Young Leaders Summer School (Days 0-2)

Procrastination consumes me again and now I find myself blogging two months after my last post in Melbourne as I'm one of the teacher chaperones on our Young Leaders' Summer School which is hosted by Trinity College, University of Melbourne. Perhaps one of the best parts is that I'm finally getting some decent sleep since most of the nights I sleep by 11pm (which is 8pm in Singapore) as there's nothing much to do at that time of the night so hopefully that helps to make up for the lack of it during the course of the year!

Let me recap the main things that happened so far...

Day 0 (3rd Dec) - spent the morning and afternoon doing my last-minute preparations for the trip - went for a haircut, buy facial wash and sunscreen, exchange money, then started to pack. Thankfully our flight was delayed, apparently due to adverse weather conditions, so that gave me a bit more time to tidy things up and also some more time in Singapore - I much prefer spending time back home in my room than my room here! Anyway, we were given $20 each to spend at Delifrance or BK due to the flight delay, which was a pleasant surprise so most of us started to spam as much as we could to maximise the amount even though we had our dinner and really went to calculate to see what's the best way to use up the $20 fully haha. Flight itself was good (thankfully, given all the recent incidents about Qantas flights) and I had a window seat so I had a good view of various parts of Australia (a lot of geographical features that I couldn't recognise) since we reached there early in the morning. =)

Day 1 (4th Dec) - reached Melbourne airport at about 9+ am local time then I took some time to clear the customs cos I decided to play safe and made a declaration about my shoes in case they had soil (the Aussies are VERY particular about foreign stuff being brought into the country). Found the student leader in charge and we were brought to the college, which looked pretty impressive because the structure of the buildings resembled that of ancient educational institutes such as Cambridge and Oxford (although we found out later that it wasn't just the outside of the buildings that were ancient =p).

Went to check into our rooms and the other teacher and I were surprised to find that our accommodation was far from what was described by another teacher who had been there before haha so our high expectations were kinda flattened. It's not that the rooms are bad, but we expected more I guess. I didn't really fancy a room that was carpeted cos it was kinda dusty and I had an ancient-looking cupboard which I wasn't keen to put my clothes in. At least my bed and toilet looked decent (though there were the occasional mosquito, fly, and moth that flew in - something that I can't stand!) so it's bearable for me haha. But give me my room and toilet in Singapore anytime! =D

After settling down, we went out with some of the mentors (think OGLs) who brought us around the area and we walked to some of the other nearby streets (Lygon street in particular, which has become quite familiar to us esp since we go to the supermarket there to buy our groceries) and also walked to Carlton Gardens and past the IMAX theatre, Melbourne Museum, and the Royal Exhibition Building.

Came back to the college and rested, then had dinner before we went out to town. Landed up at Bourke Street where we queued up to watch this Xmas display at this shopping centre called Myer. Apparently it's quite a tradition for them to put up these displays and it's basically telling a story (in this case it was about the Nutcracker) and they made very intricate figurines so we took a lot of pictures (though some of the kids weren't interested in it I guess cos they never heard of the tale before - neither had I but I just followed politely and tried to appreciate it since the mentors brought us there and also to find out more about the story).

After that we walked down towards the Yarra River and we saw a few buskers performing around the area before we settled down around a place near the Crowne Casino to watch and feel the flames bursting out from some of the pillars in that area. Apparently it happens every night on an hourly basis so it's quite cool - not mind-blowing but it's nice to take a look if you happen to be there at that time. =)

Went back after that and I guess one of the main things I learnt today was also how to buy tickets for their tram and this was the first time I took the tram even though I had been to Melbourne seven years ago for a few days.

Day 2 (5th Dec) - went to Queen Victoria Market which I have been before during my last trip to Melbourne but I kinda forgotten how it looked like until I started to enter the place. It's really like a HUGE pasar malam - you get the variety of shops selling all kinds of stuff and after a while the same kind of shops start to appear but I'd still say it's a must go for the souvenirs and also probably macadamia nuts, which are apparently v popular since I've had some requests and so have the other teachers. Before we left the place one of the students tried his hand at this game that was set up in the market. It involved climbing onto a slanted ladder and whoever could reach the top and touch the $50 note there would win it. Well obviously the person made it look v easy during his demo but somehow it's v hard to do it and nobody could figure out. Our student just said that it's v difficult to balance so guess we should ask some Physics teachers to sort that out!

Went back after the shopping trip then rested before they had their "Mini-Olympics" where they had some orientation type of games to build team-work but some of the games were quite standard to me and I'd like to think that some of our OGLs actually came up with much more interesting games for our orientation next year so I'm looking forward to that!

After that we had this Mexican Party where I kinda liked the concept of how people were paired together. You pick a name out from a hat then go around finding your partner whose name complement yours e.g. if I pick Batman I'll try to prob find Robin; for me I was Clyde and tried to find Bonnie. Once you found your partner you had to solve a quiz where the answers lied mainly with the mentors so you'll need to go around asking them for help.

After that quiz we had a Mexican themed dinner which was quite nice (prob the best meal that we've had here so far) and it was quite funny listening to some of the kids talk. Then they had dance sessions including the Limbo Rock and Macarena and some other free-style dance before it ended and we went to the supermarket again. This time there was an Aussie girl who joined us and from the supermarket till the college we kept gossiping and joking about one of our boys who seemed to be charmed by her cos my fellow chaperone pointed out that he always walked in front but now he kept walking at the back so that he could talk to her. =P

That's end of Day 2 - updates on other days soon!