Camp Concert

“Next we have......... THE RESPECT CREW!!!” Mr Barks excitedlly announced. “YAAAY!!!!”, “WOOHOO!!”, “GO RESPECT CREW!!!!!” was all I managed to hear. Although it was our second night on our final year of camp, we still hadn’t had that much time to adjust to our group name. Sooo... while everyone was cheering for us, we actually didn’t realise that it was our turn to perform. We simply sat there waiting for an exciting performance, only to find that we were the ones actually performing.

Let me take you back a couple of days. We were at school. It was camp week. The hall was filled with anticipation, excitement, and big bundles of nerves. It was time for the camp concert. There were 12 long rows of crazy campers crammed into a small stuffy hall, all of them ready to perform.

Maybe not all of them. Well technically, three people weren’t ready. And don’t you go thinking it was me and one of my Respect Crew that wasn’t ready. It was the judges! They weren’t ready for the most awesome and exciting show of their life!

Our Respect Crew walked up the steps looking like the real deal. But unfortunately none of the realio dealios wanted to walk on stage first, so I got pushed forward. I walked on stage angrily, but still graciously hopping in to my rehearsed spot. Our chosen songs were ‘Hey Baby’ and ‘Stop, Drop and Roll’ - in that song the boys decided to catdaddy instead of the original choreographed moves.

Soon my crew was on and dancing, enjoying the camp concert atmosphere, and laughing at each other. The song transitioned in to ‘Hey Baby’, and our group were all jumping around clapping. We finished our performance with one of our members Jephte, thanking the audience. We walked off proud and happy, making sure the judges saw our thrilled faces.

After the Respectorz performed we got ready for the final judging. I looked up at my crew and they were all looking down and glum like it was the end of the world. 6th place was announced, it wasn’t us. 5th place was announced, it still wasn’t us. 4th went, 3rd went. My team all looked up and started smiling and crossing fingers and anything else they could.

“Finally, 1st place goes to..............THE RESPECT CREW!!!!!!!!” Mr Barks shouted! I looked at Lepa. Lepa looked at me. We looked at our crew, our crew looked at us. Then we all jumped up screaming and yelling, “WOOHOO!!!!” “YYYAAAAAAAAY!!!!!” “YEEEEESSSS!!!!!!”
We had won.

Scone making...with lemonade.

“No we’ll use the raisin one!” Tule pleaded. “But the method’s easier in this one!” Tyla defended. “But that one uses too much flour. The other groups need flour too!” Chanel pointed out. “Lets just use this one.” I said calmly...and loudly.

It was the 1st day of camp, and it was one of those times when you didn’t know if the sun wanted to sleep in or to give the rain the job. Anyway, I was a leader for ‘The Respect Crew.’ Today our first activity was cooking, well in this case baking. Scones that is. There were 5 of us in my cooking group : Oshania, Chanel, Tule, Tyla B, and of course myself.

We were all trying to find the best scone recipe ever (without raisins or sultanas of course.) Tyla found one that had lots of flour. Chanel and Tule had found one with raisins, so obviously we didn’t choose that one. But then Oshania and I, well, we found a recipe involving a can of lemonade. Yes, I said lemonade! (Well, typed anyway.)

Once we decided on the lemonade scones, we got to work and started mixing up the dough. Soon, my hands were white and covered in flour. Then we poured in the can of lemonade and the cream, and Chanel mixed it over and over. Not so long after, Tyla and I were sprinting down to the Hall Kitchen shrieking “OUR SCONES ARE BURNING!! OUR SCONES ARE BURNING!!” just to find that we were screaming lies.

In the end, we ate a scone each and gave the rest to afternoon tea for campers. And, not to be bragging or anything but, I think the lemonade scones were the best.

What am I? No seriously!

Recently we've been learning about careers and occupations. We've had to find out what some of the adults in our family were and wanted to be. So today in extension, we played a little game called 'What am I?', where the whole class got sticky notes slapped on their foreheads. We all had to participate and walk around asking different people what we were. I just found out that I was a Minister of Parliament.

Here's a few things I found out about wanting to be or being a Minister of Parliament.

-You have to be very careful, accidental comments can end up on the front page of the newspaper.

- Everything you say and do if you're in charge counts. You don't want any bad publicity.

-You have to keep studying and working hard so you can become a Member, or Minister of Parliament.

Little Miss Sunshine..

I am currently in the Yr 8 extension. At the moment we're focusing on The Pt England Way. Specifically, Respect. This is very important, as in our school, as we use Respect a lot in our topics and focuses. This year I'm looking forward to doing all sorts of cool things. Especially because it's my last year here at Pt England. Its kind of sad when I think about it, but it's exciting that I get to go out and do heaps of cool things in college. Arts and crafts and things is something I really really enjoy doing. That's why I've drawn a paintbrush and a pencil to represent my love how much art means to me. My culture also means a lot to me. I'm well-known as a Samoan, but I'm also a quarter Croatian. Many people don't know this, but it's true! My grandpa is full Croatian. So that technically makes me Croatian! Then there's food. As much fun eating is, I quite like cooking and making things for my family. I've already mastered the famous Mickey Mouse Pancakes, now I'm working on chocolate mousse. But I doubt that would turn out okay. I quite enjoy working with computers and editing movies and things like that. I like podcasting and posting blogs like the one you're reading right now! Next to the computer, I've drew a set of headphones because I like listening to music. Well not just listening to music, but dancing to it. In fact, me and a couple of friends created a small dance group a year ago. We only just dance around and make up sets to our favourite songs, but it's really fun to do. Now you know a bit about me. I'd love if you'd take the time to click on this link here, which will take you to the Flickr page this is on.

Netball

“Aaah!!!” I shrieked running away from the ball. It bounced and gave me a jolly good hard hit in the face. “Urgh.” I said in exhaustion and pain. I hadn’t played netball in AGES!! We were out in the scorching sun on the hard court at school, receiving netball lessons from or Instructor Liz. I don’t think I was the only one in my class in pain though.
It was a good thing that we were getting netball lessons. Well not for the boys, for me of course. I had to remind myself how and when to pass the ball. We learnt how to chest pass, pivot and well, play netball.

I got handed a bib with the letters ‘GK’, which of course is an abbreviation for Goal Keep. Thank goodness I was in that position because I was way to tired to be an attacker. My day just got better and better, as the sun got hotter and hotter. Not so long after, I almost passed out in the heat wave. We were allowed to have a little time to have some life saving water.

After having a shower under the drinking tap, I walked back to my awaiting class, making puddles for every step I took. Now that my socks were soaking wet, my shoes squeaked whenever I tried to jump pass or simply run around.

Netball was a big blast for me and I can’t wait for the season to start

Charts, Statistics, Favourites, and all those Mathmatic things

With a new year, new classes and new friends , we also have new numeracy topics. My new class (Room 21) have been studying pies. Well not that gooey, hot cheese, beefy kind of pie, but the counting, mathematical, statistics kind of pie. Technically it's actually called a Pie Chart, but a Big Ben pie sounds more appealing to me.

The past days we've been taking surveys about people's favourite things. After recording all the weird and quirky things about everyone, it was time to put all our research in to presentation. Our whole class went to a website called 'Create A Graph.com' and well, made a graph of course. I chose to make a chart about TV programmes in the form of a pie. As you can see the category "Other" has 13 likings. But technically that is not the most popular because each of the shows are different. So actually the most popular shows are Spongebob and Victorious.

Bye Bye Ala!!

During the 2012 holidays, I received some good news, some bad news, and a really bad sunburn. The good news was that the sunburn didn’t last long. Oh, and the fact that me and my friends were going to go swimming. The bad news well, was bad of course. The reason we were going to Swim-A-Rama, was because our lovely friend Ala was leaving Pt England, and attending Sylvia Park school.

Since my family’s very busy, I was left alone with my vicious cat until I heard the tooting of my friend’s flash car. I quickly ran out and hopped in the car. “Hi Ala!” I said quite happily and fastly. “Hey Reka! she said calmly and smoothly. We started chatting about Sylvia Park, Pt England, my sunburn, and heaps of other things. In between our big blob of chatting we stopped to get Sylvia, checked if Selena was home (found out she wasn’t), checked at her aunty’s (found out she was shopping.) and then sped off to Ala’s house.

When Selena arrived, we drove in the blistering sun to the beloved Swim-A-Rama Lagoon Pools. As soon as we got there, I took a run and cannonballed in to the pool. I couldn’t help but give my friends a big toothy grin. As soon as Selena and Sylvia helped me drag Ala in the pool, we started playing Marco Polo. We spent hours jumping and drowning in our laughter.

When we couldn’t laugh any more, I jumped on Sylvia’s shoulders and Ala on Selena’s. I wrestled Ala and only stopped when I realised Selena couldn't breathe underwater. Since Selena had almost drowned, we got out and had a little snack.

Well, not really a little snack. (Well not in Selena’s case anyway.) She finished half the Doritos, so I decided to generously bring out my sour cream and chives crackers. While she dove in to those, Sylvia was telling us a really funny story. We almost peed our togs when she had finished. I think Selena almost choked!!

Anyway, after that Ala’s little sister Maraina came with her mum, and some hot dogs for us to devour. Since we were full because of laughing so hard, I dived back in to the icy cold pool as they day was closing we said our big grand speeches (“Bye Ala”) and packed up our things.

We miss you Ala.