Farewell 2012

My first year at Tawa Intermediate has been amazing. We have done so many cool things this year. At the start of the year we did animating for room 15's assembly. In term one we had to dress up in pink for athletics. I didn't get in to anything this year. For cross-country we had to train every day for about a month, it was really annoying. Over all it was a great year.

My highlights for this year was Camp, Sustainability Movies and Mosaics. Camp was awesome because there were a lot of opportunities to do amazing things. Making the sustainability movie was the best because I love making movies and here was my chance to shine. My Movie got into a competition and it also got into the top 40. The Mosaics were really fun because we got to smash tiles, place them, glue them and then grout them together.

This year I had a couple of low lights this year was speeches and cross-country. The reason why speeches is one of my low lights is because I don't like speaking in public. Cross-country is one my my low lights because I don't like running and we also had to train all the time.

This year has gone really fast but every second seemed like a minute. I can't wait for next year but also don't want this year to end. Next year I want to be a Student Council and I want to be in Focus Photography Club because I like taking photos of things that look cool. Next year is a new year and I can't wait!

Take Off...

"Beep, beep," that was my alarm, waking me up. I was going to Australia! It was three in the morning and  I was excited. I had never left the North Island until that morning. This was it.

We got up and found out suitcases. While my dad was putting them in the car, my sisters and I were getting dressed. We had to wear something warm but underneath we had to have a T-shirt and shorts, for when we get hot. My mum, my dad, Josy, Daisy and myself, jumped into the car and we were off. In the car, we had pillows to lean on, so we could go to sleep on the way to the airport. Every time we passed a tree, Daisy, my little sister, would say goodbye to the tree. I was asleep when my mum told us that we were here.

Dad parked the car and we all hoped out. I got my suitcase and we all went to the van. We had to get in a van to get to the airport. The van had just left when we got there, so we had to wait in the office. It was nice and warm in the office and it had a TV. The TV wasn't that good because the TV was fuzzy. About ten minutes later the van arrived. Our suitcases went in the back and we all hopped in. We were a bit squashed because there was a big, baby car seat right in the middle and no one was sitting in it.

We got to the airport and checked in. It was about four in the morning and we were hungry so mum went to go and get us some breakfast. We had two muffins and three scones. We had to go though security next.

We walked down a corridor and turned left. We had to empty pockets and walk though a doorway. A security woman check our passports let us though. We had to walk though another corridor and turn left and then right. I looked out and saw a whole lot of seats. About half an hour went by. Then we had to show our passports and tickets again. The last corridor we walked though was the one leading up to the plane. We had to show our tickets one last time before hopping on the plane. We sat in our seats and my mum said to me, "This is it."

Sea World

On the second day of our trip, we went to Sea World.We met up with my mum's friend and my mum's sister's friend. First, we went to a sea lion show. The sea lions show was a story with a couple of sea lions. The story was about a greedy lady, who sells fish. But she is taking all the fish so a detective, a policeman and a sea lion tries to stop her. It was quite funny and the sea lion was really good.

Next, we went to the dolphin the show. This show wasn't a story, it was one where they talked about saving the dolphins. While the rescuers were talking, the dolphins were doing jumps and flips. Near the end of the show, the two trainers were standing on two dolphins each. Then the dolphins went underwater, but the trainers didn't, then they jumped up are they all went flying. It was hard to take photos because my camera was a bit slow but here is the best one.

After the dolphins did they final flips, we went to see some Polar Bears. There was this cute Polar Bear just sitting there eating a piece of meat. After a while he decided to go for a swim. He kept on doing the same thing over and over again. He would sit at the surface then dive under and pop up at the other end. To get to the start, he would fall on it's back and swim back. When he popped up, he would get his big, white paws and wipe his eyes. It was cute because he wasn't trained to do that. He was almost human.

My cousin, Josh, wanted to look at the sharks. We walked along a path and ended up underwater. We were in this room that had a big glass window. We could see all the different sharks and fish. It was amazing that the fish were swimming with the sharks and survived. There were about ten medium sized sharks and one big shark. Just as we were leaving, the big shark came up to the window and kept banging it's head on the window. It did that until a man, who was underwater, pushed his nose away.

When we were walking back to the rides, we passed a water tank, that a lot of people were putting their hands into. I thought that the people were patting dolphins but they we patting sting-rays. The tank was split into two parts. The smaller part had the little sting-rays and it had a sign that said, "Don't touch the head of the tail, only the sides". In the deeper end, the were huge sting-rays that were harder to touch because they kept on turning different directions. I stuck my hand in because I wanted to come home and tell everyone that I touched I sting-ray. When a sting-ray came by I reached out but a soon a I touched it, I pull it straight out. I did that because it was so slimy that it shocked me.

There were only two rides there, there was the Sea Viper and the Jet Rescue. I didn't go on the Sea Viper because it was closed when I got there. I went on the Jet Rescue instead. The Jet Rescue was I ride when you on jet skies and you go really fast. When it started I shut my eyes but after the first turn I open them.When we turn, it looked like we were vertical. As soon as you start it takes a picture of you, it was closing time so it didn't take any photos.
I wish we could go back again.

Our Hotel

Yesterday, I came back from Australia. We stayed in a hotel, in Surfers Paradise. The hotel is called The Equinox Sun Resort, it's right across the road from the beach and has a swimming pool. The Equinox is not a tall hotel because it is only thirteen floors high, most hotels on the Gold Coast are thirty floors high. We were on the twelfth floor so we had a great view of the beach, the pool and the tennis courts. 



  My cousins came to Australia too but we stayed for eight nights and they only stayed for four nights.We went to the pool twice a day because the temperature was up to 30ºC. On the second to last day, it was raining a lot. So dad suggested that we all get into our togs and go down to the spa. When we got down there the rain stopped and so we just played in the pool.

 






At night the pool lights turn on because the pool closes at 9:30 and it is dark then. The lights are blue and they make shadows on the pool walls, when you swim at night. At night, when you look out at the city, there are a lot of bright lights. I like looking out at the city when the sun is setting. All the street lights  and building lights makes Surfers Paradise look busy. Standing on the balcony at night made me feel like I was in a movie. But I did miss New Zealand.

Water Beds

A couple of days ago, I was wondering what a water bed is. Is it a bed that goes underwater? Is it a type of bed that a fish sleeps in? I found out that a water bed is a mattress filled with water.
My mum showed me a funny video about water beds. In Germany there is a tv show that pulls pranks on people. One of their pranks was in a bed shop and they did...

Click here to find out.

Outlook for Someday Reflections

Finally it is done, in the post up to Auckland.  In room 13, Ms T showed us a poster about a movie competition called The Outlook for Someday. The Outlook for Someday competition is a movie competition for young New Zealanders (under 24), to make a short movie about sustainability. So I went into a group with Renee, Be, Arielle and Lily. We did ours on Water Pollution. We did a news report, Be was the news reporter. She crossed over to Renee, Renee was a fish and she interviewed Arielle and Lily and they were fish too. When Renee finished, Be said that there was another report by herself and Lily(Lily was a reporter). Be said that was the end of the report. Here is our movie.

Something that I learnt from this project that I did not know before was…
* Information: When we were researching, Be found a website that tells you all about Pollution. We clicked on Water Pollution and there was a list of how long it takes for things to degrade. I didn't know that glass takes so long to degrade, that no one knows how long it takes.
* Process: When I was editing our movie, I needed to green screen so Ms T showed me how to green screen. So I learnt how to green screen. I showed a lot of people how to green screen after that.

The part of this project that was most challenging for me was…
The most challenging part of making the movie was finding the right colours for our fish because we had to green screen them. At the start we painted them yellow but then we found out that yellow is too close to green and so we had see threw fish.

The part of this project I found most rewarding was…
The most rewarding part was when Ms T put all the forms and the DVD of our movie in an envelop because then I knew it was all done, all the hard work had paid off.

The thing I need to improve on the most is…
I need to improve on thinking about what might happen when I do something, like when I painted the fish yellow and I didn't think about the green screen.

The thing I found that I am really good at is…
I think I'm good at editing movies because I helped two other groups edit their movies.

If I had to do another Outlook for Someday movie, the things I would do differently are:
Next time I will take time to make the fish better because they didn't fit their heads that well. You
could see the gaps between their heads and the fish heads.
I would also fix the sounds because they go loud and soft a bit.
I would make the editing a bit smoother. When the scenes change it is a bit jumpy.

Getting Ready for Aussie

In the holidays, my Family and I are going to Australia for a holiday. At the end of the last day of term, we are going to start getting ready. We will organise what suitcases we are going to take. The warmest it is here is the coldest it there so I will have to buy some clothes. I have been saving up some money but one New Zealand dollar is eighty cents Australian, hopefully things are cheaper in Australia. My cousins are coming too. They live in Auckland and I don't get to see them that much. I will take lots of pictures over there so I can put them on my blog.