30 June, 2009 in Holidays, School by Aonghas

Blending in at Rutherford

Today I met up with my old school friends at Rutherford! I arrived at the school just after 11am and signed the visitors’ book at the office. It just so happened to be their mufti day as well, so I didn’t look too out of place as I walked through the school at interval. It was a little unnerving at first because I didn’t know if I would recognise anyone, but I made my way to the TDI form class and was welcomed with a big “AONNNGHHHASSS!” as I walked in the door. Most things in the form class looked similar to last year, and I noticed some photos of me still on the wall which was nice to see. A couple of interesting things caught my attention however. The first was a small whiteboard behind one of the laptops with David’s name on it and read “What to Wash”, followed by a list of body parts for each day of the week. When I asked David about it, he told me that he was in fact washing those body parts each day PLUS more. That was reassuring to know. The other slightly strange object in the room was a large cardboard box with eye holes cut out on the front and the words “T.D.I Guess Who?” I managed to get a photo of me with the Guess Who box on my head – can you even tell it’s me under there? Pretty hard, I know.

A whiteboard to keep David's hygiene in check

Who's the mysterious person under the box mask?

I spent most of the day in the form class talking to whoever had study periods. Mrs Russell was trying to send an email in Gmail with an attachment file, but she kept getting a pop-up proxy box before it would freeze on her. I then found out from Chelsea that sending emails home was now restricted and they aren’t allowed to send emails home with attachments anymore?! That’s just crazy. It made me remember how much I loathed the school network last year. Thank goodness the network at Auckland Uni is nothing like that!

Chelsea, me and Gannin

Gannin, me, Ari and Clinton

Before I left Rutherford, I sat in with TDI during their form period after lunch in Room 50. It brought back a lot of memories from last year just being there, and all the things that I miss started to come back to me. It was so good to see that the love and support for one another in TDI is still very much alive; everyone still keeping themselves busy. Thank you guys for making my day and reminding me of the good ol’ days! I hope you all enjoy your ball this Friday!

8 August, 2008 in Uncategorized by Aonghas

Ugh, It’s A Kilt!

Today the Year 13 students got the opportunity to dress up in cultural costumes to celebrate cultural diversity and also to round off International Languages Week. My outfit consisted of the Anderson tartan kilt with a matching Anderson tartan tie. I wore those long white socks that go nearly up to your knees; they were such a pain to keep up. When I got to school I found out that Dr. Colvine was also wearing a kilt and he recognised the Anderson tartan when he saw me. I was quite surprised how many Year 13 students decided to dress up actually. Some people even went to the effort of going to costume stores to hire their outfits!

A group of Year 13 students dressed up for International Languages Week

6 August, 2008 in School by Aonghas

A Look Through Musical Archives

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRAEME BRENS AND PHILLIP MOBBERLEY!
I was supposed to have a late start this morning since it was Wednesday, but Mrs Faaea-Semeatu wanted me to come in to school early so I could have a look in Studio 3 for orchestral music that looked appealing. She told me yesterday that she would be in Room 81 before school because she had Professional Development, so I could grab the studio key from her then. When I arrived at school it was nearly 8:30am. I approached Room 81 and I saw the back of Mrs Faaea-Semeatu, but she was also with Ms Heath, Mr Shaw and another teacher. I felt anxious knocking on the door because I knew that I wasn’t even supposed to be there. But I knocked on the door anyway. Not suprisingly, the first reply I get is “go away, we have professional development!” from Ms Heath. I backed away from the door dumbfounded about what I was going to do next… Luckily for me, Mrs Faaea-Semeatu came to my rescue and gave me the key. Scary territory, I don’t want to have to go there again next time!

So off I went to the music department. I let myself into studio 3 and started to rummage around all the old-looking folders and music piles. At first I couldn’t find much, but then I realised all the band and orchestral music was lined up along the shelf at the back of the room. I started flicking through them all from one side to the other, and in the end the most interesting/playable pieces I could find included Candle in the Wind by Elton John, Theme from Carmen, Thunderbirds Theme and The Theme from A-Team. The newest music was probably The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers medley, but we played that piece in the orchestra back when Dr. James was at Rutherford (2004). I talked to Mrs Faaea-Semeatu later on in the day and I think we are going to go with Thunderbirds. Now the only thing left to do is find people to play in the orchestra!

31 July, 2008 in School, Update, Website by Aonghas

The Official AONGHAS.COM Launch

First of all, I would like to welcome you to the official launch of my website on 31st July 2008 at midnight. For those of you who stayed up to wait for the launch at 11pm, I apologise for the one hour delay. There were a few things I had to fix up before it all went ahead, but luckily they didn’t take too long to adjust.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MRS RUSSELL. Today we celebrated Mrs Russell’s birthday as she turned 21 What I was disappointed about was the fact that I missed out on the birthday celebration during tutor period because I had to talk about International Languages Week at assembly. Luckily there was a little bit of cake left when I got back, so I got to have a taste. It was a chocolate mudcake (I think they’re called?) and it did taste quite good!

I also want to wish Mars Keomahavong a happy birthday for today as he turns… 18?! Wow that’s so old (sorry Mars!) I can’t believe it. For those of you who don’t know Mars, he is one of the earliest memories of a friend I had at Henderson Primary School. Whenever I talk about him to other people, everyone always says “wow, his name is Mars?!” and yes, it’s true, like the planet. In fact, he even has a sister called Mercury and a brother Comet! He was quite the man at soccer/football back in the day, and when I caught up with him the other month, he’s still going strong with his footy apparently, going overseas to play in tournaments etc. So I’m sure he’s going to make the big time soon and when he does become the next David Beckham, I can say “Hey, I know that guy!” Good on ya mate!

29 July, 2008 in School, Work by Aonghas

Prefect Evaluation Time!

The day had finally come when the head students and Mr Coughlan sat down and looked through the Prefect evaluation forms that were done at the end of term one and the beginning of term two (for those late people!) After English first, Mr Coughlan took the four of us to Servo Cafe up the road. We saw Faber’s mum there and ordered our drinks. We all got hot chocolates apart from Mr Coughlan who got some form of coffee. You know, I still don’t quite understand the different types of coffee. I’m sure people have tried explaining to me the differences but the only thing I can remember is that ‘white’ means with milk and ‘black’ means without milk. And I only found that out on the plane to Christchurch last year when the flight attendant asked me what drink I would like. Oh unless that was tea… is it possible to have a black coffee? Anyway, then there are all the different variations of latte, cappuccino, mochaccino… way too confusing. That’s why whenever I go to Starbucks with anyone else I just get whatever the other person is getting. But anyway, while we were waiting for our drinks to arrive, we sat down at a table and started discussing how we thought this year’s Prefect group was progressing. Obviously I cannot repeat everything that was said at the meeting but rest assured that the general overall feeling wasn’t too bad (to all you Prefects who are getting worried!).

Luke brought up a few ideas that he came up with for the Prefects too. His vision is for the Prefects to be profiled more around the school, especially to the Juniors. He wants the Prefects to spend some of the free option subject periods in some of the junior classes and perhaps help them with other areas of life as well. The end of the year is not far around the corner now and I completely agree with the fact that we need to leave a legacy as the Prefect Group for 2008 for the future Prefects to follow.

At lunch time Carey and I met with Ms Heath about the promotional video and the corresponding Media Studies credits that we could consider. It looked like quite an interesting project to do, and to get credits for it would just be a bonus!

Tonight we had another training session at work. I don’t really know if those training sessions do anything for me to be honest, but I guess it reinforces what we are supposed to do while we’re working. I always remember watching the training DVD for Cotton On for the first time. It was almost cringe material. They had these role-playing actors pretending to work and be customers and the guy acting as the sales assistant walks up to the ‘customer’ and says

“Hi there, is there anything I can help you with? We actually have a 2-for deal on the tops in the middle of the store, which colours do you like?”

Like seriously, he was pretty hard out. I don’t know about you, but if I was that customer I would be intimidated more than anything! Although I can think of a few people who are exactly like that when they work… Ah well, late start tomorrow!

25 July, 2008 in School by Aonghas

A Rutherford Promotion

Today we were going to go over to Rutherford Primary School during period three to donate the books we had fundraised for their school and Rose wanted me to film the presentation. Since I had Chinese in period three, I thought I might go and see Ms Hsiao during my study period to ask if I could be excused from class. At 10:20am, I walked over to the primary school with Rose and Caragh, as well as a few members of the Junior Council. When we arrived at the primary school hall, all the little kids were already waiting patiently for us inside. Rose, Caragh and the Junior Council members went and sat at the front of the hall while I took one of the seats at the back so I could film.

The assembly started with one of the primary students standing at the front as she introduced herself, before telling everyone to stand as we sang the National Anthem. When it was our turn to do the presentation, Rose wheeled the large table/box of library books out to the front and spoke to the children. I think everyone was delighted with the donation and we were thanked for our generosity afterwards. I thought that would be the end of the filming for me, but as I was putting the video camera away, one of the teachers told everyone to stand up and dance the Macarena, and that included the Rutherford College students! I wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass by without filming it, so I whipped out the camera and focussed on Rose and Caragh. It was pretty funny watching all the students dance, and the range of enthusiasm amongst the little kids. What also amazed me as I sat at the back of the hall was the way in which the primary students behaved. Everyone was very attentive and sat up straight away when the teachers at the front told them to. That’s the sort of energy you see less of when you enter high school, and I think it’s a shame that some high school students cannot seem to find the brighter side of life.

Today at English was our last period to research for our seminars. I thought I might use the period to go online and research a little bit more about my topic of Divine Justice. By the end of the period, I still felt like I had more research to do because I had too many questions that I hadn’t answered. I guess I’ll have to look into it a bit more this weekend. Just another thing to add to the list…

At lunch time I had to track down the TDI projector and borrow one of the laptops in our form class to take to Te Atatu Intermediate School for the promotional presentation this afternoon. Mr Moore took me and Bryn down to the intermediate school (Bryn was going to be speaking to the school because he was a past student) in his car early so that we could set up the projector and laptop.

I managed to set up the laptop and projector on a nearby table at the front of the hall, but there was no sound cable that we could use to plug into the PA system. Luckily one of the intermediate students walked past and knew the teacher in charge of setting up microphones and audio set up for the school hall, Mr Felix. I thought we might just hold a microphone up to the speakers of the laptop while we played the promotional DVD, but in the end Mr Felix managed to find a cable long enough to stretch all the way from the stage down to the floor where the laptop was.

The rest of the performing students from Rutherford College arrived shortly after, as well as the intermediate students filing in after lunch. After the promotional video was played, Mr Moore addressed the school and then introduced Bryn to the stage, who spoke about his experience at Te Atatu Intermediate and Rutherford College. I liked the fact that he said “forget Kelston and St. Doms, they’re rubbish!”. The choir then sang the school song “The Rutherford Way” before an extract of our production “For Today” was performed. Overall, I felt our presentation was a success and hopefully Rutherford College gets the number of enrollments they need for next year.

Before youth group tonight, I remembered about the radio show and thought I might call in before it finished. When I rang up, David answered the phone and I told him that my name was “Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii”. I passed the phone to Calum after he put me on hold and Calum managed to get on air for a few minutes before the end. I think the topic on tonight’s show was sport, but I can’t be entirely sure because we only tuned in 5 minutes before the end of the show.

Tonight at youth group Calum and I led song worship. The first song we sang was “From the Inside Out” and our second song was “Jesus You’re My Superhero” where we got everyone to stand up and join in with the actions we had made up. It was pretty funny watching some of them dance (and for those of you who weren’t dancing, shame on you! haha) We had an activities evening tonight so we spent most of the time working on our poster boards for the foyer in our church. Our group was working on our “High School Musical” themed board, and it was starting to come together. I brought the cardboard that we were going to use as the stage for our board, but it was a little cheap-looking after I coloured it in with brown colouring pencil.

We played a game for the second half of the evening and we stayed in the same groups we were in for the boards. The game was split into physical and mental challenges. The first challenge was a physical challenge so I offered to represent our team, while Jireh was competing against me from the other team. The challenge was to see who could do the most press ups in 15 seconds. Uh oh.. I didn’t want to embarrass myself now. We got into position and waited for the countdown. As soon as On said “go”, both Jireh and I started doing press ups frantically. Initially I felt like I was doing okay, but 15 seconds was taking ages! In the end I managed 30 press ups while Jireh did 27, so our team got the point for that challenge. Phew, that was a good workout!

24 July, 2008 in School by Aonghas

Parents Updated

Allie was waiting to be picked up by me at the bus stop across the road from the Roberts Road shops. We had initially planned to be at there at 7:45am in order to get to school by 8 o’clock, but we ended up picking Allie up at around 7:55am. We weren’t too late though, because when we arrived at the front gate, Luke and Carey were just walking into school as well. The weather was cold and wet, although it wasn’t raining. Rose was waiting for us in Mr Moore’s office but it looked like we weren’t going for a walk this morning. Instead Mr Moore sat down and had a chat to us about Open Evening as well as general conversation. It was lucky that we didn’t go out for a walk this morning, because near the end of the meeting, the rain started to fall quite hard.

On the way to my first class (Chemistry), Mrs Taylor called me into her office. She had found a competition that we could enter, which was to design a robot/machine that could throw a shot put further than Valerie Vili. It was a good opportunity for our robotics team to consider, seeing as it is right up our alley. I think the winning design would be built as well as monetary awards for the winning schools.

During Chemistry class today I asked Mr Wade if he was going to the Avondale Ball, because Serenne had asked me to ask him. He told me that he probably wasn’t going to go because of his wife’s pregnancy. Mrs Russell gave us an update about John Kingi during our study period today. Apparently he is doing very well at the moment, starting a new venture into fashion design and keeping fit at the gym. If you’re reading this John, then I just want to say good on you! I’m looking forward to catching up with him when he comes in to visit us on Monday. I had some Chinese homework to finish during our study period today, but I couldn’t seem to find my Chinese exercise book. Luckily Rose was with me, so she helped me with some of the questions.

In Chinese class today we had a new student. She was a Korean girl who had just come to our school from Marist College. She told us that she has been learning Chinese for the past two years there and Ms Hsiao happened to know the Chinese teacher there too. Today at Chinese we did a few exercises from the textbook “HANYU” which means “Chinese language” in English. The period seemed to go a bit quicker than I thought, and I was excited when the bell rang (not because I don’t like Chinese!) because I thought it was the end of the day since we finished early today. Unfortunately for me, it was only the end of period four; we still had English to go! At English today, I decided that I probably shouldn’t waste another period dithering around so I got on to one of the computers at the back of the classroom to do a bit of research for my seminar.

My parents weren’t going to be at school until 2 o’clock when their first teacher interview was scheduled for, so I spent the time beforehand in our form class. Faber and Craig were watching some video on the laptop while Chelsea and I were talking on the sofa. Chelsea gave me my Chinese exercise book, which I had been looking for for the past whole day! When it was just past 2pm, I realised I should probably head down to the office pretty fast because my parents didn’t even know who they were seeing! Our first interview was with Ms Hsiao (Chinese). She told my parents that I was pretty busy with other projects at school but I was still managing to keep up with the class (phew, not too bad!). Next we had Ms Edwards (English). She told my parents that I was doing okay at the moment, although she didn’t know how well I could do in Unfamilar Texts. She suggested that if I didn’t feel confident about it then maybe I could just drop the Achievement Standard and not do it in the externals, which would give me more time to focus on my essays. It didn’t sound like such a bad idea actually, considering I passed Level 3 NCEA last year, so I could just focus on the quality of my credits rather than the quantity. Mrs Russell was after that, and she didn’t seem to have too many problems with me. As usual with my parents though, they put everything I achieve down to luck, and always claim that I’m too lazy and should study more. In some ways they are right I guess, but other times I feel like they are too hard to please. Our last interview was with Mr Wade (Chemistry). It was the first time my parents had met Mr Wade, and they seem to think that he is a nice guy.

I can’t seem to get that Popular song our of my head; the one that I listened to/watched yesterday. It’s driving me up the wall. It used to be a cool, but I think it’s making me crazy now. If I hear it being played one more time I think I’m going to scream. I went to sleep at an extremely early hour tonight – 8pm! That’s right you heard me. I don’t know why, but I felt really tired tonight. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep nights prior to tonight and it was all building up. I woke up at midnight though to type my blog, but I had a weird dream before I woke up. I had a dream that I had this crush on a cat (a cat?!) but it was a talking cat and I thought of it as a human, even though I knew it was a cat. Anyway, one day I spilt different coloured paints on the cat because I thought it was a pretty funny practical joke, but then when I saw the cat licking itself trying to get the paint off, I started to panic because it might make itself sick. Weird? I think so too.

23 July, 2008 in School, Uncategorized by Aonghas

Burning Off the Fat!

Unlike usual Wednesdays when I get to sleep in until half past nine in the morning, today was different. The Prefects meeting scheduled for 8:45am in the Board Room meant that I had to wake up and get to school early. When I arrived at school and got to the Board room, most of the Prefects were already sitting down and Mr Coughlan was speaking. There were no chairs left so I went and stood at the back of the room with John Kim. Mr Coughlan was talking to the Prefects about help needed at Parent/Teacher Interviews tomorrow also at the Open Evening next Thurday night. He also talked about the evaluation of the Prefect group this year so far and suggested that we come up with ideas for the rest of the school year, because it’s going to go by so quickly. Luke continued the meeting when Mr Coughlan left and suggested some different ways the Prefects could profile themselves within the Junior student body. I thought all his suggestions were valid and I was keen to see them put to action, though I don’t know if some of the other Prefects had the same reaction. Maybe they might just have to bite the bullet on that one if they don’t like it.

It was strange going back to our form class and having the first period off because I wasn’t used to coming into school that early on a Wednesday. It felt like there was nothing to do, since I usually have a class before my study periods so I’m already switched on into that school mood.

The rest of the day that followed was pretty standard really. We had a quick cultural committee meeting in the music room at interval – that was pretty much just to get everyone up to date with what the cultural committee were doing this term and also to organise the Sing Star competition that we are running in week four of this term. At lunch time we had choir practice as well, because the choir is performing at Te Atatu Intermediate School on Friday this week to promote our school. Apparently Mrs Faaea-Semeatu had asked Ari to run the choir rehearsal because she wasn’t going to be here at lunch time. When most of the choir (actually not that many people turned up, I would say maybe half the choir was there…) had arrived to the music room and were lingering around, Ari called for a attention and gave us our starting notes on the piano. She gave the tenors (me) an F sharp as our starting note, but it sounded a tad odd. Maybe it’s because I haven’t sung The Rutherford Way for a long time, but I wasn’t really feeling it with an F sharp. It was like yeeeah.. but nah. The other people in the tenor section (who were there) were Julian and Alex Strange (I think he was supposed to be singing tenor… unless there was a bass part, though I’ve never heard it before). The balance between the girls and the boys wasn’t very ideal; the ratio was like five to one (5:1). “Five to one man, FIVE to ONE!” -Paul Fisher Anyway, before we got much further, Mrs Faaea-Semeatu (it feels weird typing her whole name out all the time…) popped in and we quickly ran once through The Rutherford Way. I accidently sang “The Rutherford Day” in one of the choruses and had a little self-chuckle.

The rest of the day seemed to fly past because our Year 13 assembly ran slightly overtime, which meant the English period was shortened even more than the already shortened periods we have on Wednesdays. Like yesterday, I wasn’t going to be picked up from school until later (today it was 4:30pm) so I just stayed in our form class while I waited. Today after school Ms Russell was helping John Kim fill out an application for a scholarship of some sort (I think) and was discussing some of John’s personality attributes. We all agreed that John was an honest, determined and considerate individual who tried his best all the time (good on you John!). I sat down on the sofa with Faber and we started to talk about the film camp in Christchurch that we went to last year. That’s when I took out my phone and started playing him the song Popular from the musical Wicked. It was a song that a couple of girls performed in the studio at film camp. That’s when Faber jumped up and told me that he had brought in his DVD of film camp to school. Excited by this, we both sat around a laptop and watched the Popular performance on the DVD. Michele Lee was also bystanding while we watched, although I don’t know if the performance was very appealing to her. Or perhaps it was just because the girl on the video was jumping around in a pink babydoll type dress. Other videos we watched from the DVD afterward included Feeding the Ducks which I must say was quite random. It was basically random shots of ducks in the river at St Andrew’s College (the school where the camp was held) with the shark music from Jaws as background music. I don’t know if they were trying to buld up some sort of suspense with that music but the ducks were too innocent-looking to cause any harm. We also started watching The LipSync Competition but gave up on it when it started to drag on for too long.

Time was running along and before long it was time for me to leave. Dad picked me up at the back gate at 4:30pm and I went home to get changed because I had an appointment with Nick at the gym today. I drove myself to Club Physical and saw Nick there, who had just started. I was a bit anxious about coming to the gym today because I hadn’t been for a good two weeks at least (Nick thinks it was more than that… I’m sure it wasn’t that long ago!). Nick decided that I would just do his workout today (well, with slightly lighter weights) so I could get back into the routine again. I must say that the weeks of not going to the gym took a bit of a toll on my body. The weights felt heavier than they used to be, but fortunately I managed to keep up with Nick’s intense regime. Half way through our workout I met Helena by the drinking fountain. Apparently she had just been running on the treadmill for half an hour (wow, I don’t even think I could run for that long!). Nick introduced me to all these weird exercises today, which he assured me were more advanced than the exercises I was doing before. The last exercise I did was this one where I lay on a backwards inclined bench with a pole held behind my head, and I had to do reps of crunches-type things while looking at the ceiling before swinging the pole from side to side ten times. Yeah I know it sounds weird and, believe me, it definitely looked weird too! After our workout at the gym I took Nick home in the car because it started to rain. Before I dropped him off we had a chat in the car just to catch up in general, since we haven’t really talked for a long time. It was a good chat though. Very interesting.

I didn’t really do much else tonight to be honest. I think I had better get some sleep though, because I have a walk with Mr Moore before school tomorrow!

22 July, 2008 in School by Aonghas

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.

21 July, 2008 in School, Uncategorized by Aonghas

The Start of Term… THREE?!

You know I really thought I would start the new term fresh and actually come to school all organised and ready for once. Unfortunately for me though, three hours of sleep and a cold morning to wake up to didn’t exactly help. I was procrastinating in bed about how much longer I could hold on to the warmth before I had to let it all go. After my quick shower I remembered that I hadn’t sorted out what I was going to take to school (all my books and paper were sitting in a pile in the middle of the lounge floor) so I decided I would just shove the whole lot into a bag and take it all to school; that way I could feel confident that I had everything I needed. Nick sent me a text asking when Warehouse Stationery opened, but I couldn’t reply since I don’t have any texts left! grr.

Travelling to school was another typical car ride filled with adrenaline. The minutes before the second bell were dwindling and my time allowance calculations for each set of traffic lights were not looking too great. When we finally arrived I dashed out and up the back gate driveway, only to discover that everyone was still lingering and only starting to move off to class. I saw Gannin and Mrs Russell walking towards our form class so I assumed we had form/tutor class before period one. Phew! What a relief.

I could hear the sound of chatter from the bottom of the staircase and prepared myself for another school term. I forced a smile and walked in looking as cherry as possible (nah, it wasn’t that bad actually!). Mrs Russell had a few quick words and mentioned Rose’s and my grades for our university papers in semester one. Caleb and TK had gone to Wellington and Deanna was talking to Caleb on her cell phone, as the rest of us discussed our holidays.

And then the daily routine began. First period… Chinese. We learned about future career occupations and talked about what each of us hope to do after we leave school. I was looking forward to my first free study period after English. After only two classes I already felt like I needed a break. After checking to see whether Mr Coughlan was in his office, Rose and I headed up to form class where we were met by Luke, Kirk and maybe someone else who I can’t quite remember (sorry, I’m tired okay!). Matthew..? Hmm.. anyway, I checked my lunch bag to see what I had to eat for today and found four pieces of bread. That meant I could go and toast them in the toaster! Unfortunately for me, when I walked out into the room next door, the toaster was on the table and the cable was wrapped around it. It was as if someone had taken it… during the holiday.. and didn’t plug it back in. grr. Okay, no biggie. But then when I put the bread back into the plastic bag and unwrapped the cable around the toaster, I discovered the cable was only half a metre long! I mean, what’s with that?! It doesn’t even reach the plug behind the table, PLUS the microwave was in the way too. Then I looked around for anywhere else I could plug the toaster in, and there was a power outlet on the other side of the room by the sink. But then I thought the toaster might get splashed by the water from the sink and I could possibly be electrocuted… Sigh, all the while my bread was condensing moisture as it sat in the bag on the table waiting to be toasted. I just decided that I couldn’t be bothered with it, so in the end I just took the bread back into form class and ate it raw. That was five minutes of my life wasted that I’ll never get back! ha

We had a head students meeting at lunchtime with Mr Coughlan in his office. Allie wasn’t at school today so it was just Luke, Rose and me. We discussed the Rutherford open evening next Thursday and we also learned that our Rutherford Day speaker for this year is going to be (and I don’t even know if we’re supposed to know this yet) our Prime Minister Helen Clark! Talk about going straight to the top. That was pretty exciting news, I can’t wait to hear what she has to say.

Rose and I went to look at the ball photos for order in the foyer after assembly. Mrs Russell pointed one particular photo out to me, which was a shot of me dancing (well, I assumed that was what I was doing, or trying to do) in the middle of the dance floor. It was um.. let’s just say it wouldn’t be at the top of my list if I was going to order.

When school ended and everyone left, I was by myself in form class. I resulted to lazing on the sofa as I waited for my ride due to arrive at 3:45pm. It was a tad awkward when all of a sudden the back door opens and in pops the head of the new cleaning lady. I forgot that the old cleaner (I think his name was Sam) had left at the end of last term so I wasn’t expecting to see her, or expecting her to see me beached on the sofa like a stranded whale.

Well that was pretty much as exciting as my first day back at school was. It’s a little depressing to think that more than half of the school year has passed, zzzip, goneburger. I guess the best way to stay positive is to not think about the end just yet!