It was good to get back after the second expo, even though it was heaps of fun. Just to reconnect with the people at school – its really starting to seem that we don’t have much more time here. Everybody is getting kind of freaked out by that, and the fact that they won’t see some people - pretty much - ever again. It’s funny, I can’t really remember home as being home anymore, it’s sort of here now, and the people here are pretty important.

Anyway, on a higher note, we had community service with 1B today. It’s always fun being with 1B because more people seem to make class more fun. And community service sounds like a drag too so it was nice to know we wouldn’t be alone, ha. But of course, like with everything here that sounds like it will be boring, it turned out to be really fun. We actually got to do some gardening and stuff and cleared zone three of debris (cleared - put a whole lot of sticks and stuff in a big pile) that would catch on fire and be pretty dangerous to the school if a bushfire came through here - apparently we were a big help, and it really is nice to know you are helping people that you don’t know like the kids coming next term.

We lit piles after afternoon class to clear the sticks and things and went out and chilled around them which was pretty cool and kind of ironic because it was really hot... It was really, really hot, and we were all thinking ‘wow…how scary would a bush fire be?’ 

We also found a turtle, which we named Tim or Jim I can’t remember. He (or she…we didn’t check…how would you check?) ate mosquitoes if you threw them in the water, which kept us amused for at least, like, two hours. Then we had to come back inside, and I think he came with us – in a fish tank. At last, we have a school mascot. It would be the turtle or one of the dogs, which deserve a mention because they are pretty cool (Ralphy!)

The next couple of weeks start to get pretty stressful. We have a whole lot of CLP classes and Passport classes and there are POL’s, which everybody doesn’t quite understand yet. But there is also a lot to look forward to like caving, which sounds pretty sick. Well, that’s about all I can think of at the moment so that will have to do.

Jim, Brunswick Secondary College