I half woke up with my headphones still in my ears, still hearing music, but it wasn't from the headphones, it was from Man's DS, still playing music, all through the night. Our bathroom light was still on as well, but thats not important to the story, or is it? Probably not, I checked the time, I saw something that resembled 6:30am, so I still had a bit of snooze time, so I went back to sleep.
Ian burst into our room, waking me up,
"I think we're late for the leader's meeting"
"Wha..?"
*checks time*
"Crap, its 7:45am"
Apparently the time I saw earlier was actually 7:30am or something like that so I ended up missing the final leader's meeting, great start to the day. I went to breakfast, had whatever it was then set up for chapel time.
Chapel time looked at the passage Mark 15:21-39. Which looked at the crucifixion and subsequent death of Jesus, which was more than just a person dying, but an act of ultimate love. The kind of love where someone is willing to die for you. And you may think, what's so great about that, people die for people they love all the time, well not all the time but you know what I mean, we see it in movies and news reports. But this love and death is different, where people die for people who love each other, here, Jesus died for those who didn't love him, but hated him, rejected him and despised him, a real love for his enemies. So who are enemies of God? Essentially we all are, because we rejected God, by living our lives our own way, making ourselves the ruler, but ultimately we fail at this (just look at our world for proof). So we are punished for this rebellion, destined to face judgement and death. But God is of course a loving God, and thus doesn't want us all to die a horrible horrible eternal death. So while we were still enemies God sent his son Jesus as a sacrifice, taking our punishment so that we can be right with God again. So Jesus is the one who can make the unclean clean again, and its only through trusting him and putting your faith in him that we can be made clean. I don't think people often stop to think about big a thing it was for God to send his son to die for us. I'm no father (yet) but I know that if I had a child I would never ever give it up to save anyone, and yet God did, and that shows us how much God loves us! Shouldn't we respond to that? I think we all should.
Activity time came, my youth went to low ropes, I wanted to rest, but was allocated swimming pool duties. I wore a vest saying water watcher, so thats what I did, watched the water, and it was blue and swashy, with humans flailing about. Eventually I wanted to be one of those humans flailing about in the water, so I went to my dorm, got changed then took my time to get into the water, which was cold at first, but like all things you end up getting a bit comfortable with it. The youth were playing Marco Polo, but replaced Marco with Cam, and Polo with Phong which was amusing. I got to see Rachel (one of the leaders) do her apparently trademark Captain Cook look, which is to be seen to be awed at. We played bullrush with the youth in the pool, which was very easy because people move slow in the water (I was in, so I owned). The boys mucked around with the pool and attempted synchronised swimming to results that only boys can achieve...
Such timing...
When they failed at gracefully entering the swimming pool, they got in the only way boys know how...
Splash Damage'd
Then we had to get out as lunch time was a coming, so I got changed and had lunch which you don't care about (neither would I). Now we had free time, or as the booklet says Free Time/ Relax. Afternoon Tea, but everyone knew better than that, no one was going to relax because it was time to plan and rehearse for concert night. Our group stayed in our rooms to talk story and specifics, with me as script writer, jotting down the scenes. Then we found a room to practice in, which went well, I was even more suprised by how much my youth were into it, wanting to rehearse parts here and there just to get it perfect and to make sure they know their parts well. So with confidence, I'd say we were ready. We had an hour to spare until dinner so I went and re-wrote the scenes so that they were readable, just incase anyone wanted to read over. Walking around afterwards I saw other groups practicing for their skit which was cool. Then I bumped into Kevin, he was playing chess if I remember correctly (if not, meh), we wanted to discuss the random act that we were going to put on...
[Minor Backstory Time]
On Wednesday when we went to the beach Bryan and Kevin were talking about doing something for random acts, which I should've explained first in this backstory segment but neglected to so I'll do it now instead of deleting all this text and starting over as if none of this never happened, but I've already typed this much, why go back now? Exactly! So anyway (that took a while!), along with each dorm/cabin room putting on a skit with an allocated fairy tale/movie and genre there was also the option to do a random act, where anyone can perform anything they want. Got it? Great, lets go back to the beach. So Bryan and Kevin were talking about doing something for random acts (which you now understand) and I overheard them talking about and expressed my interest in partaking, Bryan opted out as he didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do either, but wanted to do something, and Kevin didn't know what to do either, but wanted to do something. Kevin came up with the idea of doing the Umbilical Brothers, who are a comedy duo drawing their funny from their sound effects, I'm sure you've heard (get it?) or seen them. I was up for it, but Kevin said he couldn't do sound effects, which defeated the purpose of him suggesting Umbilical Brothers in the first place! (Speaking of the Umbilical Brothers I saw one of them at that burger place on broadway near UTS, it was the one with the long hair, I had a $5 burger feast. Pro tip: It wasn't a feast) Then we decided to brainstorm ideas the next day and proceeded into the cold waters.
[End of Minor Backstory Time]
So yeah, random act. In truth we had discussed our random act at lunch, well after lunch but before free time. I only remember now as I think back because usually at lunch, I forget what happens. So major minor backstory time I guess. Kevin wasn't feeling great about sound effects so we were thinking of other ideas, Rachel overheard us talking and expressed her interest in partaking. Soon enough, someone said "hands" (I forget who) and then I came up with the idea of going on a date with hands. Hands being that one person puts their hands through the underarms of another person, thus acting as their hands, you know what I mean? But there was only three of us, but good ol' Rachel went and got Jo to partake, regardless of her interest. We then talked minor specifics but nothing major, and thus ends the major minor backstory time.
So yeah, random act. You know what it is, this time we got all four of us together and practiced a bit, which was me flailing my arms pretending I had food in my hands and whatnot. The real food was for the real thing and I was excited to do what I decided to dub the "Double Date" (if you don't get, think of something punny). So for the rest of free time we just bummed around, not doing much, socialising when we could and stuff until dinner time. Our last dinner, we had Chinese noodles done western style which is always a treat, if you like sub par food. I didn't eat much, I think the butterflies in my stomach were getting to me. I tend to get very nervous in situations with performance, which is probably why I like being in the background, controlling things without people looking at me, though at times, when I'm in control, I like to be in front, which reminds me of Jo telling me to do a random act song/guitar thing, but I didn't have a tune nor words nor time to make one up, maybe next time.
Dinner ended and everyone was giddy, girls were getting their hair done, guys already had their hair done, people were getting props, costumes, last second rehearsals in before the beginning of Concert Night.
Ready and Waiting
Our dorms skit was on third last so that gave us time to enjoy everything else beforehand. Our "Double Date" was on fifth though, so we had to get ready for that. I helped with groups song and powerpoint requests for their skits, although letting me know a minute before they start performing kind of kills any prep time I needed. So apologies right now for screwing up your skit! I don't remember too much from the concert night in terms of specifics but I'll jot down what I remember, whether its in the right sequence of events or not.
The first skit was Rachel and Jo's group's skit, that being Mulan done Kung Fu style, which was an easy mix. It went well in my opinion, with Kung-Fu Fighting playing during the fight scene with Mulan and Genghis Khan, although Kelly wearing a skirt and kicking probably wasn't the best wardrobe to have. Beauty and the Beast was done by Kevin's dorm (I forgot who his co-leader was! Sorry!), featuring Kevin as the beast with my mask, and guys dressed as girls (there was a lot of that during concert night). Tara (one of the leaders) and her group did Dragon Ball Z in the style of horror.
Arrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhh!
Matching horror with a show whose main contribution to kids society being to scream louder and longer to get stronger plus the fact that a girls group was doing it, we were sure in store for a loud skit. And loud we got, not only did the girls powerup scream but once the "killer" Lisa, or Linhkachu came onto the scene it went from screams of power to screams of death, and went from scary to funny and back to scary again.
Victor and William's groups had Ugly Duckling done in the style of wrestling. Which was funny, not only for the moves but for Victor's acting as well. Our youth even played a part, kidnapping the referee so that the ugly duckling could win the match. Though the original plan was to kidnap one of the youth without them knowing, though I don't know how the youth would have taken it.
At some point it was Double Date time, though it wasn't announced as that unfortunately. We brought out a table, with two bowls of noodles, two mugs, a water bottle, two custard tart and two bananas, let the date begin. Kevin was the guy, I was his hands, Jo was the girl, Rachel were her hands. We hadn't rehearsed anything and wanted to go through it ad libbing, which was how I preferred it. We started off greeting each other, then did a prayer done by Kevin, which suprised me, but made use of my hands. We had chest hair for Kevin, which Rachel was supposed to play with, but she couldn't reach with her hands so I played with her hand while playing with the chest hair to make it look like something was happening. We had noodles, feeding each other, which was interesting, before feeding ourselves which gave me the opportunity to own Kevin anyway I could, meaning face full of noodles for him. Next was water, which I think both Kevin and Jo needed. So I poured the cups and let Kevin drink, all the water he wanted, and then some more. Next was the custard tart, which I could have went about two ways in my mind, miss and get it all over his face, or hit the target and get it ALL in his mouth, I chose the latter. So with Kevin unable to speak, Jo trying to eat her tart as best she could, this allowed the crowd to digest what was happening. I was fortunate not to be infront of Kevin seeing what was happening because with my weak stomach, who knows what I would've done. Sensing Kevin needed water, I picked up the whole bottle and let him drink. Then Kevin decided to drink water again, this time feeding the other person the water, which to felt like going backwards but oh well, it was funny. By now, time was ticking and we felt our 4 minutes were up, so we wanted to move onto the proposal, but Kevin wanted to eat bananas, but Jo, Rachel and I made him move on. I threw the banana for comedy effect. And then the time to propose came, Kevin got on his knees, requiring me to get even lower (not an easy feat), and I put the ring on Jo's (Rachel's) finger, wrong finger though, for comedy effect of course. Oh yeah, we even had kisses done, much to the displeasure of Jo, I should've seen this and stopped Kevin with his own hands, that would've been funny. But yeah, we finished off and amongst the applause I could hear people gagging, gross out comedy at its finest!
Humpty Dumpty was done in the style of action, with a nice twist having Humpty Dumpty saved by the Terminator. The kid playing the Terminator was a riot, needing to only utter trademark Arnie lines to get the crowd's approval. It worked superbly. The silent movie with Adeline's group was a casualty to my poor powerpoint and music cues, but the message of the story was understood in the end. Dewey and Phil did Pinocchio, western style, with Dewey as Pinocchio, wearing Claire's overalls, which looked like a tight fit. The skit was funny, Lawrence's pants falling gag never fell dry and Dewey can act, as always. Bryan and Alistair's group did Aladdin, adventure style, and with the help of Anthony, the cute, quiet kid as Abu, Bryan was onto a winner. Bryan's wardrobe change got screams from the girls that saw him (not the good kind) and Alistair's appearance as the 6th monkey was a nice ending. There was a commercial skit which I wasn't able to see all of, running around preparing for my skit I think. Also there was an opera based skit that was miscommunicated as soap opera, so lack of singing GET! Jack in the beanstalk was done, in the style of kids show with Chris's group I believe (I hope I'm not wrong), there was a talk show, but I forgot the fairy tale so apologies!
Jo Lo and Kitty's group did The Little Mermaid in the style of Bollywood, which was the star skit of the night. From Kitty's bollywood rendition of "Under The Sea" to the well done Indian accents by all (especially Rebecca) to Jo Lo's impersonation of Bryan to the advertising of Bryan's restaurant and the bollywood music with Libby and Shirley singing "Bollywood Bollywood" walking around. Which caught on with people, and soon got old. It ended up taking first prize.
Ian, our youth and I went up for our skit at some point, I took control of the laptop, doing music cues and narration as best I could. I ended up feeling a bit lost during the whole thing, trying to remember what to do next and stuff. The guys danced ballet as best they could, and as girly as they could. Ian was the witch who was jealous of Snow White (Haste) and Man was the Prince, Prince Cam Phong leaving Jason to be a dwarf. So we had to double up, Ian, Man and Haste acted as dwarves in the scenes where they weren't playing their own characters, which might've confused the crowd but oh well. Dancing ballet to Tetris remix was interesting, and so was the battle dance between Ian (witch) and Jason (dwarf) to the Mortal Kombat theme, Jason won and chucked the girliest pose ever, it was awesome. I came up with the dwarve's song with I liked, as it included the use of a mug and a cheap shot at Cam. It went "High Ho, High Ho, It's off to work we go! With a mug in hand, we don't like Cam! High Ho High Ho...". Of course, in the story the prince kisses Snow White to wake her up, meaning Man kissing Haste, which during the days prior they were both joking about how close they would get. Of course, they weren't going to kiss, but they sure made everyone believe they were going to kiss with Man moving ever so close, close to the point that if Haste just puffed his lips, well, he would've become a Man (horrible joke I know). The ending was that Haste just woken up by water being splashed on him, finding out Cam saved him, then proceeding to eat Shimcup (noodles, as opposed to apple) rendering him unconscious again, getting a good reaction. Prince Cam would then scream "Nooooooo!" and I would say "And no one lived happily ever after...", before playing my own version of the Vengabus (as done by radio show Get This! They're cancelled now though) and having everyone dance like nothing ever happened. To me, thats always a great way to end anything, with everyone dancing! "The Vengabus is coming and everybody's running, from north to Ibiza, to the Mediterranean Seaaaa!".
The final act was a random act, which was a trance dance complete with lights out glow stick on string action. That was interesting to watch, since I could never do anything like that myself. Being lanky and trying to dance doesn't look that great in my opinion. And riddled in between each act were little random acts, showing ways to use a mug (besides the obvious way). As the theme of concert night was Clean and Unclean and needed the use of a Mug, to get maximum points. I probably forgot some other acts that were on, of which I apologise for but they're all going to be on the SYC DVD, which you can see all the acts, except for my groups one because the memory ran out half way through ours (which totally bummed me out for a bit). So for those reading that have no idea what I just talked about for the last bunch of paragraphs, watch the SYC DVD, the leaders should have it, and I know I'll have it!
After concert night it was supper, which this night we had a lights out of 11pm as opposed to 10:30pm. We ended up having a little dance party in the hall, which was funny and a kinda cool end to our last night at SYC. But since I wasn't dancing I went to the dining hall and searched for noodles, which Benny had, so supper was served. At 11 we got kicked out, very slowly, and then I headed back to my room to find my own personal highlight of SYC, seeing Man, Daniel and Jason all reading the bible together, which I found encouraging. Not wanting to disturb them I took a shower and when I got out David Ha was there, talking with them about the passage. So if anything, that proves I got the best room haha! Knowing that I would be driving the next day for 2-3 hours I wanted to sleep, but knew this was not going to happen for a while, people came in and wanted to party, which I was fine with as I'm a cool leader (lol). People played DS and cards for hours, I had my headphones on listening to Muse to calm myself and drown out my insomnia so I could sleep. Eventually people went out and I drifted off to sleep, at around 2 or 3am? The last night sleeping at SYC...Day 4.
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