流浪狸

Okay, another long-winded one. Two sections.

Viva La Vida: Blaxland House Rags Week Final Night

- Self-Styled “Best Rags Night Ever” -

So what we thought we’d do was…

There’s a school bell in the stairwell of the boarding house. And it hasn’t been used in over 10 years.

We spent half an hour trying various ways to open a box from which the power seemed to be entering and exiting:

• Firstly we assumed that the lock on the box was a latch lock and not a bolt lock.
• Next, we used a coathanger to try and pry the latch open… but the gap in between the door and the side of the box was too thin.
• So we tried a ruler. But that didn’t work either.
• We then noticed a small crack in the side of the box, underneath the lock’s position, so we used a hammer to give ourselves some leeway for the prying.
• But in the end it was the fact that the box was not made of strong wood that enabled us to use a knife to cut the broken lock out of the front, and pry the lock out of the side of the box.

So having got the box open, we noted a timer system (which was promptly stolen) and the plan was formed. On Wednesday night, the prank was to be pulled.

What did we do?

Well, the answer was simple. The time was 1:12 a.m. when the bell was turned on; and everyone filed out of the house due to the “fire drill” in order to get marked off. However, when they left the house, the door had locked behind them.

What they didn’t know was that buckets full of waterbombs had been placed in strategic positions.

So, the bell was turned off, and immediately the call of “Viva La Vida!” rang out instead. And we started pelting, and they started belting off to all corners of the school.

Suffice to say, anyone who attempted to get back into the house through the front door (as the back door was locked, and the bottom floor windows all closed after letting in two perpetrators) was completely PWNT by water, including buckets poured from a top floor window.

I finally wandered into bed around 3:15.

Viva La Vida: Valediction of the Class of 2008

- The Most Emotional Event in the History of Our Schooling -

So on the Thursday night… we started off with pre-Chapel service music, which was greatly entertaining, according to many people who came up to me and congratulated me on my performance of Debussy’s La cathédrale engloutie.

That was at 5:30. At 6:00 pm, we started off with Marko on organ playing an introit, as the Chapel Choir followed the procession into the Chapel and up around the crowd (and boy was the Chapel crowded) into the loft.

The service was truly something. We sang the Gloria from Josef Rheinberger’s Messe für Männerchor, which was really successful, and after a stunning message from the Bishop, we proceeded downwards during the final hymn (Guide Me O, Thou Great Jehovah; the first hymn was I Vow To Thee, My Country) to sing the Irish Blessing (May the road rise up to meet you… etc.). I was almost in tears as I made my way immediately back up to the loft to play Charles-Marie Widor’s Toccata from Symphony no. 5, which I played the best I have ever done.

So then we were off to dinner.

It was probably the most interesting awards night I’ve ever attended. I found out a lot about my fellow classmates from that night. I won’t go into particular detail, but the toasts made me a bit teary-eyed.

My awards, though:

• The Colonel C.Y. Liu Prize for Chinese
• A CGS Medal for Outstanding Contribution
• An Oxford Concise Dictionary for Being a Boarder for All Six Years of Secondary School

The dictionary effectively cost me $200,000 or thereabouts. XD

Then what?

Well, a few of us boarders headed up Red Hill to the carpark outside Mitzi’s restaurant. With the primary goal of getting totally trashed, so we had bought a few cases of Carlton Draught for that exact reason.

Within about an hour, though (and the time was now around 1:15 a.m.), a few more cars turned up, and we took the couch and mattress off a friend’s ute; which freed up space for some music to get happening.

Shortly afterwards, however, I had to move off the “mag”-tress (from maggot, drunk) for someone who was completely off his face, and puking everywhere. We ended up taking him home, which went alright, to return to a guy sitting on a wall, head between his legs.

But apart from those, we had a good time, or rather, we went buckwild. We danced until dawn, excepting the two times Constables Tanner and Sugar-Mate turned up and chatted to us. They were legends, and I shouldn’t go into detail. :p

Over the course of the night, we sang The Gambler, Grammar Jingle Bells and Guide Me O, Thou Great Jehovah multiple times, so come Friday morning my voice was completely screwed. Yep, I had a dub or two but surely that wasn’t it. X3

So, come dawn, we built a bonfire to watch the sun rise to. Just before the sun came up (5:43 a.m.) someone had the great idea of throwing the mag-tress on the fire. Someone had to run over it, three times, and by this time the flames were big enough to burn his hair… and so someone saw the fire.

We left the fire smouldering to go across the hill to change a message written in bedsheets (“CGS 08″) to a penis, being Grammar lads and obsessed by all things phallic, and by the time we got back, a fire engine pulled up. That someone obviously called the FD and thought it was a bushfire. So we barneyed.

And so then, it was 6:30 a.m. when we got back to school, and the objective was then to reset the Hall in time for:

Viva La Vida: The Mock Assembly, Final Speeches and Walk Out of the Quad

- 150 Or So Young Men Crying… In Broad Daylight -

The Mock Assembly. All of the jokes were in-jokes for various people around the school, for example our Head of Senior School is Alan Ball (A. Ball) and was represented by A Ball (the ball in question being an exercise ball.)

So that was good, I guess. Students@CGS will know what I mean.

And then we had the final assembly ever.

We said hello to the incoming School and Vice Captains, and said goodbye from the outgoing School and Vice Captains…

And then a lot of the Class of 2008 were crying. And we were still crying when we locked our arms around the shoulders of those next to us and sang Guide Me O, Thou Great Jehovah one last time.

And then we walked around the quadrangle, shaking hands and hugging the people we knew, running past the Junior School with outstretched high-five hands, and finally exiting through the Breezeway.

Which is where everyone broke down. Even the guy who said he was never going to cry leaving this place. It’s an indescribable feeling… and then it was over.

School’s out.

Yeah dog.

I’ll be wandering off somewhere else now, studying hard for HSC exams next term.

And then uni.

So, as always, keep yourselves wandering.