moshe was going to swing his lumber my way, so when I jumped out of the way, it was real! :)
We (Ashlee, Bethany, and myself) had our trio on at 11:51, so I headed over there. It went well, considering we didn't really know our parts.
Lunch was next, but by this point I really didn't feel too good, so I stayed away.
Ensemble was after lunch. It went ok, but there was a fair bit of confusion regarding the backing and so on.
Bethany and I had our piano duet next at 2:04. That went well on Beth's part, but I had a bit of trouble for a line or so. We finished well though, so that was some consolation.
At 2:49 I had my piano solo. That went tolerably, except I froze at one point and had to redo one line early one. One I got past that, however, it was fine, and I was able to keep the rest together.
I think I went to watch the ACHS 1 PACE bowl team next. They unfortunately lost, but they gave it their best shot. :)
Next was my expressive reading. I was a bit flustered in this, and ended up needing a couple of prompts (which of course removed the possibility of achieving any place). Then we had choir, which went well. I think our dynamics were good, and everyone watched Becky (our conductor) excellently.
We went to dinner, and there were a few amusing discussions, ranging from piano duet performance to all sorts of other random topics.
We all went to the first installment of the Llama show, which included, amongst other things, each section sending a large beach ball to the back of the auditorium and to the front again.
The message tonight was on true honor, where it originated from, and explaining that the measure of honor rendered determines the measure of reward received.
This night at supper, our bible bowl team (Mosh, Harry and myself) had a fairly thorough practice.
Tuesday. First event of my day was bible bowl, at 9:08, so we all rocked up there. There were quite a few teams coming and going. We got in and figured out our seating arrangement, and got the questions underway. I didn't do as badly as I feared, but I did miss a question about Joshua's age when he died which bothered me for a while. (he was 110, incidentally) We got 28 questions correct as it was, so not too bad. =]
We had volleyball next. We were good in the first game, but the next two we sort of fell apart and lost 2 games to three. We had fun though. =] We played RiverCity in basketball. They were probably the toughest team we played in some respects, and had an excellent defense. I think there were several more fouls than usual. After a while we won, but the Rivercitizens put up a good fight!
After lunch I had my poetry recitation, but I ended up rushing it a little because I wasn't feeling well still. I got through it and went to basketball again. We played PNG, who were a good team but tended to leave our players unguarded. We won, and then we (Moshe, Harry, Talitha, Matt and I) had our play at 4:51, so we practiced a couple of times, and went and performed it. We did well despite some slip ups with forms and a few lines.
We went to dinner, which had some interesting events, including some odd dinner and dessert combination, some bored persons balancing spoons on their noses, and yet other persons exhibiting a fly found in someones supper.... =]
Then llama show and rally. The message tonight was a continuation of Monday night's on the topic of honor. Pastor Manasseh explained how you need to honor whomever God has allowed into authority, how true honor is a commitment, and how what you honor is what you connect yourself to. It was an excellent message. After rally, we had a tambourine practice, which was good, and headed to bed. :)
Wednesday. Everyone went to breakfast, and from there to the athletic track. I'm not sure how all that went, because I had to stay back. Once everyone got back, we had tambourine, but it was rescheduled.
Saw Moshe's vocal solo, which went well I thought, and I think I saw Talitha's around that time too, but I can't be sure.
So then dinner, llama show, and rally. The message was about faithfulness and how God measures it.
Then, off to bed. (short day, what?)
First up we had a PACE bowl game against NZ, which we won.
Moshe did his preaching, as did Tim Chapman. Then we had two PACE bowl games, against Mildura and Lake Taupo Christian School, the first of which we won, and the latter we lost due to not being able to answer the bonus questions.
Next we had tambourine. We did fine apart from some timing slips, but we all seemed to enjoy it. ;)
We had lunch, and watched events for a few hours before heading to the basketball final. We were against TACE. It was a close match, so quite interesting. ACHS won, giving us the gold medal. Then the guys ACHS team played the final, and won too, so it was gold all around for ACHS. :)
We went to dinner, and to rally. The title of the message was "Never, never, never". It was about never giving up in your walk with God, never giving in to sin, and never giving out due to not allowing yourself rest. It was a very challenging message to me personally.
Then we went to an ACHS break-up 'party'. It was rather loud... ;)
The next morning we packed up, had breakfast, and headed over to the awards ceremony.
I can't really remember what others received accurately, I keep getting mixed up between the places... :S
Afterward everyone said their goodbyes, (and said them, and said them, and said them. Every time we thought we were going to leave, we didn't. ;] ) and departed.
Mrs. Bull, Jess, Ash, Beth, Priscilla, Moshe, Harry, and I went next door to A Maze 'N Things, which was truly... amazing! =] Lots of fun, to say the least. We got to figure out puzzles and illusions and race through a maze in some sorts of teams to get to certain flags first. :)
And so we left. Along with the occasional wave through the window for the next 30 min, (and must I say, back seat 'racing' ;] ).
And then Bethany and I contented ourselves with moping all the way home. Well, not really. But our PCB (post convention blues) certainly kicked in. ;)
So it was hectic, muddling, at times frustrating, but also challenging, fun, and worth it. I shall certainly miss competing with you all! (aside from those who are planning to attend ISC.) Thanks for being my friends. =]
And I thank God for ordaining that I should go, and helping me to do my best.
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Places:
1st-
Basketball (thanks Mrs. Throns!)
Tambourine (thanks Elise!)
2nd-
PACE bowl
3rd-
Silver Apple
Piano Solo (Moshe got 1st... Congrats again! =] )
Choir (thanks Becky and Jess!)
4th-
Bible bowl
Dolls
Dramatic dialogue (thanks Moshe!)
Trio (Thanks girls!)
5th-
Character Trait photo
6th-
Quartet (thanks guys!)
Ensemble
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