Lord Howe Island

Creds to Max who was the only one who actually told me! Though I know other people saw it as well, but yay (:
And - about WHAT you say? :D
 Ooooh, mystery forever, curiosity killed the cat and all that (:

ANYWAYS:
12 Rusekids from Year 11 re currently embarking on a trip to a gorgeous tropical island to attend an international conference :D

LORD HOWE is seriously GORGEOUS, the place is like something off Getaway, or some other exotic TV show! The apartments we have are shared between 2/3 people for girls, and a huge huge five room one for the guys - and thy have CD/DVD player, fulyl equiped kitchen, plus a rec room with a pool table games, internet etc etc! Its SO IMPRESSIVE :D

So basically, What on earth are we doing there?!
Well, it all starts with Fauncey. Tom Faunce - cool guy, a Professor of Law/ Chem something, who one day went' Hey lets copy plants!'

LITERALLY.
Sooo - small crash course! (I am about to mutilate the science behind this entire conference but this is a crudeeee outline :) )
Plants get their energy from the sun, and convert it into chemical form which they then use yeah? This process is called photosynthesis. Now, Fauncey thought - hey, you know if we could imitate plants, and instead of the energy plants use to produce oxygen (which is released in to our environent) use that energy to split WATER into hydrogen and oxygen, we can USE that hydrogen! If you burn hydrogen (your typical combustion reaction), it forms WATER. which cantthen be split to hydrogen and oxygen (using energy achieved from the machine we contsruct that imitates plant photosynthesis) and the cycle is continuous! WOW. BRILLIANT PLAN

And so he calle dup all his friends, from various universities around the world ho specialse in different areas of the project - and called this project 'Global Artificial Photosynthesis' - or GAP as we fondly refer to it as :)
And so, a bunch of over 200 professors from Yale, Cambridge, German univrsity, Uni of Cali, MONASH, UNSW USYD and switzerland iceland etc etc etc are ALL COMING to Lord Howe Island to alk about what THEY speclaiise in. Except, fauncey went ' hey, none of these guys know how their part is relevant in the whole scheme! Well ill email them - NO better yet, lets recruit some kids to make this entire project future-minded and bring youth to the converenfe ec etc! And so, we came into the picture! :D

He emailled us a billion papers that the professors had typed upas thesis'es and Mrs Pooviah cound't understand half of them so she didn't send them to us haha :) But we read up, and split off into groups, and attempted to convey OUR opinion on each part of this'articifificial photosynthesis' process - with Michael Freya Samuel Manda doing governance (the economic aspect if the scheme works) Me Alex Joy Sandra doing the second part of the artificial photosynthesis process (splitting of water, what this means, problems etc) and Steven, Liz Shirley and JAson focusing ont he first part ('Photovoltaics' - capture of light energy)
AND SO the Ruse GAP project was born!

We made powerpoints, and in the case of Freya - made a MOVIE (which is bloody impressive :) ) and presented a bilion times (on impromptu at times) and FIALLY we are here, having gotten coached formmurph, bialey etc on how to present, having presented to over 100 people already, and about to leave for an international conference! after wepresent, we SIT THE NQE's (lool :( ) study! and CHILL ONA GORGEOUS TROPICAL ISLAND. On the last two days (of freee time!) we are going cruising, snorkelling, sight seeing etc etc. PLUS ont he days we have - in our free time we have free reign on the island to do whatever we ant. we cook our own food (or eat out) and me and joy are resolved to cook a decent home cooked meal though! We attend the conference dinner which is formal dress (to chummy up to the internationalz :P ) and generally have HEAPS OF FUN - with the 12 peopel comign from two other schools as well1 (who are also presenting -gosh hope ours measure up :L )

The only thing im Paranoid about isthat in my school diary, Someone did THIS:

Lord Howe Of The Flies

We are twelve students. Flying on an aeroplane with one teacher to an isolated, no-phone-reception island.

Oh holy crap D: !

What if it CRASHES and we're STRANDED and flksjflksdjf ! :(
And I told Joy all my fears and now she was freaking out because she is born on the year of the Pig. Ahahaha Piggy :D But yes. Knockwood. The similarities between our situation and theirs are eerie D:

But but but it wont happen because the island is gorgeous, theres no way we could possibly go insane. (should we go insane, dibs the conch! :P )
Anyways, thats lord howe
Cannot wait
Going to be
So
Freaking
Fun
:D

Plan on watching a scary movie
hae a bunch of challenges
Contrary to rumour, MRs p00vi@h is NOT rooming with ANYONE, but is instead getting her OWN room :D
I seriously cannot waitttttttttttttt, its like a break, and an adventure :D And its actually pretty interesting :)
:DDDDD!
Gotta love Fauncey and his brill plan :D

If you latsed this long - youre amazing!
I'll defs try to blog whilst we're over there as wellll :)

vaish
x.