Truly a great adventure with the birthday bo

Hasung Cho

On Saturday, January 21^st, the birthday boy, Mathias Maurin (12), led us through a set of exhilarating experiences, ranging from taking a bite of scrumptious, succulent steak to exploring a dark gutter filled with suspense.

It was around 4 when we, a group of invited senior fellows, gathered at the pool, not knowing of the imminent adventure. All of us merely came with an expectation to participate it a normal, chill birthday party, but none of us imagined the birthday party to bring out such joy in us. Our little adventure started off with barbecuing a huge slab of red meat on a grill, along with some sweet potatoes and potatoes. The beef's savory aroma made us clench in hunger, but there was absolutely nothing we could do but patiently wait for the meat to be done.

At last, our dear birthday boy announced that the dinner was ready; and all of us jumped in excitement like little kids. With a delicious steak on our plate, we hurriedly gulped down the birthday dinner to relieve our insatiable hunger. The steak was purely marvelous. As Noah Graves (12) exclaimed, “Wow, Mathias! This is done really well!”

After a slice or two of cake, most of us pretty much assumed the party to be over, but we were definitely wrong for assuming this. Led by Mathias, we left the pool to head towards the nearby waterfall. I was speechless at how beautiful the waterfall looked. We took photos and enjoyed the coolness of the evening air until an idea popped into Mathias’s mind. Mathias wanted to show us where he took a photo of him swinging “the flaming stick.”

The place he took us to was rather peculiar because we had to go down a 2m deep gutter. I was rather shocked at first. As we walked deeper and deeper into the gutter, we could see less and less of our path. As the path got darker, we were accompanied by lizards, toads, and even heads of dead, putrid fish.

A tour around the gutter took us about 20 minutes, and our little adventure finally came to the end. Maybe being adventurous sometimes is not so bad after all.