Week 3 term 1

So, been a pretty good week as far as weeks go. I've got the position of class councilor! (Yay!) I've nearly finished my head student application and room three won at jump jam! Go us!

Anyway, we have been doing a lot of maths. I skipped a lot of the work because I already know it, so I'm doing integers! Negatives trip me up a lot but when it's just addition and subtraction it's relatively easy.
Example: -8 + 6
The method I was taught last year goes as such;
You write a number line
-9 -8 -7 -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
You start at the first number, negative 8. Since it's addition, you face the big imaginary plus sign which is at the right end of the number line, and since the second number is positive you go forward that many spaces. (If the second number was negative you would face the plus and go backwards.) Therefore, -8+6=-2

I also got only one wrong in the puncuation and grammar PAT test for the year level above me. Yay me!

Hopefully I get head student, but if I don't I know it's because there's better suited people than me. Still, I really want the position. Too bad I lost my four leafed clover.

They Say a Rainbow is a Promise: My competition entry, soon to be published in an anthology!

They Say a Rainbow is a Promise.

They say a rainbow is a promise.
To the village it’s a reminder of the fair stranger that came. That promised to free them from poverty. He threw colours in the sky and the first rainbow the villages ever saw was a sign of happiness. Of hope.

The stranger had appeared one dreary day. All morning, near the town square, he spoke of resisting the king's unjust laws, of defending women's rights, of living the privileged life every sufferer deserved to live.
"We are the elite, the hard workers, the Resistors. We must fight back. Join me, fight for freedom!” He then reached into his voluminous pocket and extracted a handful of multicoloured dust and threw it in the air. The dust had become a vast rainbow. 
A promise.
When the youth was done, he needed accommodation. A farmer was inspired, and offered him a room. He had a very beautiful daughter named Hunter-Rose, who was nearing the end of adolescence. She was gentle and kind.
Hunter-Rose had a secret not even her dear father could know. Her mother was a siren. Hunter-Rose was appalled at what she could do. Not only had she inherited her mother’s beauty, but her ability to attract men like a magnet. She saw this as a curse and isolated herself from men whenever possible. 
When the handsome youth walked into her pristine kitchen, her father informing her he was to dine with them, it was only natural she was tempted — by his good looks — to use her extraordinary talent. 
Hunter-Rose was disgusted. She ate her dinner as fast as she could, then hurried upstairs to her room without saying so much as ‘goodnight’ to either of them.

Unbeknownst to her, the youth was staying with them. She realised, later, that locking her door would have been advisable. 
It was near midnight when the youth crept silently into her room. He perched on her bed and sang. Nobody had ever heard a voice with such melody. He sang of battles, of heroes, of tragedy. 
The voice snuck into Hunter-Rose’s dreams. Her subconscious showing her illusions of not the tales and stories the youth spoke of, but the youth himself. He lead an invincible army against the king — she was disguised as his right-hand man. She saw herself draw an arrow. A rose-red feather from the tail of a rare phoenix. The arrow sailed through the air and plunged deep into the heart of the cruel king. The youth hoisted her up on his white horse and they galloped off into the sunset. 
The youth left a blood-red rose impaled on an arrow with a lapis feather in her grasp.

Hunter-Rose woke clutching the arrow to her heart. She dressed in a blue gown with her red hair in ringlets down her back. With her heart in her hand she knocked on the youth’s door and was told to enter. 
The room was deserted.
A longbow hung in the corner, complete with a quiver full of the arrows she used in her dream. 
A note was plastered to them.

‘Hunter-Rose. I leave the duty I have created, in your hands. You must be the one to conquer the king. Destiny calls.’

Many years passed. 
The sting of the youth’s betrayal never faded over the years. Hunter-Rose could never find it in her heart to love another man. She never used the determination, the cowardly youth had stirred up, to overthrow the king.
Beyond the veil, what was he? 

He lived the life of a criminal, wishing that he hadn’t been a coward, and that he lead the many villages he had convinced on an assault on the king’s fortress. If he had, he might have been king, and had the lovely Hunter-Rose as a wife. 
As for the town, he left it more downcast and wasted than ever before. Whenever a rainbow appeared in the sky, everyone would glare up at it and shake their fists.

To others, the rainbow is a promise. To them, the rainbow is a veil. Beyond the veil, there is nothing but hate and regret.

So this is my competition entry. It's going to be published in an anthology and I'm really excited and proud of myself. 

Week 2 term 1

OK. This week has not, to my disappointment, focused on testing. PATs are next week. Sigh.
Well, that's not to say I haven't learned anything. I've nearly got the hang of tumble-turns, but so far I can only swim two lengths max. 
I've been reminded how to do multiplication and division with negatives; one negative in the equation and the answer is a negative, two and it's positive. Too bad I didn't remember that in time for the test. I still got into the extension maths group though.
I've also learnt who are the talkative new people in my class... The people not to sit next to if you don't want to get in trouble for talking. Not to say I will avoid them, of course, just won't sit next to them. For the first couple of weeks we get to choose who we sit by; mostly girls and boys separate themselves but there are a handful who make an effort to mix it up. I do, most of the time. 

Welcome to 2015!

Well, yes, I haven not been on Blogger for months. Let me just forget that. I can't go back to then and update my blog, because unfortunately, Einstein forgot to calculate the Theory of Time Travel.

So, Happy New Year! Hope you had a brilliant, sunny Christmas Holidays and was looking forward to coming back to school! I know I was.

Year 8! I know! Exiting! But the really sad thing is, all the year eig-nines (sorry) have left and now I'll never see half of them again. We'll have a hard time living up to the reputation year eights have- which is basically utterly amazing. The good side is, now, I can apply for Class Councillor! There are maybe fifty million more opportunities year eights get the year sevens don't, but I really can't be stuffed listing them all. One thing I really look forward to is Tech Arts- right now I'm in Soft Materials (sewing) and seriously, it doesn't get much better than designing and making your own whole polar fleece sweatshirts! I mean, come on. At my primary school, the year eights made cushion covers. Please. And in Science we get to make sherbet. And in wood tech we get to make speakers. 

Next week we start PAT testing! Yaaaayyyy! I love any kind of academic test, I know, true nerd. We had a maths test the other day, and I only forgot one or two things (even though I made a couple of stupid mistakes) so I did pretty well. We also had a Maori test this morning, which I might've kinda completely failed. Well, I answered about two thirds of the questions (that might be an exaggeration, I'm not sure), but about a third of those were complete guesses. I suck at Te Reo Maori.

Over the holidays, I got news that an entry I entered for a competition was being published in an anthology! (That's a book full of stories for those who don't know.) I'll publish that later. I was going to enter another, better one, but I forgot to do that, so I'm surprised that one got through. Yay!

Looking forward to getting to know all the teeny year sevens in the next few week! (I swear I was not that short at the beginning of last year.)

Good luck for 2015!

Death in a Dream

Sleep engulfs me.

I’m standing in an isolated clearing, the blood moon illuminating the red, wet ground. Men in dark suits surround me. Murder is etched into their black eyes, tunnels to oblivion. Maniacal laughter echoes around the trees. I’m breathing terror. I hear a twig snap behind me, and I spin, lashing out. He crumples like a marionette with his strings cut. The battle rages on.

My arm brakes for no reason. I twist my ankle and tears form an opaque curtain over my eyes. I blink like the world depends on it. Theoretically, it does. Pain is everything. Blood is everywhere. Defeated opponents carpet the ground. Some unconscious, some crippled, some severely wounded. Most are ceaselessly attacking me. I've never felt more fear.

Leaves rustle, bushes quiver. Assassins? Snipers? My mind is freeze-dried from panic, and it’s going overdrive. They emerge. All my friends and family, everyone I have ever or will ever care about, gaping at the fight. They are in advantageous positions, but they are paralysed with terror, compelled to watch me receive my unfortunate fate.

I shove my current opponent, and he stumbles, cracking his skull on a log. The moment his heart stops, his body ruptures, blood artfully tie dyeing his elegant tuxedo. His body disintegrates and floats on the breeze, ashes hitchhiking on the wind. I can only stare. I don’t notice the man behind me, manufactured from shadows. I don’t notice the knife glint as it bathes in the moonlight. But I do notice the tip of the blade protruding from my gut. The men disappear, their task completed. I seize the hilt and yank it out. I admire the elaborate carvings adorning the silver blade made from moonbeams. Mist obscures my vision.

I wake up. I've been sobbing into my pillow, and my duvet is tangled around my limbs from thrashing around. Thank goodness it was only a nightmare. My hand is clenched around something cold as death. I bring it out, through the jungle of bedclothes, and fling it away from me in terror. It’s the knife from my dream.

A stabbing pain courses through my body, threatening to make me black out. I gasp, my breathing uneven. I’m not balanced, my body teetering over the edge of my bed. I have no strength to right myself, and I land on the floor with a thud. I feel nothing. I lie there, in a growing pool of scarlet blood. It seeps towards the knife. The beautiful knife, soaking in blood, yet none stains the blade. It shimmers, and suddenly it’s in my hand. I can’t get rid of it, my fingers refuse to respond. A flashback- I’m in the clearing, and a man in a black suit looms over me. His scythe seems as tall as a redwood from my position, lying on my back on moss and pine needles. The scythe seems to swing without any guidance from the towering, faceless man above.

I died of decapitation while dreaming.

Alexandra Cemetery

L.I. To use the model of ‘The Old Alley’ to write descriptively about a place.

Twisted gates creak,

Fog entwines around

Cracking stone graves.

Gnarled, squatting pine trees

Cast shadows on the ground

They dance and lengthen

As the sun descends the deep blue sky,

Now streaked with gold.

Thin, wispy clouds

Obscure the crescent moon

Stars twinkle cheerfully,

Spirits of the corpses residing here

Until their bones rot away to nothing.

Wind moans,

A child calling to the deceased.

Weeds and moss suffocate the dirty stone,

And so, consequently, slabs of the gravestones

Separate themselves,

And roll down the shallow hill.

Cobwebs strangle the carved stone angels,

Blocking epitaphs from sight.

Decaying leaves carpet the unmowed grass

Leaving a floor of decomposition to walk on.

Over the rotting fences,

You will find fields filled with cattle,

And a  highway roaring with cars

Unaffected by the death and mourning

That calls this cemetery home.

Abundant silence fills my ears

This is not a happy place.

I crouch by a checker-patterned grave,

Sweeping dust from the headstone.

I hope the dead appreciate that

There’s plenty more to clean.

By Amy

My apologies for lack of posts.

I've been off school for week 4 with a fractured shoulder- so no computer time. I'll be posting heaps of writing this week though! It's going to be exiting. Queen's birthday weekend on Monday, Science I.C.A.S. test on Wednesday, and on Friday, the SHINE launch that Mr McGabe has mentioned a couple of times. SHINE is an acronym (is that the right word?) but I"m not sure what it stands for. Guaranteed no schoolwork on Friday, with sports for first and middle blocks, and a free sausage each for lunch. I won't be doing sports, because of my fracture, but instead will be blowing up helium balloons. I must remember to bring a book.