Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

The late morning laboratory sessions started later than we had scheduled, because of the student participants of the science and outdoor camp took their time getting cleaned up again and resting after the morning snack. But the facilitators were ready when they were.

Mon had nine experiments prepared that he assigned the five groups to perform in rotation. All the groups were able to finish the tasks in an hour and a half, bringing us back to the schedule of lunch, but since this was the time when there were the most facilitators present from the student leadership camp, this was where the most interaction happened between the old and the new students.

Too bad, I thought, that these weren’t the people who were there during the previous day when we started. Then the participants would have had more fun not only with the activities but also with the company of their fellow students.

The most difficult of the experiments, at least for me to duplicate, was the drinking straw that was supposed to act like a spray can when one end was dipped in a glass of water, although my cousin said he was able to perform that when – ironically for such children’s curiosities one usually sees on TV - he tried it at home.

The one I would have liked to see them do, and which Mon just learned from one of the fascists in the student leadership camp, was the inflatable paper cube – from a whole sheet of newspaper.

The “Powerful Paper” experiment though, where a person could stand on the smallest piece of corrugated carton, was the climactic competition Mon held.

It was also during this time that CJ, the Student Council Vice President, and one of the facilitators, thought of holding his “Protect The Egg” bidding wars again.

I agreed, but only if we could hold it within the mechanics lab with no one allowed to go out of the room. I also told them to set a time limit for bidding on each item.

Fortunately, we were able to spend more than an hour and a half on that activity, just giving us enough time to return to the classroom for the awarding ceremonies.

Just like what happened during the Student Leadership Camp though, both eggs remained intact, even when dropped from the second story window of the mechanics lab to the steps below – so there were no winners and prizes there. Although we should have prepared enough prizes for both to share.

But other than that the best prizes they seemed to appreciate, which was for the kite flying, were the school labeled black visors first sold during the Open Campus two years ago.

We also asked them to evaluate the program, and although the discussion about religion and science in the peak of the night rated lowest as I had expected, I was surprised that they seemed to enjoy the river trek despite all the hardship.

I don’t even know if they went for the closing snacks in the cafeteria, because even I passed up on them myself.

With that I end session number 603. Class dismissed.