The Adventures of Hobo

I'm not sure who came up with the name, but Hobo was our mascot on Band Tour in August. Most of those photos of Hobo were taken on a haunted ghost tour, which was not scary at all because it turned into a history lesson about the house. Band Tour was right after my Trial Exams so it was a great break from studying - touring country NSW. I felt quite old, being one of about 6 or 7 year 12s while there were a lot of year 9s and 10s. However, I still had heaps of fun getting to know some of the people in the younger grades, although I only had a few weeks of school left then. The great memories on Band Tour definitely make up for all those early morning band rehearsals and the troublesome band competitions.

Picnic

The last Thursday of school was spent with the whole grade at a park, enjoying a picnic and water fights. It was our last 'excursion' as a grade and I definitely enjoyed the bus ride with all my friends and our singing wars. Even though it was only early Spring, it was really hot and sunny which was definitely good for an outdoor picnic. It was a very fun day.

Last Days of School

With the end of high school, it's time to reflect on the past 6 years of high school and even the past 13 years of schooling. Although it was boring at times and I probably studied a bit too much, overall, I really enjoyed high school. I made some awesome friends, had some inspiring and entertaining teachers and I leave with lots of great memories.

Cute little year 7s on the bus. I will miss school bus rides with my friends.

A little bit of bromance.

We had lots of fun on our maths table (not necessarily maths-related)

I don't know why he had an eye patch...

Bored (and most likely texting) in the middle of an Art theory lesson.

The Road Not Taken and Options

Yesterday I went to both the Open Days for UTS and USYD. It was pretty hectic and I unfortunately didn't have much time to ask questions about the degrees and now I am currently conflicted between two degrees. One is safe and standard the other is more risky and 'the road not taken'.

Bachelor of Commerce (Liberal Studies) at USYD

Pros

• My parents approve
• USYD and its beautiful campus
• USYD has a great exchange program
• I'm pretty interested in the courses
• 4 years
• Leaves me with options for when I graduate

Cons

• It's not what I'm truly passionate about...

Bachelor of Design in Photography and Situated Media + Bachelor of Arts in International Studies at UTS

Pros

• I looooove photography
• I like the Director guy - he seems to want photographers who think 'outside of the box'
• If I want to pursue photography as a career, I will have lots of connections
• If I tried really hard, I could possibly get 99.75 ATAR and get the Vice Chancellor scholarship that's worth $12K per year

Cons

• I'm not 100% sure if I want to be a photographer
• 5 years with International Studies - it might be too long for me, especially if I want to do Post Grad in something else
• UTS doesn't have a very good exchange program
• My parents don't approve

What to do...

Besides Photographer, I'm also considering careers like Art Gallery Curator (Bachelor of PSM kinda relates to that) or starting my own business, selling creative products like photography accessories (B.Comm (Lib) is probably more useful for that).

I'm going to UNSW next weekend. Hopefully I won't be even more conflicted after that...

Also, I spent the week in country NSW on Band Tour. We went to towns like Wagga Wagga, Gundigai, Bathurst, Young and Katoomba. I will post about it later.

Friends

So if you know me, you would know that I love photography. I would have to say, I love taking photos of my friends the most. We spend all these great times together and I get really excited capturing those times for us to look back on in the future.

Wednesday and Thursday, right after I finished my Trials, were spent celebrating Penny's 18th. She asked me to organise her party for her so I spent a lot of time and energy organising (throughout Trials) her 'surprise' birthday celebrations. It was hard figuring out what to do, when, where and how to get Penny to her party without her knowing. However, I have to say, it was definitely worth it. We (or at least I did) had a lot of fun just hanging out and not having to study (although we were still worried over how we did in our exams).

The two day birthday celebrations involved a classy ladies night out, sleepover at Penny's and a whole group barbecue. The 'classiness' of our ladies night out get ruined a bit by the rain but I still had a lot of fun dressing up and going out. The sleepover involved junk food, webcamming random guys from school until 4am, 'girl talk' and little sleep. Then we managed to spend a good part of Thursday just relaxing at a park - games, food, talking.

Hair moustaches 'cause we're girls.


Penny and her idols - Ohno, Seungri, KevJumba, Leehom


Killing Bryan/Martin.


The closest thing we got to a group photo.

I can't wait until schoolies.

I can't wait until the next time we go out as a whole group.

I can't wait until the next classy ladies night out. (Is it going to be right after HSC or for my birthday???)
I can't wait until I see you all at school tomorrow (although I'm not sure if these feeling are reciprocated)

Happy New Year!

Wow, it's already 2011. For me, 2010 was a good year. I became close(r) to some great people and while also maintaining pretty good school marks, I also let my creative side flow through art and music (not so much dance this year, unfortunately). Some of the highlights of the year would involve outings with friends (Kumcha and "Can you get off me please?"), camps ("Snakes on Plains") and the National Art School B&W photography course I did for two weeks. With my final year of high school now having arrived, I hope 2011 can be even greater and more memorable.

So for the first time, I went to the city to watch the fireworks. I was expecting it to be incredibly boring, waiting over 9 hours for the fireworks but surprising I had lots of fun as my friends (and camera) managed to keep me entertained for the whole time. We managed to find a spot that was shady, not very crowded and had a great view of the Harbour Bridge. One thing I didn't enjoy was the half hour queue for the disgusting toilets. Overall, it was still a worthwhile experience and I hope to go again in the future (so long as I'm not overseas).

Also, I was extremely disappointed that my DSLR ran out of batteries at 11:57pm. However, I did manage to get some decent pictures of the midnight fireworks with my camera phone (as seen above).

At that point in the afternoon, I guess you could say we were ever so slightly bored...


These boys hope to get top marks this year.








Taken during the 9pm Family Fireworks




To celebrate the new year =)

Also, I'm going try and do a 365 this year so please check out my Flickr and tell me what you think.