My Trip To Australia (I'm Living There)

It was a sad day for me as I boarded the plane. I was going to leave NZ, all my friends and my best school in the world so far (Pt England School). My eyes took a last look as the plane finally went up and surely we were more than 100 ft off the ground. We were going to Sydney, Australia because my Dad got a job there. I switched on a movie on the TV screen in front of me. It was awesome because there were different varieties of movies to choose from like e.g The Avengers and the new releases from 2012.

We were served food. I had a chicken smothered in a tangy tomato sauce with rice and veges. As I ate the food, this reminded me of the last day with my class having  a shared lunch. "Those were the good times" I said. I didn't know what I was going to do in Australia and what school I was going to go to. We approached our destination (Sydney,Australia) and the plane landed safely and then halted.

We departed from the plane. We were waiting in a long Que of people in front of us. As my family and I looked around, we saw our luggage and quickly grabbed it and put it on one of the trolleys. My uncle was waving at us to come. Our bags were put inside his big white van. We headed to our new home where my journey would begin.

Our Own Yr7/8 Mini Olympics

As the wild weather outside continued, our first Mini Olympic activity was just around the corner. "Put your shoes neatly in a line" said Mrs Flavell. The Yr 7/8 house captains hosted a Mini Olympics for Teams 4 and 5 so that our teachers could go to the Junior classes to analyse and see what they do for literacy. We assembled in the hall so that we could see who our leaders were and which activities we would be doing first. 

In our first activity, we were split up into two groups. One group had to either decorate a shell and the other had to put icing sugar onto 2 biscuits. Our group drew the Olympic rings on one of the shells and on the other shell, we wrote London 2012. I looked over my shoulder, only to see that the other group was more creative than us. Well to be fair, our group didn't want to do anything fancy."Time" said Mrs Flavell. We had finished our first activity and moved on to the second one. 

Our second rotation was with Mr Burt (our principal). We were doing relays. Our first challenge was to hold a tennis ball with our knees and jump to the finish line and drop the ball into the bucket without stopping. It was difficult because the ball kept on coming out. Nevertheless, our group finished and came 1st. We were awarded with 3 points. Our second activity was to try and score points by throwing 3 tennis balls into a bucket. Our group was doing really well. We kept getting 3 or 2 tennis balls in. Mr Burt said "Stop". We halted in our position and our group leader escorted us back to the hall so that we could watch PENN(Pt England News Network)

At the end of our session, we watched PENN (Our News Network) We counted all of our points in total and to my surprise, our group won! It was an awesome morning block. My definite highlight was when we were doing the relays. I hope we can do this again!

Making Right Decisions In Life (Smoking Not Our Future)

If you smoke, I want you to read this. Think of this as a wake up call to stop smoking. If you don’t believe me, our classroom (rm 21) have learnt all our information from the life education caravan. Our tutor who told us about making good decisions, is the life education teacher Lynn. Below are reasons why you should always make good choices.

Making good choices in life is very important because, everyone in this world decides their future, not others. To help you make the right decisions, you should always have supportive friends. If you don’t choose your friends carefully, you could be put under peer pressure, which could lead to you to doing things that you really don’t want to d e.g smoking. If you think smoking is still a very good thing to do, below are some consequences of smoking.

When you smoke, you breathe in the chemicals and they get attached to your lungs. If your lungs get smothered in the black stuff (tar) then you are putting your life on the line. It’s a risky attempt to keep on smoking because then, you can have problems with breathing and after a while you could lose your lungs.

Other reasons why people should stop smoking, is that it can damage your outside appearance. You can look very old even though you are young. It is also possible that if you smoke you are inhaling over 500 chemicals in that one smoke. Some of those chemicals are tar, tobacco and some other ones. If you love your legs and feet, you should stop smoking because you could lose them too! How are you going to walk if you don’t have legs? Think about it.

Please if you are reading this and you smoke, make a decision whether you are going to stop smoking or not. It’s mainly up to you because you have to make your own decisions. Think about the things that affects your body. It isn’t worth to keep on going because you won’t live much longer. We only live once in this lifetime and if we damage our bodies, we can’t just walk to the 2 dollar shop to repair ourselves! So please please it is very urgent for those of you who smoke to stop and think about the things that could affect your body. Make the right choice!

Rainbows End

(I am the one in  the front, my church friend is in the middle and my brother Abraham is at the back)

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”. My ears could hear echoing noises of people screaming when the fear fall went down in a blink of an eye. My body shivered in anticipation as I was waiting in the long queue full of people, ready to go on to the thriller ride, the fear fall. I gulped as the person who was in charge of the fear fall, sent me to a seat with my friend. If you don’t know already, My Aunty, some of my church friends and Brothers came along to NZ’s Premier Theme Park, Rainbows End. The lady instructed us to put on our seatbelts. She did a last inspection to see if our belts were tight enough. My body felt the machine going up. I opened my eyes and surely we were about more than 100 ft off the ground. “ZOOOOOOOOOOM”. The fear fall went straight down. I had no oxygen when we came down. My heart was beating faster and faster, until the fear fall stopped just metres of the ground. I let out a sigh of relief as we were finally of this daunting ride.

I walked off the fear fall dizzy. My attention was caught as I saw the scorpion karts racing. “WOW” I said. I stood in the que of people. After a minute or two I was finally on one of the karts.  The person in charge said “GO”. My car went zooming down the track. I was just behind this man who was leading the pack. My car was about to overtake him until he blocked my way. I adjusted my speed to the max , so that I could beat him. We went around the curve and up the track.The  final lap was coming to an end, and I won by an inch. We parked our cars in the driveway where the karts were meant to be parked. It was a good challenge for me because it really pushed me to GO FOR GOLD!

I ran past the log flume, and the invader and set foot onto the roller coaster with my big brother. Just like the fear fall, the inspector made a last check to check whether our seatbelts were on tight. The roller coaster went slowly as we approached to the track when it curves around. “YEAH” I said in amazement. The ride went faster than I expected. My mind was thinking that we were going to fall off as we were coming closer to the loop. “Here we go! The ride looped upside down then went to the curve then again went upside down 3 times. Yet again, my head was dizzy.

I walked around Rainbows End, and I was surprised to see the Journey to the centre of the earth. Rumor has it that this ride wasn’t like any other ride. You watch a movie and then you sit down and the chair moves. The movie started and then ended at the bit where the family went through an old mine. A lady came and gave us 3D glasses and told us to walk to the chairs. Again the movie started but was viewed on a bigger screen just like the Hoyts cinemas screen at sylvia park. She told us to hold the bars. The movie played and the chairs started to rattle backwards and forwards. It was like I was in the movie. The chair kept rocking backwards unexpectedly and then moved to the sides. I couldn’t stop laughing. As my chaired kept moving, it finally halted when the movie stopped. To be honest I thought that the journey to the centre of the earth ride was going to be boring. I was wrong. 

It was 5pm in the afternoon and the premier park was closing. All of the rides I went on during my time at Rainbows End was the Roller-coaster, Invader, Log Flume, Scorpion and Family Karts, Fear Fall, Master Motion(Journey to the centre of the earth) Bumper Boats and Cars, Goldrush and the Pirate Ship. My favourite rides would have to be the fear fall and the rollercoaster. I had a great time, and hopefully if I am lucky, I can go there again!

Cross Country

“BOOM” went the clappers. My year group (The 12 year old boys) were jogging lightly down our school field. It was a sunny Friday, and our school had our annual event, the school Cross Country. Many people predicted it to be a wet and ugly Friday. But no, the sun was shining beautifully and there were no clouds in sight.

As I came around the corner of the field, I entered the muddy reserve. “Holy Moly” I said in shock. My shoes were smothered in the gooey mud. The heavy mud caused my feet to drag along the grass because it was weighing me down. My legs started to ache and then I started to lag behind the pack of 6 people who were in front of me.

I started running into the bush walk, and to my surprise, I saw a colourful wig being worn by my friend Aidan. He was a couple of metres away from me, so I decided to catch his tail. I almost reached him, but he was gone and was nowhere to be seen. The mud caused me to slip. I looked up and saw that I had only just missed a tree that could have hit my head. Although my legs were aching, I was determined to make it to the finish line. I hacked the pain and ran the final lap of the track.

The finish line wasn't too far off from where I was running. I sprinted up our school field and then I crossed the playground. I could barely breath because my throat was parched. I ran up to where I saw our school students cheering us on. As I crossed the finish line, I let out a huge sigh of relief.

“Phew, I’m glad that’s over”! I said. I had a long drink and then I washed my shoes which were covered in mud. My highlight of the race was definitely running through the bush walk, even though I slipped. I was thankful that I almost placed in the top 8 but just fell short. My goal was that I would stop only once, and I actually accomplished that. It was a long day for me, but I felt like I could do it all again!

Animators Apprentice

On Thursday last week, our Yr 7/8 had the privilege to go and experience how people use to make animations back in the 1900s. Many people think that is was made on computer. Its hard to believe but animations were made from something they call, a zeotrope. The artists from the workshop are Ali, Maka and Nils. I knew our time with them was going to be awesome!

The first activity we got into, was learning how to split the lines in a drawing. To do this, you must find the middle of 2 lines, and split it by drawing a line in the middle the exact same way the other two lines are. Ali and Maka's artistic advice played along very well for us, because they gave us soe really helpful tips for us to do this activity well. 

We had a final activity in the animators workshop. Our group had to split the lines on the jelly fish, and then number the lines. We then took the paper and Ali and Maka gave us strips of paper numbered from one to six. After we did this, we could put features in our jelly fish, to make them look cool. We were then instructed to go to Maka so that we could put our work on the zoetrope and see out work looking like an animation. It was very cool for me, because I never knew that you could actually make an animation by hand. I am really looking forward to what we will be doing next week!

Usain Bolt

“I am now a living legend” proclaimed Usain Bolt. He basks in glory, as he defended his title
two Games in a row. His arch nemesis Justin Gatlin, came short in the finals, losing to the man in Jamaican colours, Usain Bolt. Many people look at him to be seemingly invincible. A very inspirational runner he is. The crowd adores his talent as some of the world records have been broken in the running events, by the ‘Lightning Bolt’.

Some people become legends for a legendary feat. In this case, Usain Bolt is a legend for his super speed. Many describe him as the best runner, and the best there ever will be. He is compared to Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan is the best basketball player ever, and he will always be the best.

In the 2012 Olympic games, Usain Bolt broke his Beijing Olympic record in the 100m sprints, and their Jamaican team broke the world record in the 400m relay. He raced in the 100m, 200m and the relay events.