Holly’s Space

We had to do some Poetic Writing based on Doors so here’s Mine- 

Slowly I creep up the long passage way towards the huge double doors that seem as though they are a million miles away. Many thoughts rush through my head as though they are race cars at a speedway, following and chasing each other as fast and hurriedly as possible around and around in the small space of my head. Giant white pillars off to my left with horizontally striped bumps gradually growing bigger at the bottom and thin, parallel bumps running vertically up and down each of the five pillars. Light shines through each gap between the tall pillars just the same as the early morning sun shining through the windows when you first get up. Fascinated I looked around at the place a bit more, I noticed the roof, it was a plain but gleaming white, so spotlessly clean you wouldn’t even mind eating off it. Chandeliers hang precisely off the roof, glass beads made into many chains hang down off each of the chandeliers with glowing cream candles surrounding them marvellously. Gleaming pearl tiles hide under my feet with a clip clop sound happening with each slow-motion step I sneak. Doors after doors with about a metre of white wall between each, the shining rays of light give each wall a chilly feeling and a cold light blue tint. A chilly feeling shot through me when I looked back towards the front wall and the main door as if an icy cold knife was being run down my back. Magnificently a slightly pearl coloured frame surrounds solid and glistening double doors, the stunning white twinkling from the light almost seems to blind me. Incredible designs made from indents in the glossy wooden doors seem to make it even more splendid and appealing. Handles of gold coloured metal in the shapes of italic S’s sit patiently below the locks as if they are just waiting to get turned. The door seemed as if it was just staring at me, enticing me to come closer and closer, still I just kept creeping forward, as silent and stealthily as a snake. Cautiously I snuck up to the sparkling door and tried to peer through the tiny key hole, sadly it didn’t work. Carefully I lifted my hand towards the door handle, thoughts and questions entered my mind, ‘What is behind here?’ ‘Should I be opening it?’ Freezing metal suddenly connected with my fingers and shivered down my spine. Nervously I tried to pull open the door, there were shouts from children and parents chatting as if I had been in a parallel universe and just stepped back into the real world. Gradually I sat up wondering where I was, then it clicked like a light bulb turning on. 

It was all just a dream and I was still sitting casually on the wooden bench at the Park. 

Jessye (the main character in this book) loves living with her nana at the river house, but also really loves living with her weird and wacky mum at whatever her current home happens to be. When Jessye’s mum sweeps back into her life and wants to take her back to her current home with her, Jessye has to make some very difficult decisions and choose whether to stay with her mum or her nana. But the one main problem is that Jessye’s Mum doesn’t like her nana and nor does her nana like her mum, or more she just doesn’t approve of her. 

One of the things that I quite liked about ‘River Song’ is that it was set in
New Zealand and had lots of things to do with Maori culture. I also thought that it was well structured and in a very good order of events which I find very good in any books or stories. At the start of the book there is this saying “I have discovered that you can go along for ages without seeing things as they really are. And then one day their true colours light up as clear as anything, as clear as the sun in the morning. And on the day my destiny gave me the nod. I was sprawled on the sofa in the river house beside nana, listening to her sing.” I think that having this gives a good base for the whole book and also it makes the readers more interested in it by making the readers wonder ‘what does that mean’ and think ‘why is that’ which I thought was really quite good. Another thing was that you get hooked into this book almost straight away, in any books I find that if you get into the story straight away you will enjoy the book more and won’t want to put it down.

I would rate this book about a 9 out of 10, I really enjoyed it and couldn’t really find anything I didn’t exactly like about it. I would recommend ‘River Song’ to almost all ages from about 10 up and both to boys and girls. This was a fantastic book and I can see why many other people will enjoy it. So overall this was an excellent read, it was set in
New Zealand and included many different parts of Maori Culture in it. It was well structured, jumped straight into the actual story, was rather interesting and left you anticipated and anxious about what was going to happen next.

By Holly

This is my presentation about Life ’round Here, it was made on photostory. If this is taking too long too load you may like to try watching it here.

Lately our class and a class from Adelaide have been working on an Island Talk Project. We have been asking questions and gathering answers from the class in Adelaide. This presentation is mine, Hamish’s Shannon’s and Gareth’s comparison between Australia’s and New Zealand’s, Sport and Leisure.

During the first few weeks of this term our class have had lessons with the Life Education Trust. Nikki was the experienced teacher who taught us along side Harold the giraffe. This time we were learning about the WOF (Warrant Of Fitness) of our body, that our body is like a car and it needs lots of caring for and how to care for and after ourselves to maintain a healthy body and lifestyle.

Life Ed was very fun and definately educational, I have learnt that there is no such thing as bad food, its just not good for our heath to have junk food all the time. I learnt about the seven nutrients our body needs, the three A’s (Apetite, Activity, Attitude) and how many servings of certain types of food I should have per day. Sadly, our class has finished Life Ed and I cant wait until they come next.

At the moment my class is involved in Life ‘Round Here. It is a competiton for intermediate age students all around the world. For this competition each class that enters, six pupils from it have to make photostories showing what their life is like where they live. We had to use photostory3 to make them, we had to make sure it shows the actual truth about our life and not our lives the way all the flashy brochures show us.

I think that this has been quite a hard task fo me to acheive. I found it hard to try and figure out how to use photostory3 as this being only about my 3rd or 4th time using it. I also thought it was a bit difficult deciding on the main topic I could focus on and still make my story worth watching. I had to take most of the pictures for myself as sites like Flickr Storm could not provide me pictures of my hometown or community. Overall life ’round here has been a great experience for me so far and I hope that my finished product will be worth all the hard work and effort I have put into it. I just can’t wait to get to the end and hear the results.

Later on this term I will put my finished product on my blog for everyone to see.

Here are some pictures I may include in it-

Then began a time of thin, wispy hair that begins to turn grey and white; New wrinkles start to turn up and with each day more and more appear as if by magic; Enough kind smiles to share around with everyone; Caring eyes that make me feel safe and that always look so pleasant; Muscles and bones that always seems to be sore; A hunched back that helps stop the pain from your aching back; Getting annoyed from all the food that gets stuck in your false teeth; Walking sticks and mobility scooters that you begin to need to help you move from place to place; A mind that had lots of trouble remembering things as you become more and more forgetful; Hair that won’t stay put on your head as you start to get a bit bald; Your eyelids that always want to close since you are always so tired; Suddenly you start to need glasses and hearing aids as your eyesight and hearing slowly deteriorate; All your grandchildren starting to be born, that one day you will be able to care for and look after; Rocking chairs becoming part of your daily life as you slowly rock back and forth on one just before going to bed each night;

And an entirely new sensation called old age.

Is it when you have fine white wispy hair and share a kind smile round to everyone? Or is it once your eyes make me feel safe and cheerful and when you start to become wrinkly and slow? Maybe it’s as soon as you need a walking stick or a mobility scooter to get you around. It could be when you reach your 60’s or when you have to live in a rest-home.

To me in fact none of these mean that you are old. Most of them may make you look old but it is never your looks that count, its only how old or young you believe you are. Some people may think that they are simply too old, but in my eyes no one at all will ever be too old. So make sure you never jump to conclusions and think that someone is old just because they look it, because they may still be young at heart.

Which is weaker a spiders web or a promise?I think that a spider’s web is weaker than a promise because a promise is around forever. If you break a promise you’ll feel the guilt, but if you don’t break it you will feel glad that you could keep it. Whichever you feel will be around forever, whereas once a spider webs broken it is gone forever.

WAI Maths is a maths problem solving competition which you do in groups of three. I was in one of the year seven groups along with Sarah and Ryan. While the year 8 team consisted of Laura, Daniel and Matt. I found some of the maths questions rather hard while on the other hand some of them were really easy. Although we tried our hardest my group didn’t quite finish all the 20 problems in the 45 minutes we had .Once our time was up and we had come 14th equal out of about 24, our group decided that it would have been better if we had just passed on some of the harder problems. Hopefully whoever represents our school next time might take this advice and do a bit better next time.