Latin dance party photos

me sophie (the girl i went on selection camp with) and our friend nicole


smoke anyone?


from left to right: someones friend, natasha, maite and sanya


everyone learning to dance


everyone being unco and trying to dance


the dancing instructor (hehe look at the high pants) and roccio from Argentina


our chairman michelle with the dance instructor


from left to right: yilpes friend, yilpe

mirengae anyone?

hey guys. As promised here are photos and an update about the party. Well we arrived around 8'o clock at night to find ourselves in this huge ballroom! The party was so much fun, we didnt stop till 4:30 the next morning! Can I say, my latin dancing skills have improved greatly. We had an instructor arrive at 8:30 and he showed us how to dance mirengae (is that how you spell it?) a latin dance created by slaves. Everyone was very unco at the beginning but most people had it by the end of the second hour. It helped having done latin dancing before but let me give you the biggest secret to latin dancing, MOVE THOSE HIPS! (yes that means you all you males out there). Its what makes the dancing look so good! We all had a fantastic night exchange students and all. Enough of my rambling, have some photos!

later,
Jesse

anyone for "the dance of love"?

well this weekend we are having an AFS latin Dance Party. Its gonna be lots of fun. i will make sure i get the digital camera this time and post photos. oooh latin dancing is so much fun i went to a latin dance club once it was the best. anyway photos to come.

sayonara,
Jesse

Camp Post Mortem Report: Bloody fantastic! - Sunday

Sunday:

Once again im the earliest to rise. i was up at 6:50am and cause of this I got first dibs on breakfast it was really good! Everyone else woke up at 8am I can’t stand it when people sleep in. We split off into groups after breakfast and once again we were put in our cold hole in hell (that would be if hell froze over) But some one thought smart again. They brought a dooner so we all cuddled up and kept warm (aaaaaah to be warm). As we started the session a leader comes in sits down turns to us all and say "so are you taking condoms?" you should see all the girls faces "ummmm I haven’t really thought about that" they all say. "Well you should" says the leader.

We continued through the sessions until lunch time when parents arrived and met the kids. The rest of the afternoon was a session for parents while all the kids went back to their sessions. At 3pm we gave many sad goodbyes to everyone. It is amazing how close everyone gets over a weekend because of exchange. There were some tears and very long goodbyes and then we all got in our cars and left for our separate lives hoping to see each other once again.

Anyway I’ll get some photos on here when I have a chance. Feed back is really good from you guys if possible cause I think my writing style is a bit boring let me know what you think. Until the next update,

sayonara,
Jesse

Camp Post Mortem Report: Bloody fantastic! - Saturday

Sorry guys I had to finish school yesterday so now I will continue with this update.

Saturday:Well as usual im the first to get up in the morning. It was very funny seeing all the girls come out in the morning and giving you these "im still half asleep and very happy cause im really tired" smiles and looks. I then turned to my right and looked out the window and went " omg theres a huge lake about fifty metres from where im standing" now you have to understand i didnt realise we were on lake Macquarie and when we arrived it was dark.

The lake was huge but it was only a piece of scenery in this case as we didnt do anything on / in the water (its the almost the middle of winter). After a lovely meal of real eggs and pancakes that actually tasted good (i think has to be a first for camp food) Breakfast finished up and we split of into the four groups (predeparture, selection, midstay, endstay). Pre depature moved into a small lounge room that i would have to say was THE COLDEST ROOM I HAVE EVER BEEN IN! i hope the capitals show jst how cold this room was. We thought we were really smart cause one of the girls had brought a fan heater for the girls room cause lake macquarie is actually quite cold around winter. Our smartness was proven to be unsmartness when we plugged the heater in and the power socket didnt work. Well that was a bright idea, not!

Pre-departure had five people, me being the only guy. Courtney who was on her way to the U.S, Kim (ahum one of the most umm interesting people i've ever met?) who was on her way to Italy, Sophie who is going to Austria, and a girl called Alex who was only at camp for one day ( i cant actually remember where she is going) . We proceeded to talk about what we expected from our host countries and what our fears were. Me not ever really scared of anything was just like "oh Japan i love you Japan blah blah blah" i get a little overexcited sometimes. I think the most interesting questions we were asked in these sessions were "what would you do if you were put with a homosexual family" and "Are you all taking condoms" ill get to the condom one later.

So what would we do if we were put with a homosexual family? Just to put anyones fears to rest this hasnt actually ever happened. (and any gay people, no offence) Me being the only boy in the room was the first to perk up. here is the conversation that followed:

Leader: "So what would you guys do if you were placed with a Homosexual family"?Me: (quite suprised at this question, and it takes alot to shock me most of the time) "i'd move!" (please be aware i didnt actually think before i said this)Everyone: "Really"?Kim: (now this is where things got really interesting) "what are you homophobic or something"?Me: "No im not homophobic, i don't have a problem with gay people i have a problem with some of their desicisions but not the people"Kim: "Well thats just saying the same thing in a different way"Me: "No its not"Kim: "well do you judge other people on what they do in the bedroom"?Me: "No"Kim: "well then dont judge them"Me: "Im not judging, your the one thats making a big deal out of this"
now can i just say the expressions on peoples faces in the room at this stage were classics. The leaders are sitting there with their jaws touching the ground it was quite funny. Kim kept rambling some random stuff off that was quite weird and had nothing to do with the subject and the leaders had a really hard time trying to take control again. Everyone else shared their views and i did agree with what they had to say then guess what? Kim explodes again rambling nothing and once again the leaders have a really hard time taking over again and just as they get control I took over:

Me: "Sorry can you hold on a second" i turn to kim, "Can I just apologise? Look Im sorry my view conflicts with yours, and everyone has been sharing their opinion and I do agree with some of your points. I'm sure I could live with two gay guys but I think it would be more for my parents sake that I would move as im sure my parents would be quite worried about me living in that environment for a year and im sure your parents would be as well"Kim: "Oh thats okay we're still really good friends"

Now i've only just met this girl and she says we're really good friends after some weird argument, thats odd!

Anyway the next couple of sessions she starts trying to flirt with me what is this girls thought pattern? To cut a long story short she tried to make a move on me at sunset (ooooooooh how romantic) cause she got me to play all these love songs for her on guitar and sing them for her. (oh nothing happened i didnt really want to kiss her especially when your sitting next to her that night and her and one of the south americans played tonsil tennis! enough said)

Saturday night:we had what was called no talent time. This name could not ring truer. There was some shocking acts we had some guys preform Tenacious D and they sang out of key with the guitar, most others didnt have an act so they got to do celebrity heads instead. I learned im a believer by the monkees for some of the girls and i played it on guitar while they sang. it went well. Then i preformed so beautiful by an aussie bloke called Pete Murray, i was really happy with my preformance ( oh i sang and played guitar). Later that night i played guitar around the camp fire for everyone and contined this for about three hours (i know alot of songs) and then we went to bed at 2:30 on sunday morning.

Okay Im sorry this was such a long update (I will heep them shorter from now on, i promise)
by bye,
Jesse

Camp Post Mortem Report: Bloody fantastic! - Friday

Well hello and welcome. Im sorry i had work experience last week so i didn't get to update when i got back from the camp. Well what can i say? the camp was flipping awesome!!!!!!! Man if anyone asked me about exchange i would give it 100% it's to much fun. Ok well heres the post mortem report about the camp.

Thursday Night:Packed for Camp. Now im never really hectic when it comes to packing but when it got to asking my dad for the digital camera all hell broke loose! Dad forgot to bring the camera home so all those photos i promised, you ain't getting them!

Friday Afternoon / Night:Friday i met with Richard my sending co-ordinator and Sophie who is on her way to Austria in a couple of months and off we set on a very long road trip to get to the ever elusive summerlands point. On the journey we shared many long stories, jokes and experiences. One of the funniest moments on the trip was when we stopped at MacDonalds and had dinner. We sat down to eat and started talking about a new Documentary called super size me which has been recieving alot of attention in the media at the moment due to the nature of the documentary. For those of you that have been living in a hole the last two months its about a guy who only eats Maccas for thirty days straight and the interesting facts about maccas he finds and the changes his body goes through. Anyway back on track, we sit down to eat and i start talking about the documentary to sophie. "So Soph, have you seen that documentary supersize me? Well they found that the new salads plus menu from maccas, the roast chicken salad has 28 grams of fat in it. thats almost your daily intake of fat in a salad"!As i am saying all this there is a lady in her late 40's who looked like she tries to keep a good figure sitting behind sophie who is eating a roast chicken salad! You could she the appetite draining from her almost instantly! Me and soph were almost laughing so hard that there was a very high risk of our food coming out of our mouths!

We then continued on an uneventful trip to The Gums Retreat. We arrived around 7pm and got first pick of the rooms cause we were early. The camp was actually four camps in one. Selection- this is for kids still making up their mind. Pre-departure - this was the group sophie and I were in. Basically as the name suggests its for kids who leave soon. Mid stay- this is for exchange students in the middle of their stay in Australia. End stay- this is for exchange students on their way home.

Everyone started to arrive and all up there were about 60 people on the camp. We went around the circle and introduced ourselves and our favourite movie. We then had a trivia about world geography (it was interesting contray to popular belief) we then went around the circle and introduced ourselves again but this time with our favourite possession. Now Masa who stayed with me for a week was on the camp and made this game quite funny, he gave everyone a really good laugh. Masa thought that we said position so it came to his turn and he goes "hello my name is Masa and my favourite position is on the train" this sent the room into hysterics and it took quite a long time to get him to understand that we were asking for possession, not position. We then socialized for a while had supper and went to bed.

okay this is going to be in three parts adios amigos,
Jesse

And now ladies and gentleman its time for your favourite selection camp in....... where?

Hello avid readers (at least i hope there are some of you) and now its time for another update. Well its time for my AFS selection camp omg this is gonna be so much fun. Yes this weekend we are having the selection camp at a place called summerlands point. Now when i was told about this i was like where the hell is summerlands point? well summerlands point is in Newcastle so iwas was like oh thats ok then cause i know where newcastle is. Anyway the camp runs for the whole weekend and i get to meet lots of brand new faces of people that are going overseas next year and also lots of the exchange students that are staying here at the moment. I really cant wait i am so excited ill be sure to post lots of photos from the trip and let you know how it went. until then.

sayonara,
jesse