Holly’s Space

Hey guys,

This will be my last post on this blog. So sad. I have got a new blog, which I will post on. Please visit me there.

My new URL is…

hollyf3.edublogs.org

30-year-old father of three, Navtej Singh, died after being shot in the chest with a .22 calibre rifle last Saturday night during a robbery in which alcohol, cash and phone cards, worth $4000, were taken.

His friend and business partner, Gurwinder Singh, is very depressed, he was with him when he died. Navtej and Gurwinder had worked together for three years at a Papakura liquor store, before they decided to go into business together and bought Riverton Liquor in February. Navtej paid for his half with proceeds from the sale of his father’s land in India. It’s profitable work for those willing to put in the punishing hours, but it comes with dangers. Singh’s murder was just the latest fatal attack on Indian dairy and liquor store workers in recent years. In January, 22-year- old Krishna Naidu was stabbed to death in his father’s Manurewa superette, and in June 2005, 58-year- old Bhagubhai Vaghela was shot during a robbery of an Auckland mini- mart. The killings stretch further back: in 2000, Mangere liquor store owner Shiu Prasad, 54, was stabbed to death, and in 1993, youths beat West Auckland shopkeeper Navin Govind to death with softball bats. -www.stuff.co.nz

Personally I think this is very inappropriate. First of all, Navtej Singh did exactly what they asked for. He had his hands up and had done nothing at all wrong, but they still fatally shot him. Also, I don’t see why anyone would ever want to do something like this let alone actually do it. Like Harjinder Singh has said, “Her husband was killed for beer and a few dollars and she could never forgive those responsible.” I can understand fully why she said this. 

When I hear news like this, it saddens me to know that people in our community would ever do somethong like this.  Also since it is mainly younger people doing crimes like these, it makes me wonder what the younger generations are going to turn out like and how safe any of us are. It was very inappropiate and I think that no one should ever do something like this.  I think there are many opportunities in New Zealand for eveyone to earn a living without having to be a theif or murderer because all this is going to do is get them in trouble and cause a lot of problems for the innocent victims. So over all I think it would be nice if we could live in a country where problems like these never occur. The people who commit these crimes are just plain stupid and it is never going to do them any good.

What’s your opinion?

In the Te Awamutu Courier, which is a local newspaper, last Tuesday, there was a letter to the editor from Mike and Charlene Lewis. This letter was all about how one of our local vets Holly, saved a dogs life. Mike and Charlene were so grateful that Holly had saved their pet dog Honey and they wrote the letter especially to thank Holly and also let the locals know how dedicated and skillful she is.

So what happened was that Mike and Charlene had their dog Honey spayed at the Te Awamutu Veterinary Centre on the 16th of May. When they collected Honey at around 3.30pm they noticed blood in her cage. They said that they were concerned but the vet said that Honey would be okay. By about 8pm Honey was literally nearly dead. Her gums and mouth were basically white and she was not responding to anything they did. They could tell that there was something awful about to happen.

So Mike and Charlene called the emergency vet number and were told to bring Honey straight in which they did. Once they had taken her into the vets they found that she was suffering from severe internal bleeding. Unfourtunately the on-call vet was a large animal vet and didn’t really know what to do. He called up Holly who is a part time vet at the centre. When she arrived, she took one look at the dog and she could tell Honey was in serious trouble. Holly then rushed back home and brought back her own dog.

Immediately when she got back she took a large amount of blood from her own dog and transferred it into Honey. She put in enough blood so that Honey was strong enough to receive an operation to find out what was wrong and fix it. Holly found the internal bleeding and fixed the problem.

 Now about two weeks later, Honey is basically back to normal and Mike and Charlene are very grateful for what Holly has done. Like it said in the letter “If it were not for Holly’s extreme efforts, skill and dedication to her work Honey would have without doubt died.”All of this took place rather late at night and only finished at nearly 2am. Holly wouldn’t have ever given up until she was 100% sure Honey was alright!

I think this whole story is quite effective. It is great to know that the vets in our community are so dedicated. I also think it is quite nice that Mike and Charlene have taken the time to show their appreciation for Holly. It is good to see something nice in the letters to the editor as they are often used as a place to complain.

A few days after the article came out I saw Holly in at the vets and talked to her about it. She said that any dog is able to transfuse blood to another dog unlike humans where it has to be the same blood type. Although if the blood transfusion doesn’t work the first time, then they do need to get a dog with the same blood type, which is a rather difficult job. So pretty much you’ve only got one chance to get it right. She also told me how happy she was that Honey lived. She was very proud to know that she saved a dogs life. I can barely imagine how grateful Mike and Charlene must have been.

Michel Fournier a french adventurer age 64, attempted to break a world skydiving record last Tuesday at Battleford, Saskatchewan. He had hoped to break the record for the worlds fastest and longest free fall. At the same time he also hoped to break the record for the highest parachute jump, the highest balloon flight and also he wanted to bring back some information to help astronauts and others survive in high altitudes.

It was all ready for him to attempt. He had a $200 000 helium balloon in which he hoped would take him to a height of 130 000feet (39 624metres). This is around the equivalent of four Mount Everest’s on top of each other or about three times higher than what a commercial jetliner flies.

So the huge helium balloon was to be attached to a capsule in which he would free-fall from and break the world record. But unfortunately it somehow became unattached from the capsule and just floated up and up. Michel Fournier had to just stand there and watch as he chances floated up towards space.

I think that Michel Fournier would have been absolutely devastated. To see his chances of breaking the world record and $200 000 floating away into space, he would have been very annoyed and sad. Although I did actually find it quite funny but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have. I also think Michel Fournier is very brave for even wanting to try this, I know for sure I never would have.

Here is a website I found with an article about it. This is where I got most of my information from-http://www.insidesocal.com/dailylink/2008/05/skydivers_chance_at_world_reco.html

I also found a video of it which is on this website. It was part of a news program which is all about this disaster-http://tvnz.co.nz/view/video_popup_windows_skin/1803758

Totara Springs is a band camp, which is pretty self explanatory. It is a camp where most of the band students go, it is combined with the choir. Matamata Intermediate band and choir also participate in it. We are there for two nights and on the last night we have a big concert where all our parents and friends are able to come along and watch. I play the trombone as part of the TAI (Te Awamutu Intermediate) Senior Band.

I definitely enjoyed Totara Springs. It was really fun but a lot of practice! So it was all practice practice practice on the first couple of days. But during each break we all relaxed, hung out with our friends and played on the playground. Many people also went on the lullaby, which is pretty much a long wooden swing that you can fit ten people on. Although with four boys pushing it and only a few others on, it can get really high and scary! (Trust me, I’ve tried it). There was a heap of music practice but each session had a good break in between them so I didn’t really mind.

Tuesday night came and we had the concert. All of the bands were tuning up our instruments and chatting to our friends in the lecture theatre. Everyone was so loud that we barely even heard the fire alarm going off. We all evacuated onto the field wondering what was happening and why it was going off. Mrs Germann, one of the music teachers, had to stand on the picnic table and call the roll, in her high heels! Luckily she had only called a few names when the camp caretaker came and told us it was only a towel on the heater. A sign of relief came over her face as she shouted out “Phew, at least I don’t have to stand on the table in my heels anymore!”

We all slowly moved back into the lecture theatre and carried on tuning up. Finally the time came to go into the auditorium for the concert, as I walked in I noticed how many people had come to watch, there were heaps. We played a few songs, some of them being- ‘Latin Fire’, ‘Mack the Knife’, ‘What a Wonderful World’ and ‘Surfin’ USA’. The junior band played and the choir sung a few songs. It was lots of fun. Also the ‘Salvation Army Band’ came and played a few songs. They were really good and after they played their songs we had a final song that the Senior Band and the Salvation Army Band played. This song was ‘Eye of the Tiger’. So overall I had lots of fun and would definitely go again if I had the chance.

I went to a writing workshop last Thursday. Phyllis Johnston, a New Zealand author, came to talk to us about how she became succesful and give us some tips about writing. Phyllis Johnston is quite a successful author having twelve books of hers published. One of the things Phyllis Johnston talked about was her ‘Recipe’ for a story. It has five ingredients. The first one being a ’scene’ or the place where it happens. A scene can be any where, from outer-space to a hole in the ground! The second ingredient is the ‘characters’, the main people in the story. Within the first few pages of introducing a character the reader should be able to picture the character in their own mind. Also Phyllis Johnston made us realise that a character has to have feelings, not just one feeling but a range of feelings. In other words a character can’t always be excited or surprised, their feelings should change. Like Phyllis Johnston said “a story without feelings isn’t a story at all”. Another ingredient, the third one is the ‘action’. The action is the part where somethings happens to build up to the big problem. While writing this part of a story you should be asking yourself questions like ‘What would they do in this situation?’ and ‘What will happen if they do this?’. The next part is the ‘crisis or tension’, I also like to call this the big problem! This part should always be the most important and exciting peice of the story. Last but not least is the fifth ingredient ‘the end’. One of the tips Phyllis Johnston gave us was to use a few words from the first sentence in the last one. This gives it a good effect, it is as though the whole story has formed a circle and come back to the start again. So as you have seen, I have learnt heaps and will use these tips in my future writing.

Once again in the news today there was an article about cellphone and internet safety. A fifteen year old girl who had never had a boyfriend before found a forty-one year old man on a text chat-room. They began to talk all the time and as far as her parents knew she was just texting her friends. Since the fifteen year old had low self-esteem, the forty-one year old kept telling her she was beautiful and saying all the things she wanted to hear. After a while the man became her so called ”boyfriend” and seduced her. The man has now been arrested and all the girls family have had a real shock.

I think that some of these matters are very disturbing. For one thing I can’t believe anyone would ever do something like this. It is wrong and just sick, I don’t really see why anyone would ever do anything like this. This man must have had some serious problems to make him even think of trying this let alone actually do it. Another thing is how safe people need to be on their cellphones. I for one have never heard about these “text chat-rooms” and don’t plan on going on one. To me phones are used for keeping in touch with friends and family not trying to meet someone new. I think that everyone out there needs to be VERY careful with what they do or say to people whether it be on bebo, texting or on a chat-room. You never know who could be on the other end if you don’t actually know them. So my advice would be to make sure you never text, e-mail or reply to strangers, you wouldn’t just walk up and start talking to a total random in real life. Would You?

Our class has just been on a camp at a little place called Ohope, I could barely wait for it. But finally last Tuesday it came, our class and room seven were all packed, and left for Ohope. On the way we stopped for lunch at Lake Okataina, it was really windy there but luckily at Ohope the weather was warm and sunny the whole time. We stayed at Ohope Christian Camp for three nights, from the 8th until the 11th of March

We went to the Whakatane Pools two nights and to the Awakeri Hot Springs the other! So we went to the Pools each night! We also went to a High Ropes place called Adventure Solutions. It was kind of scary but really fun!!! They were about 5-10m or so off the ground. One of the ones I did was like floating platforms, there were 5 of them (I think) and they were wooden platforms. You had to jump to each one except the hard part was that some of the platforms were on angles and the last jump was uphill! But I enjoyed that one the most! There was also a Trapeze one I went on, I had to climb up a pole and then stand on a platform at the top that was really wobbly and try to jump onto the trapeze!! I tried but I missed the trapeze! :( But it was still fun

Another thing we did was an Amazing Maze of Maize, which is a maze made out of Maize! We had to find which number the post was that had 24 out of the 90 questions on. Also we had to find which post about 12 pictures were on. That was alright but I enjoyed the High Ropes more.

Then the day after that we went wharf fishing for two hours then Kayaking for another couple of hours and then we went for a LONG walk down to Shelly Bay! The Fishing was fun but a bit gross (the bait especially)!! I caught 5 or 6 fish though! Yay! Shelly Bay was really cool as well. It had a few rock pools and a walk down to it had about 352 steps altogether!! I counted them but I may have counted wrong!! The kayaking was alright although it did get very tiring!

I would have to say that my favourite part of the whole camp was probably the High Ropes and my least favourite was coming home! Altogether though, I really enjoyed it and would grab for the chance to go to it again!

Academic-

• I will make sure that I keep up with all classwork that we do, I will do this by not sitting by or working with anyone that will distract me.
• Since I am in second year French I will make sure that I practice hard to keep up with the other people in the group, I will also make sure that I try saying the words or sentences we are focusing on even if I can’t pronounce them right.
• I also want to make sure that I don’t leave my work to the last minute, if I do this I believe that my work will start improving as I will not be rushing it and I will have more time to edit and proof-read it.

Cultural-

• In symphonic band I would like to make sure I can play loudly and correctly so that I can be the best trombone player I can be, if I practice hard then hopefully I can do this
• In jazz band I would like to make sure that I can play all songs correctly not just the songs I enjoy, also I want to make sure that I am not afraid to play any of the solos and to practice them so I can play them well

Personal-

• In the Production the elves and the shoemaker (see below) I would like to put in my all and make sure I can do my best, I will make sure I concentrate so that I can remember the dances, the script and the songs
• In all the after-school activities I do I will make sure that I do the best I can especially in the dancing I do which are Jazz, Tap and Hip Hop

I have just found this really cool website called Free Rice. It is like a vocabulary builder but with some really weird words. I mean who knew that a coccyx is your tail bone, and that fetid means stinky, I for sure didn’t. I also quite like it as it will tell you the right answer if you get it wrong and it tells you your vocab level and your highest level as well. So what’s the catch, what’s so cool about it. Well each time you answer a question right you are donating 20 grains of rice to the countries with poverty and starvation. So your donating 20 grains of rice just for answering a question and it doesn’t even cost you a thing apart from a few minutes of your spare time.

So check it out at freerice.com. I thought it was really cool, especially for people like me who do need to get better at vocabulary!!