The big show.. Thorpey!

I was actually looking forward to this mornings swimming. I had never seen Ian Thorpe swim live, after all the build up to the big event everyone was looking forward to seeing where he had come to with his training and what he could do under all this pressure. I didn't think that he had it in him. He proved me wrong, he blew everybody away, His heat swim was outstanding! He really showed why he was the best. Right from the start, he was in front, his stroke was smooth and neat. He was pulling away from the field with every lap, come the home stretch he took his foot right off of the peddle! His stroke slowed, force faded, and participants passed. The crowd confused watched him ease into the end. He wouldn't blow out a candle. The King was back!

The Thorpeedo

The finals session had sold out in anticipation of Thorpe's performance. After many efforts from other Olympic candidates, Thorpe's time was nigh, to back up from the heats and progress toward the final. The crowd was bursting with excitement. Out from the blocks as the heats! Powering through the first half of the race like a legend! Something was wrong, the swim looked so much harder than it was supposed to be. It really showed in the back end of the race too. Slowing he was passed by men much stronger, left behind he was forced to face the media. "What happened?" The crowd sat silent. After his awe inspiring swim of promise he finished 11th, far from what was expected. His comeback ceased, we walked with many questions unanswered.

Picking up the pieces.

The mighty phoenix.

Today was first contact with another college, Grace College our sister college. After another bout with the Sir's and PT we went for another shower run and met on the hill in dress shoes and boxers. Accompanying our nakedness were homemade bow ties and flowers. This was our apparel to greet our sister college and following events.

Grace College's lovely ladies

Carrying Viva el Presiente Sir Brumby

What are we doing...

We performed our perfected Sunshine Mountain greeting. The ladies of Grace College kindly accepted our gifts (handmade flowers), these ranged from garden flowers to napkins to cardboard boxes and anything in between. We walked them back to the King's dining hall linked arms all the way like the gentlemen we are. What really confused me was how little ladies eat! Each King's fresher was to serve breakfast for their Grace lady, I didn't think that I gave her much.... She ate only a fraction of what it served!

"Magikarp, use splash!"

"Rapidash, use Flamethrower!"

"Rapidash, use tackle!"

"Squirtle, use water gun!"

 The Sir's were bored. Magikarp, Squirtle and Rapidash were called forth to compete in Pokemon Stadium! 
This was utterly unexpected, these guys had no idea what was going on! It was hilarious though!
"Magikarp, you're useless!"
"Rapidash, where's the fire!"
 
The day was all about Grace, we had lunch and went ice skating with them. Practically none of the freshers of either college knew how to skate, everybody was failing pretty hard. Somehow all of the exec's were awesome! Unbeknown to us they must have been skating for weeks beforehand, they kept their cool, still professional and we were still the gumbies... "Who has balls?" The King's exec asked. We all raised our hands, an exec skated up with his shirt off and slid across the ice and followed to ask who wanted to go through with it. I was one, I followed through three times.

Slippery Salmon

We then headed back to Grace to dine with them before the bush dance. The barbeque wasn't quite filling, but what should I have expected from this mornings breakfast! We continued to "speed date", getting into round shape (hardly a circle). Grace ladies in one ring and King's freshers in another, we introduced ourselves and talked for 30 seconds before shifting clockwise.

Gandalf's staff

The bush dance was interesting to say the least, it was the first sort of party that I had attended with strangers... I was intimidated to say the least, I ended up just talking to ladies I knew from home until more Grace ladies passed by and joined the conversation. From there I just drifted, I met some lovely Grace ladies and some more King's freshers. Overall I had a good night and good day. I'm looking forward to tomorrow!

So it begins!

"Small circles freshers!"

After getting to sleep at 2am the last thing that I expected was to be waking up to Lamb of God penetrating the dark! The Sir's were patrolling the hall slamming on doors, "Wake up freshers!!" Little did I know comfort and time are not what we had, I was late coming into the quad for our second confrontation. The PT had commenced. Not much needs to be said, I found it hard, probably because I do all my work in a pool... They gave us a good challenge. I felt sorry for those who weren't so fit. We had 10 minutes to get to our rooms have a shower and back on the hill! We had to learn to be quick and efficient, this wasn't going to be the only time.

"We hate gaps!"

After breakfast we learned two dances! Out in the middle of the quad with the harsh sun beating down on us we tried and failed time after time until we had Sunshine Mountain and Father Abraham perfected. By the end of this session the majority of us we sweaty, sunburns and stained by grass, another shower run was in motion. This would prove pointless as we were off to paintball, for hours! Our burnt battered bodies could take it, we were on the road to becoming Kingsmen!

Waterside!

King's obstacle course, picture are worth one thousand words..

"Hurry up freshers! Force through the mud!"

"Don't forget your kegs!"

"We want to go a paddle! Take us to the water"
"Oh, we forgot our life jackets. Bring us back up!"

"You're half way there! Keep running freshers!"

 









After a scant serving of food at paintball we returned to King's for a sufficient dinner before moving out to destination unknown. "You will have fun tonight." Is all they left us with. We went all the way out to Chermside Westfield to go ten pin bowling, finally something that we could relax into! This was short lived, after two games we were shuttled back to King's to another late night of hazing. We learned "Can't keep my eyes off of you" and the King's College war cry, once again hours passed and we were ready. We performed our practice in out the back of Women's College, we had not met another college and I did not know what to make of it. We were having fun.


The first full day was over. We had no idea what we were going ourselves into, It is going to be a long week. But, we wanted more!

Lets try that again...

I started writing about my travels over the years and did go off on an obscure tangent. Such that I thought it would be in everybody's best interest that the post never sees the light of day.

Take two...

For the first 16 years of my life I had lived in the same town, interacted with the same people protected by the small bubble I called home. As far as my swimming or school had taken me I always had someone from home by my side, I never thought about it until I was on my own. I attended my first first five years of high school, 7-11, at Maclean High School on the north coast of New South Wales. Then I made a devastating decision, I had made the choice to move to a Brisbane based boarding school in my senior year to peruse my foolish sporting dreams.

Why now?? I was offered several scholarships to the same schools in year 9. No thought to it I declined, I loved it at home and I wasn't going to give it up for anything. I kept in touch with one coach for a number of years and heard the school had spent in excess of $20m on new sporting facilities. By this time I had become a lot more serious about my sport. During school holidays I made a trip up to train for a week at the new pool, I must say I was very impressed and could see the benefits to my swimming. At this time I was not thinking of the social or scholastic suffering, this would soon be made clear.

I made the shift to Brisbane, I hated it. I will leave it at that. I was glad that 2011 had ended and 2012 was to begin. I had finished my schooling career, I decided to delay my meeting with reality for a few years and fix my mistakes made in the past year. I will be going to King's College at the University of Queensland in mid february.

Me, Myself and Michal

A start would be the five w's! Who? What? When? Where Why? Or whichever order suits your fancy. I don't have a particular style, I will mix and match from all over the place checking out what I like and what works best. So please don't scrutinise my inconsistencies!
I will start with where i'm at now and let my ramblings take me to me to my end.
This is my opinion feel free to question.
 To describe my nature would take much more than words alone.
My name is Dylan Brown. I am 17 years of age. My birthday resides in the near land of February. I was born into and have lived in a house next to a lake in the hamlet Wooloweyah (NSW).

I am a strange boy, I know not how to describe myself. I am no one, I am not special, I am different, this I know and has always been so. I am just another plain face to a crowd (with my hair ablaze). To the passer by I would be as dry as a family reunion, underneath I think there is a lot that i still have to learn. Through this blog I hope to reflect and find more of myself, sorry if you don't want to hear any of this. I think I have to realise this now, i'm not doing myself any favours by being selfish. When I move to college I want to change my attitude toward people and myself, I am not happy with the person I am. 

Last year I made possibly the worst or best decision of my life.

I am beginning a new life at The University of Queensland! I am excited about this, it is my first real opportunity to start anew. I have made many mistakes along my short life and am loving the thought that I could change it all! Not the person I am, that would be too hard for the little satisfaction I would get. But the way that I interact with people, I have a lot of people that do not like me. I don't know what I have done to achieve this relationship with them, no matter how hard I try to make amend with them nothing seems to prosper! With a new group of people I think that I can make a better life for myself with no prior knowledge.

More photos!

Although I am a very busy boy I don't seem to do a lot! When I think about it I must be wasting lot of time. I don't do much in terms of sport, I swim, that's it! I don't participate in any social sports (as much as I would like to). But I would say that I am a very active individual, I do walk, run and ride everywhere (until I got my P's xD). Everything is competition to me, yes I am that kid that thinks PE is the Olympics. Hate me now! Whether it is food, school, sport or even height. Maybe this is why people hate me? I have to stop becoming so jealous though. I know I cannot be perfect, I am far from it, but i still want and try to be! Unrealistic as it is that is me. It gets me down a fair bit and i have deal with it.


Just had a metal blank, what I was doing I have no idea! Train of thought didn't crash, it went Harry Potter on me and flew away.

Watch this space.

nworbnalyd

Just havin' a go.

Test

I have recently seen blogs posted by friends of mine. I don't understand what they achieve or what they are designed for, I would like to find out! I have some idea what I could do, this idea isn't appealing to me but I have different motives. I would like to become more literate, I am a terrible reader and writer. At a young age I was an avid reader and reading above my age, I don't know what happened but in year four I suddenly lost interest in the need to read.

I will try to use 'blogging' as a tool to encourage myself to write and read regularly, exposing myself to intelligent works fabricated from friends with lives much more interesting than my own. Honestly I haven't read too many books in the past few years. I love to read but have trouble finding the motivation to keep going, I will pick a book up and put it back down after reading the first few chapters. Not due to lack of interest, but something strange in my own mind.

I need pictures to keep me interested :/

I'm not really sure what the content of a blog details. It could be used for different reasons; news, diaries, opinions etc.. I don't expect anyone to read these posts, I am purely writing to improve my degenerate skill. In saying that I will try to produce something interesting, something that I can look back on years later and be compelled to read. Unfortunately i've been pretty bland for years, hopefully I can change, otherwise it will be a tough exercise reading through post I will pile up.

What I will most likely write about is what I do every day infused with some opinions, trends, yarns and ramblings. Otherwise I wouldn't give myself a chance of writing anywhere near the quantity that I need to improve the quality of my 'works'. If know me and read this you will find that i'm not very creative, I hope in time to become more inventive for my own satisfaction and entertainment.

I think I have gone on too long, whether this opinion of length and attentiveness will change as my production increases I don't know. Sorry if I have bored you, I do that a lot.

Catcha,

Dylan