Looking Back on the Eighth Grade Advisement Trip
June 9, 2004|
Today, I was looking through some of my old worksheets from Eighth Grade and I came upon one that brought back some great memories. This worksheet is a Spanish worksheet that we had to do during class time about the “Days of the Dead” or in Spanish, “Dia de los Muertos.” Yes, yes, yes, it contains information on the festival and has some activities, but what caught my attention was the drawing at the bottom of the page. Below all of the information, I found a sketch that Ray Fong made while Srta. Jodee told us to write a paragraph about a picture. Well, not that Ray Fong and I didn’t follow instructions and just drew pictures, but we were already done… Back to the picture, on it, there are cartoon characters of 12 students in our grade. I have to say, this picture is quite interesting… No, it’s not a sketch of the actual people, but it’s rather a sketch of what they are called. So… the picture had cartoon figures of a jellyfish, a chicken, a hog, a frog, a crow, a giant, a pumpkin man, a sheep, a “flying” squirrel, a duck, a tortoise, and a little rabbit. Who do these pictures represent? Well… just try and guess… There’s Candy, Maytee, Tent, Tanya, Pim, Jirayuth, Mandy, Rose, Teng-Wei, Daniel R., Ray Fong, and myself. I can still remember that after Spanish class, we went to Advisement and continued to draw some more pictures… And right after that, we had the sign ups for who we want to stay with for our Advisement trip to Supalai Pasak Resort Hotel in Saraburi. It was a total mess having approximately 240 students cramping at one small bulletin board trying to write each other’s names down
Anyway, this summer has been quite dull. Earlier, I mentioned that my grade had an Advisement Trip to Supalai Pasak Resort during November. Well, that was a pretty fun trip but a really tiring one. We left school early in the morning to avoid traffic on our journey to the resort. Note one thing, the trip will take about 4 hours… So our journey was really long. In all, there were five buses – four big ones and one small. My bus, which was bus number one, was really active. There were a group of Korean students that were at the back and they turned on their radio really loud that it later annoyed one of our bus chaperones, Mr. Robert Badaracco. Also, we had some people that kept on taking photos of each other and it was getting really annoying. Anyway, bus number two was practically all girls except for Ben R., who was the only boy there because he was the last to sign up. On bus number three, it was all boys. Bus number four was pretty okay with boys and girls. As for bus number five, the small bus, it was made up of the entire “+ $ – ! 3 @ +” group When we finally reached Supalai, which was some time around noon, we had to go and get our keys to our bungalows. Since Supalai is a resort made up of bungalows and forests, it was a long walk by the time my friends and I made it to our bungalow. The girls were really lucky because they were close to the swimming pool, the meeting hall, and the dining room. As for we boys, well, we were all the way at the very far end of the resort. There will be two bungalows that will be connected to make up one. The people who stayed with me in those bungalows were Maytee, Teng-Wei, Tent, Rakshet, and Raveen. At first, we went to our bungalow but the problem was that it wasn’t a twin bungalow. So we had to walk all the way back to find Mrs. Rao, our Science teacher, at the reception area. After a long talk with the receptionist, she finally got a twin bungalow for us. Luckily, instead of having to walk all over again, the resort van came by and took us to our bungalows. When we reached there, we finally settled in and got our stuff out and made ourselves at home. By then, Rakshet realized that he forgot his medicine and toothbrush in the other bungalow… Great… But it was too late because we had to go to the dining hall to have our lunch. So we decided that we’ll go and get it later when we’re done eating. But because some students decided to have free time first, all of us decided to go bike riding around the resort. Apparently, some students went swimming and then a pandemonium happened. Some people began pushing each other into the pool. Of course, to the students, this didn’t seem to be wrong. But then our teachers came rushing and were lecturing the students. Later, I sort of got lost around Supalai because it was really big and really confusing but luckily, I arrived at the meeting hall on time for the activities. If I arrived a few minutes later, I would have joined the “Clean-up Club”, which is a club made up of students that got there late (and students who were pushing each other into the pool) who have to go around the whole resort and pick up the trash. At the meeting hall, Mrs. Rao informed us that one of our classmates, Mak, got into an accident where his bike went and hit another person’s bike. This accident caused him to have some serious injuries and he had to be rushed to the hospital immediately. To begin the activities, the teachers had a little screaming contest going by homeroom to homeroom. Later, we were taken outside to have some cooperative activities. The activities were things such as students forming a circle and holding each other hands as they try to pass the hula hoop onto the next person. Other activities were trying to pull six people up from the floor together in one try. Another activity that made everybody excited about was trying to fit each other into a circle of strings. After these activities, the students were allowed to play sports like basketball, soccer, volleyball, and swimming. Of course, during this, the “Clean-up Club” had to go around and clean things up. Later around 5-6 PM, the students were sent to the meeting hall again, but this time, the hall was divided into two parts by a big red cloth. Students were divided into two different groups. Now that the two groups are on either side of the hall, the groups are divided into approximately 10 subgroups. On my side, while Mrs. Rao was giving instructions, several students weren’t listening, for example: Maytee, and Mrs. Rao had a very clever way of getting their attention. Here’s how it went:
Finally, after getting the students’ attention, my section was supposed to make a poster about Peer Mediation. While our side went writing and presenting, the other side of the hall was screaming with laughter. Hmmm… I wonder what they’re doing… After 45 minutes, the two sections switched sides. When we went to the other side, we found out that we had to make up a building that was about one meter tall and that contains only the materials given (color paper, poster paper, A4 paper, a paper plate, glue, scissors, and a pencil). Not only do we have to make a building, but it has to be able to withstand a “tornado”. What the teacher meant by “able to withstand a tornado” was that the building has to stand and not fall while a person is blowing with al their might onto it. Hmmm… sounds quite easy. Anyway, after rounds of screaming and laughter, it finally came down to three different buildings. One that was ours, another one that was quite short, and another really tall one. Mr. Neil decided to go by the beauty and the height. Obviously, the short one was cut out and it came down to my group’s building and another group’s building. After a long discussion with Mr. Kevin, Mr. Neil finally announced the winner. Who was it? MY GROUP! After hard work, we finally got our prize… What was it? Just two Hershey chocolates…
We finally went to dinner and had to proceed to the yard next where we will have our campfire ceremony. Throughout the campfire ceremony, there were three different classes that performed. The ceremony began with 8-4’s “Teacher Mocking”, which had students from the class acting like the teachers. There were Mr. Alex’s “Bad Baby” quote, Mr. Robert Badaracco’s “Zero talking or you’re coming at lunch” quote, Mrs. Rao’s “Plagiarism is a crime and I am smell sensitive” quote, and some other quotes from Mr. Neil and Mr. Lindemann. Ms. Aloha’s “tribe”, the “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Humuhumunukunukuapuaa Tribe”, did a very interesting dance show that was had Andy, Yu-Ting, and Rakshet wearing Hawaiian skirts. As those three guys danced, there were some other people in the class that either danced along or were running around the audience carrying “waves”. After the entertaining Hawaiian dance, Mr. Alex’s class did a drama skit about a ghost story at Supalai. Note: People actually believed that there were two ghost sisters that would walk around resort at night… Interesting how eighth graders still believe in ghost stories. Oh, I forgot to tell you, while the campfire ceremony was going on, nearby us was the swimming pool and there was a person speaking into the microphone. Apparently, I did not see this but according to everybody who saw it, they said that there were these two women dressed up in nice evening gowns and slowly stepped into the swimming pool. Then, the chorus of “Raining Men” came up and the girls took off their gowns… When we were told this, Ray Fong was saying things like: “Aww… I missed it! I can’t believe I missed it!” And the guy who was talking into the microphone was saying things like: “Oh! Ow loey krub! Tod eag!” (Translation: “Oh! Come on! Take off more!”) Those who know Thai were laughing their heads off while non-Thai speakers were all like: Huh?!
Anyway… After the campfire, we went back to our bungalows and had a very nice sleep. The night was pretty okay until we realized that we forgot to take out a bottle of water from the freezer… And let’s see… it’s been there for one, two, three, four…EIGHT HOURS?!?! And you can probably guess, it was as hard as ice… Because it was so hard, we came up with a name for it, “The Rock”. For safety’s sake, the school had this whole rule about girls not being in boys’ bungalows and boys not being in girls’ bungalows… Well, they came up with this way of solving it by attaching tape to the door so that if the door has been open, you will not be able to reattach it from the inside. Of course, our bungalow had a back door and the Mr. Neil and Mr. Kevin (our watchers) weren’t about to tape it until I accidentally said, “you’re not going to tape the back door?” And for the rest of the night, my friends were kind of mad at me. Talking about back doors, I just realized that under my bungalow, there was a snake there. And when we were going to come into the house, we were all scared that the snake would pop out and find our legs as a feast. Behind our bungalow, we have a cliff that is so high I nearly fell while taking a picture with Maytee’s camera. By the time we went to bed, it was around midnight and we were all exhausted… well, except for Tent, who had some kind of “wrestling” mood. While Rakshet and Raveen were safely protected in their room, which they locked, Maytee, Teng-Wei, and I were being bombarded by Tent, who kept on coming in and out and jumping on to us with “The Rock”. So, while Maytee, Teng-Wei, and I were in the bedroom, we abandoned Tent, who slept in the living room in front of the TV. While we were sleeping, there was a sort of symphony going on… Maytee was mumbling something while he slept and Teng-Wei was snoring, which kind of scared me. Also, I was sleeping near to the window and there were sounds coming from the outside from the party nearby. Anyway, after awhile, I finally fell asleep… The next morning, after Tent finally got out of his wrestling mode, we went to eat breakfast and found a lot of people rather sleepy with panda eyes. After waiting, we were summoned to the yard where we were divided into groups and were about to begin the “Walk Rally”. After thinking of a group name, group song, and group dance, we had to perform it in front of the whole grade. Also, my team was called the “Chickens” and our dance was a Chicken Dance… One of the teams was called “Oh Yeah!” and they sang the “Oh Yeah” song from the famous Thai movie, “Fan Chan”. After performing, we were divided into different spots and had to do different activities like going across a river with ropes, having people carrying a person across a volleyball net, doing a seventeen leg race, and etc. The activities were quite fun and at the very end of the rally, we found out that our team won! Wow! After two hours of running around and sweating, we were finally awarded with our price… A cap saying “Supalai Pasak Resort Hotel”. How thrilling… We had lunch and had a few minutes to go and pack our belongings. After checking out, we boarded the bus and headed back for Bangkok. This time, it seemed to have been quicker than usual, even though we stopped at a gas station to buy things. By the way, at the gas station, we found a broken window. Hmm.. I wonder how it got there… But later, Lim admitted that he did it. Anyway, we reached RIS (Ruamrudee International School) safely and all departed. This was one tiring trip. Man… To think about it now, I can’t believe how time flew by so quickly… It feels like Eighth grade just began yesterday! Oh well, ninth grade is coming up… Better hope that it isn’t as bad as Eighth grade! Current Album Listening to: Underneath by Hanson |
It has been only one week and it is practically raining every single day. Above the pouring rain, the flashing lightning, and the cracking thunder, my internet connection keeps on losing its signal and I have to keep on reconnecting on and on and on and on… Thank God we don’t have to pay for every time we connected! Talking about computers, my computer is really retarded right now… Every time I go some websites, the computer will always have “LOW SYSTEM RESOURCES” popping up and once I click “CLOSE”, the whole computer freezes and I have to restart the computer all over again. 
