Discovery Kids - Endurance Fiji

Back to the begining?

As we are half way through the amazing season of endurance fiji I began reflecting of endurance as a whole. Like many of you I have been a big fan of the show since the very first episode. And for the new Endurance fans who just became fans recently I am sure ya'll have seen the enduance marathons on dk. When I was telling some kids from school that I was on the show, many of them were so excited remembering waking up early saturday morning to see the latest developments of the first teen reality show. For the past six seasons Endurance has brought teens from across the country together to compete mentally, physically, and socially to see who can endure the most.
The show has given its viewers plenty of memerable moments. As stated on my bio on dk, my favorite was bryannah's reaction when she realzed she was partnered with Monroe in e3. Just priceless. We all have our favorites. What are ya'lls?
As stated above it has brought competitors from across the nation ready to prove their stuff to the entire nation. I was most difently excited to compete in the ultimate competition! And through all the drama and tears, it has created such strong bonds and life long friendships. I am so glad that I was able to meet other teens from all over the nation who I would have never interacted with my entire life. And they truely have become very important people in my life. I miss them dearly, and I can't wait for our next reunion together - Hannah I am on my way - Anyway I have been talking to some endurance alumni, gosh the alumni group is getting pretty big now, over 100, lol. We were curious if the fans were interested in having some type of reunion competition with compeitiors from the past 6 seasons for e7? We were wondering if ya'll would even want to see some of ya'lls favorites compete for a 2nd shot of proving they truely do have endurance or if ya'll would prefer just another regular season? Give me your thoughts we all can't wait to read them!

Hannah called Jackie "RUDE"?!?!?!

Temple missions day and my least favorite team is holding the samadhi right now.  I must say i was pretty excited to tune in for this one!   Green has just given purple the handicap and now it's time to see how it is all going to play out.  The challenge today was pretty basic.  Run back and forth trying to fill your crate with enough beach debris to lift your flag and taste victory.  For all the fans who wish for nothing more than a chance to compete on endurance, this challenge would have been right up your ally.  Nothing held you back in this mission but your own physical endurance.  About three fourths of the way through the challenge jackie figured out that there was a loop hole in the rules that permitted teams to help other teams.  In a last ditch effort during the challenge she tried lofting coconuts and sticks towards Blue's crate in hopes of them recovering the items and propelling them to a quick win.  Unfortunatley for purple this idea came a little too late and orange's ox (caleb) and witty lauren pulled through.

But before the challenge, will someone please tell me where Hannah found it okay to force jackie to discuss the samadhi.  As if it wasn't weighing on jackie's mind enough, hannah decided to bring it up hours before the challenge while the kids were just hanging out in the huts enjoying themselves.  Over the course of the day the samadhi was going to be played out and at sunset two kids were going to be leaving the island forever, so where in all of that did hannah find is a good idea to bring it up and dwell?  I knew exactly how jackie felt, her wounds were open and it was as if hannah took some pleasure in pouring salt in them.  Hannah seems to get some thrill in others strife.  This is not a quality that an endurance champ should embody.  A champ should have good sportsmen ship to accompany their strength, and she seemd to ride jonathans coat tails because he has so many good qualities.  If jonathan and lauren could somehow conjoin and form a new team, i think they'd be the perfect winners, but unless a twist comes along to accomdate this, that doesn't look like an option.  So yea, hannah was rubbing it in jackies face that she had the samadhi, and leslie, once again being the good girl that she is, stayed out of it.  I respect her for that.  Leslie knows she is tough, she doesnt have to go around picking on who she takes for the weakers ones to prove this to herself.  This is a sign of a very strong player.  Her partner is also a quiet force.  When he talks he never has too much negativity spewing out of his mouth like connor or hannah.  These are a couple reasons why green would also make a good set of champs.

So orange won.  Good thing caleb could "make is dad proud."  Everyone goes on endurance to prove themselves to themselves and their family.  For him to use that as an angle as to why he felt that much more defeated floored me. 

They sent purple and blue up to temple.  In the moment that looked to be the correct move, however it does not seem to be one based on the longevitity of their gameplan.  Removing purple now is only going to leave bigger teams to deal with in the end, when there is not as much time or startegy to help bump teams out.  Red may have just escaped a very lethal week, and by doing so they need to realize that it is their time to make a stance with blue, or go to temple with blue.  This next week needs to be a two vs two week or it will be a very uneven playing field.  Orange and green are looking good for final three, but after that theres no garruntees.  An alliance can ONLY make it to the final 3 because after that you either win and stay, or go with the rest of the remaining kids to the temple... so at that point it's kill or be killed (in a very strategic game-play meaning!!)  no we do not kill on endurance, although im sure many players would tell you they have felt otherwise at some point or another, haha.  So green and orange's little partnership can function for one more week and if that happens they'll find themselves competing against eachother in the final three, trying to ensure that they are not amongst the 2/3 of the kids going to temple.  And THEN if they make it through that then it will just be a straight up head to head battle which is also not in the terms of the agreement when the alliance was arranged.  But hopefully they can make it to the end because i like both of those teams, although i woudnt mind seeing blue beat out red this up coming week...

WOW, way to get sidetracked monroe... okay so blue and purple went to temple.  Purple was probably feeling all confident because they had just been up there the other night, so this was all second nature to them.  Too bad the luck had to run out somewhere, and when it did at least they got to hug their only remaining friends goodbye.  Jackie had a little too much bitterness to continue, and connor would have been playing damage control had they returned, so it's probably best that a neutral team like blue will be back.  If blue recieves the samadhi next week i will lose a lot of respect for whoever gives it to them.  If this week did not paint everyone out for who they are, i dont know what could.  It is APPARENT that red orange and green are the strong teams, blue is a sleeper team and should get a free spot on the final three because none of these teams should be willing to get rid of them.  It is in each of these team's best interest to win the samadhi, give it to the next strongest team, alliances aside, and bank on their being no samadhi in the final three to come back and haunt them.  With no samadhi in the final three, you will have hopefully just removed the next strongest team last round in the final four and its all about win or go home.  I doubt anyone will play it that level headedly because no friendships come into the mix.  However these kids need to remeber they came into endurance alone, got lucky enough to partner up and now it is you two vs the world.  All these little friendships are distractions in disguise.  Yes, friendship is a very valuable tool in the game, however it can be just as harmful as it is useful. 

I disagree.

Lol i saw Andres post, and i have to say i disagree. Andres, lol just because you like Jonathan and Hannah the best, doesn't mean that they deserve the karma piece! I like them too!

Think about it this way. Yellow and purple were the two teams that were eliminated.

Yellow, was OK with green, didn't really have a problem with blue.  Briana and Hannah got into a yelling fight.  If Briana was smart?, she would see that right then and there that she would not leave red with the Karma piece. And Kyle you really never know where he would vote lol. And also, red sent purple to temple, there is no way on earth that purple is going to give the karma piece to red. I personally think that Kyle gave it to blue, and Briana gave it to green.

You have to think about it this way.  Yellow and purple do not know that green lied to them.  If i was in there position, i would probably give the karma piece to them.  THEY ARE PLAYING A GREAT GAME! winning a lot of missions, and no one thinks that they lied.

But on the other team, purple, i do not think that they gave it to green. I don't think Jackie liked Leslie that much hah.  I am actually 99% that both gave it to blue, seeing that they were best friends.

So if I'm right:Briana:green Kyle:blue Jackie:blue Connor: blue.

Lol sorry Andres, but that would make blue in the lead, and red with zero:(

Blue really would be a good contender for the Karma piece because they were true to everyone and nondramatic.

Green would be a good contender to, because they are playing a great game. And the best thing is no one knows that they are lying!

Red, i like them, but i really think that Hannah was to dramatic with Briana and Jackie for her to get this. The two girls she had fights with are the two girls that gets to determine her fate. Lol what are the odds of that

Orange, i think Caleb and Lauren are also playing a very strong strategic game. Do i think that they will get it, no i do not.

It's a woman's world... this season

Since yellow's premature departure, no one has been around to take the victimization.  Now that the easy scapegoat has been sent home, like everyone seemed to be so keen on having happen, no one is around to take the samadhi's and spots at temple.  I knew it was going to be interesting to see who was the newly hated team, however i did not think the position was going to be filled so rapidly. 

In the morning when it was time to distribute yellow's one piece and read their goodbye note, everyone seemed to think that orange was going to recieve the piece...?  I dont understand why everyone saw this as such a predictable outcome when orange was the one who chose to give up the samadhi in order to make yellow go to temple... if anything i would have been putting money on orange NOT getting the piece.  If anything they were going to get a nasty little snip in the goodbye letter and a REJECTED friend request on myspace a couple months later.  But anywho, red got the piece, it seemed to have a little something to do with briana and jonathan.  Maybe briana had fallen for jonathan's charm?  Either way red was resourceful somewhere along the line to recieve the piece, so for that reason alone i give them kudos for not only winning the temple mission and sending a team up, but ALSO recieiving the piece.  That is not a common event in endurance.

The challenge today was pretty unique.  Throwing fish from raft to raft looked kind of fun.  But the whole time it looked like it could have been done faster.  I don't know about you guys but if me and bryanah were on those rafts we would have been whipping those fish across the rafts so fast and then paddling that raft like the motor of a speed boat.  Maybe it wasn't as simple as it looked.  But green won, not too surprising, they are a pretty strong team.

I must say, this episode really showed me new sides of some of these teams.  Until this point green has been pretty blah in my opinion, but this episode made me really love leslie.  I think that is the green girl's name...  She seems to always be very positive, and although she hasn't faced much adversity yet, she has carried herself with a lot of class.  Also, the girl on the orange team is becoming quite the little spit fire.  When JD basically caught her in her alliance, her crafty way with words unsuspiciously covered up her deal with the green team and also presented herself very well.  The girl on the red team is not earning respect.  I still haven't forgotten the way she spoke to briana, and unless there is some HUGE plot line left out of the show for time reasons, i do not think speaking with such arrogance to anyone, EVER, is a quality that should be posesses by an endurance winner.  The girl on the purple team is a silent killer as well.  She is always giving backhanded comments and i love her for that.  Her partner on the other hand is not so great.  I think he is probably the least desirable partner on the island because of his transparent sneakiness, and she is not to subtle with words herself.  They might find themselves in an uphill battle if they plan on winning this thing.  Every week from here on in is going to generically start with removing them, and unless some change of events shifts the focus of this game, they will most likely find themselves at temple next week once again.  As for the blue team... where are they?  I did say how much i loved jordyn, but she has become invisible in the episodes lately.  This season does seem to have a slight bit of estrogyn dominance in the air, which is making it fiesty.  When the girls are not at peace, you know it's going to be a good episode of endurance.  For the most part the boys are usually enjoying the moment, and the girls are focused on how to prolong the moment and escape a trip to temple.  I like that social structure because it reminds me alot of my season, and i see a lot fo similarities between earlier seasons and this new one.  The last couple seasons were focused on harmony, once again we have a competitor's game and no one is okay with going home early.

So green won the challenge which went well with my new found love for leslie.  I did think is was silly of them to give the samadhi over to purple.  When a team is so unanimously hated, it never seems logical to try to further handicap them.  Giving the burden to red would have been their best bet so they could go head to head with blue and purple in a battle for power.  Now they will face red on an equal playing field and better hope that if they do not find themselves in control, that others have not tuned into their insider deals...

The flip side of karma

Ok I noticed Becca's Karma blog and I wanted to give another approach on who would deserve the Karma piece this year...

I feel the Blue team already recived good karma when the other teams gave them the luck piece. Since they have already been given a piece the right karma would be for them to give to another team. They also haven't really performed or make any strategical moves yet in the game, not saying they won't or its too late, but I feel karma is something that happens with action, and I haven't really seen any action. - sorry ben and jordyn, I'm sure ya'll will give us some action soon.

On the flip side the orange team ahs done alot of action. In a way they they have eliminated both purple and yellow from the game by sending them both to temple. They do extemly well in the challenges. They work very well together. They have made it clar throughout the show that they feel bad for sending people to temple, but do it because well.. thats the rules: you win, you send someone to temple. I wouldn't say they have lied, I would say they have concealed some truths like when JD wanted Lauren to expose the green/orange alliance, but well we saw what happened to blue and grey in e4 when they exposed their alliance - they got sent home. I feel the orange team has done a very good job of playing the game which may lead to them possibly earning karma for them - good team work, good at challenges, following the rules. My one flaw I see in the orange team was them sending yellow to temple. It was part of the game, don't understand why they would pick yellow since yellow was somewat loyal to orange. It would have been nice to have them give yellow a shot at the temple mission, but this game isn't about being nice...But they are doing very well in not only trusting eachother, but trusting their alliance-green team. Yet I think they may loose some points by decieving the red team when karma is concernd. They haven't made an official alliance with red, on an "unofficial" alliance. I must say the orange team is doing very well on the lieing without lieing strategy, lol

Another team who has done alot this season the green team. Very cool to see the two people voted online get together. Like their allies the orange team, the green team has extremly good team work. They get along great with eachother, and keep eachother positive. They have also done extremly well in the challenges. Like the orange team I feel the green team has just been following the rules. When they won the sahmadi, the rules say they need to give it to someone. It wouldn't be very good karma to not follow the rules, so I do'n't think it is fair to say the orange and green team deserve bad karma since they sent someone to temple or gave them the sahmadi, those are part of the rules of the game. They were given good karma by the fans by being voted on the show so does that mean they should give some of that karma to another team? But unlike orange, the green Team has lied in the game about the magic box. I think it was a very clever move, and it may be their best move the entire game. But not trusting their alliance and atleast telling their alliance the truth is kinda abd karma.

Finally The Red Team!!! Both big endurance fans who got to live the endurance dream. They were alot of fun to be around, and kept the mood very fun in fiji. Like the other teams I don't think it is fair to judge them on sending a team to temple, since once again that is part of the rules somebody needed to do it. Like orange targeting yellow; I think it was a mistake for them to target purple so early. But I do think they are doing a very good job of trusting in their unoffical alliance. The red team is giving their all and comming close if not winning many of the missions. And when they make moves in the game, they are not doing it for their own personal gain, but for the gain of their unoficial alliance.

It is a toss up on who deseves and who doesn't deserve the karma piece. I would like to see red get it. They have not been playing the game just for them, but helping out the green and orange team by giving them their full trust, they are displaying very good karmahopefully it all works out for them!

Holiday Break

Hey guys hope ya'll are all enjoying the holiday break. Sorry been busy it has been a while since my last post.

So basically we have made it to the final 4 teams: Orange, Red, Green, and Blue.

It was disapointing to see both Yellow and Purple go. I knew yellow would be in trouble due to the partner drama. It stinks for Briana since she did her best to try to have the others see her point of view. I like how she tried to tell everyone how they shouldn't be pre-picking partners since they didn't know what the challenge was going to be, just to change to subject. But they did prove to be pretty tough they always seemed to be in the top 3 of alot of the challenges. Gosh Briana we would have made a pretty tough team together ;)

The purple team I was honestly surprised to see go next I knew they were on the outside of the major alliance of Green-Orange-Red, but I imagined them outlasting the Blue Team. My brother and I imagined they would have at least made it to the final 4. They were very entertaining to watch sad to see them go. I imagine they will give their piece to the blue team. It will be intersting to see if the Blue team can make a power shift like the yellow team did in the final 4 against the grey-orange-purple alliance in Hawaii.

Orange and Green are doing such a great job of playing the game, as is everyone this season. I have to give props to our season on being the most strategical group of kids yet on endurance as a whole. Sure people like Nichole(e3), Sabrina(e1), Max(e2), and Dakota(e5) all were very strategic while playing the game. But it didn't appear that others were quite strategic I may be wrong Taylor and Monroe might want to disagree with me. But overall since the plane landed everyone as kept their head in the game. Before the rts there had been alliances formed. And they players are all out there to compete. Like when JD asked teams if they are in alliances, unlike previous season(e4) nobody is willing to jeopardize themselves from winning. Unfourtunately with only 6 teams there can't be much power shifting as in previous seasons. But overall very impressed with how well everyone is doing not only physically in the challenges, but mentally in the strategic point of view.

Now I have a question for everyone involivng my favorite team on the island right now, the red team. If they are to win the next temple mission what do you think they are going to do? Join Blue and go after the two most dominant teams this season-Green and Orange, Will Hannah's and Lauren's friendship cause them to send-Geen and Blue? Or will Green be able to manipulate Red in sending- Orange and Blue? I am curious where everyone thinks their is head is at in the game, since they are the only team which is a bit mysterous on what they will do next if they have the power.

Finally what do ya'll think will happen when the Green team exposes the power of the magic box???

And everyone can go ahead and give a shout out to the Red Team - Hannah and Johnathan, no neg comments for them here plz.

Good Luck to the final 4 can't wait to see what happens in the final stretch of the season!

There goes my team...

Hey everyone!

Long time no post, I KNOW, I KNOW, i am so sorry. i am writting these posts on christmas ever out of guilt.  i thought it was time to give back in my life, give back to a program that gave me so much in my life.  So i will put in a couple extra man hours on the holiday to catch up with Endurance, i've fallen behind because as the end of the semester approaches in college, final exams come rolling around and with a part time job as well, blogging had to be put on the back burner for a little bit, as well as all t.v. watching in general.  However, its winter break and I'M BACK.

So lets start with the first temple mission of the season.  Yellow, already destined for the temple, had little hope.  The only way for them to get back in the game was to go up and win, not even a victory in the mission could change their fate.  I did not get to catch the episode where orange won the samadhi and chose to forgo using it to ensure yellow's trip, but i think that was pretty bogus.  If orange and the rest of the teams all saw yellow as such an unthreatening team, then why would they be so dead set on getting them up to the temple. if anything i would have expected orange to try to keep the harmless team around and try to remove bigger threats like purple or red.  as long as they are sticking with green, teams wil try to come after them, and taking teams out that do not pose a threat in most of the challenges seems like an... "interesting" tactic.  But as elementary as it is, it is orange's strategy so we'll see how far that outlook takes them...

So in the challenge purple was kicking some butt.  They kept sinking all the stones into the baskets and made themselves look like a stronger team than they probably actually are.  That mission had a huge element of luck involved and they seemed to also have the little bit of skill to accomodate it.  So they removed a few teams, probably annoyed a few along the way and at the end of the challenge still found themselves on the losers bench.  I found it interesting that the girl on the red team said she was good friends with purple but then still found it okay to send them?  But red, using the "strong team" excuse, sent purple up.  I do not know how true these words actually ring.  Red was foolish to not send orange, and unless i missed some insider deal cut last episode, orange looked to be the strongest team as well.  I don't know guys, Caleb look pretty tough.  I think that he is the obvious threat and needs to go, from a competitors standpoint. 

So long story short, purple and yellow are going to the temple of fate.  Connor was talking about how hurt he was, but being hurt is not the right word for it either.  He proved to be a good player, so why did he feel immune from a trip to temple?  I was really happy to hear their team called up, but in the end it was yellow who truley met their fate.  I was bummed to see them go.  Aside from them sharing the same color that i possessed, i like it when yellow teams win the temple of fate.  I dont care about all the little missions along the way, those are just a feather in your hat, but going up to temple and taking out a team single handedly is an awesome feeling, friends OR enemies.  Seeing yellow bite the bullet so early was a bummer.  Briana was very misunderstood, and i do not even remember the boy's name.  It will be interesting now that the typical go-to target is gone t hough.  Without a scapegoat people are actually going to have to make some decisions.  I see blue and purple as the outsiders.  Orange and green look very powerful and united, and red seems to be the dark horse that i would not mind seeing emerge and win.  The girl on the red team is not my favorite but i think their positioning in the game is respectable.  They do not rely on others for security and seem to be paving their own way through the game.