This has the potential to be 'Mr. Long Post'. 3 things:
1- Got back from Brymore
2- Did GLOW this morning
3- Finished Harry Potter on Wednesday
1- Brymore was pretty good this year.
On Sunday we had the Army Day, which (amongst other things) involved me sitting in a hole with some 13 year old kid and giving little white cone things to anyone who found us. I borrowed Bobby's camouflage coat and I wore my flowery purple wellies. I obviously looked the height of cool.
On Monday we did workshops and Paintball. My workshop was Cooking and we made two things; Profiteroles and Bread & Butter Pudding. Paintball was not as good as I hoped, but it was pretty good. I have a bruise on my arm, near my shoulder, but it isn't anywhere near as bad as the one I got last year which left a scar.
Tuesday was probably the most boring day. Bowling and It's A Wash-a-Lot. Bowling was okay but it's nothing special and none of us were particularly good or spectacularly bad so there weren't any really memorable moments. It's A Wash-a-Lot was okay. We mainly just got wet, which is also something I'm perfectly capable of doing here in Coventry.
However the excellence of Wednesday made up for the crappiness of Tuesday. This was when we went Waterskiing and 'Ringo'ing. I had to wear this ridiculous full-length wetsuit for a little while, but it was nice and warm when I was still dry. So that was pretty good. It took me a little while to get used to the posture and foot control thing of waterskiing, because I've never done anything like it before in my life, but it was actually kinda awesome. The ring thing (which they called 'Ringo') was like a massive rubber ring - or a doughnut-shaped banana boat. That was even better. You basically sit on it and try to hold on while they drag you along at high speed by a motor boat. Once we'd dried off and had a quick shower etc we went to Taunton for an hour to get some Lemsip and ice-cream, and we stopped for lunch in McDonalds (but I just had some chips because it wasn't long until tea)
Thursday wasn't too bad, though the morning was slightly bizarre. We had 'Thinkshops' which, unlike the workshops, require you to think. I had Spanish for beginners first (woo! 5 languages) we didn't learn anything particularly advanced though. Then I had friendship and communication in which we had to sit in 3s and we had to talk and listen to each other about our problems. I went on about why I didn't want to go to a Turkish Wedding, someone told us about the bad grade he got on a piece of Geography coursework that he'd worked really hard on, and our other person expressed his concerns about moving to my school in September. Then the first guy wanted the Trouble Chair back to tell us about his neck/back pains before having to swap places with the second guy who pointed out how much his life sucks. Or something like that.
Anyway, on Thursday afternoon we went to play laserquest in groups of 14 - and I came third both times we played! Yay for 3rd place out of 14 xD It was really quite fun actually, except that I kept breathing in all the smoke from the smoke machines and everyone kept shooting me xD The rest of the themepark was closed though, so all we had was a tiny gift shop and some puddles to entertain ourselves with while we waited for our games.
Friday was probably the best day. We did the Black Rock activities thing. First we did kayaking, which I was terrible at, but enjoyed. My boat was filled with water within about 5 minutes, and I kept crashing into the sides of the lake xD I also got in everyones way I could not (no matter how much I rowed on just one side of the boat) steer the damn thing. Also on the walk to the lake there were stinging nettles and random twigs that cut my legs (everyone say awww). But I enjoyed it anyway. Though at the beginning I was trying to find two wetsuit shoe things that matched and fitted me, but everyone kept nagging me to come and have some stupid photo taken lol. Wanted to throw the endless amount of left shoes at them.
After Kayaking we had a barbecue then we did the High Ropes where you have to wear a harness which gets attached to a rope, then the rope keeps you safe as you wander around in the air lol. For the first one we had to walk up a log then climb a tree then swing from rope to rope. Nobody swung from rope to rope but I got halfway up the tree which was pretty cool. Then once you're as far out of your comfort zone as you allow them to make you go, you jump off the tree and hang in the air until the Andy the rope guy comes and lets you down. After that we did this thing where four people climb up a pole, stand at the top on a tiny little platform (roughly the size of my computer screen), hold hands, then lean back to make a star shape. I was SO SCARED xD but it was actually awesome. Then we did the last bit which was called the trapeze - the scariest one. You have to climb up another tree (roughly the same height as the other one) and stand on another platform (again, roughly the same size as the other platform, but with only one person on it) the throw yourself off and try to catch this metal pole thing and cling on to it. I didn't catch the pole thing but I did jump off, so I'm all proud of myself and stuff xD Someone managed to video it on her camera and I don't look cool lol, in case any of you were jealous.
Then finally we did Archery. It has been decided that I'm rather terrible at Archery. Only about 60% of my arrows actually hit the target board, and about 40% were actually in any of the circles. Working inwards, the circles on the board went from 1 to 10 (10 was in the middle) and my score after shooting a total of 12 arrows was 36. Hehh. The highest score of the day was somewhere between 90 and 100 lol. I also lost one of my arrows xD
So that was Brymore.
2- Did GLOW this morning at church.
I'm only throwing this in as a little 'you can stop concentrating' moment for you, as I realise that this is a very long post.
At GLOW club this morning I drew a mouse and a crocodile and a elephant and a lion and a monkey. I also played 'flap the fish', where you try to get a paper fish to move across the room by flapping a newspaper at it. It does take quite some skill. Our team won (it was high-fives all round). I also tried to get the small children to concentrate on what was going on while I daydreamed about going back to bed.
3- Harry Potter.
Oh. My. Goodness.
I don't -really- know what to say.
I think that at some point I heard most of the story told through theories over the past two years, so none of it was hugely surprising. However I have probably read thousands of theories about it and I can't say I had any idea of which ones were right. If you haven't finished the book yet, go away.
Bits I loved-
- The Death-Eater Meeting was excellent. I remember reading the descriptions in the first chapter and smiling to myself. I'd always imagined the meetings to be a bit like this. You know, big fancy house, murder plotting, a dangling corpse. Perfect. And the mention of Andromeda (she's such an interesting character) Excellent.
- This leads me on nicely to my next point:We meet Andromeda and Ted Tonks! Wooo! They're brilliant. I love that Andromeda is a little bit of a Black. She has little delicate tables and an Aspidistra plant in her house and in book five Dora Tonks says that she's really good at packing (gets the socks to fold themselves and everything)
- Mrs. Weasley "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH". I'd always known that Molly had that wonderful side to her. She won't sit down and take it, she'll fight back. My personal theory is that Molly was a bit of a trouble-maker like the twins in her Hogwarts days, but being a mum has pushed that aside to make room for the kids. But every now and then she's pushed to the edge and the wand isn't just for washing up and stirring soup anymore.
- Snape is good. All those memories made so much sense, and I love how just before he died he asked Harry to look at him (so that he could see Lilys eyes) And Snape's Worst Memory brings on a whole new meaning!! There we were, thinking he was upset that the whole school saw his pants - but really it was because he called Lily a mudblood! Ahh I love how these books work.
- I liked how Harry insisted on digging Dobby a grave properly, instead of doing it by magic.
- Thank you, Jo, for keeping Draco alive. I wanted him to make it for some reason.
- Trelawney throwing crystal balls at the death eaters xD xD How awesome. Lavender would be proud.
- lol I loved when Fred and George took polyjuice potion and turned into Harry, then looked at each other and went "We're identical!" xD
- The talk between Harry and Dumbledore. I read it and was like YES DUMBLEDORE xDDD Although, I might need to read it again to figure out what the ugly baby/creature thing was. I really didn't get that, but it was probably because I was reading so fast. (you know how you read faster when the action in the book becomes more fast paced? Then you miss half the stuff that happens. It was like that)
- I love how Ron cheated on his driving test xD
- The final battle when so many people arrive. It just shows how loyal people were to Hogwarts (I was espcially happy when Oliver Wood turned up. He's awesome) I hope that they bring all the actors from old films in for this scene in the final film. Characters like Colin Creevey and Oliver Wood and Trelawney and Percy and maybe even throw in Gilderoy Lockhart or something. It'd be really cool to see all those familiar faces from the films coming together for the final one. And they could have Jo Rowling reading a narrative for the epilogue right at the end. lol I'm thinking too much about this xD
- The Ravenclaw Common room. Excellence. I love that you have to answer questions before you can get in.
- Kreacher being nice xD It was kinda awesome to see that side of him.
- Harry calling Voldemort 'Tom Riddle' - it was quite good to see his reaction to that.
- Narcissa asking if Draco was still alive when she was supposed to be checking Harry. In my opinion, she was faced by the drama of Andromeda marrying a muggleborn and being disowned by her family at a pretty young age and decided at the time that following Bellatrix was a much safer option but realised much later (once it was too late to escape like her sister) that she might have made a mistake. So I reckon she's completely terrified when Voldemort gets her husband locked up in Azkaban, gives her son a suicidal mission and then moves into her house, but she doesn't think that she can get out of it now without being killed so she just tries to roll along with it and keep her family as safe as possible without letting on that she's switched sides in her head. Can you tell that I just love these sisters so much? Blame Makani.
- George making jokes about losing his ear xD *snorts with laughter* I love those twins (why, Jo, why?)
- Dragonnnnn :] (for anyone that doesn't know: I love dragons lol)
Rest in Peace:
James Potter
Lily Potter
Professor Quirrel (he wasn't actually evil until he had Voldemorts face stuck on the back of his head)
Frank Bryce
Cedric Diggory
Sirius Black
Albus Dumbledore
Gellert Grindelwand
Hedwig
Alastor Moody
Peter Pettigrew
Scrimgeour (Minister of Magic)
Ted Tonks
Nymphadora Tonks
Remus Lupin
Fred Weasley
Dobby
George's Ear (poor ear)
Charity Burbage (Muggle Studies Teacher)
Colin Creevey
Random Muggles (duh)
Severus Snape
Vincent Crabbe
Fenrir Greyback
Bellatrix Lestrange (Good one, Mollywobbles xD)
Tom Riddle/Voldemort
Yeah I'll stop now. Night, everyone.
