Well I’m back from ‘the island’ and I must say I had a really good time. My days were taken up with swimming, sitting in front of the fire and basically doing not much at all. I was suprised with the amount of people from school that were down there, with two houses of Haileybury people just down the road from us. Some of the highlights were Lynton finishing of half a slab of VB for $5, Jimmy falling asleep on the road and Pat and his general hate of people.

After leaving Phillip Island yesterday I headed back to Pat’s place where I crashed the night and awoke early to head to Leadership Camp. The camp was alright and it was a good opportunity to brief some of the upcoming prefects. It also gave me an opportunity to catch up with some teachers and students alike. Of course my Haileybury days aren’t quite over yet with two more speech nights to go to this week, and then there is finally some light at the end of the tunnel.

Yesterday was the last day of school. We started with the breakfast in Altera Terra, then moved onto our final House Assembly. At the house assembly we were all given a small bag which contained a Year 12 photo of Castlefield, a big Year 12 photo with everyones photo as well as a caricature drawn by Darwin Truong and finally a copy of the House DVD. After the House Assembly we moved onto our final school assembly which was awesome. Amazingly not many water bombs were thrown and it was a fantastic way to see out our last assembly. Then we moved onto chapel where the Rev told his favourite joke, and we all sang Jerusalem for the last time as students. Then to cap off the day we all had lunch with the staff in the Year 12 common room, which was pretty good except there was no where near enough food or drinks. We listened to speeches by Luke Skelton, Matthew Robinson and Adam Ricciuti as well as an impromptu speech by Stephen Cavnoudias.

About 4 hours later we all headed back to school for our graduation. The graduation was rather boring (as was last years) but it marked the official end of my time at Haileybury as a student. Then came the best part of the night, the Valedictory dinner. With free alcohol and awesome music provided by the staff band (thank you Mrs. Kendall) it proved to be an unforgettable night. I got a lot of photos which I have put up on my gallery for those that are interested. All in all yesterday was a day that wont ever be forgotten and it marked the beginning of a new journey. I hope that I will stay in touch with most of the people in my year level, it has been an absolute honour to know you and I wish you all the very best for the future.

There’s one more day of school before I graduate. Today was the last combined assembly which was rather sad. We sang “For We Are Haileybury” and there’s was a funny Pac Man prank that happened during assembly. I also had my last classes today which also included my last ever class of Math. It’s kinda sad to finish classes but they have never been my favourite part of school. I also gave most of my teachers there gifts which for many was a bottle of wine, although Watto got the South African Edition of Monopoly (and a bottle of wine). I still have to give some of my smaller gifts out (ie. to teachers that didn’t teach me etc.) many of them are those page a day calendars which I got a pretty good deal on and chocolates.

Today was the last day with the girls which was rather sad, and I spent most of the day getting hugs and signing dresses (and the occasional shirt for those guys that couldn’t wait till thursday). Tomorrow there is no school as it is the girls graduation, then finally Thursday is our graduation which I’m looking forward, yet at the same time it feels like it is way too soon.

Today was back to day and I had the pleasure of going back to Edrington. It’s amazing to see exactly what has changed, and what has stayed the same. It was weird to be walking around somewhere so familiar yet so different but it was a great morning reminiscing about some of the great memories I have of Middle School. I must admit, I miss being in Middle School. There was so much less pressure, we went and played sport nearly every day and most importantly everyone knew each other. It was good to see some of the teachers that came back such as Ms. Stewart (who now works at Caulfield Grammar), Ms Ruse, Mr. Twist (now Vice Principal) and Mr. Bennett (Dean of Staff). We also spent ages talking about some of the other teachers like Mr. Edgoose and his $350 canteen tab (made up primarily of Dim Sims), Mr. Clayton and the time he got his keys stuck in the roof, Mr. Shiell and his overall enthusiasm for the subjects he taught and Ms. Watts for her, well, controversy.

We then went back to Keysborough on what would be our last ever bus trip together as the Berwick boys, and it was off to class then the OHA lunch. Then finally the Year 12 review which was funny as always (although the problems with the video caused many of the jokes to be ruined). Now there is only two more days of school until we graduate and I suppose it has hit me that in 3 days time everything that I enjoy the most about my life will be gone. Although I won’t lose touch with Haileybury it will never be the same with everyone gone.

Today was a rather hectic yet productive day. I got to school moderately late for me (about 8:20am) and went to tutor to listen to a speech by Mr. Hopwood about my political aspirations (I want to run for parliament in the 2010 election). Then it was class and then some more class closely followed by recess and then more class. Then during lunchtime I managed to get about 20 photos for the graduation power point bringing the total number of needed photos down to 7. I then loaded the photos onto the network, went to another class and then spent until about 5:45pm adding photos to the power point and talking to Luke (not to mention answering my phone about 10 times). Tomorrow will sadly be my last Friday of school as a student, and then it’s onto the final week.

I’ve finally found the time to write a post. It’s now halfway through the holidays and I’ve used it as a time to have a break, as well as do some school work. I can’t be bothered going through my previous week in detail but I had a pretty good weekend. I obviously watched the AFL grand final on Saturday at the Stamford Plaza in Melbourne, and then headed to Liam’s place for a ‘couple’ of drinks. Overall it was an enjoyable night and gave me a good chance to catch up with people that I don’t often get to at school. Then Sunday was the long awaited NRL grand final in which Melbourne Storm overcame the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles. Then today was a quiet day, however I did wash my car and gave it a much needed vacuum. I also received another article for the Year 12 magazine bringing the total to three, so for those who still owe articles (I knows that two of you read my blog on occasion) please send/start them.

Last night I went and saw Fame. I was very impressed with the professionalism of the show and I congratulate all the cast and crew on their work. Luke has however earnt the nickname “Curtains” for his wonderful performance on opening night, however apart from that everything went relatively well. I wish I had the time to actually be involved with the performance however unfortunately this was not possible.

On another note this weekend will be a relatively quiet one, however I am going into the University of Melbourne on Sunday for their open day so that should be good.

Last night, Lynton, Pat, James and Myself headed into the city to see the newly released Simpson’s movie. I must say it was far better than what I thought it would be and there were plenty of humorous moments throughout. After the movie Pat came up with the idea of going to China Town for dinner which ended up being a really good idea cause it was good food and cheap as well. We then spent about half an hour walking down to Salutis (on Collins St) to find it was closed so we then walked up Little Collins looking for a bar. We ended up finding “Harry’s Bar” which was good cause we were one of the only ones there and it was reasonably priced (and it was close to the hotel). After a couple rounds of beers and a martini we headed back to Victoria Hotel where we were spending the night. Lynton and James both went to sleep while Pat and myself did a Pizza/KFC run at 3:00am, I also got a free cappucino from the pizza place (you get one when you buy a medium pizza) and while I was drinking the cappucino we saw the people that worked in the store get in a fight with a guy that stole something. After getting the pizza we headed down to KFC to get some chips and I ended up standing in line for about 40 minutes which was ridiculous. All in all though it was a great night and wasn’t too hard on the wallet.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released yesterday to great fanfare. I had the morning off so I decided that I would join the hundreds of people at Borders Chadstone. Now your probably wondering why I, the same person that can’t tolerate standing in line at the canteen for longer than a couple of minutes actually managed to wait in line for a couple of hours on a Saturday morning. The reason was, I had agreed to pick up a number of people’s pre-ordered copies thinking that it would take me 15 minutes max, I also had my pre-ordered copy (and owl) waiting. Also if I had been at home dad would of had me busy preparing for my brothers 13th Birthday (more about that later on). The experience of being at Borders yesterday morning was pretty cool, and it is probably the only time I will see hundreds of people queuing up for a book (some sad people actually felt the need to dress up, I mean if it’s a little 8 year old then yeah it’s cute, but seriously if your 45 and went to the launch yesterday dressed as a wizard then you really need to re-evaluate your life). I felt sorry for the staff at Borders who a) had to dress up b) had to deal with hundreds of screaming kids & c) deal with their normal workload on top of that. I was very proud of myself for cutting about an hour from the wait time by going down to the magazine and CD level where the queue was drastically shorter, you see people don’t realise you can pay for books down there, they think that you can only buy CD’s. After that I headed to school and got the team photo for First Football which turned out pretty average. Then I headed home to help set up my brothers 13th. He ended up having about thirty kids over which was good for me because I was on alcohol patrol, you see my parents had decided that they weren’t allowing alcohol at this party so I went around and confiscated it off all the kids who ’smuggled’ it in, the best part is I got to keep it all because none of the kids wanted their parents to find out, so I now have (well at least did have until I decided to drink it) about $150 worth of booze including a full bottle of Wild Turkey (still sealed) and a bottle of Vodka (I still can’t believe these kids brought so much). Dad also managed to score some fireworks off one of his many ‘contacts’ which was awesome (we of course warned all the neighbours so they could lock their dogs up) I am still amazed the cops didn’t turn up. Finally today we dropped my brother off at the airport (he had flown down for the weekend) after having lunch in Lygon Street.

Today was one of those really frustrating days. It started with Lawson asking about team photos for aerobics and football umpiring and ended with leaving with an approval form from Scotty for the photos of the students to be put in the year 12 magazine. This one form has given me more grief than you possibly could imagine and I practically lived in Scott’s office all day today (broken up by my frequent trips to IT, which is inconveniently located at the other end of Senior School). Although one humurous moment was Luke “bursting into a fit of giggles” in math due to Ange’s book and me doing that excited voice thing when people walked past the window (Pant happened to walk past the window), anyway Luke almost got himself kicked out of math which was pretty funny. Also I just got off a 15 odd minute conversation on the phone with Nic in Singapore and it only cost me 30c thanks to MyNetFone, as opposed to my usual mobile charges of about $12 or the Telstra landline charges of about $15 and your soul.