All I Am is Trapdoors and Attics

I am nothing but a lost cause, always trying and never succeeding, stuck between a brick wall and a hard place, the ocean and the sea. For I am simply a human being, breakable and misguided. I am not perfect, though I wish I was. I am always aiming for perfection and falling achingly short, forever wondering where I went wrong. I am always dreaming of what could be, the future that is so close within my grasp. I want that vision, that life, that version of who I am now.

I used to be so sure of everything that I wanted to become. I used to be so sure of my dreams, my goals, my aspirations. I used to have my entire future planned and laid out in front of me, waiting for that first step, that first grasp of success. I thought I knew what I wanted. I thought I knew everything I was going to do, every single step of the way. I had the subjects chosen, the career path set in place. I had everything waiting and then—

What happened?

I was going to study the maths and sciences. It was always going to be Biology, Chemistry, English, Methods and Psychology. It was always going be those five. And for five sure years it was those five. For five sure years I knew what they would be. I was going to be a doctor. I was going to work alongside the life giving nurses and be a real life hero. I was going to help people. I was going to save lives, cure cancer and make a difference in a world where it is so hard to make your mark.

But then?

I still want to be a hero. I still want to save lives and make a difference in this world.

Then what?

My interests changed and the doubts set in. I observed the people around me, how much smarter they all are and that I could never compete with them. I saw that they were all so much brighter than I am, far more knowledgeable, with futures brighter than mine could ever be. The doubts set in and tore everything I had apart. The doubts set in and tore away at my plans, my dreams. They tore away at my goals and my future. They tore at my path and everything I knew I wanted. They tore away at everything I had, and left me with the hollow corners of my mind and the doubts that reside beneath trapdoors and attics. 

VCE: The Final Frontier

Signing in and glancing back at the date of my last blog entry, I realise it has been a ridiculously long time since I have written anything. Well, since then, I suppose nothing of interest has actually happened. Life goes on, the school term starts, the school term ends, and then the cycle begins again. Unfortunately for me, this cycle has the added bonus of determining the rest of my life. Oh, the pressure.


VCE. The Victorian Certificate of Education. The acronym that evokes fear and depression in young teenagers like myself, every time it is uttered or a teacher drones on and on about how you have to do well and blah blah blah, it's in one ear and out the other. Quite frankly, it is a nightmare.


Like students before me, this two year course is a living hell. Each week builds upon the other, until finally, the exam period hits and it is BAM! BAM! BAM! Exam after exam after exam, until you reach the end and all that knowledge you have retained for God knows how long, is released and you can finally relax. Well, relax for a few days or so; because then the cycle starts again.


Another period of knowledge building occurs and then BAM! BAM! BAM! Exam period hits again, and you are stuck there in that room scrawling down everything you have learnt over the past year or however many months it has been since your last exam.


I myself have only just started this two year journey of self discovery. I have only just started the stress builder and knowledge overload. It isn't pleasant, believe you me, so I wonder how I am going to cope when I start year 12 at the end of this year. So far it has been okay, though in the first week of the year I found myself struggling. Why? Because I was stressing over crap that didn't needed to be stressed over. That and because I was doing two maths subjects (which was a complete drainer) which was already beginning to take its toll on me.


Now I am in my second term of year 11 (6 terms to go until it is all over!), with only six or so weeks until midyear exams. Am I looking forward to them? Well, no, not really? Am I prepared for them? Sort of. Considering that in little over 11 weeks, I have completed 2 Legal SACs, 2 Accounting SACs, 1 English SAC, 1 Methods SAC, 1 Chemistry SAC, undertaken a horrendous amount of tests and conducted an array of experiments, to say I'm 'sort of' prepared is ... well, suitable. Because it's true. I am only 'sort of' prepared.


But to be quite honest, the reason for that is because I am just way too lazy for this at the moment. Distractions are everywhere! Facebook, Tumblr, MSN, TV, this blog... If I don't learn to control this, I am going to end up crashing and burning when exams roll in. Oh dear...
VCE is a stressful experience. One that cannot be avoided. But what is it all for? What is all the hours of studying and repetition, pain and stress, for? Is it just so that we can sit for our final exams and be determined by a number on a page? An ATAR that means only to say that "Yep, you're smart enough for our university, you're accepted"?


As students, we are not distinguished by a number out of 100, or in this case 99.95 (what is with that?). We are distinguished by our achievements, our hard work and determination to strive for the number. We are distinguished by our friendships and downfalls, the periods when we feel like we have hit that brick wall and need to smash through it.


We are not numbers on a piece of paper. We are people. Bone and flesh and blood, breathing and breakable, and downright tired of being called a number.

Young Endeavour: Voyage of a Lifetime

Okay, so I have realised that it has been an impossibly long time since I last updated this blog of mine. I have also realised that a ridiculous amount of events has occured since I last posted, so I am going to attempt to update anyone reading with just what on earth has been happening in my rather busy start to 2011 - which, by the way, I wish everyone a Happy (belated) New Year!

So the big news of this year is that earlier in the month I went aboard the STS Young Endeavour for an eleven day voyage from Hobart to Devonport in Tasmania. Despite the incredibly bi polar weather that we experienced, I had a wonderful time that I don't think could ever be topped. I have learnt many things from that voyage - many of which are life skills and lessons that can easily be applied everyday life situations. I made friends who will always be there no matter what the situation is (we did kinda throw up in front of each other and rained the deck with our stomach contents...), and we've bonded in such a way that sometimes the friends we have on land are a little second rate. It isn't that we don't love the friends we had before the voyage, it's that we've shared so much together, having lived in such tight quarters (six females each in two six bunk cabins - the six births -, and twelve males in the twelve birth), and seen each other at our worst (passed out on deck, throwing up over the side, keeping stomachs at bay during meal times, etc.) and best. I guess that the saying "You've gotta have been there to know" applies a lot to the Young Endeavour situation.


Anyway, moving along to the whole story: I joined the crew through Navy Cadets, and as such was flown down from Melbourne to Hobart courtesy of the Royal Australian Navy (thanks folks!). It was two days after New Year so I was pretty excited, the whole novelty starting to catch up. I was greeted at the airport by a representative of the Australian Navy Cadets (ANC), along with two other cadets from around Australia - one from Western Australia and the other from Queensland. The rep. drove us around and showed us the sights to kill some time before he chauffeured us to the wharf in Hobart.


When we stepped aboard, we were greeted by the staff crew or "staffies" as they were called, and shown our sleeping quarters. We were then told to pack away our belongings and come up on deck to be introduced to the crew and say our goodbyes to families and land.


The staffies that we had were:

Commanding Officer/Captain (CO): Damien
Executive Officer/Sailmaster (XO): Kenny
Navigator (Nav): Joel
Officer of the Watch (OOW): Matt
Red Watch Leader: Carly
White Watch Leader: Penny
Blue Watch Leader: Dan
Chef: Snowy
Engineer: Lindsay

The youth crew were all appointed to watches; myself being appointed to Blue Watch, later to be known as "Blue Steel". I was in the watch with seven others - Amy, Bryn, Lauren, Leish, Louis, Nick and Xavier. As a watch we grew incredibly close, and had a brilliant time teasing and fooling around while we spent nights on watch and time hanging from the masts.

The first night we spent aboard was just within the vicinity of Hobart. They took the opportunity to send us up the foremast (the forward most mast), and to the topgallant - the very top of the foremast. We had to sit on the yards while we waited for everyone in our watch to "climb aloft". I was excited about this, and was the first female, and indeed, the first youth crew member to go up. The view was amazing - breathtaking, and perhaps the rocking of the ship was a little bit scary. I got over it in the end, too enthralled with the spectacular experience.

Moving right along, we sailed up the east coast, anchoring at various destinations along the way to play tourist - which is always so much fun. First stop: Port Arthur. This locale is rich in Australian history, much of it quite solemn, but I won't go into detail on here. It is most famous for being Australia's largest prison, in the sense that despite having no wired fencing, has a vast amount of water and trees in every direction. In our watches, we went ashore (hugged a tree as a lot of us had been sea sick getting there), had some chocolate (deprived we were aboard), and then went on a guided tour of the site. Our guide (above), showed us around and explained many things, including what certain buildings were and what was done in them.

After Port Arthur, we took up anchor and made way for Wine Glass Bay, which, might I say, was one of the most amazing places I have ever been to. The waters are pristine (dolphines greeted us; but then they do that every morning mind you), and the sand white as snow. We went for a day long hike around the area, reaching the top by noon and getting to the bottom and back on the ship (with a pitstop at the local supermarket to stock up on chocolate, soft drink and ice-cream) by four. We were basically dropped off in one bay and pickd up in another - Coles' Bay (as in the supermarket franchise, Coles - the guy behind Coles was born there or something), which is on the other side of the island. It was a great view from the top, by the way.

We spent that night docked in Coles' Bay and the barbeque which was awesome. We all slept soundly that night. The day had been warm, and we were expecting it to stay the same.

But ah, good old Tassie weather. The wind picked up and the swells rised when we raised the achor and set off for our next destination. During the whole ordeal in which we were being knocked around constantly along the Tasman, we still managed to have a good time. Our watch leader, in particular, decided that it would be a good idea to send two of us up the main mast to let fly the gaskets (lines that tie a sail in place), then tie them back up again. Silly me, had to volunteer, along with one of the boys, Nick, now dubbed "Princess" for the following reasons:

The seas were choppy - around 3m swells, the wind was horrific, and the bow was constantly slapping down into the water, recreating this image:





That's me on the left, and BK on the right, tying
down the gaskets on that really shoddy day out
at sea.

Not cool for someone who had been sick on and off the entire voyage. Well, silly me volunteered, along with Princess. Climbing up the main mast was pretty easy considering the circumstances. He climbed to the top and untied the gaskets, I climbed half way and did the rest - we do them top to bottom. We took a five minute break, before we ventured up again. This time I went up to the top, with him following behind. Problem: You need to be level with each other to properly tie the sail and gaskets down. You do this with one person either side. One person ties the gasket, the other throws an arm, a leg, whatever around the sail to hold it in place and prevent it from moving. Because the weather was dreadful, Princess deemed the situation crazy - and maybe it was - and decided that he was scared. He didn't say it of course, 'male' as he was, and I gave him an ultimatum: You can go down if you want, but you've got to send someone up. He went down and another female - BK - came up to help me. We tied that sail down, and returned perfectly in tact, save a few bruises and cuts. Females for the win! Princess didn't hear the end of it after that, and was laughingily told by our watch leader, Dan, to "Get amongst it, and stay amongst it." It remained our motto for the rest of the trip.

So after that little debacle, the seas calmed down somewhat and we were all given some rest, thank goodness.

On the Young Endeavour, there is an opportunity for the youth crew to take over the ship in a day known as "Command Day". We had to elect all the roles mentioned above, except for the engineer who stays the same every voyage.

The roles were:

Command Team -

Youth Crew Captain: Xavier

Youth Crew Sailmaster: BK

Youth Navigator: Alex

Officers of the Watch -

#1 Gee (myself)

#2 Claire

#3 Louis

Watch Leaders -

#1 Deb

#2 Nic

#3 Boi

Chefs -

#1 Mike

#2 Amy

#3 Leish

We had a list of tasks we had to complete, a few of which including have a team of six row ashore (somewhere off Bass Strait, yay), and claim a part of the land for the youth of Australia through a flag raising and singing the national anthem at the top of our lungs; draw a chalk montage on midships and sail a certain number of nautical miles to our next destination - which we successfully did with the 24 hour time limit we had.

It was a great day, and really tests our friendships, but we all came through in the end. The chefs cooked us three glorious meals (dinner was the best I think), we created a great montage, climbed aloft and got a photo of everyone on the yards, and claimed a bit of Australia for the youth of the country.

The evening after Command Day, we were given some time to ourselves, and decided that we would stay up on and deck. We were rewarded for our efforts with the sunrise you see in the picture, with many photos being taken and put up on Facebook for everyone to tag. There were many of the same photos mind. I think that was one of the best moments we had during the voyage from Hobart to Devonport.

The final day of our trip was when we were to sail triumphantly into Devonport from atop the yards, singing songs we had learnt from throughout the week. We did so successfully despite the heavy rain, and when we docked there were a few cold, weary faces.

Our final task of the voyage was to patiently wait through the presentations where each youth crew member is awarded a certificate, indicating the experiences that they have been through - valuable information for future employers. At the end of it all there was a final photo opportunity where everyone crammed together and put on their best smiles.

We said our goodbyes to each other, hugging everyone around us. But truth be told, we weren't really saying goodbye. We'll see each other again - heck, fourteen of us caught up at Devonport Airport where we would all be catching flights to get home. In fact, all fourteen of us were all put on a bus to Launceston after our flight was cancelled due to bad weather. It really was a trip of a lifetime - an experience beyond any I will ever come across. I will never forget the amazing time I had onboard the STS Young Endeavour, nor will I forget the friends I made and the lessons I learnt.

The ship's motto is one often used by people, but I like to think that it's an Endeavour thing - and maybe it is, because we did it every single time we woke up and stepped out on that deck, climbed those masts or heaved and checked away on the sheets.

Carpe Diem. Seize the day.