The Day From Hell

Today Murphy pretty much was crowned king. This was the craziest day we've ever had. It all started with PE. Wednesday morning my class goes straight from chapel to PE. I make it over there along with all the girls in my class and there is a distinct lack of males running around causing trouble. I went looking for them and found all the guys in my class plus some 7th graders sitting under a palm tree. Didn't really surprise me. I sent them to Coach and told him to punish them for hanging out. He threatens to send them to the office and several openly laugh at him. "Send us to the office," they said, "They don't do anything to us anyway." This highlights a huge lack of discipline coming from higher up. The principal is gone this week so it is their misfortune to deal with John-Dale, who had some backbone in this area. He put them to work for a couple hours.

They came back to my class and all was well for awhile. At lunch the guys who live next do come out ready to kill someone. All of their money from their wallets was stolen from the apartment. These guys had been working right next to the apartment and could see the door was open. All the guys in my class got shaken down but the two people who were most suspect were no where to be found. One of them showed back up, but no one would say a word. Finally, we got a kid who isn't in with the crowd to say that after we pressured them they came out and said to each other it was Johnny, the only kid not there. I find it unlikely he'll come back to school after that. The whole apartment is about ready to beat him up on sight.

The day only got worse. We went out surfing, hoping for a stress reliever. Some big sets were rolling in and I jumped on a couple double overhead waves. They were some steep, hard, drops with long sections ending in closeouts. Damien caught one and when it closed out I saw him swimming. This is not good because he should be paddling on his board. About half an hour later he comes back out and told me his leash broke. It happens, but not often. Zac was out on my big fish because he damaged his board a few days ago. I caught my wave of the day and it took me forever to get back out because of the huge sets rolling in. When I finally caught up with the rest of the crew Zac was not there. They said his (my) leash broke and he went in chasing my board. It ended up on the rocks beat to crap with a fin broken off. We'll see if it's fixable. That's two leashes snapping in one day. Then it got even worse. I was paddling around trying to catch 5 and 6 foot (Hawaiian, which means 10-12 foot faces) waves. I looked up and saw this giant braking outside of me. Later Cameron told me it was easily 8 foot Hawaiian (16 foot face) triple overhead. I duck dove as deep as possible but it sucked me up. Tony was inside of me and got worked really bad. I popped up after the wave went over and saw him holding half his board. I realized that this whitewater is scary enough with a good board under you and he's only got half a board. Plus he'll need help looking so I started paddling in. With a whole board under me I was able to make it in on a rough, rocky section of shore with crashing waves. He freaked out because he was being swept around the point. I stayed close and made sure he was ok. I directed him around some rocks and helped him out. Some locals had already found the other half of his board on shore. We probably won't be able to put it back together.

I've never seen so many people so depressed. Damien had been sucked over the falls on a big one he was trying to paddle into and hit his head on his board. We think he may have gotten a concussion because he saw stars for a few moments. Ben was pissed after snorkeling around and fighting the currents for a long time. Obviously Tony is depressed about his board. Everyone else in the apartment is upset about the stolen money. We'll bounce back, but it will be a rough week for sure. Today was just one of those days. Tomorrow has to be better.