Holidays and Kokoda

It is coming and I know it. The nerves are building and so is the excitement. It still is not going to hit me that I am doing the Kokoda track until I actually start it. Still, it does not mean I am not nervous about it. There is just so much that is happening now that the Holidays have started and I guess I am just glad that I have already finished all my homework or else I would have something else to stress about. Still, how many people can say that they have done the Kokoda track. Wow, that was a really random introduction so I am sorry for that but after all it is a random thought Saturday post so forgive my random musings.

Source: http://mrsec.com/2014/02/mrsec-com-final-signing-day-thoughts/random-thoughts-1/

I think I said yesterday that I was getting a start on those Kokoda posts and I have. I have already written posts for every day from the 15th to the 20th so there are six posts right there. Now I just need to write some more for the rest of the time and then maybe a shorter post on the 26th (Saturday) and a Doctor Who post for the 27th (Sunday) so that I have the weekend to recuperate without having to worry about the blog. I know that if I do not write those posts than there will be no post on those days. I can tell that that is how it would play out. You will have to wait and see what each post is about (they are all different but all related to my Kokoda experience) but I do hope you will enjoy it. The series of posts related to my personal experiences (which are the majority of them so far) are titled "My Kokoda Journey" and I even made a picture for it to appear in each one of those posts. The only posts that are not about my personal experience is a post on the History of the Kokoda track and a post on the story that my group wrote for our group presentation to the leadership group. The rest of the posts are all going to be about my experience. Well, at least the ones I have written so far. I do not think there is anything else I can write about the Kokoda experience that is not related to my journey so at this point it should be interesting. You will have to wait for the 17th to see the picture I created as the 16th is the post on the history of the Kokoda track. They are all scheduled to be released at 12:30am (00:30 [24-hour time]) each day so they should all be live by the time you want to read them. Anyway, aside from Kokoda it is also the holidays which is incredibly exciting! It is great to just be able to have a break from homework and school for a while. This is why I wanted to get all my homework done straight away so that I could have a break between school and Kokoda. I am sorry for a lot of posts being about Kokoda as of late but it is a big part of my life right now so I am sorry for fixating on it. However, this is my blog and as much as I write it for you guys to read it is mine and the story of my life. I will not apologise for writing what I want unless it is completely outrageous which I doubt it will ever be.

Enjoy the rest of your holidays! See you tomorrow.

A Random Time

Have you ever just had one of those really random weeks? Well, me neither but I hear they exist. Anyway, it feels like it has been so long since I have written one of these posts. That is probably because it has been a very long time since I have written one of these Random Thought Saturday posts but anyway, at least it is now happening. Now, I have been a little loose with posts so far this year which is mostly due to my school and Kokoda commitments. However, I am gradually getting better at keeping these from taking over my life. There are definitely going to be times next Term and even into the future where I will miss posts for a long period of time, there is no denying that. I am incredibly sorry whenever that does happen but I would rather write a post like this than put out some short paragraphs every day just apologising for having a short post. I would not want to read that and you most likely would not want to read that. Therefore I am not going to do that. I am very sorry whenever it does happen though which is something I reiterate every time it does happen because it needs to be said. I missed it, I am sorry. There is no getting around that but it is time to move on from it.

Source: http://www.funkyenglish.com/profiles/blogs/cool-tip-how-to-say-sorry-if-you-don-t-know-how

It is holidays right now which means time to catch up on homework, sleep, YouTube, friends and everything else. It also means that Kokoda is coming around the corner. However, I wrote the majority of yesterday's "The Week that Was" post about what has been going with Kokoda so I am not going to talk anymore about it. Plus, you are going to hear all about it in the posts I am scheduling to be released while I am away (which I am still in the process of writing, by process I mean finding the motivation to start). Anyway, the point I was trying to make at the start of this paragraph was that this Term has, for me, come around very quickly. It may have been because I was not very bored or that I had a lot going on but in any case, for me this Term seemed to be a very quick one. It was also a very important one for me as it was my first official full-VCE course load. I am loving it a lot more than previous years as I am doing the subjects that I chose to do which makes it more interesting than doing the same as everyone else and only doing some electives separate. Aside from this, Relay for Life was last weekend. I am not sure if I wrote a post about this but I think I did write one as I was preparing for it. Anyway, I was the team-captain in that I organised a team for my Kokoda group who went and it was a lot of fun. We raised nearly $2,000 which is a lot more than I expected and we had fun doing it. I can not wait to do it again next year and I even got some sleep this time which was great. You can try to do it without sleep, but after a few times you find a little sleep goes a long way in making you feel better. What was also great about last weekend is that Once Upon a Time started up again in Australia. Channel 7 left us hanging there for a while but now it is back and I cannot wait for the rest of Season 3. I even hear there is a Wicked Witch just around the corner. It is all so exciting, also Revenge started back up so I am watching that too but that was during the holidays so a while ago. I guess my plans for these holidays before I go away to Kokoda is to get all my homework done as soon as possible, keep this blog going and also catch up with friends, YouTube and a whole lot of sleep. I can not wait!

Bring on the holidays! See you tomorrow.

Welcome Back to Longer Posts (Random Thought Saturday)

So, how has it been with all these long posts? Like it was last year? I hope to keep it like this for as long as possible but, just like last year, there will be days where I get caught up with homework or other commitments so there will be short posts or no post at all. I am so annoyed with myself when this happens but sometimes it just can not be. So that is why I introduced the concept of segments. This allows me to pre-write posts as I know what I am going to write about ahead of time. It also helps me because I have something to write about. Before it was a lot harder to produce daily content because I did not want to do the same things every week without an official segment or else it would look weird, well to me anyway. At least this way, as I said yesterday, you guys can decide which days you read based on what you want to read about. Sometimes, it takes a little more than the title and introduction to really get in to what I am talking about. The segments allow you to know what kind of content is going to be released on what day. The only problem I have now is coming up with a segment for Mondays. Now that Friday has a segment, every day of the week has one except for Monday. If you have any idea of what I should write about on Mondays, you should tell me in the comments or by emailing me at legolukeytutorials@gmail.com. If you really wanted to you could even message me via my Facebook page. All these links are up above.

Source: http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_for_youtube.php

In other news, I have started up a new YouTube channel. This one is called Lyrics2Share and on it I will be posting lyric videos for songs. You should check it out and if you have any suggestions for songs you want a lyric video for just send them through the twitter account, Google+ account (both links available on channel), email them to lyricality2u@gmail.com or just send them through what I mentioned above in the introduction. It is a lot easier to make videos for this channel than it is for my Legolukey channel. I will occasionally post some more tutorials in the future (when exactly is a mystery) but for now the easiest thing to create content for with time constraints is this channel. Plus, I only need to upload when I want to and these videos can be created a lot easier with the time from starting to publishing on YouTube being an hour at most. But anyway, moving on from that 'exciting' news. Have you guys noticed the new segment I started yesterday? It will run every Friday and is called "The Week that Was". Notice how I am becoming smarter now by not including any specific days in the title? In it I go through some of the highlights (and lowlights of the week). Some of it will be from the news and some of it from my personal life. For example, yesterday I wrote about the Sochi Olympics, the murder of Luke Batty, and some of what has been going on with me in the past week. That is sort of why the whole introduction to this Random Thought post was about segments. I was inspired, or rather reminded, by what I wrote about yesterday. In more nerve-racking (and exciting) news, there is only 59 days (and a few hours) until I fly out to Papua New Guinea to complete the Kokoda track. I can not remember if I have told you but we fly out on the 16th of April at 6am and then arrive some time after mid-day. We then start the trek the next day on the 17th before finishing the track on the 24th and attending the ANZAC day dawn service on the 25th. We fly back later that day. It is going to be so exciting but as we get closer the nerves do grow as well. It really is the same for everybody. To think that in less than nine weeks we will be doing the Kokoda track is a scary thought but we are all excited just the same. There is still a lot of fundraising we are doing before we leave (not to mention all the training) but it is suddenly becoming very real but I still do not think it will hit me until I actually arrive.

I really do need these random thought posts, they do help a lot with saying everything I want to. See you tomorrow!

Random Thought Saturday is Back

That's right, Random Thought Saturday is back after a month-long hiatus. It was so hard to not go in all these weird tangents in some of my posts so far this year and so I am glad that this segment is back to normal. Speaking of segments, have you all seen the two new segments that started this week? Every Wednesday is now "Entertainment Wednesday" with all things entertainment and every Thursday is now "At the Movies with Daily Lukey". I was smart enough to not put the day at the end of Thursday's segment so it is not as noticeable when I post it on a different day. Come to think of it, out of the seven days in the week there are only two days remaining without a segment on them. This will stay like that for a while (or at least until I come up with some new idea) but I think that I will always have at least one day where any type of post is possible. Plus, some of these segments I come up with as I am writing the post. Seriously, "At the Movies with Daily Lukey" started out as just a highly-anticipated films of 2014 series. That is why the Frozen review went on Entertainment Wednesday instead. If I had of known I may have chosen a different topic to write about. Anyway, I can find myself getting off topic now.

Source: http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=4996

Tomorrow is Australia day and I would be writing about it tomorrow but it is Doctor Who Sunday and there is no way I am going to be able to write a whole post about Australia day anyway. Well I could but it would not be any good and who would want to read it? Besides, yesterday's post about the graffiti (and damage) done to Captain Cook's Cottage had a moment where I talked about Australia day. Still, what could I write about Australia day without coming off as weird or phony. Anyway, moving on from Australia day. There is just over two months until we fly out to Kokoda and there is still so much to do. We have started regular Tuesday and Thursday afternoon training sessions alongside our weekend hikes and other training as well as fundraising barbecues and events. It is definitely getting closer and more real by the day. It still has not fully hit me (but trust me, it has hit me a fair bit) what I am about to do. I guess I am just lucky that the others in the group are such a nice bunch of people. It would have been really bad if some of us did not get along. We are already going to do stuff we regret when we are tired, it would be a whole lot worse if there were people we did not like. Myself and the girl from my school who is going to have a joke about the amount of blackmail we are going to have on each other after the trip. Still, it is going to be a great and life-changing experience. Plus, in those surveys with "Your Greatest Achievement" sections I will be able to write about something really different and special. I also have to get on to writing some of the posts that are going to be scheduled to come out as I am away as well as some of the proceeding and preceding days to give myself a bit of a break. I think the majority of the posts are going to be about my experience leading up to Kokoda and then there are probably going to be several posts afterwards about my experience on the track. The annoying part is that I have a Piano exam when I come back from Kokoda. My teacher is going to try and get some of the later dates (the exam period for Grade 6 is April 28 to May 10 and I come back from Kokoda on April 25) so that I have time to rest up and get back into the practicing mode so I do not lose all my hard work right before the exam. You see, it is a bit difficult to practice the piano on the Kokoda track. Who would have thought? Moving on to some of the headlines of the week. Justin Bieber was arrested for driving under the influence and it just annoys me how, after all that he has done and been caught doing, people still stand up for him. I just can not believe all those "Beliebers" who stand up for him after all the things he has done. They even justify and down-play some of the stuff like drag racing. The best part is that they say the media is against him and yet as soon as they start reporting positive things the fans go crazy in support of the media. Seriously, some fan girls are just crazy. I am also excited because the new Hunger Games Mockingjay logo and poster was released. I used it in next week's "At the Movies with Daily Lukey" post about the highly anticipated films of 2014. If you missed it though, here it is again:

Source: https://www.facebook.com/TheHungerGamesMovie

I think that is enough random for one post, see you tomorrow!

Random Thought Saturday: Crazy Children

Welcome to yet another Random Thought Saturday! This is where I 'discuss' and write about things that would not normally take up a whole blog post. Sometimes my thoughts are more connected and so the post has a theme while at other times the thoughts are all over the place and even I have no idea how to map them all out. Welcome to my mind. Last night I supervised at another Blue Light Disco. For those of you who do not know, a Blue Light Disco is a disco that is run by the police (there are several around Victoria and even more around Australia) and is aimed for primary school-aged children. I help out there as part of my 'Leaders of the Future' program. Anyway, at this place they sell different candy (Chocolates/Lollies) as well as Slushies which are very popular. They are so popular in fact that as they were shutting the window to the slushy machine so that the new batch had time to freeze sufficiently there was already a line of children waiting for their slushy so that they did not miss out. I was really surprised at how much these kids wanted Slushies. However, with all this sugar going around it did make it a little harder to control some of the rowdier kids (the 'cool' and 'hip' Grade 6s were not much trouble, mainly the hyperactive Preps to Grade 4). As you probably already know, Sugar + Children = one hell of a time (Maths with Daily Lukey). So basically, I spent my Friday night supervising hyperactive children, how was yours?

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/news/lifeandstyle/parenting/kids-health/schools-see-red-on-dangerous-food-colourings/2008/11/22/1226770801002.html

Even before the night began however, there was a fire alarm that went off. Well, it actually went off twenty minutes after the disco officially started but anyway. This meant stopping children who had just got into their 'groove' and herding (yes, like cattle) them out the door. However, once we were out the door the Firetrucks arrived so we had to herd them around the corridor and into the courtyard. What you have to realise is that there is a door that goes directly from the room the disco was in to that very same courtyard. Basically, we herded the children out, then around the front and back to the courtyard when we could have just used the door. It was a whole bunch of fun. It turns out the fire alarm was just some silly kid who 'accidentally' (even though the button is pretty high so it would be hard to accidentally press it) pressed the button. After this though the night ran pretty smoothly and I spent the last thirty to forty minutes on Jumping Castle duty. This meant counting ten kids in, waiting four minutes and then counting ten kids out. It seems pretty simple but it is not. Some kids kept wanting to sit on the steps in front of the entrance and we had to keep moving them along in case someone came flying out and kicked them in the head. However, one girl was adamant that nothing would happen to her and she would not budge. As fate would have it, a few seconds later a kids legs come shooting out of the entrance and kick her in the head. The little promptly runs of crying. You may be sensing a tone of enjoyment but do not get me wrong here, I was not enjoying a little girl getting kicked in the head. It was just a bit of fate. However, about a minute later that same girl comes back and sits in the same spot again. Guess what happens. Another kids legs come out of the entrance (what were they even doing in there?) and the little girl came out crying again. It was a lot of fun, not. However, when it was her turn to go in guess who came out a few seconds later crying because she had been "jumped on"? You guessed it, that little girl. Oh, the joys of being on Jumping Castle Duty. All in all though, the night was a lot of fun (even though I spent most of it walking aimlessly around cleaning up dropped soft drink or slushie. Aside from hyperactive and adamant children there were also many tantrums. Most of which were over not getting a slushie. Does it not annoy anyone else how good children are at throwing tantrums and getting away with it? Does it not make you want to throw a tantrum?

Seriously though, sometimes you do not know what you have got until it is gone. See you tomorrow!

Random Thought Saturday: A Hectic Week

Welcome to another random post here on Daily Lukey. You may have realised that the
"Random Thought Friday" segment has been moved to a Saturday and this is just for ease-of-posting reasons. Fridays are generally busy but on Saturday I do not have school so I do not have to worry about been too busy unless I am going away for the whole day or an extended period of time. Anyway, I wish to apologise (and since you can not stop me I am going to do it anyway) for the amount of short posts this week. Even though it was the last day of the year for school it was still a very busy one. For instance, on Monday I had school all day, then a pathologist's appointment, helping the PFA prepare for Speech Night and attending CFA so there was only a very short post explaining why there would only be some short posts this week. Tuesday, however, was a different story altogether. I had to leave home at 7am to go the Leadership Forum at MacRob in the morning and then went straight from there to Speech Night rehearsal when I never came home until after Speech Night was ended which was around 10:30pm. Even that I had to stay up a little later to have a shower so I never actually went to bed until 11pm and by this time I was so tired that any post I tried to write would make absolutely no sense. I would have scheduled a post to come out on this day but I only found out the day before (Monday) that I had to go to the Forum at MacRob and the only spare time I had on Monday night I spent preparing for the Forum with the other students from my school who were going. It was a very hectic week.

Source: http://kace-jady.blogspot.com.au/2013_04_01_archive.html

The busy week continued on Wednesday with my Piano Concert on that night. I was pretty awesome on stage (come on, I can dream can I not?) if I do say so myself and I played Gnossienne No. 3 by Erik Satie which is an awesome song by the way. Wow, I am using awesome too much today. Anyway, no matter how awesome I was it did not change the fact that I was still busy. Plus, at this time I was still freaking out about what the doctor meant when he wanted me to come in right away. The result was a lot of stress and a short-ish post. Thursday was yet another busy night even though it was the last day of school for the year. It was mainly busy because I finally went to see the Doctor (and was pleasantly surprised at the result [Fantastic]) and then on the way home we also did some shopping. As a result, the remainder of the night I spent preparing for Orientation Day the next day. By prepare I mean relax. By relax I mean sleep. Long story short, the day ended with another short post. Oddly enough, it was the longest post I have ever written on my phone which was a big achievement for me. It took me a while but it was worth it. Plus, it probably helped that I was not so tired that I just wanted it finished. Friday finally came around and I was able to relax for once. Orientation Day was over along with my time at school until the start of February. Well this post has changed from random to a week in the life of Luke. That should totally be a new segment! I just need to work out when to put it now though. Sunday, Tuesday and Saturday are taken and Wednesday, Monday and Friday are no good for me. By process of elimination I guess that this new series will most likely be posted on a Thursday. Keep an eye out over the coming weeks for this new segment! You read it here first, on Daily Lukey. Well, this is probably the only place you are going to read it on so anyway, enjoy the new segment. You may also notice a change in length of the posts which I post. This is not because I am getting lazy but because since I returned my School laptop I need to use the home computer. For some reason, the size of the words are different when I type them so it may seem like I am writing more when, in reality, I am writing less. I just want to apologise in advance for this.

Wow, so many new things to look forward to over the coming weeks. See you tomorrow!

Random Thought Saturday: Thinking Ahead

Again, I bring you another Random Post Friday on a Saturday. That means that I have done more Random Thought Fridays on a Saturday than I have on a Friday. As such I had to change the name of the segment to Random Thought Saturday as it is more realistic that I can get these regular posts out on a Saturday as compared to a Friday. Anyway, onto the inaugural Random Thought Saturday! As you will know I recently missed two days in one week (very weird considering that over all I have only missed maybe 4 days (excluding the few days right at the start of this Blog where I was getting into the swing of things)) due to scheduling woes and late nights that went later than expected. Anyway, I would just like to say that every time this happens I feel bad about it as my blog is called "Daily Lukey" so I can not just get away with missing days every so often. I promise to work harder on this to prevent this from happening again but I can not make any promises that it will not happen again as it most likely will. In other news, I was surprised to realise that this is the 247th Post on this Blog. Seeing how far I had come made me think about where I was going and, as such, I got thinking about my one year anniversary which will be on March 24 2014. As part of this I began thinking of how I was going to celebrate it and make it special. Some ideas have already been drafted but you will have to wait until next year to find out what I am planning.

Source: https://museuminsider.co.uk/2011/11/10/feature/looking-and-thinking-ahead-libraries/

Thinking ahead another month and I will be in Papua New Guinea. This will, of course, mean no internet (how will I survive?) but it does not mean no posts. I will be scheduling posts to appear while I am away (16th to 25th of April 2014) and I have kind of an idea as to what I should write about but I also have to plan it out. After those dates there will probably still be a few days after where the posts will most likely focus on my experience. This may be a day-per-post or maybe one or two depending on what happens but I am planning to fill you all in on my experience when I return. If you have anything that you want to know about the journey, feel free to send them in via the contact form to the right, send it through my Facebook Page, comment below or email me directly at legolukeytutorials@gmail.com. Your question very well may be a part of one of my posts, if not the whole post (depending on the breadth of answer I can give). They will most likely be my experience of preparing for Kokoda and what the program has been like for me and how I got to where I am at that time. Basically the last half of April and most likely the beginning of May is all going to be about Kokoda and things in relation to it, so get ready for that! I may even give you all a little lesson in the history and significance of the place if I have space. Those posts will most likely be written sometime in March and April so they should be relevant and up-to-date. Thinking a little bit back from that point but still in the future, let us discuss Christmas and New Years. Since December (and Summer for Australia) begins tomorrow one of the main things on the majority of people's minds is Christmas and the new year. Today, after I returned from my training and boot-fitting for Kokoda, I helped my parents set up our Christmas decorations because Mum loves having them up before December because she really gets into the mood of Christmas for pretty much the whole month (it can take the remainder of December after Christmas for Mum to cool off from the buzz of the occasion). It is great though because it is a family tradition and what is family without a few traditions?

Sometimes we must look into the future to really appreciate our past. See you tomorrow.