1985 School Magazine

THE INFORMAL YEAR 10 CAMP REPORT (Or Leeches I Have Known)

" Hi-ho! Kermit-the-leech here! Today in Slushland 's monthly leech comm ittee meeting, we' ll be ta lking about 100 and one ways to annoy and aggravate Year 10's on camp. So we all know, dear fell ow suckers, each year we are fortunate enough to encounter six separate groups of succu lent Year 10 Grammar Gir ls on their annual Binna Surra Camp.

For those of you who are uninformed on the habits of these strange spec ies of humans, let me en li ghten you.

And believe me, they do. After being on Year 10 Camp, I've lea rnt that this is the train of thought that your average leech follows. Having a leech stuck on you is not some iso lated incident of bad luck; leech attacks are ca refully planned and co-ordin ated in meetings like th e one above. If ybu 've ever been on Year 10 Camp, you 'd have realised this . If you haven't been on the camp, you soon will. In reality though, leeches are the sweetest of animals and , as told by Lind a, the National Parks Ranger "a re part of th e natural wildlife and should be preserved. If you do ftnd a leech on you , don't kill him, just pull him off." This statement was greeted with assorted mutteri ngs of: "You know what I' II do to any leech found on me ..." but of course we all obeyed this rule to the utmost (i.e. heart- re ndin ~ scream " I've got a LEECH on me! Where's the salt?" All in all though, camp was a very enriching expe ri ence (at least that's what Miss McAdam sa id), and I' ll admit that I ... gul p .. . well , . .. liked the camp. Kermit t he Leech (A very plump blood sucke r), and Heidi Kitson of 108 Lilley- (a very anaemic camper)

Like us, Year 10's seem to prefer th e wetter weeks of the year to go camp ing. Thi s is of course, th e time wh_en we' re all out in full force. On the off-chance th at they ptck a dry week to come, we still obligingly send out slightly smaller attack parties for th em. (We wouldn't want to disappo int them , would we?) In any weather, though, Year 10's are eas il y located . Their compl aints can be hea rd from mil es around , as th ey seem to dislike trudging through the slush of well trodden mud ; and dislike falling face-f lat into it even more. (As various of t hem have done . ..) Another of their compl aints seems to be an inten se hat red of carry ing ten-tonne packs on th eir backs. According to a reliabl e source, whose name will remain unmentioned, the girls are loaded down with clothes t hey don't wear, food they don't eat, and deodorant th ey neve r use. This is why we supply nose-pegs for on-the-job leeches. If you add to that li st 2mm x 2mm x 2mm tent and a 1mm thick undermat, you' ll have some understanding of wh at we poor wretches have to ca rry. W hen the humanoids have fini shed wa lking the 15 or so km, they are required to do a day, they usuall y get set up on a camp site. These come eq uipped w ith a thunderbox. (This also goes under another unment ionab le name given to it by some of the more . .. ah . . . express ive members of the camp.) But let's get back to th e original topi c of discussion - how to aggravate them . This is a pretty diffi cult task , since they have to cook the i r own meals, and wh at's even worse - eat the end result; climb mountain s; go abseili ng down 15 storey cliffs (I do NOT exaggerate), and sklonshing through mud , you 'd be pretty hard pressed to annoy them furth er. But ... " Ve hav vays!" * * * * * * *

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"Ahh! I've been leeched!"

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