State Music Camp

From the 10th - 15th of July I was in Adelaide for a music camp. Camp actually only started on the 11th but I  went down the day before because it started the next day at quater past eight - I didn't particularly want to get up and leave at 6am in the morning for the 3 hour trip to Adelaide. During the first half of the week I stayed with some friends and then with some friends of the friends (which our now our friends).
First day we were put into our ensembles, and I was put into the Shephard Concert Band (the other ones were orchestras). It was great because there were (at least) 15 other clarinets apart from me in our band :D
It started with everyone assembling into the main hall. Then there was the morning meeting. We were allowed to take the music home (or where we're staying) to practice but we had to return them before the meeting - otherwise we got 'publicly shamed' which was, he'd read out the part that was missing (eg. Shephard Concert Band, second clarinet, desk 2.) and then everyone would say.... "shaaaaaaaaaaaame" - it was funny. I didn't get shamed once! =D
We practised from 8:30ish - either 10:30 or 10:45 (am) - this was our morning tea break. And then we did another practice from 10:45/11:00 - Lunch. After lunch there was a meeting thing and they told us who didn't return their music before lunch - they got shamed too.
Then we practised from after lunch till the end of the day (usually around 3:30)
Our practices was either;
a) A full rehearsal with the whole band
b) A practice with just your instruments - eg. all the trumpets went into one room, the trumpets in another, the flutes in another etc. etc. etc.
c) A sectional practice - all the woodwinds / all the brass

Then... I caught the bus and went home (my first time on a public bus that week)

The performance went rather well (on the 15th) I really enjoyed it - and I'm pretty sure everyone else did too!
It was a great week!

Melbourne!

After the conferences last week, my brother, Dad, and I all stayed with our Granny, 2 Aunties, Uncle and 4 (boy) cousins. We had a great time, I helped out with the cooking (chocolate pudding and chocolate chocolate chip biscuits, yum!) while my brother played computer games with our cousins - I joined the games a little later!
We stayed there for 5 days, on Sunday I went to mass and used the new translation for the words - since my local church still uses the old ones, it was confusing, but I got through it all right. On Monday morning, it was time to leave, so we said 'goodbye' to our Granny, Aunty, Uncle, and two cousins (the other two were asleep) and headed home. I can say, I was tired by the end! :-) It was a good trip, can't wait to go  back!

Conferences

On Tuesday, July 28th, my brother, father, and I jumped into the bus to go to Adelaide for a homeschooling conference. At the conference, we got to listen to and meet Dr Jay Wile, who wrote our science books. His books are published by Apologia, and they are for high school students. His books are; General Science, Physical Science, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Advanced Chemistry, Advanced

We all enjoy his books so much, and it was such an exciting experience to meet him!

At 5pm the very same day that we went to Adelaide, the conference ended and we had to travel to Melbourne for the next conference, which was the next day. I can say this, I was really tired! We arrived in Melbourne at around 2am, and we set up our sleeping bags, and fell asleep. At the conference the next day we had a very good time - we had a hotdog each (yay!) and my  brother and I also had a sundae each (double yay!) At around 8.30pm, Dr Wile finished his last and went back to the place where he was staying to pack and maybe have a little rest since that he was going to catch a plane back to America at 3am. We all helped to pack up and clean up. It was fun and we met many new people. All in all, they were great conferences!