Mount KK Mountain Climb and Community Service (3 hours Service + 8 hours Action) (Term 3)

From the 10th to the 14th of April, my friends and I went on an out-of-country trip to climb a mountain and also to help out a local neighborhood.

We started out journey the next day in the mid-afternoon and our mountain group of 14 students and 2 teachers continued along at a steady pace. It took all afternoon to reach the rest-house where we would stay overnight to rest before the dawn climb.

A mountain never seemed like a possible task for me to accomplish. I have a fear of heights and getting up anything steeper or higher than a hill with slippery surface scares me to death. Even though my endurance and fitness levels are very good, I have a problem with the joints in my hips that cause them to hurt after a physical activity. I thought that this would hinder my progress and maybe even stop me from continuing on and finishing the climb to the summit. However, we all woke up at 2 o'clock in the morning for the dawn climb and trekked on in the darkness taking occasional breaks to catch our breath.

At about 5am, Sam (my best mate) and I reached the summit after pulling ahead of the main group. The summit was 5 degrees and we were all rugged up in the dark eating chocolate to keep our body warmth up. Only when the sun came up, did it become clear how far we had climbed, how high up we were, and the beauty of the landscape around us, 8 and a half kilometers above sea level. To me, this had to be one of my most amazing personal accomplishments so far and I got to enjoy this experience with my friends, helping to further the value of our friendship.

The next day, after meeting up with the rest of our year, we traveled a few kilometers from where we were staying to meet the children of a local community school, where we would then help to construct various things for their schoolyard and classrooms. I worked on doing wiring for the fence before moving inside to help clean one of the rooms. After that, we all spent some time interacting with the children, playing games and helping them colour among other things. Not too long after, we left to pack up our gear and get ready for the short flight home.

From this unique trip, I learned a few different things that helped to boost my self-confidence, friendships and interaction skills. Overall, I am thoroughly pleased with how the trip went and look forward in the future to accomplishing other activities that I didn't think that I could ever achieve before.

Mountain Climbing Training (15 hours Action) (Term 2)

In preparation for our trip to Kota Kinabalu where me and thirteen other students would climb the mountain, we had to take part in training for our muscles and our mind because sometimes, it's the mind that proves to be the barrier. So, from early January up until early April (the week before we left) we trained at different tracks of varying difficulty. Initially, the walks were quite easy for me to manage as I have past experience from doing monthly jungle treks. However, I was concerned for a couple of members of our team during these sessions and so, those of us who were stronger helped those who were having trouble by providing confidence-building so that they could believe that they could do it. But by the time we were near the time to depart, we were all fit enough even on the harder and more mountainous trails that took more time and determination to complete.

This training was essential to prepare ourselves for the rarefied oxygen levels upon reaching the peak of Mount Kinabalu and I was confident that we could all make it up the mountain together as a team now that we knew each others' strengths and weaknesses.

War Gaming Club (total of 17 Creative hours) (Term 1 and 2)

We all meet up on Tuesdays for two or three hours to play a variety of tactical games that surprisingly encompass war in the main strategy. These include: risk; warhammer and heroscape.

Heroscape is played with figures on a pre-constructed board formed from hexagonal pieces. The hero figure or squad card states how many dice you get to roll for attack, defence, special effects and how much life the figure starts off with.

Warhammer is very similar but the rules are all in one (extremely) thick rule guide, and so, one of the club organisers has to be there as a judge to tell us what the figures can do (whereas in heroscape, the information is already on the information card specific to that figure). Also in warhammer, the landscape that you play on could be a table with a drink can and a lunchbox with a pencil case as obstacles. This means that less equipment is needed to play the game.

Risk consists of six team colours where up to six players compete to take over the world on a board picturing the countries of the world. Reinforcements are given at the start of a player's turn based on the number of the countries that a player controls, divided by three (rounded down) and bonuses for owning a whole continent of region (Africa or Aisa) are then added.

These games are all very enjoyable, especially with the large number of people who join the wargaming club. My favourite from the above is heroscape, followed by risk / warhammer. This is because I have found that I enjoy playing with figures but heroscape is more new-player friendly and therefor, is easier to play which boosts the amount of fun that we can have as a group.