The cat’s already out of the bag – if you missed in see my earlier post ‘The Dreaded lurgy…‘ But we’re not quite there yet. Monday I woke up late. I was still tired, had a headache and was dehydrated. I thought, I probably just need to drink more (more water to be clear!). Even though I had been drinking a lot. When April sent at email advising that several people in North can tested positive for COVID I was a little concerned, but I was sure that I’d be fine and I felt OK.
Monday afternoon was an excursion to the Laundromat – the first time in probably 20 years or so, since our washing machine broke and I went with Mum. It was relatively painless and all seemed to work OK – I skipped washing the FPS shirts, but apart from that I had a fresh complement of clean clothes. The stains that I hadn’t noticed my jeans when I packed them even came out. I walked home, started to think that I should probably do some revision for my exam on Tuesday night. It was leftover pizza for dinner and sleep.
I woke up on Tuesday and I was much less sure that I definitely didn’t have COVID – see the post above for more details. The one thing I forgot to mention is my iPhone also sent an exposure notification saying that I had probably been exposed which added to my worry. However, RAT test was negative and I had an exam that night, so I wasn’t going anywhere anyway.
I moved the TV over to my desk as a second monitor and started to so some review for the exam. I also order UberEats McDonalds to munch on while I was studying. The exam when surprisingly well, even though I wasn’t feeling great I didn’t find it too hard and I’m hopeful that I should do pretty well. By this time I was definitely feeling poor so it was into bed even though sleep wouldn’t come I had the fever, hot’n’colds and body aches to keep me company.
Wednesday I felt slightly better or I tried to convince myself I did, but though I tried to rationalise avoiding it with how I was feeling I knew I had to take another RAT test before I could travel tomorrow. It came back as I knew it would, even though hoping it wouldn’t – I was positive. I wasn’t happy.
IC 2022 is done. The first in person IC after two years virtually do to COVID. It was great to be together in person, it was a great success. I’m looking forward to bigger and better things next year.
So it was an early wake up on Sunday morning. I scrambled around getting all my things together and bringing my car over. I managed to get everything packed and loaded in my car with enough time to check out right before I had to head over for the closing ceremony.
The closing ceremony was a closing ceremony, fairly long and only mildly interesting. I think sometimes closing ceremonies can be harder because you know they mean the end of a fun event and you don’t want to celebrate the end. The highlight was probably getting to see the Kambala middle & senior teams perform their action plan presentations – as they both one their divisions they got to perform them at the closing ceremony which was cool.
Australia had some good results, which was great to see. I’ve put a list at the bottom of the post if you’re interested. At the conclusion of the ceremony I hung around a bit, I was down to help backup but I don’t think Was very useful. I chatted to a few people, then decided it was time for me to head to y AirBnB in Boston. After a quick stop at Walmart to make use of the bathrooms I headed off to Boston and arrived without incident, though it did take a few laps to find parking. The rooms was good, it’s occurring to me now that I should have taken pictures of my accommodation, I’ll try and do that from now on. I was hungry, very tired and had a headache (first symptoms even if I didn’t recognise them at the time). So I went for an early dinner of pizza and chicken which I walked down and got. It was good, but I’m still not sold on potato on a pizza… Then it was time for an early night.
The flags leaving at the end of the closing ceremony.
Australia IC Results:
Our Australian students have achieved some incredible results at the FPSP 2022 International Competition. Congratulations to
Shelby Strong, William Clarke College, NSW, 1st Place Junior Division Scenario Performance
Rosie Finley, Illawarra Christian School, NSW, 2nd Place Middle Division Scenario Performance
So we’re up to Saturday night. After the Variety Show I rushed off the find the student union. I was one of the chaperones for the dance. Not long after arriving Paige came up to Andrew and I and said the games haven’t arrived at the games night, does one of you want to walk back to North and deliver them in a golf cart. I said that I as I had a car parked at the variety show I could take that back and do it. I got back to North, was looking for the games and found April who said she had already taken them over. So I headed back to the dance, getting to drive one of the FPS golf carts for the first time! After a few wrong turns I parked it at the back entrance.
The dance was entertaining. The older students only stayed for the first hour and I don’t blame them. I know from my experience as a student at IC the best times were sitting outside at night talking to people from halfway across the world and singing song together with a guitar (also drinking Ale-8, but we were in Kentucky! it’s a mostly Kentucky only drink that I still love.) It was your typical high school social. amazingly they seem not to have changed much since I was in high school.
Turns out this is still a thing:
Watching, sometimes singling along and reminiscing about our lost youth was enjoyable. After my lamenting the lack of Taylor Swift, Paige spoke to the DJ and we did get You Belong to Me. We didn’t love all the song choice, appropriateness wise and Paige vetoed one sone, but overall it was a good night. We finished about half and hour early as there was only a handful of people left. We managed to squeeze 6 people on to the golf cart back to north, but Andrew and I standing up and holding onto the roof. Paige wasn’t too sure, but it went fine. I did a brief bit of organising to pack in the morning and then hit the sack. Final night, sad.
