MONDAY

→  13 DAYS to go. It’s getting close now.

My last two weeks on Earth will be spent at Mars Boot Camp at Nahoon Beach.

Because Mars is completely covered in dust, the Mars Embassy thought the beach would be the best place to experience dust-covered ground.

I guess that kinda makes sense.

Mama, Tata and Gogo were all excused from training, as Tata has already been to space, Mama didn't have the time, and Gogo is too old. That didn't seem fair, but as usual I have

→  ABSOLUTELY NO SAY OVER MY LIFE.  ←

I really didn't want to go alone, so I took Gany along for some moral support.

Don't judge me. You'd do the same.

We nervously arrived at the beach to find the whole area cordoned off with red and white tape and about 300 military police.

→→→  HOLY MOLY!

I have no idea how I'm going to sneak Kurt and Zen past this lot.

I was actually really excited to catch a glimpse of the space shuttle, and I certainly wasn't disappointed.

Impressive, right?

Alongside the space shuttle was a huge white dome. I guessed my training was going to happen in the dome.

My excitement quickly faded when I met my boot camp instructors.

Professor BushyBeard didn't seem too bad, but he smelt like cooking cabbage. Eeuww! Sergeant BullyBeef was just plain, brute-force cruelty personified.

I'm not at all ashamed to admit that I was scared spitless of him.

BullyBeef gave me an evil sneer, grabbed my innocent little chick and locked it in a cage. I was most unhappy about this. It's important to me that Gany is raised as a free-range chicken.

It was decided that I would spend my first day with Professor BushyBeard. His job was to teach me how to speak Martian.

Who would have thought there was such a language?

In any case, it was incredibly hard and, as far as I’m concerned, a great big load of NONSENSE.

Here's a list of some of the ridiculous words I had to learn (I'm sure I'll have forgotten them all by tomorrow):

Bing bing joag fee = Hello

Dwig shabadoo = Take me to your leader

Ping yee ven = Don't eat me

Bur bur chee twong = I am your friend

Zipnok = Goodbye