Lifescouts #6

First of all, three musicians/bands you should check out RIGHT NOW.
Stu Larsen (recommended songs Seaforth Mackenzie and King Street)
Dirt Farmer (their entire repertoire is incredible but particularly Johnny Marble and She Shakes)
Francolin (EVERYTHING)

Go, go, go!

also, 
Lifescouts badge awarding time, because it's been a while.
The Gymnastics Badge.
My parents decided to enrol me in gymnastics when i was about four or five, of course when you're that young it's apparently called 'play gym', because you don't get to the 'serious stuff' until later in life.
sadly my short-lived gymnastics experience was not one filled with laughter and warm memories. No, it was mostly fear, intimidation, psychological injuries and a few physical ones, not to mention being forced to sport terrible-quality yellow face paint for the end of year presentation, in which lies a psychological injury.
but i digress.
One of the negatives (in my five year old mind) of gymnastics was the fact that we had to travel between obstacles or whatever they're called in a single file line, and this was made worse by the fact that i happened to always end up second-last in line. which would not have been so bad if not for the horrible brat of a child that always happened to bring up the rear of said line, and who would always, without fail, proceed to shove me along when we were moving from one obstacle to another. this was not fun. to add further stress to my psychological welfare was the expectation to perform a somersault-flip thing on the bars. which i can perform now without any trouble, but to a five-year-old, hurling yourself headfirst and temporarily upside-down over a metal bar with only the hard gymnasium floor to cushion your blow (there was probably a mat but this is a trauma tale) is nothing short of terrifying. where was the guarantee that i would make it ut of this seemingly impossible feat alive, without the very real possibility of smashing my head on the ground, should i fail? to make matters even worse, the gymnastics instructor, to my memory, was not one for providing much in the way of assurance and encouragement. 
At least i only had to go once a week, and after the allotted time, i was allowed to return to my safe, comfortable life of playgrounds, classrooms, and a prep teacher whom i adored. 
but alas, little did i know, the playground i so dearly cherished also held hidden threats which would come to draw a line under the whole business (this being my fear of gymnastics)

basically, I was walking around the oval at school with my across-the-road neighbour, when we happened upon a balance beam. she convinced me to walk along it, which i did, only to fall off the balance beam, graze my shins and bang my chin on my knee, causing further injuries in the way of a bloody lip and a lost tooth. ergo, psychological trauma, no more gymnastics for me, but also i think  the rightful acquisition of the pertaining lifescouts award. here is my badge.

this is the best.

she had it before anyone else

Now, i'm not one to condone the current trends in the language of today's youth, but this is priceless.

Love me some Grandma Yetta. hipster as fuck. 

Lifescouts #5

So far i feel like most of the lifescout experiences i've had are fairly generic, so i tried to choose one that maybe isn't so common, or in any case is perhaps a bit more interesting.
so i chose the Rainforest Badge.

a few fun stories about me and rainforests.
1. I went to Queensland on a holiday with my family when i was six or seven (where else but queeeenslaaaand...who remembers that song?) and one of the things we did was a rainforest walk. it wasn't guided, we just went as a family, and we read a sign along the way that said 'beware of cassowaries" 
a cassowary for those who don't know is a somewhat threatening bird that looks like this:

the sign , which looked like this:

told us that if confronted by a cassowary, one should back away slowly and hide behind a tall tree. 

we all laughed thinking this would not be a problem and went on our merry way. we were happily walking through the rainforest when A WILD CASSOWARY APPEARED! (cue pokemon music)

so we all did the logical thing and hid behind dad.

i was going to share another rainforest-related anecdote but i realised you can't top the cassowary story so here is my badge. 

Lifescouts #4

my fourth lifescouts badge is.... 
KARAOKE!!!

if anyone can't award themselves this badge they have lived a seriously deprived life. 
karaoke is in my opinion one of the most fun things you can do, and the worse of a singer you are, the better. one of my stand-out karaoke memories is from my final year of high school, during which one of my friends decided to celebrate her 18th birthday with a karaoke party. she booked a room at a place called party world in the city, and a bunch of us went in and spent literally the whole day in a room equipped with a huge tv, microphones, TAMBORINES, food, drinks and of course, karaoke.
it was amazing.
and here is my badge. 

Lifescouts #3

the third lifescout badge i'd like to award myself is the Baking Cookies badge. 

again, this is something i've done many times, but the most memorable was the time i went to my friend's place and we baked a giant cookie with m'n'm's in it. it was glorious.

there's some photographic evidence of our giant cookie. it was slightly burnt after we cooked it but it tasted amazing. and here is my badge.

Lifescouts #2

I decided that for my second lifescouts post i would choose the Sunrise Badge.

i've probably witnessed more than one sunrise in my lifetime, but the story that stuck out in my head for this particular life experience was from Outward Bound, in 2007.

*Deep Breath*

So in year 9 at the high school i went to, they make you go on this camp called Outward Bound, where you camp in the wilderness of Australia for 9 days. and i mean, hardcore camping. you sleep in a "bivvy" which is basically a sheet of plastic hung up on a rope. you cook your meals on a campfire, you carry everything in a hiking pack which is very very heavy and you hike for a good 8 hours a day, from place to place. you also do a lot of camping "activities" like rock climbing and canoeing. basically all the stupid stuff teachers make high schoolers do whether they like it or not.

anyway, we were hiking to and sleeping at a different campsite each night, and one of the nicer ones was on the top of this mountain with a great view and some cows nearby, and that night we all decided to sleep under the stars.but then it rained during the night so we all ended up sleeping under the one bivvy that had been set up.now, a bivvy is designed to hold three people, and that night the solitary bivvy held all thirteen of us. it was a bit uncomfortable and cramped but also really fun, and in the morning we woke to one of the guys mooing in his sleep. yes, mooing, like a cow. we woke him up and asked him why he was mooing, to which he replied "i was dreaming about milk". (i probably should have explained that because outward bound does not enable refrigeration, we couldn't have real milk, so we were forced to drink this horrible powdered milk, and this particular boy complained endlessly about it.) 

anyway after being woken by sleep-moos, we all traipsed out of the bivvy to find a glorious sunrise view. the end. 

and here is my badge