Hey guys, its been a good while, and there's a lot to catch up on.
So after my week long trek for activity week we had quarter break or term 1 holidays, whatever you want to call it. Woodstock had organised a trip down to Deradun, which for those who don't remember is the closest large town, about 40 mins away. The trip was 2 nights down there, Monday to Wednesday. During the Sunday before we left I was feeling pretty bad in the stomach and I felt like my tummy was gonna explode. I vomitted twice Sunday night and thought that would be the end of it. I still felt pretty sick Monday morning and told my dorm parent. He didn't want to send me to the health centre because there pretty much closed during the term break so instead he gave me 2 pills of something I had no clue of, and they didn't help at all. I had no appetite and the road was incredibly windy down to Deradun. It was not a pleasant trip at all.
The hotel we were staying in was alright, no cracks in the wall and there was an aircon so pretty good for India. It was a 10 min walk from a big western style mall that you could easily forget you were in India. There was KFC, Pizza Hut, Dunkin Donuts and a nice cinema where tickets were only 200 rupee, which is 3.75 AUD. On Monday we went to the mall soon after arriving in Deradun. I walked around the mall with Isaac and Zach, most of other friends had gone back home for quarter break so it was mainly international students in Deradun. We decided to watch a movie so we saw Dracula Untold. Don't tell me if it was good or not, I was feeling tired so I put in my headphones and slept through most of the movie. When the movie was over I was overcome again with that feeling of spewing. I made my way out the cinema into this quite hallway where no one was around. I found a large bin and did the deed. We left the mall straight after that and went back to the hotel. Zach and Isaac ordered Pizza for dinner but I really wasn't hungry. The next couple of days were pretty similar, no further puking but still feeling crap in the stomach. I was sick for all of that week. After we got back from Deradun on Wednesday I just stayed in Isaac's room for the next few days. He has a spare bed in his room so I slept on that. The only movements I made were to get food, or go to the toilet.
It was Diwali during quarter break as well, Diwali is the festival of lights and is where people light fireworks and make light to welcome some god into there house and it's meant to bring good luck or something, I'm not really sure. The best thing about Diwali is that there are stacks of fireworks going off constantly all night long. Mr Huten, a dorm parent took a few of the boys, including me and Isaac out to buy some fireworks and light them. We walked to some small stores just before the Bazar and bought a whole lot off a street vendor. We then went and found an open place on the side of the road and started to set them off. We had around 40 fireworks so we were there for a good hour and a half. I have video's but since it was so dark it's just yelling and bangs. It was an awesome night and so many good memories
I don't know if i've said this on the blog, but a while back a few mates and I decided to sign up for the Mussoorie Half Marathon. It's a 21 km race and it's open to everyone, not just Woodstock students. At the time we thought it would be a fun day out. We were expecting to just walk it all and have fun but as the date of the race quickly approached we started to get a bit nervous. None of us had trained at all and I hadn't ran since the 6km school cross country and I was completely dead after that. This was 21km and a lot more hilly then the 6km. So the Saturday of the race rolled around and we had to be at Hanifl centre by 6. We decided to try leave by 5:30 which would give us stacks of time to walk the 1.5km nice and slowly. I woke up at 5:00 and woke up the other's, and as usual a certain one of my friends which I shall not name, made us leave at 5:43. We were all half asleep and hungry because we had no breakfast, Luckily they had some oranges which we scoffed down at Hanifl. It was a good walk to Hanifl, the sky was slowly getting brighter and the wind chill was pleasant. Our race started at 7:00. We started doing stretches at 6:45 and the nerves really started to set in. There were approx. 40 people in the race, about 8 of those are Woodstock students, there are a few staff but the majority were unfamiliar face's. There were some people that looked like professional runners as well so that made me feel so much better :p.
So the starting gun goes off at some people sprint off ahead. The group of my mates, Cory, Isaac and Emmett all stay at the back and slow jog it in an attempt to save energy. It's about 3km of windy roads until our group start to disperse. It was a really scenic run, with the snow peaks out in front of you, endless mountain ranges to your left and the flat land of Deradun visible to the right. I ran nonstop until about the 9km mark where it got really steep and I just couldn't run anymore. I was in front of my mate's by a good 500m at this point and I considered waiting for them, but I continued. I got to the 10km turn around point, grab two water cups, down them, then throw them on the ground, I felt like a true marathon runner :) It was all downhill for 3 km after the turn around so I decided to go at it as hard as I could and pretty much sprinted down it. The next 8km were pretty much hell, I spent alot of it running with my Hindi teacher Mr Yusuf and my rock climbing instructor Titu. They motivated me to keep going when I really wanted to stop. I get to know my teacher's alot better over here then at Carey. I've been to both Mr Yusuf and Titu's houses and I would honestly consider them friends.
I ended up finishing the race 17th place with a time of 2 hours 31 minutes and 5 seconds. I was pretty happy with myself. Cory came in 10 mins after me, Isaac 10 mins after that and then Emmet a little while after. Hanifl centre was the finish line and there had organised a market sort of thing where people from the village come and sell things like blanket's and other things. There were food stalls there as well and that was great because we were all starving! i bought myself 2 hand sized brownies and helped myself to an Oreo Milkshake. There was a massive sense of accomplishment after finishing the race, even if i couldn't walk properly for 4 days afterwards, it was worth it!
Stay well,
Lachy Wild
So after my week long trek for activity week we had quarter break or term 1 holidays, whatever you want to call it. Woodstock had organised a trip down to Deradun, which for those who don't remember is the closest large town, about 40 mins away. The trip was 2 nights down there, Monday to Wednesday. During the Sunday before we left I was feeling pretty bad in the stomach and I felt like my tummy was gonna explode. I vomitted twice Sunday night and thought that would be the end of it. I still felt pretty sick Monday morning and told my dorm parent. He didn't want to send me to the health centre because there pretty much closed during the term break so instead he gave me 2 pills of something I had no clue of, and they didn't help at all. I had no appetite and the road was incredibly windy down to Deradun. It was not a pleasant trip at all.
The hotel we were staying in was alright, no cracks in the wall and there was an aircon so pretty good for India. It was a 10 min walk from a big western style mall that you could easily forget you were in India. There was KFC, Pizza Hut, Dunkin Donuts and a nice cinema where tickets were only 200 rupee, which is 3.75 AUD. On Monday we went to the mall soon after arriving in Deradun. I walked around the mall with Isaac and Zach, most of other friends had gone back home for quarter break so it was mainly international students in Deradun. We decided to watch a movie so we saw Dracula Untold. Don't tell me if it was good or not, I was feeling tired so I put in my headphones and slept through most of the movie. When the movie was over I was overcome again with that feeling of spewing. I made my way out the cinema into this quite hallway where no one was around. I found a large bin and did the deed. We left the mall straight after that and went back to the hotel. Zach and Isaac ordered Pizza for dinner but I really wasn't hungry. The next couple of days were pretty similar, no further puking but still feeling crap in the stomach. I was sick for all of that week. After we got back from Deradun on Wednesday I just stayed in Isaac's room for the next few days. He has a spare bed in his room so I slept on that. The only movements I made were to get food, or go to the toilet.
It was Diwali during quarter break as well, Diwali is the festival of lights and is where people light fireworks and make light to welcome some god into there house and it's meant to bring good luck or something, I'm not really sure. The best thing about Diwali is that there are stacks of fireworks going off constantly all night long. Mr Huten, a dorm parent took a few of the boys, including me and Isaac out to buy some fireworks and light them. We walked to some small stores just before the Bazar and bought a whole lot off a street vendor. We then went and found an open place on the side of the road and started to set them off. We had around 40 fireworks so we were there for a good hour and a half. I have video's but since it was so dark it's just yelling and bangs. It was an awesome night and so many good memories
I don't know if i've said this on the blog, but a while back a few mates and I decided to sign up for the Mussoorie Half Marathon. It's a 21 km race and it's open to everyone, not just Woodstock students. At the time we thought it would be a fun day out. We were expecting to just walk it all and have fun but as the date of the race quickly approached we started to get a bit nervous. None of us had trained at all and I hadn't ran since the 6km school cross country and I was completely dead after that. This was 21km and a lot more hilly then the 6km. So the Saturday of the race rolled around and we had to be at Hanifl centre by 6. We decided to try leave by 5:30 which would give us stacks of time to walk the 1.5km nice and slowly. I woke up at 5:00 and woke up the other's, and as usual a certain one of my friends which I shall not name, made us leave at 5:43. We were all half asleep and hungry because we had no breakfast, Luckily they had some oranges which we scoffed down at Hanifl. It was a good walk to Hanifl, the sky was slowly getting brighter and the wind chill was pleasant. Our race started at 7:00. We started doing stretches at 6:45 and the nerves really started to set in. There were approx. 40 people in the race, about 8 of those are Woodstock students, there are a few staff but the majority were unfamiliar face's. There were some people that looked like professional runners as well so that made me feel so much better :p.
So the starting gun goes off at some people sprint off ahead. The group of my mates, Cory, Isaac and Emmett all stay at the back and slow jog it in an attempt to save energy. It's about 3km of windy roads until our group start to disperse. It was a really scenic run, with the snow peaks out in front of you, endless mountain ranges to your left and the flat land of Deradun visible to the right. I ran nonstop until about the 9km mark where it got really steep and I just couldn't run anymore. I was in front of my mate's by a good 500m at this point and I considered waiting for them, but I continued. I got to the 10km turn around point, grab two water cups, down them, then throw them on the ground, I felt like a true marathon runner :) It was all downhill for 3 km after the turn around so I decided to go at it as hard as I could and pretty much sprinted down it. The next 8km were pretty much hell, I spent alot of it running with my Hindi teacher Mr Yusuf and my rock climbing instructor Titu. They motivated me to keep going when I really wanted to stop. I get to know my teacher's alot better over here then at Carey. I've been to both Mr Yusuf and Titu's houses and I would honestly consider them friends.
I ended up finishing the race 17th place with a time of 2 hours 31 minutes and 5 seconds. I was pretty happy with myself. Cory came in 10 mins after me, Isaac 10 mins after that and then Emmet a little while after. Hanifl centre was the finish line and there had organised a market sort of thing where people from the village come and sell things like blanket's and other things. There were food stalls there as well and that was great because we were all starving! i bought myself 2 hand sized brownies and helped myself to an Oreo Milkshake. There was a massive sense of accomplishment after finishing the race, even if i couldn't walk properly for 4 days afterwards, it was worth it!
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| The snow peaks while running. Looked much better in person |
Stay well,
Lachy Wild
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