Tangerine!

I just finished Tangerine (it's like 7 am) and I just wanted to tell everyone it's really good!
If your group has already finished your book, I would recommend Tangerine.
I have the shortest attention span ever but I managed to read it and it was interesting all the way through. 
I don't want to give away but it's pretty much about a guy named Paul and he moves to Tangerine County in Florida and a lot of weird things happen and there are secrets about his family and stuff like that, it's really hard not to give anything away because all the good stuff is secret, but think about giving it a try?

Ella

Speeches!!!!!!!!

Well, my speech was about High School Stereotypes. 
If you don't know what that is already, it's like nerds, jocks, emos, cheerleaders, etc. 
I don't know why I chose the topic, but it just popped up in my mind.

I wish I had done my conclusion properly, like I had planned it would've made my speech a lot better. 

Other than that, I think my speech was alright, I think I had a good structure. 

I think my speech was informative but on a topic that's not really important, haha. 
I didn't have to do much research, I had already seen a bunch of relative movies.

I think everyone's speech was really good, I never gave anyone under 5 ;)
 What did you guys think about my speech? 


 

Reflection

One of my goals was to hand in my work earlier, though I keep forgetting. -.-

My catholic character goal was to be more understanding to other people. I think I have tried to be more understanding to people and accepting to their opinions this term.

My personal goal was to get good scores on my extra curricular exams...
My speech exam was alright, Merit Plus. 
My ballet exam wasn't so good, I got a 79....I don't know why...
And I have a bunch more dance exams next weekend and music exams so I am full on busy.
My other personal goal was to gain more flexibility, and I have with my back.  

Yay...

I still have to try hard for my other exams, and I still need to make more time for my work, especially at school, which I can do easily. I think this will help me get my work done faster.

My final goal for the end of the year is to read more. I've been reading a fair amount of books now so I'm doing great. I want to read at least 15 books by the end of the term. :)

Thanks for reading? Haha.

Maths 

I think I'm strong in the basic facts area of math, like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
I don't think anyone would need that much help in basic facts, though I'm good (enough) with measurements and units, and names of shapes. 
I also know about mean, median, mode and range and ratios too.
 I'm not so strong in area and volume and perimeter, though I just had a lesson on finding the area and stuff but I still have to work on it  a lot.
I also learnt about formulas and I will need to practice them more. 

I'd gladly help anyone and gladlyer (I know it's not a word) be helped by someone. 
Sorry if I ask you too much.
BE MY TUTOR!
 
Thanks. (:

This week I missed school on Monday due to a speech exam, but today I learnt about area and perimeter during math.
I also learnt about ratios.
Does anyone know the answer to 1. a on the seed packet ratio sheet?
I like showing ratios as fractions too.

What have you been studying at maths this week?

My holiday
On Saturday I had a sleepover with a bunch of friends at my house. Bethany, Kristina, Joanna and Shanaea. 
We watched the movie Dark Shadows and pretty much spent all night wrestling each other and playing murderer in the dark, then watching videos of us wrestling each other on the tv upstairs. It was a long night and we were screaming a lot (my poor dad) but at the end we had a lot of sleep and in the morning we watched Bethany sleeping. (who by the way spent the rest of the night on minecraft with me).
When everyone left my mum took me and Shanaea to Oriental Pde, we got ice cream at Kaffee Eis and then went to her house and fell asleep watching Camp Rock. It was a really fun first weekend.

Then, the next week, I spent hours from Monday to Saturday at ballet (Joanna was there too).
I guess it was okay though some days I spent at Joanna's house after ballet watching Friends and Family Guy.

On Wednesday of the first week, my Dad took me go karting with a bunch of his workmates and their kids. 
It was really fun, though most of his friend's kids were about 20 so they were really good at it. (I crashed a lot).

The next week of the holidays was really fun, except Monday, which I spent cleaning up my room.
On Tuesday I had Kristina over and we spent all day watching Pretty Little Liars, listening to Kanye and dancing around. (:

On Wednesday I went over to Rosie's house. Her grandma took us to see the movie Hotel Transylvannia. It's a really good movie, you should see it.
After we went around the mall in Porirua trying testers at all the stores, and by the end our hands and arms were all greasy. 
Then, in the car I spilt hand sanitizer all over my pants. (Not funny Rosie!)
And then, when we stopped in Khandallah I went down the slide and got bird poo on my butt. (Still not funny)
I had a bad pants day.
And also when we got home Rosie taught me how to do a front flip on the trampoline!

On Thursday my Dad took me and Shanaea to town, and then we ditched him and went to see the movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid 3. The people in the cinema must have thought we were crazy because we started screaming at the muddy hand part. It was really fun, and then we went home to talk to Hunger Games fans online. 

On Friday, I went to Bethany's house in the morning and we went on Tumblr and Twitter. (: Then my Dad and Jana (my au pair) took me and Bethany in to town and we went on the crocodile bikes on Oriental Bay. It was really fun, we crashed a few times, Bethany crashed into a bush (sorry for mentioning this Beth) and I crashed into a grandma's bike and a sign and we crashed into a few other things. (We were on a bike for two, we took turns steering). We couldn't keep up with my Dad and Jana so we turned around (epic fail U turn) and biked all the way back. 

Overall the holidays were really fun, even the first week. 

Did you travel anywhere on your holidays?

Hi guys,
I'm stuck on ideas for my Passion Project. Someone please help me and maybe I can help you too!
-Ella.

My artwork. 

For St Benedict's 60th Anniversary we all had to make a piece of art to celebrate.

Most of us had sepia tones, house colours, newspapers etc.

For my artwork I started painting the house colours so you can see the house colours around the corners.
Then I changed my mind so I stuck on layers of newspaper and then painted tea over it, then stuck on a picture of our school in 1952 and a picture of our school now.

I like my artwork because it is old style and we don't often do artwork like that.

Movie review -

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. 

I chose to review this movie since it was 9/11 yesterday.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a film adaption of the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer about the attacks on the World Trade Centre buildings in 2001.

The main character is a nine year old boy named Oskar Schell, (Thomas Horn) who has Asperger's Syndrome. 

On September 11th, after the North tower collapsed, Oskar is let out of school early, while his mother Linda (Sandra Bullock), is still at work.  He comes home to find five messages from his father, Thomas Schell (Tom Hanks), saying that he is in the World Trade Center. 

The phone rings a sixth time but Oskar is too scared to answer. The machine records another message but it is cut off, and Oskar knows his father has been killed. 

Oskar called 9/11 "The Worst Day". His mother struggles to explain what happened to his father and why it happened.

One year later, Oskar finds a vase in his father's closet. It crashes on the floor and inside is a key in an envelope with the "Black" written on it. He vows to find what the key fits into. Oskar finds 472 people with the last name Black to see if any knew his father.

Personally, I wouldn't say I enjoyed this movie, but I think I really learnt a lot more about 9/11. It's really interesting to see what it was like for someone who has lost someone in the attacks, especially through the view of a child with Asperger's Syndrome.

You really get to see how the family deals with their loss after seeing Oskar's close relationship with his father.

I wouldn't recommend this movie to everyone, because it is very depressing, but at the end it is a very touching story.

The trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_quK9SEGYE

The production went really really really really really great!!!!!
 
I think everyone did really well especially the people in the troop because they had a lot of lines and also the props people because they had a very quick job. 


My favorite dance that I was in is Can't Touch This.  

My favorite dance that I wasn't in is Pour Some Sugar On Me or Mr Kite. ♥

I'm very sad that the production is over but I'm happy that we don't have to do dance practices anymore but at the same time I liked not doing as much work....

Great job everyone!
What were your favorite dances?



 

In the production I am on make up and wardrobe with Bethany and Shanaea. 

We're all in the same dances so it'll be easy to do people's make up and face paint at the same time.

Aside from learning our dances for Can't Touch This and Hero, 

we have to practice face painting and doing make up on the actors.

Hopefully it'll be alright, I'm looking forward to doing make up on the Cirque de Noir people!!!!!!!

What do you have to learn for the production?

My favorite olympic events to watch are gymnastics and swimming.

Gymnastics have been at the summer olympic games since 1896 in Athens. 
For 32 years, men were only allowed to compete. From the 1928 olympics in Amsterdam, women were allowed to compete as well.
At the olympics now they compete in all around team, all around individual, balance beam, floor exercise, uneven bars, and vault. 

USA have the highest rank in the gymnastics medal table with 81 gold medals, 85 silver medals and 30 bronze.
Other high ranked countries are the Soviet Union, Japan, China and Switzerland.
I like to watch the gymnastics because all the gymnasts have different routines and they're all really impressive too.

Swimming has been at every summer olympics, and from 1912 women were allowed to compete too. Swimming is one of the most popular sports at the games and the one with the second largest number of events, after Athletics.
The men's and women's events include freestyles, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, individual medleys, freestyles relays, and marathons.
I enjoy watching swimming because there's a wide range of races to watch and they swim really fast.



Who are your favorite athletes in swimming and gymnastics?

My current obsession is Tumblr.
If you didn't already know, Tumblr is a blogging site. 
I am really obsessed with Tumblr because it's like a collage of pictures and words online.
I like to post pictures of celebrities, fashion, photography, stuff like that. I also reblog off other blogs.
My favorite thing about Tumblr is that you can make your Tumblr look however you want and you can post whatever you want and just customize it to make it your own style.


Do you have a Tumblr?
If you do, comment your link! ;)


-Ella.

My role in the production is wardrobe / make up with Shanaea and Bethany.
Our job is to get the costumes sorted and help people change into them.
We can be successful if we practice with make up and face paint and be alert and organized.
It will be easy to manage time with our task work if we focus on getting it done first.
What's your role in the production?

In the holidays I had a lot of friends over.

On the first Sunday before the holidays Bethany and I went to the Katy Perry: Part of Me 3D premiere. <3

I had Bethany, Kristina, Shanaea and Joanna over one day and we all went to the park and filmed a fail remake of The Hunger Games as a joke. (By the way, we're not going to show you!!!!!!)

Joanna was Rue, Bethany was Glimmer, Shanaea was Katniss, Kristina was Clove and I was Caesar Flickerman. P:

I also had Olivia over and we had these massive lollipops from my Dad.

And I went to Bethany's house and we watched My Week with Marilyn. (:
And then on Thursday Bethany, Isaac and I went shopping in town. At Subway *some two people* drank my free refill drink.

My favorite part of the holidays was watching The Amazing Spiderman. Andrew Garfield is now my favorite actor!

What movies did you guys see in the holidays?

I am definitely most proud of reading this term, but I thought it would be boring to see a picture of my sticker chart progress so I posted this story instead. (:

Mr Linden’s Library

“Victoria,” Mr Linden whispered.

The young girl shot awake.

“It’s much too late. Go to bed this instant!” his whisper was soft, but bitter.

 “Yes...Uncle.” Vicky gathered her books and got up to leave. As she pushed the door open, Mr Linden cleared his throat.

“Victoria.”

Vicky slowly turned her head, her fingers crossed behind her back.

“Not that one.”

Mr Linden’s eyes focused on the book. Vicky walked back across the room; avoid eye contact with her uncle. She slammed the book on the table.

Mr Linden frowned.

“We have discussed the possibilities of this book in your possession, do you understand?”

Vicky nodded, ashamed of herself. Once again, she was standing in the doorway, bookless. Just, she wouldn’t let it happen again.

*   *   *

The clock stroke two hours after midnight. Usually at this time Mr Linden had finished his studies and gone to bed on the third floor. Only three floors from the sixth floor, where the library was located.  

Vicky turned the doorknob. Her heart pounded. Mr Linden would certainly find out her whereabouts. She tiptoed across the cold stone floor, and down the stairs.

The library. The air was cold and smelled of dust. Where was the book? Mr Linden must have hid it somewhere she would never find it. The books were arranged in alphabetical order, but what letter was it under? The book. T? or B?

No, Mr Linden was much smarter than to leave the book in the library. One place . . .

Vicky ran up to the sixth floor where her Uncle was sleeping. She slowly turned the doorknob and pushed the door to his enormous suite. But Mr Linden was not sleeping. His arms were wrapped around the book, and his blood splattered around the floor.

Now Vicky understood. Her Uncle had done it to protect her. Still, curiosity kills. She tugged the book out from her Uncle’s arms , and turned the front cover.

He had warned her about the book, now it was too late.

Last week it was the Transit of Venus.
The Transit of Venus is a once in a lifetime experience to see Venus pass the sun, but unfortunately it was cloudy on Wednesday so we couldn't see it.
We did get to watch updates online of Venus and also videos about what it is. 
On the bright side, I found this picture of the transit. :)