Character description

Alone, she sat in the most secluded corner of the tiny cafe at the end of her street. Her curtain of wavy brown hair hid her face from the many passer-bys at the window, but she could see every one of them. A single tear dropped onto the curly handwriting, and rolled down the furled pages of her leather-coated notebook.

That notebook was, in a way, her own personality. Everything she felt, every tidal wave of emotion, was recorded in that notebook, until to her it was no longer just a notebook. To her, it was an old friend, one that she could tell anything and everything to since childhood. One that witnessed every tear she had shed, her one rope to hold on to as she dangled over the pit of depression. She always had it in her pocket, because she craved the comfort of the worn, faded leather.

Every page she had filled was covered in long, cursive letters that spelled the woes of her life. There were many, transformed from tears to blue ink. Her friend had listened for years, to her rants and her worries. She was teased for the sadness prominent in her gray eyes. She was an open book, a book about desolation and melancholy. Everyone could see it. Sorrow surrounded this girl like an aura.

And so there she sat, her tiny thin legs tucked beneath her, her baggy clothes swamping her figure, her scraggly, unbrushed hair hiding her face, scribbling her soul into the little notebook. It was her passionate addiction. There was nothing she could do to stop writing.

“Your hot chocolate, Miss.”  She lifted her face and the waitress saw tears streaking down her face, blotting the ink of the words in her notebook, and felt the overwhelming sorrow that surrounded her. She sat the hot chocolate down, smiled at the girl, and turned away.

As the clock struck two, the girl lifted her pale face once again, and saw the waitress approaching her. She sat silently, listening to her invitation to do something at the park, and for once she nodded, smiled, and replied, “I’d like that.” For once, rejection hadn’t crossed her mind, and for once, her weakly beating heart craved company other than her notebook.

As she was meandering around the duck pond with her first real friend, her notebook slipped from between her long, thin fingers, and she didn’t notice it lying in a puddle. She didn’t notice  the muddy water erasing her depressing life story. The girl never found it again, and she was much happier for the rest of her life.

Several years later, the girl was unrecognisable. Her figure no longer showed every bone, her face was no longer pale. There were no bags under her twinkling eyes and her full, healthy, dark hair was spun into a lovely bun. Her long bridesmaid dress showed the healthy, radiant young woman she was now, and the picture of sorrow she used to be was left in a puddle in the park years ago. Her thoughts were glowing as she picked up the long train of her best friend’s wedding dress, and followed the waitress that had changed her life down the aisle.

By Amy

Week 5, Term 2

This week I've done some work on Pythagoras's Theorem.
Pythagoras's theorem says that if you drew a perfect square along each of the lines of a right-angled triangle, the area of the square on the hypotenuse of the triangle is equal to the sum of the areas of the other two triangles.
I know that it doesn't work if you draw semicircles instead of squares, but it does work if you draw iscoceles triangles with a right angle. Or any shape with two equal edges and a right angle. I'm not sure about ones that aren't right-angled.
I had to do an excersise where there was a perfect square inside an perfect circle, and each of the four corners was touching the circle. Each of the sides of the square were ten centimeters long.  The excersise was to find the area of the circle. I figured it was easy, all you had to do was find the diameter, which meant all you had to do was find the length of a straight line that diagonally from corner to corner of the square. So, what I learnt you needed to do, was to apply Pythagoras's theorem. This square was cut in half, so I had a right angled iscoceles triangle. Sides a and b were both ten centimeters long, so the square on those sides were 10 squared, so that was 100 cm + 100 cm = 200cm. Therefore, to find the diameter of the circle, you just had to find the square root of 200, which is  14.14213562 ( that's as far as my calculator goes).

Week 4 Term 2

Opinion: going paperless.

Over the last few years, I've noticed many changes going on in my and my peer's education. The biggest of these is technology.

It has got to the point where, nearly halfway into term two, my new English book has about three pages filled. From the whole year. That's it.

In our class, we have seven monitors, about five or six laptops, two iPads, and nearly a dozen Chromebooks. I think. A handful of us bring our own devices as well. If you were to walk into our classroom right now, you'd see every single person in the classroom typing on some form of a computer. 

My question is; is this a good thing? 

All year, pretty much all the writing and reading work I have done was on a computer. Last year wasn't as bad, and I did get a lot out of my English book, but since I have come to TAI, my handwriting has become much worse. I don't like this 'let's go paperless' approach from the teachers. I was really quite attached to my handwriting. I had spent ages getting into the habit of writing my 'f's, 'a's, 'y's, and 'g's in different styles, and even more time getting out of that habit. I still do my 'a's with a little curve over, like on the keyboard. 

My point being, my handwriting is unique. It's a huge part of my individuality. But when you type everything, it's exactly the same as everyone else's. Now, my writing is messy and basically the same as when I was in year 3. The only difference is I can spell. 

Sure, it's more efficient, faster and everything, but does it actually help our learning? 

I learnt to read out of the books they gave us in school, not off a screen, and I want the next generation to be the same. I learn to write by spelling my name in chalk on the patio, not by typing things out. And to this day, when my teacher sends me stories to read for our reading work, I find it harder to comprehend than when it was printed off and handed to us. I can't type my ideas on a screen either. I can really only properly brainstorm on paper. 

My peers and I are learning just when technology is changing the most. We were spelling 'cat' at the age future generations will be at a computer. Right now, we've adjusted to writing on a computer all the time, but we learnt to write before smartphones were invented. We had pencils and those workbooks that have half the page blank so you can draw a picture as well. We felt privileged to use an eraser, we were proud when we were allowed to write with a pen instead of a pencil. Future generations will have none of that. 

Right now, workbooks are laptops. Pens are keyboards. Copy and Paste has replaced cut out and stick in. Highlighters are B, I, and U. I, personally, think it was better the way it was. The teachers, apparently, do not agree with me. I think it's a shame we weren't learning handwriting the way our grandparents were. I would have loved to learn joint handwriting, to have used it every day. I used to love the joy of writing letters, of receiving them in the mail. Are emails really the same thing? 

I used to take pride in my handwriting. Computers have ruined that for me. It was a unique part of me. Typing is just letters on a screen, but the different ways I did my 'y's were something I found joy in, just by adding the extra loop. I used to have beautiful handwriting, but since I came to intermediate it's just a messy scrawl. 

Every time I read my old workbooks, I'm saddened by the fact that my handwriting was neater at age 9 than it is now. Every time I look through the work on my USB stick, it's just a memory of when only the 'good kids' got to publish their work by typing it out. Not only did writing used to bring joy, typing did too. Now, it's just something we take for granted. It used to be a privilege. Now, it's just a boring way of putting, not pen to paper, but fingers to keys. I just want to do as much writing as I used to want to type. 

Week 3 Term 2

This week, in science, we were hypothetically on a desert island, in desperate need of fresh water, having only salt water and a range of equipment.
We had a hot plate, two side arm flasks and a tube, and two bits of wood to put the flasks on when they were hot. And 100mls of salt water, that was coloured blue.
I knew that when we boiled the salt water, the condensation would be fresh water and the salt would be left in the bottom. I didn't understand how we were supposed to get the condensation to go into the tube and in the other flask though, because I thought it had to be at the top. We boiled it anyway and hoped for the best.
Turns out the condensation did go into the other tube, and it did gather at the bottom of the second flast. We were left with clear, fresh, hot water in one flask, and blue-coloured salt in the other one.

Last week we made slime. We mixed cold water and wood glue, which gave a white, completely liquid substance. Then we added boiling water mixed with Borax, and coloring, and it because really hard to stir, because the molecules were moving close together so it was becoming more solid.
All the gooey bits were wrapped around the stick, and all the liquid was still in the bottom of the container, but eventually, with lots more hot water, it all became slime. It didn't stick to the stick or the container, and afterwards we had a lot of fun having sculpting competitions.