Kangaroo Gone Jumping

Last week I changed my Bebo profile skin so that it represented the weather we were having in Auckland with the rain and such. I was thinking of changing it back to what is was before that last night, since the weather had sort of improved over the weekend and yesterday. It was lucky that I didn’t change it though because this morning when I woke up, lo and behold the rain had returned. I thought to myself – Tuesday… Tuesday = English first period = don’t be late to school or else Ms Edwards will send me to get a late detention = public embarrassment. But now with the weather added into the equation it was more like – Tuesday + bad weather = more traffic = longer time taken to travel to school = should probably leave home earlier to get to school on time…

I snapped out of my trance and realised I had to fit in a shower and a cup of tea within a time frame of 13 minutes. That was if I wanted to allow one minute travel time to get from the house to the car and 15 minutes travel time in order to get to school at 8:39am.

And you know what? My time management – yes, it does exist – paid off. I managed to get to school on time with like 30+ seconds to spare even! (I swear the traffic lights on Jaemont Ave changed to yellow AFTER we had entered the intersection). During English class Ms Edwards told us that we had this week to organise our English periods how we liked so that we could research for our seminars relating to aspects of Shakespeare’s King Lear. As usual, Rose took my favourite blue pen to write with, so I was left to search for another one in my pencil case. I kind of decided what I want to do my seminar on but I’m not too sure about the finer details just yet. I think it’s going to be based around the idea of divine justice, linking in with religious beliefs etc. in the Elizabethan era. Rose’s topic is dealing with hindsight, insight and foresight in the play while Caragh is doing her presentation on King Lear as a tragedy. “Sorry, what was that Caragh? How do you spell tradgedegdy?”

My study line in period two was a life saver for me because I hadn’t finished my Physics assignment on capacitors and it was due after interval. I couldn’t find my assignment sheet last night (slack, I know!) but Rose let me borrow her question sheet so I could take it next door (the room next to our form class) and quickly nut out some of the answers. I opened the door and felt the subtle chilly breeze from inside. I felt like an ice man living in an igloo. Wait, what do they call those ice people? ..inky.. Eskimos! That’s right. Oh yeah, I must apologise for my blatant outrage at the toaster’s cord length yesterday. I realised that the cable wasn’t as short as what I initially thought it was and it does actually reach the power plug behind the table on the wall. Hmm.. I was adamant that it was too short yesterday though. I’m sure someone moved the microwave or something crazy like that. Anyway, I spotted the heater in the corner of the room (it was the old one we used to have in our form class with the gills) so I rolled it over to the table and turned it on. I didn’t get far through the assignment before Rose came in and began a telecommunication exchange with Chen on her cell phone. The time was ticking and I needed somewhere to concentrate so I moved downstairs to our secondary form class to keep working on my Physics assignment. Rose later asked me where I went and was surprised when I told her I went downstairs, because the door was apparently locked?

Chemistry was the last subject before interval. I was hoping to stealthily finish off the last few questions of the Physics assignment during Chemistry but it turned out we were doing a practical experiment today with haloalkanes. Darn. We had to add some clear stuff (I’m assuming that was the haloalkane) into a test tube and sit the test tube in a water bath. Then we observed different haloalkanes going cloudly after a while. It was pretty cool; Andre and John Kim led our group.

At interval I had to go to the music room because apparently I called a meeting for all those who were interested in joining the school orchestra. I think Mrs Faaea-Semeatu put the notice in the bulletin on my behalf (thanks for the that, by the way!). However, the turn out was worse than I expected. Actually it was quite sad. Nobody showed up apart from Nikaela van Wingerden, who actually came to sign up for the Sing Star competiton, I think. In the end I just used the time to finish my Physics assignment while I sat waiting for people to come (time management skills – another tick!). I left the music room feeling somewhat disheartened, but I decided that the only reason people didn’t come was because their teachers didn’t read them the daily notices. That made me feel better. I think I’ll just have to make personal visits to those who I know who play instruments. So musicians, beware!

During my second study period I ate my lunch while Rose, Ari and Mrs Russell were looking at the official ball photos on the photographer’s website. There were some pretty good photos, everyone looking all glammed up. It’s amazing how much a little time (or a lot of time in some cases) in the dressing/make-up room can change the way you look.

After the short robotics meeting at lunch time, we had tutor period in our secondary form class downstairs. We discussed what was happening with the end of year TDI camp and also plans for Carey’s farewell before he leaves to go to Japan in 30 days. After we got that admin stuff out of the way, we had a sharing session where everyone who did something a little more than sleeping in the holidays told us about their holiday escapades.

The school day ended but I had to wait for my parents to pick me up at 4:30pm so I just stayed in form class with John Kim, Mrs Russell and Mr Maxfield. We talked about Mr Maxfield leaving our school at the end of next week to pursue his teaching career in England (I’ll save the tears for later) and we also had a quiet talk about certain people and situations and how to handle these situations. It was pretty exclusive though, you had to be there really. But just as we were about to leave for the day, Mrs Russell realised that the room key was missing. The one on the kangaroo keychain (yes! now my blog title does have a meaning!). We all formed a search party – Mr Maxfield, John Kim and myself – and started to comb the room for the keys. After several minutes the search was called off with no result. I sent a text to everyone in TDI (well, to whoever was in the TDI07 group on my phone) asking if anyone knew where the keys were. Everyone who replied said that they hadn’t seen them. In the end we had to leave without the keys, and my mum had arrived to pick me up.

Not a lot happened tonight. I did sort my one huge pile of paper and other bits into two smaller huge piles. So I guess that’s an achievement.