As mentioned in my previous post, I spend Monday and Tuesday away at a school retreat. In the morning, I went to school with my gear, which consisted of clothes, a pillow and a sleeping bag. From there, we went on the bus to a place not that far out of Dunedin. It was basically in the middle of a rural area so there were no shops or places to run away to. When we got there, I got my gear and went to my cabin. I shared this with 5 other guys, all but one of them were okay.

The whole time we were there, we did some games, discussions and some own time for personal thought. The group discussions were pretty interesting and mainly consisted of subjects about ourselves and our family. There were also some group activities such and the usual confidence course and getting over the giant wall etcetera.

During the night, we had dinner, which I do have to say was really horrible! They got fish and chips. The fish wasn’t that good and the batter on it was horrible. The chips were alright but I have had a lot better. Its not really the schools fault that is was bad, for they didn’t cook it. After that, we went and did our own thing, which was socialising for most people. The a bit later in the night, there was a mass. Yeah, its a Catholic School retreat so it was expected we would have something like this, but this was really the only religious stuff that happened, which I’m thankful for.

The next morning, we got packed and did a few more things. One of the things that we did was get back into our groups and individually say nice things about each member of our group. It was a really nice discussion and hearing what others thing about each other and what others thought about myself. We then wrote personal notes to each of our group members. This is probably the most interesting part of the retreat. Then it was time to go back to school.

We ended up getting back at 3:15pm. I had to catch the public bus to my house with a bag of clothes/pillow and a sleeping bag. This is rather awkward and I was tired from the lack of sleep that night which made carrying the items down the hill a challenge. When I got home, I realised I didn’t have my keys, they were inside the house. I also remembered that my sister wasn’t going to be home till late so she won’t be able to let me in. The only other person that could let me in was my neighbour, but she wasn’t home when I walked past. I went for a walk around the block and by the time I got back, she was home and she let me in.

The retreat was a great experience and I am happy I went. It didn’t bother me one bit that I didn’t have any computer or internet, or any communication to the outside (internet) world. The only problem with leaving the internet for more than 40 hours is the email banked up, the 20 or so pages of tweets on twitter, the dozen pages of articles on Digg and the thousand or so articles in my RSS reader. Lucky I was away during a quiet period or else I would have a whole lot more to catch up on. I AM BACK AND BETTER THAN EVER!!!

Tomorrow I will be leaving for an overnight school trip. We are going somewhere not too far away and will be doing something that I do not know. So as of around 11pm tonight, that will be the last time I use my computer until I get back on the Tuesday afternoon.

Now that’s around 40 hours with no computer, no cellphone or iPod or anything of the sort. I am not going to have any technology for a long time. I can’t remember the last time I have been away from my computer for that long, but its probably been years. The longest I am usually away from the internet world is about 10 hours which isn’t that long but I am going to be away from it all for 40 hours and in 10 hours the internet moves pretty fast so I’m going to have a lot to catch up on being away from it for 4 times that.

Being away from the internet for so long is going to make it hard to come back with a huge pile of articles in my RSS reader, stories on Digg, Tweets to read, and other things to catch up on. This opportunity my help me by evaluating my internet usage and possibly help me make some cuts on unnecessary parts so I have more time to do other stuff and be more productive. As well as helping me through the experience of going away, it may also help me in my current life, online and offline. Maybe 40 hours away from it all will do me some good after all.