This one time, at band camp...

No. I did not goto band camp.
But I did goto RYLA, which was one awesome life changing experience. And it's a camp.

I would post up a diary of my experiences... but it's currently on hold. I guess I'll get started on the intro part again tomorrow.

Jack Thompson is an idiot. Who has no life? You do. Stop coming up with ridiculous arguments.






Meh... here you go

Between the 15th and 21st of January 06, myself and 39 other RYLArians participated in the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA). RYLA is a life changing experience. They weren’t exaggerating when they made that claim. RYLA created a unique, positive, close knit community, which was the breeding ground for our personal growth. The camp gave us mental and physical challenges, activities that pushed us outside our comfort zones, and lectures and activities that focused on the elements of leadership.

To me, the most important element of RYLA is the positive, supportive and friendly environment. It is this environment that inspired us all to take actions which we normally wouldn’t do. Be it because we weren’t afraid of being embarrassed, or because we were inspired to be like the others. Everybody commented on my growth from being quiet and reserved to being out there, giving it a go, exerting more confidence, but also still standing back to examine situations, and how it inspired them to grow as well. The way I see it, is that in reality, our actions and behaviour can be stunted because we fear. There was no need to fear in RYLA, so we could be what we wanted to be. How we grew, and what we got out of RYLA was entirely up to us. But the environment we were in, and the others who inspired us were equally important in getting this life changing RYLA experience.




Sunday: The Beginning
The introductions

Like with any situation involving a large group of people who don’t know each other, it was awkward. Did I mention we started fairly early? So, for the morning, we had ice breakers. The standard stuff. You have a sheet of random questions and you go around asking fellow RYLArians and facilitators those questions, and learning their names and various stuff about them. Then there we stood around in a large circle, more properly introduced ourselves, got assigned a roll call number, and had silly name remembering games. I think I made the mistake of saying “My name is Justin, but my friends called me J.Lo...” because that nickname stuck, as well as variations such as “Jenny from the block” accompanied with “shake that ass!”. But on the plus side, I stood out more.


Small Groups

The 40 of us were split into 5 groups of 8 with 2 or 3 facilitators. I was assigned to the yellow group, with Benn (with 2 Ns) and Rachelle (someone who can’t spell Rachel) as our facilitators. I love my yellow team. Benn made things so exciting with his funny antics, and made it easier for us to open up to each other. Jade, with his passion for lengthy discussion topics in the wee hours of the night. Clare and Rachel with their YARRR pirate jokes, and “I wanna ride my bike” ADD kid joke. Manda and Jean-Marie with their ability to open up to us. Everybody in our group in one way or another contributed to us forming very close bonds.



We decided to give ourselves a team name and team chant. Benn had a little mascot, a little rubber chicken which we passed around during discussions. We decided on “The Nuggets”. Either because of gold nuggets, or chicken nuggets- it doesn’t matter. And our chant, was actually one which Benn’s facilitator used when Benn was a RYLArian. It’s a long one, and made absolutely no sense. For all we know, it could be “I need to goto the toilet badly” in a foreign language.



OOH CALELA

A PERI TIKI TUMBA

A MASA MASA MASA

OO ALLA EI ALLA AH ALLUEI