Swimming Carnival

To describe today in one word: water. Yes, today revolved around water in two ways: one, it was the swimming carnival. Two, it poured. Now, let us have a look at the swimming carnival. It started off before school, where everyone came in their house colours: Farrer, red; Wentworth, blue; Macarthur, yellow; and Lachlan Macquarie, green, which I am in. If I may be permitted to make a side note: why Lachlan Macquarie? Why two names? When we get themes (I'll come back to this), it's Macquarie, but we are normally called Lachlan. I say, pick a name and commit. But, really, it doesn't matter. Anyway, back to... houses. OK. our themes were: Farrer Festive, where people came dressed as holiday characters. You know, Santa Claus, Halloween characters, basically just everything holiday-ish. Wentworth was Wonderland, which took the title of 'Weirdest Theme for 2009.' W00t. So, people came dressed up as Alice (even the boys, again, which I'll come back to after this.), the Mad Hatter, and more than 1 person had jokes about 'Wonderland' (eg, a few girls had signs pointing to their chests, which said 'Your Wonderland.' Lol!). Macarthur was Magic, and had by far the best costumes. There were fairies, wizards (mostly Harry Potter), and the best costume came from here. One person had a Gandalf (the White) costume, which was perfect. The hat, the white robes, the staff, even the beard. It could have been Dumbledore, but I doubt it. And last (always), is Macquarie, which was Musicians. We had guitars, drums, many musical instruments. I couldn't find anything green, so I came in a black top with a DJ on it. Of course, like in every school, there is a time-honoured tradition, which came out with flying colours today. In Hurlstone, for some bizarre reason, that tradition is cross-dressing. Swimming carnivals, camps, Year 12 farewells, rest-assured there will be guys in dresses attempting to show... something.

In the morning, I spent the time with Cam, Eric, Vitale, Victor, basically the whole group, just basically doing nothing. Cards, sessions, walking, talking, etc, etc. The cheering contest was first, though, and I'd like to say that I think Macquarie was the morning's winner. Of course, that could have been because I was standing in that particular crowd.

If I may be permitted to make a short side note: Is it just me, or does everybody at the swimming carnival seem drunk? Well, not everybody of course, but there's always those special few. I mean, we have shouting (cheering contests), strange behaviour (dancing in the rain), very little inhibitions (girls going around taking pictures of themselves with completely random people), I could go on. But I won't.

Continuing. Today, I lent Shafi my iPod, so that he could have a look at Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series. (If you don't know what that is, I strongly recommend you have a look at it at the link I just gave you, as it is brilliant. Or, so I think. I do have a very strange sense of humour.) I gave it to him at lunch, and didn't get it back until about 2 pm. Yeah. It's that good. Anyway, in the afternoon, I spent most of the time hiding from the rain, having a 'joke-off' with Vitale, in which we each tell the other a joke, and if they had heard of it, they get a point, and if not, you get a point. It ended with the score being tied at 8 a piece, when we decided to stop. Partway through the day, we got told the score: as usual, Farrer was first and leading easily, Wentworth coming second, about 50 or 60 points ahead of 3rd, who was, SHOCK, HORROR, Macquarie. We are always last. Always. Rest assured, we rubbed it in Mango and Vitale's faces, who are both in Macarthur. At this point, it stops sprinkling, and starts raining. Hard. It starts pelting down. Then, a teacher (I think it was actually an office lady) told us to go cheer. I promptly went into the pool area: and talked to Cam. Why? ...The stand was full. Then, I got sent to go get the score for Mr. Wilson (senior. Or, B. Wilson. I remember the B standing for bald, and that's how I tell the Wilsons, A. or B. apart.) Farrer, 1st, what a surprise. Wentworth, 2nd, of course. And... Macarthur third. Macarthur. Third. Macquarie had fallen to fourth. Again. They do say L for Lachlan, l for last. However, Mr. Wilson (snr) did say something interesting before being corrected: 'Farrer, fourth...' A misread of 1st for 4th due to wet paper. How funny would that have been, if Farrer really did come fourth. *sigh* Ah, well.

And that was my day. Really. Maybe there's more, but it probably wouldn't have been very interesting. (Oh, I lost my umbrella case. So that's... something...)

Proud to be in Lachlan (and also last),
AB