Day 16. Out with a Bang! - Saturday, 3/12/2005

When we have had a meaningful conversation with someone on Schoolies and they give us their details for Student Life to contact them later, we fill out a follow-up card and put it in a box.
At the beginning of the Schoolies Project, Lisa introduced this adorable little stuffed dog called Rufus. Rufus was to be the hound dog to remind us to fill out our follow-up cards.

One day, Rufus went missing!

There was a note stuck on the box that went something like this:


dEar COoLiEs,
wE hAve kIdNaPped ruFuS.
Leave Lots Of
FolLoW-Up CaRDS
IN tHe BoX aNd If
WE ArE SatisfIeD wiTh
tHe amOuNt, We Might
returN hIm, If we
HaVeN't Defluffed hIm
Already.




Whoever were behind it were obviously professional masterminds. They had used two different coloured pens alternating on each letter. I suspect that there were at least two villains who had each taken turns at writing each letter of each word in a different style.

Then one morning, a few days later, after everyone had been madly filling the box with follow-up information, Jim came running into the boys' quarters screaming some babble about a tragedy that had befallen Rufus (well, maybe not screaming but it adds to the dramatic effect of the story).

So we went downstairs, and sure enough there was a horrific sight!

There were pieces of Rufus everywhere!



And there was another note!
It said:


Dear Yellow Shirts,
We have not receedved
enuf FOLLow Up cards
AND We regret to In-
form you RUFUS
is DED BeTteR lUCk
nExt year.
His BlOODFlUFF iS ON YoUR
HANDS!!




The authorities were already putting tape around the crime scene.



I was in denial. The fact that the pieces of... him looked a little darker than I remember him, didn't help me to come to grips with the loss. He always looked so bright and... *sob*

Damien, who owned Rufus, received a sick note in his encourageogram box. It had a picture of what they did to Rufus.

So that was the end of Rufus. The show was over except that we had to put up with the crime scene being in the middle of the church for a few days until the authorities had finnished their investigation (curios bunch aren't they?).

At least we thought it was all over, until today, when Lisa found an exciting happy-gram. It said:


Dear Coolies,

My kidnappers are insane, and I fear they will never be satisfied with the number of followup cards you give them for ransom. They are talking about staging my death so that no one will look for me and find their secret hideout. Don't believe them! I am still alive at least at the time I write this note, and I have left my signature at the bottom. Please come and rescue me. I have left you a clue as to our whereabouts, but it was very risky, because my kidnappers are watching me all the time. They even accompany me every time I have to lift my leg, and they keep this thing called a 'leash' around my neck. It's very humiliating. Please come get me soon! In the meantime, keep the followup cards coming. My kidnappers are very moody, and a halt to the ransom might trigger them to harm me. They keep talking about tearing off my ears. And whatever you do, don't pay for proof of life! Here's the clue:

A pangram is a sentence that contains every letter of the alphabet. Pangrams are also called holographic sentences. There are a number of verses in the KJV of the Bible which are almost holographic verses except that one letter is missing. Ezra 7:21 is missing the letter 'j'. I can use this verse as a key to the following code, if you count each number along the verse to get the right letter.

4 1 29 114 5 108 103 2 3 12 119 7 36 53 11 12 10 9 8 41 8 12 21 15 19 106 13 26 32

Rufus


Right before worship, Lisa ran up on the stage and read out the note. She then announced that she had cleverly decoded the message. She explained that it read:

"I am behind the curtain on the stage."

Straight away people ran onto the stage, and the curtains were alive with people looing for Rufus.

But Rufus was not to be found. We were very disappointed as you can imagine.

Then Marika did something. It was this little thing that she has been doing all through the project. It goes sort of like this. First she waves at someone, let's say it was me, and then she says, "There's Mathieu! Hello Mathieu! What do we think of Mathieu?" And then everyone else says, "He's all right!" Well, that's how it's always gone until today, when right after we couldn't find Rufus, Marika said, "What do we think of Rufus?"

Nobody said anything. Then after a long silence, someone said, "He's stuffed!" Well, that was the end of that, until I decided to do something later.

Tonight was our Celebration night. We weren't allowed in the hall until some of the girls had finished preparing it. It was filled with balloons and highly decorated tables. We ate lots of food, had some games and a quick scavenger hunt thingy. Then Trevor G. and Darcy stood up and sang a little song about Hell. In the spirit of "I can do that too", I wrote some words on a napkin and somehow convinced Tim M. to beat box while I attempted to 'rap' about Hell.

Anyway, while we were eating, I decided to sneak away and take another look behind the curtain, as I didn't get a go last time. I didn't find Rufus, but I did find another note wedged in between some bricks. It said:


Dear Coolies,

My kidnappers are talking about moving to a new hideout where they will dispose of
my body. Please Hurry!!!! I've left a clue in the red word
of God in the pastor's restraining fence. It's the verse that says
how to find. That will be the last clue, I'm afraid, because they
are sure to kill me.


So then Tim M. got the idea that the pastor's restraining fence was somehow the pulpit, and looked up Matthew 7:7 in the red Bible he found in there. There was yet another note. It said:


Dear Coolies,

In the Bible (in the Hebrew OT version, anyway) there are ELS codes. If, for argument's sake, you counted each fiftieth letter and then the next from out of the first book of the Hebrew Torah, you would spell out the entire word "Torah". The Hebrew Bible has lots of examples of puzzles of this kind. A dumb atheist spoke about the code in his best seller. He believes it in believing that the code predicts future events, but he will not accept that the Bible itself shows any truth. He hasn't decided whether or not it's aliens who encoded the Hebrew Bible, or that the evolution of Mt. Sinai allowed it to become some sort of super computer which might also, by ways unknown to man, be able to predict the future. Even when it happens to mention God, he says the code is simply referring to an atomic bomb, but figuratively or only in a symbolic sense. Maybe Isaac Newton was not as stupid when he had another motivation for attempting to find such a hidden code in the Bible. Especially since he was saved. He couldn't find it though, because nobody had invented computers. I got a code out of this note. The sequence is 20.

Rufus


This note was obviously referring to Michael Drosnin's book, The Bible Code. Luke counted every twenieth letter and got:

DearCooliesIntheBibl
eintheHebrewOTversio
nanywaythereareELSco
desIfforargumentssak
eyoucountedeachfifti
ethletterandthenthen
extfromoutofthefirst
bookoftheHebrewTorah
youwouldspelloutthee
ntirewordTorahTheHeb
rewBiblehaslotsofexa
mplesofpuzzlesofthis
kindAdumbatheistspok
eaboutthecodeinhisbe
stsellerHebelievesit
inbelievingthattheco
depredictsfutureeven
tsbuthewillnotaccept
thattheBibleitselfsh
owsanytruthHehasntde
cidedwhetherornotits
alienswhoencodedtheH
ebrewBibleorthatthee
volutionofMtSinaiall
owedittobecomesomeso
rtofsupercomputerwhi
chmightalsobywaysunk
nowntomanbeabletopre
dictthefutureEvenwhe
nithappenstomentionG

That is:

"Look in the basket on the sheloikeeg..."

Something had obviously gone wrong, and Rufus had made a mistake. I asked for a try, and from guessing that the last word was supposed to be "shelf" and working backwards from the next "f", I found out that if you crossed out the word "some" in "...allowed it to become some sort of super computer..." it fixed things right up. So now the code went:

DearCooliesIntheBibl
eintheHebrewOTversio
nanywaythereareELSco
desIfforargumentssak
eyoucountedeachfifti
ethletterandthenthen
extfromoutofthefirst
bookoftheHebrewTorah
youwouldspelloutthee
ntirewordTorahTheHeb
rewBiblehaslotsofexa
mplesofpuzzlesofthis
kindAdumbatheistspok
eaboutthecodeinhisbe
stsellerHebelievesit
inbelievingthattheco
depredictsfutureeven
tsbuthewillnotaccept
thattheBibleitselfsh
owsanytruthHehasntde
cidedwhetherornotits
alienswhoencodedtheH
ebrewBibleorthatthee
volutionofMtSinaiall
owedittobecomesortof
supercomputerwhichmi
ghtalsobywaysunknown
tomanbeabletopredict
thefutureEvenwhenith
appenstomentionGodhe
saysthecodeissimplyr
eferringtoanatomicbo
mbbutfigurativelyoro
nlyinasymbolicsenseM
aybeIsaacNewtonwasno
tasstupidwhenhehadan
othermotivationforat
temptingtofindsuchah
iddencodeintheBibleE
speciallysincehewass
avedHecouldntfinditt
houghbecausenobodyha
dinventedcomputersIg
otacodeoutofthisnote
ThesequenceisRufus

That is:

"Look in the basket on the shelf in the room on the stage."

So we went into the room that was on the side of the stage, found the basket on the shelf, but..."

Still no Rufus!!!

No note, no nothing!

Just a box with a sock in it, which I assume they must have used to gag Rufus.

By this time, people were beginning to suspect that I had staged this whole thing, because I had so cleverly crossed out the word "some". But I pointed out that whether I wrote the note or worked out to cross out "some" without prior knowledge, I was a genius either way. This didn't get them off my case, and someone even 'confessed' to parts of the plot, claiming that I was their partner in crime. Arg!
Some were even doubting that Rufus was alive at all, and said we should let him RIP (Rest In Pieces).

Someone tipped me off to a body in the pantry, so in an attempt to vindicate myself, I decided to investigate. And what did I find?

A torn up stuffed... something. But it wasn't Rufus! But it's stuffing was the same dark colour as that found at the crime scene. I carried the body out and put it on display where everyone could see it with a big sign on it that said, "RUFUS IS NOT DEAD! THIS IS NOT RUFUS!"

It was then time to clean up. I was paranoid that someone was going to try to frame me by putting Rufus in my bed with me while I slept or something, so I was determined to find out who it was after we go back from the streets.

Emma and Cat were in my group tonight Tim M. was supposed to be as well, but he was replaced by Trevor G.
This was our last night out. Since I didn't seem to be getting any good conversations since our first night off, I was praying that my last night would involve a good conversation. That night, while looking after the toilets to make sure no one went in while they were being cleaned, we met some people.

After talking for a long time about what made someone a true Christian, and what made Christianity different from religion, this guy told me that he was a backslider Christian and that after talking he had decided to turn his life around. During the whole of Schoolies 2005 I had never given anyone a single KGP And to this guy I gave a different booklet called "The Spirit Filled Life" I didn't get his details, but I gave him mine, and he sounded very keen to contact me.

I am very thankful to God that my last night at Schoolies was one to remember and not just the last of a series of conversationless nights!

And tomorrow, I'm going to find out what happened to Rufus!

Day 15. A Challenge. - Friday, 2/12/2005

The last few days at Schoolies we've been working on our Vision. This is SL jargon for a kind of personal Resolution Plan that everyone works on. What do I want to change? How important is it? What is a realistic expectation? How can I accomplish it? That sort of thing. Today we had to finish the our Visions, but for me that wasn't a very realistic expectation. I've been working on it for a while now. Basically, I want to get all 7s at uni, but have more time for people. As both goals are already detracting from each other, I need to start experimenting with some of my ideas over the rest of the Summer, and use the statistics for a Vision for the next semester.

Tim M. and Vanessa Shared their testimonies at lunch today.

Then some of us got to share our Visions. I was tempted to get up give a huge spiel right then, but it wouldn't be right, as I have written any of it.

Noof, Krystle and Tim M. were in my group tonight.
The first thing that happened that night, was that Tim and Krystle started to talking to someone on the beach.
The last thing that happened was that Tim and Krystle were still talking to the same people on the beach.
Noof and I were left to talk to everyone on the beach twice, and then wait to do it again each time there was a new lot of people. They seemed to all sort of get replaced at once in lots tonight. Because no one seemed to want to talk, I suppose I would have been really disappointed with tonight, except that Noof was disappointed for me. At least I think that's the reason. Thanks Noof!

Day 14. An Explosion. - Thursday, 1/12/2005

Today we had our second campus time. The first one was on Tuesday. Student Life is divided into little sub committees. On Tuesday, the leader or representative from each committee (usually a student) visited us so that we each broke into the committees we were in, to plan what Student Life was going to do on Campus this year. Also, so that those on the project who were not on a committee could find out about the one they were interested in.
It was strange to see the familiar faces of our visitors intruding on our close little group. It didn't make me feel as homesick as I might have expected though. Then, just as suddenly our visitors were gone. Today they didn't come at all. Oh well.

Jess C. and Damien gave their testimonies at lunch today.

Tonight was pouring rain. Bethany, Noof and Trevor A. were in my group. We found another group made up of Marika, Jess H, Trevor G, Jonathon and Luke, talking to the two people from the Wilderness Society. That's the fourth time I've talked to them on Schoolies, and Noof has been seeing a lot of them too.
There was a guy who kept trying to break-dance in the rain, and although it was a good effort, he kept hurting himself and his friends kept trying to rescue him so that we wouldn't have to.
Trevor G. showed Noof that fire could be seen in the distance, so our group went to investigate. We walked quite a distance to see that the power box on the side of someone's shop appeared to have shorted from the rain and was on fire. We told the shopkeeper, but he seemed to be tired of telling people he already knew and kept on with business. We tried to keep people out of the way, but most people were walking on the footpath in the direction that they couldn't see it until they were already too close. We called the firemen and decided that in the meantime we take cover behind some pillars under the next building, as the box hard started to explode. The shopkeeper finally walked out with an extinguisher with what appeared to me to be an irritated gait. He gave it a bit of a blast and went back inside. Seconds later it started exploding again. I thought it was cool seeing fire in green and purple, as they are my favourite colours. But the firemen soon turned up and took out the colour. They put up signs everywhere (which had warnings about explosions), which the people walking the typical direction of the footpath seemed to find annoying. That is, until they got past and saw the resurrected fire which they found themselves too close to because they had tried to get around the signs. We had no more business there, and left.