The Year 12 Leavers Themselves - Red Frogs 2006

Part two of my three-part series is about all the champions I met and built semi relationships with while I was away on the Gold Coast. This could be the longest part of the series so bear with me! The colours refer to people in the same hotel room.

Andrew Johns (that was his name!!!!)
This fella was the whole reason we got called into this room! We'd been called out to this room because Andrew or Johnsy as his mates knew him 'wasn't feeling right'. So we trotted on over. He was fine for the rest of the week and the best thing was that the room he stayed in was private, therefore it wasn't on our list of people to visit. We'd never have come across this room otherwise. On the Tuesday or Wednesday night it was his birthday and so we bought him a cake laiden with frogs of course and helped him celebrate. Unfortunately though we didn't pre-empt the sparklers causing trouble so as soon as we entered the room we had to bolt outside to prevent any smoke detectors picking up on them. About 5 minutes after we sang happy birthday the fire alarm went off. About two or three floors were evacuated and we thought it had been us. Turns out, the girls (Hayley and Erin on the floor below) had burnt their sausages causing the evacuation. tehehe....madness.....

Adrian
This guy reminded Nan (my team leader) of Rufio off Hook - that and the fact that Nan is addicted to Pirates in general!!! But anyway, Adrian was a cool fella. Very chatty and sweet as pie. Although i got the feeling that he kept trying to prove that he was tough - ha! good try! He was a prankster and a half, always joking around and great to have a bit of a giggle with! He opened himself up for any sort of conversation which was really cool coz i think our team talked to him about heaps of things!

Yarn
Oh my goodness! This guy was a real sweetheart and gentleman, very quiet and conservative! The private room belonged to his family so he was hosting the 10 boys (and extras) who were staying with him. If only MY family owned a private hotel room?! Anyway, Yarn was more than welcoming to us and in fact, i think he LIKED having us there which made it easier for us - he could always have told us just to leave but he didn't, he'd always greet us with a warm smile and a handshake - totally awesome and most respectful guy! Would've LOVED to have chatted with him more but i think he was more concerned with keeping his hotel room in a reasonably good condition - lol!

Moses aka Jay
This guy was a tool - no joke! But not in a bad way by any means! When we first met Jay he told us that his name was Moses (I'm assuming he told us that because he knew we were Christians?)! He had us going for at least two days, if not three! Eventually i heard one of his mates call him Jay and cottoned on to what was going on! Seriously though we fully thought his name was Moses! It kind of explained why he kind of looked at us all blankly when we'd see him during the day and say, "yo, hey Moses?!" pffft....oh how stupid i feel! But all in all he is a nice bloke! We had some great chats about his faith and about God and yea he was fun. Most of the time though (as with 90% of the rest of the people we met) he was just using us to try and get into girls rooms - honestly, the cheeky little begger!!!!!! tehehe....

Elyse & Charlotte
These girls were two of my most favourite girls out of the whole week i think! I told Elyse that she had the same name as one of my friends and excitedly she asked, 'does she spell it with a y? i excitedly said YES and she declared that she did too!!! And we jumped up and down hysterically and danced around laughing a lot, she was so sweet. Then when i met Charlotte immediately after i'd met Elyse, I told her that Charlotte was one of my all time favourite names (yes, mozzie, it is!) and how much i loved her name, i also told her that my friend mozzie's middle name was Charlotte! Charlotte and i got pretty chummy on our last night in their hotel room and chatted about lots of different stuff - i really digged her, she was so easy to talk to and get to know.

Max
Aw now Max, he was a sweet but very interesting character. It helps when someone absolutely loves you! Every night we'd chat about all sorts of things, one on one sorts of chats and i came to the conclusion that he must've been just an all round really nice guy - because HE TRULY WAS! At one point, when we were talking about the different things we each believed in, we even talked about the make poverty history campaign which was great coz i got to plug it a whole heap which i thought was an added bonus!!! But on the last night, we were talking (as we had done every other night) and one of his mates leaned over from the couch and called out really loudly, 'he's only talking to you coz he thinks you're beautiful!' I felt so bad for poor Max coz he was so embarressed but i told him that if he really did say that, then that was a very sweet thing to say and that i didn't mind at all being called beautiful! You don't hear something like that everyday, that's for sure! But that awkward moment aside, Max and I had heaps of great conversations and i really pray that he leads a fulfilling and satisfying life, he deserves to be blessed!

James
I LOVED JAMES!!!!!! He was the coooooooooolest! Unfortunately we didn't get to see his greatest side on the last night but on a previous night when we met him, he was relatively sober and very warm and chatty! I'm really grateful we had the chance to meet him! As with everyone else, we talked heaps about everything weird and wonderful. The last night we met him again, he was just a little bit plastered. I know this sounds kind of weird, but it was my privilidge to bring him back to soberness. He was laying on the lounge sipping water and being a little bit sad about why he'd drank so much. I assured him he was going to be ok and that there are things we do sometimes that we wish we didn't do. He was just really disappointed in himself that he'd let it get as far as it did i think. He wasn't feeling well but really wanted to get back to his hotel, so we did the nice thing and walked him home, bucket in hand which we later returned to Yarn who was most kind in allowing us to borrow it in the first place!!

Tiffany
This chicky is also in my favourite girls list! I know, i know, i shouldn't have favourites but there were just some people that made my heart all warm and fuzzy, Tiffany was one of them! The people in this room have been through an extremely rough patch in their last year and so it was really good to be able to chat to them about life stuff. Alot of questions they asked about God which was fun to get into conversation about and also alot of stuff Tiff said even had me thinking about all of life's unanswered questions. Tiff was almost like the glue of this bunch and so i really enjoyed getting to know her a little bit. I felt she was very guarded about us and put up alot of barriers when we first met her but thankfully she allowed us into her heart and we were able to see a glimpse of a most awesome girl!!!!!

Kia
Not much to say about this girl coz we really didn't talk all that much and she kept alot to herself but she has the most beautiful smile and i know for a fact that she LOVES red frogs because the first night we met her, she couldn't keep away from them! Which was good for us coz we LIKED handing out all our lollies!!!!! teehee....

Jamie
Again, Jamie was a chick that i didn't get to know all that well but the first time we ever came in contact with these guys she seemed to me to be the most warm and friendly girls of the whole room apart from Kia who only wanted the red frog lollies hehehe! Jamie who, i felt, always returned a smile, was the one whose eyes and smile really said, thanks for coming to our room! I remember that the first night we were there, she was trying a new drink, didn't like it but kept drinking it anyway....lol......bizarre, but ok, definitely made me giggle!

Kristin
As with every other girl in this room other than Tiff, I didn't have much to do with Kristin and i don't think she liked us to begin with, but she warmed to us and we to her. One time when we hung out with them, they had a strobe light going in their room (i wanted to buy one from VIVO) and she laid down in the middle of the lounge room and told me to lay next to her so i did. She started waving her arms and fingers around and told me to do the same...so i did!

Ben
I rate this guy highly!!! He's VERY cool and his haircut is maaaaaad!!! He is what i would consider a gentle giant!!! His smile and laugh was very cheeky and always made me wonder what it was he'd been getting up to?! He's someone who has a whole heap of self defense mechanisms in place but once you get to know him a little bit you realise his heart is made of gold and the tough guy act is all just a ploy to scare you! But shhhh, i won't tell anyone! He was great to have a laugh with, Ben is a top guy!!!!

Danny
This guy forgot my name the second time i met him and i was a little sad! But he apologised and every other time we saw him, he made a point of remembering who i was - YAYYY!! He also was good at teasing me because whenever i would offer him a treasured red frog, he would say yes, he wanted them and then no he didn't, so i was a bit confused a lot of times! But Tiffany said he was her cousin, so i guess he must've been ok to hang out with whether he knew me or not!!! He looked like Colin, my cousin and therefore he reminded me of Eminem but i don't think he liked Eminem! Whilst i didn't get to know him real well some of my other friends did and said he was a rockin', nice fella! That was enough for me think he was cool....hehehe....

Brock
Brock was a lil punk (obviously not in a bad way) who never had a real conversation with any of us but simply rapped everything he needed to say. He was the coolest homey-g i've ever come across!!! Also, Brock is very strong willed and told us when he met us that he doesn't accept lollies from strangers hence the reason he never ate our red frogs so we introduced ourselves (not being strangers anymore) but alas, he still wouldn't eat our lollies! So i made it my mission to get him to eat a red frog by the end of the week.....unfortunately that mission failed and, true to his word, he didn't eat any frogs!!!

Candice
Candice was the cutest little chick ever?! She was definitely a feisty one but had the smile of an absolute angel!!! On the last night, she was having fights with another chick so we saw her best and worst side. But she reminded me alot of Sarah Campbell! She was the glue of the group! She was always cleaning up after everyone and making sure that nothing was being broken and that everything was in a (messy) order of some sort AND she was shorter than i am - YESSSSSSSSSS!!!! lol....

Katherine
This girl cracked me up, she kept laughing at me all the time and she had one of those laughs that was incredibly infectious, just made you wanna laugh! The very first night that we met this fantastic group of people we were all talking about some situation between a boy and a girl and Katherine who was sitting opposite me laughed very hard at something I'd said WHILST a glass of OJ was in her mouth...you can guess where it ended up?! Not quite all over me but a little bit of it was, the person sitting at the head of the table copped the majority of it, needless to say it was a big laughing point of the night! But Katherine was a beautiful soul who I think is one of those people who befriends people until proven guilty! She was lovely. I told her I'd glue her freshly done nail back on if she bought the glue...she never bought any glue!

Trent
This guy made my heart melt! I really would have liked to talk to him more because i think he woulda had alot of really good things to say about what he believed but we never got around to talking to him about it. We met Trent during our second round to this group and one of the girls had been crying. When we went in, his eyes were puffy and red and i asked if he was ok and the other girls said that he'd been crying because his friend had been in tears....phwoahhhh, talk about empathy!!!!! I thought he was the sweetest, most sensitive guy ever and also thought those girls were lucky to have him as a friend!

The last guy of this room was the most relaxed out of all of them and VERY friendly and happy to have us there for a chat! He'd got himself pierced twice and because of my fascination with piercings i thought they were very cool! But for the life of me, i couldn't remember his name!!! :o(

Hayley (and Morgan)
We met Hayley in Erin & Moniques room but later visited her in her own room. I think we chatted and laughed with her for at least an hour, possibly longer one night! The night that we visited her, her boyfriend refused to come out and meet us, which was fine with us but the next time we saw them, we finally were able to meet Morgan, he was nice enough, just a bit shy i guess! The girls in this room were deprived of their pancakes that they'd ordered. Apparently they got served up in a room opposite theirs. So one night we surprised them all by cooking pancakes for them ourselves!

Sam
When I looked at Sam, I saw in her a person i wanted to be!!!! She had the red and black hair thing happening, she had piercings, she was thin and so beautiful and she was wayyy cool!!!!! hahaha....anyway, she was a girl that once you earned her trust, she loved you! She also helped create the Jack Sparrow look on my Team Leader which i've posted a picture of!

The third girl we came across in this room ended up coming down with a case of uncontagious german measles. One night the smell of calamine lotion was so strong and she was so drenched in it, that we ducked in to give her frogs and back out again as fast as possible lol...

Erin
One of the guys in my team got along really well with Erin and pretty much the only thing i remember of Erin was that she straightened his hair into the weirdest of styles one night, as you can see in the pic below. Overall she was a lovely girl!

Monique
The very first thing i said to Monique as i opened the balcony door and met her for the very first time was 'Hey Moni, what's going on out here?!". Erin had told me that "Moni is on the balcony" so that's how i knew her name and from then on we shared many a laugh together and lots of good chats and just really clicked! Mon has no mega huge plan for her life right now, she just wants to enjoy finishing school and maybe would like to travel, she also has a smile as wide as the ocean and a heart of gold to match....AND she's shorter than me!!!! Totally good value and one of my favourites!!!

Nicki (beautiful child of God!)
This room was full of wild child girls who just wanted loud dance music, strobe lights and lots of people (including one Moses who invited himself to their party!)!!! It was pretty hard to strike up a conversation but on one of the only nights we met these people, I had a conversation with Nicki. She was complaining that she wasn't beautiful and brought up the age old discussion about needing make up to be beautiful! I told her that everyone is beautiful in their own unique way and with or without makeup, she was beautiful. I told her that God don't make no junk! She seemed to ponder that for awhile and i think she hadn't thought of it like that before - she almost gained a small amount of self confidence hearing that, it was great!!! In fact Moses supported my case by saying chicks with too much makeup look fake and ugly hahaha....thanks Jay!

Deon
Deon was a funny chap! He made us laugh the hardest we probably laughed all week! He was determined to become a red frog person before he went home from Schoolies. For some people it's about how many tattoos they can get or what freebies they can score but for Deon, it was about being a VIP red frog person! One room we were all in he barged into and helped himself to their drinks in the fridge proclaiming he was a red frogger....then proceeded to socialise with whomever was in the room we went into! At the end of the week he came with us to a youth service that Surf City was holding and gave his life to God - WOOt!!!! We were stoked!!! So was his Aunty who'd been praying for him the whole week! He plans on being an official Red Frogger next year!!!! wooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!

Nicki, Jasmine & Kiki
When we first met these girls, they were all happy and chummy. I discovered that Kiki was a fellow Sydneyite which is always a happy feeling but that she also went to Hillsong! WOW! The photo below is my fab team with Kiki. However, on the very same night, the second time we met these lovely girls, they weren't being so lovely to each other!!! This stuff always happens, friends always have fights and fall out! It's so sad...but 90% of the time, by the end (fingers crossed) everyone is happy joy joy again which is always good! So after a heap of amount of time, we helped them sort out some of their issues and sure enough, they'd resolved a fraction of their fighting! They all were really nice girls it's just that, as i've already said a thousand times, you see the best and worst of people during the week!!! On the last night, Nicki came with Deon and us to the youth service run by Surf City and after relating really well with Brad's story, decided to get her life on track and gave her heart to Jesus - yea, Go God WOOOOOOOOOt!!!!

Melissa
We didn't meet Mel until the final night. I'm not even sure she was staying in our hotel but we met her nonetheless. When Nicki said she was coming with us to the youth service on Friday night, Mel agreed to tagging along with us. She was a quiet one i can tell you! We hardly heard a peep out of her the whole night! But at the end of the service she'd decided to give her life to God - WOW.....

Courtney
This girl was such a sweetheart!!!! The first time i met her, i learnt her name but never ended up getting to know her very well which was disappointing but she just had the most soft and gentle heart and was always smiling even when we made her wait like half an hour while we signed everyone's bibles at like 3am. She could've taken the bibles and told us not to sign them but she was happy for us to sit outside her door while each of us wrote in the bible! She had patience the size of the universe. She was quick to smile and laugh with us everytime we saw her, she made my heart really warm!!!

Kevin
The first time we met these guys, i hardly spoke to any of them except for Chris who was really sweet in welcoming us to their room. But more about him in a sec! I didn't really meet Kevin until we left that room about an hour later when we shook hands and departed! Instead i watched futurama and the simpsons with Chris while the boys chatted with kevin and his friend Jessie. So Kevin had alot of questions that the boys did well in talking about with him but i think i sort of put my foot in it with something i said to him. I think he didn't hold it against me (?) but i still felt stupid for doing so! Apart from that aside, he was a nice enough guy, just with a lot of questions i think. I pray that he finds the answers or the faith that he's looking for!

Jesse
This guy put so many spanners in the works it's not funny!!! When asking questions (and he had many!) he'd think of every possible reason why your answer couldn't be true - BUT THAT'S A GOOD THING!!! I think more people should be like Jesse. Too many people just go along with whatever they find and don't do any research about what they follow or look into it. Whenever Kevin would ask a question and we'd do our best to answer it, if Kevin didn't think of a reason why it couldn't be true, Jesse did!!! They worked us HARD moreso the boys but it was fun! Jesse is one of those people that you can tell when he is thinking deeply about something, it just shows in his face and expressions. A really nice guy though, i would totally call him a thinker, although sometimes one can fall into the trap of thinking TOO hard!!!!

Chris
Is sooooooo cool....he's the guy who me and Lucy sat down with and watched Futurama and The Simpsons with while the boys chatted with Kevin and Jesse....i could tell that chris was listening in on their conversation though. Beats me why Chris didn't just join in on it!!! Ahhh welll.....it was fun just relaxing in front of the tv with him and not doing all the talking ha! Chris had a really nice smile and you could tell he wouldn't hurt a fly! He was easy to make laugh as well and that's always a good thing - i feel like i'm....funny...haha....

Matthew
Mr Eddie Maguire himself!!! The only time we ever came across Matt was when he had too much to drink. I don't think i ever rmemeber him being sober. ha! But he was good value, fun to talk and laugh with just like everyone else!!! He wasn't staying in Kevin or Jesse's room but could always be found there because he wasn't really a fan of the one he'd booked into! At one stage we ended up in a bible quiz and Eddie Maguire (aka Matt) was our host. I can't say that it was the most entertaining quiz i've ever sat through but i CAN and will say it was definitely the most CHALLENGING quiz i've taken in my whole life!!! (how does one find specific words on a specific page of the bible without any help???) ahhhhhhhhahahha....i'm pretty sure Matt was the inventor of a game called the happy dance!!!!! He played it so well although not NEARLY as often enough as i would've liked, which is a VERY good thing!!! See, the rules of the game were that if you got cranky or upset about something or angry, you were required to do 'the happy dance', which was a weird looking dance that no-one was HAPPY to do when in a bad mood which is what made it so funny! Matt was just lucky that he was in a good mood most of the time. I am guilty of possibly asking him to do the happy dance when he wasn't even cranky!!! ...oops....

So folks, there you have it! If you're reading this, then you have got through the whole thing - well done! But i really wanted to share with you about all the people that i came in contact with over the duration of my Red Frog week! They have all left footprints on my heart and where possible, i really want to keep in contact with as many of them as i possibly can because they are all such fantastic people!!!!

It's my prayer that each of them realises the importance and value that their lives have and that they lead fulfilling and significant lives and make the most of everything i think God has given them. I really pray that they make a positive impact on the world around them and seek justice in everything they pursue!

I also give complete thanks to God that i met every single one of them because each of them is truly special and unique and made an impact on my own life, no matter how great or how small it may have been!

Tink xoxo
Copyright Alisha Blackman 2006

NB: Whatever is said here, comes within my own freedom of speech as this is MY blog! It just so happens that i can't pick and choose who my readers are! I don't believe that what is written here is offensive or inappropriate as i have written this with extreme caution and chosen my words carefully!

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