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Wesley @ Clunes |
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Group 21: Week 6, 23 Mar, 2005 |
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| From the Head of Clunes Program |
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Touch wood it looks like we are over the worst of the "epidemic" of
the 24 hour bug. The difficulty with viral infections is that you just have to
ride them out. Fortunately for most of the students who have had it over the
last ten days it has passed quickly. It certainly provided many opportunities
for individuals to display a sense of caring and giving. I have heard quite a
few anecdotes about the random acts of kindness performed towards "the
sickies". With Easter almost upon us it will be a great chance for all
students and staff to recharge their batteries. As this is the first time all
students have gone home for a break in the middle of the term, Easter will
enable the students to reflect upon the term so far and to talk to their parents
about what they are aiming to achieve in the final nine days. Certainly a key
focus will be the Presentation Day so I suspect there might be the odd student
or two practising speeches in front of parents, sibling and pets prior to their
return to the campus!
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The courses in these last weeks are about “Where am I going?” The course
I’m doing, Taking A Risk, gives us the opportunity to take risks, and
examines, the role that risk taking plays in our lives. In this course we
are exploring the definition of risk. This will be found out by doing
literature, film and through practical experiences so we can make personal
statements and reflect upon the place that risk has in our own lives. In
the second lesson of our course we did just that by taking a bus trip out
to Mount Beckworth. We packed a lunch and warm clothes, and a drink bottle
because we were going to be up there all day. The bus stopped at the base
of Mt Beckworth, we all got our gear and went on hiking up the extremely,
painfully steep hill. We finely reached our destination and Rusty, our
leader, set up for rock climbing. We went off for half an hour and
explored the peek of Mt Beckworth, and had something to eat. Once Rusty
had finished setting up we went to the bottom of t
he cliff we were rock
climbing up. Daniel S was the first to demonstrate, it took him 10
minutes to climb, and it was pretty funny watching him struggle. Then we
all got into groups of four to three and began to clime one at a time.
There were four spots to climb; I only climbed in one spot. When you watch
someone else do it, it looks a lot easier, but when you actually get up
against the rock with nothing at all to hold on to you can understand why
they were struggling so much. All the way up your muscles are shaking in
pain, but you really want to get to the top so you keep on going. And
when you do reach the top it’s the best feeling and you turn your head
and look at the brilliant view that goes on forever behind you. Then you
have to put your feet flat on the rock, sit back in the harness and let
them lower you down. Next week we are going to the Northern Grampians,
which involves an overnight campout, abseiling and rock climbing.
On Wednesday, for our
Village Bites time, every house had to choose a
different international food dish to prepare and cook. The house that was
the best dressed for their country's food, would win a prize. The
International Night was apart of the Village Bites afternoon, which
happens every Wednesday afternoon. The afternoon is usually spent with the
house leader, and he or she will help prepare the food or help clean the
house with the students in the house. The houses did different foods,
from different nationalities such as House 8, who did Japanese and House
5, who made Indian. For the Japanese dish we made Sushi and then made
Teriyaki Chicken, which
was good. For house 5’s Indian dish a curry was made, it was enjoyed as well. The
international night was a huge success and was a great meal for
everyone; most houses dressed up and got into the theme of their country.
The winner of the night has still not been announced, but overall every
house participated and enjoyed.
Netball
is an optional sport, played every Tuesday night at the Community Centre,
for the Wesley girls. We have an opportunity to play the local netball
teams surrounding Clunes. It seems to be a social thing for the locals of
Clunes to come and watch. Last Tuesday night was successful with a win for the Wesley @ Clunes netball
team. We defeated the ‘blue’ team 21 – 15. This was our first win
whilst we’ve been at Clunes. Everyone was enthusiastic and everyone
played an awesome game. The leaders Libby and Jackie also had a go at
playing. We had previously played this same team and got thrashed… so it
proves just how much we all improved. Hopefully we will keep up the team spirit and continue playing as well as
we did last match.
The Diary
of Jong was an elective we did. It was about a Chinese miner in the
goldfields. He supposably beat someone almost to death, so, Jong was a
prisoner of the goldfields They found his diary in a state library a
couple of years ago; it had lots of different languages in it. It had
Mandarin, English and a mixture of English and Mandarin letters together.
He was convicted, but Jong couldn’t really speak English and in his
diary he showed that he was innocent but he couldn’t say it. If he was
convicted now they would have provided a translator for him and he would
never have gone to jail. Jong had already had a criminal offence. He tried
to buy something from a shop with fake gold, but they didn’t have enough
evidence to hold him. We dressed up and re-enact the court hearing in the
old Court house, Aaron was Jong, Callum was the bailiff and Frank was
Jong's lawyer. It was fun arguing if he was guilty or if he wasn’t, we
had witnesses that said he was and some that said he wasn’t guilty. In
the end we thought he was guilty. Over all it was a really fun elective