Interesting times ahead

I got my stats results back today and they weren't as bad as I expected. Although it looks like my hopes and dreams of dropping physics to possibly sit one uni paper have been dashed because the exams for 2nd semester clash with NCEA exams, so it looks like I'm completely stuck at high school!

 

Anyway while I'm at high school might as well make the most of it. We had to try sing some Chinese pop music in Chinese class today. Some of the music the teacher played to us wasn't too bad. We're going to this Buddhist temple as a class trip with Chinese students from all year levels going (I think about 75 in total?). The Chinese teacher wants us 6 7th formers to be leaders of three groups. Oh no not Calum though...Calum can be on the video camera and film everyone yay! The temple is holding a video competition (lol) which the Chinese teacher wants to enter. Hopefully I don't miss out on all the exciting stuff like Tai Chi and meditation..

 

We got the programme for the accordion championships this weekend. There's just two people in the championship class I'm in - me, and this guy. This guy I'm up against though has been practising his programme since yonks ago and competed in the world champs late last year so I really have no chance. As long as I get second and don't screw up too badly! (Some people who are the only competitor in their class have come third in previous years!)

 

...oh just by the way...I'm a guy with dark brown hair brown eyes, arms, legs, one nose and a few fingers all there, looking for a ball partner preferably female (if male no strings attached please!...nah I'm straight) help me fulfil my 6th New Years resolution...

Nonononono

My friends are all starting to pull out of going to the ball! Shen is going to Malaysia, Jacqueline is going to Malaysia, Hyun and Joon aren't going (don't ask me why...a thousand possible reasons...) I'm not going with a partner, I'm going to be all by myself! OK so there's going to be other people than those four people so maybe it isn't as bad as I made it out to be..

 

Well I did crud in physics, (I'm feeling like not bothering doing it again and dropping it as I just don't feel passionate about physics!) worse than last year. History was a relief, I did better than I expected considering I only studied the night before, and in Chinese I just stuffed up in writing as the teacher said that despite my writing being all correct I 'played it safe'. Stats results are coming tomorrow freaky freaky :S

 

Orchestra rehearsal was pretty cool. There was this guy who played a saw! That was amazing. He could even use the conductor's baton to play it. Most of the music we played was British and it sounded great being in a proper orchestra! 

Testing

I just installed Microsoft Office 2007 Beta 2 to have a look, and it’s not too bad. It keeps saving files in a new format .docx so it becomes a hassle sometimes to have to change the document format to Word 97-03 format whenever you want to save. Anyway this is the first time I’ve tried posting a blog entry using Microsoft Word so I’ll just have to see what it looks like!

Anyway the weekend after exams has felt good, although because exams are over and you don’t have to study for anything, you get this kinda feeling that there’s something you’re supposed to be doing! For me I suppose that something is getting this student website up and running. I spent all of Friday at school collecting photos and information from around the place. I was originally going to scan a few photos from the school library archives but I was told I couldn’t scan any photos with people in it without their permission because of privacy laws, which meant I was restricted to only buildings! We’re hoping to get the website up within the next couple of weeks. Hopefully I’ll have the content sorted or else I’ll have to type it all up!

Apart from that nothing has really happened much during the weekend apart from music lessons, music teaching, sleeping in the car while mum food shops at Chinese vege shops, and going to church in the morning. Church is a pretty lonely place. I’m in an English-speaking Sunday school class, and there are three other students and two teachers besides myself. One other student can’t really speak much English, only mainly Cantonese, and the others can all speak Mandarin and Cantonese, and so they sometimes just end up speaking in Chinese! There’s no one there my age either so that’s a bit sad no one to make friends with…

Back to school tomorrow OH NO string quartet AND string trio rehearsal, and then choir rehearsal after school. I’m also filling in for the Auckland Symphony Orchestra at their Night at the Proms concert so I have to go to their rehearsal tomorrow night. We’re going to play Crown Imperial March, which our school orchestra has played (but sounds weak because of all the missing parts). It’s going to be cool playing it with 80 others rather than just 12!

Could It get any Worse?

Haven't posted anything all week because of exams. Anyway thank goodness they're all over, they couldn't have gone worse!

I had my first statistics assessment in time series and a Chinese exam on Monday. The time series assessment didn't go too badly till afterwards someone who had looked at my computer screen (CHEATING!!) told me I had typed in the wrong value! Chinese exam was not too bad. The listening exam turned out to be exactly the same one the Chinese teacher had given us a week ago for practice! All six of us year 13 Chinese students had finished our exam within the first two hours but we weren't allowed out early and so we had to stay in for another hour! The teacher told us that there were three options: recheck our papers, draw, or catch up on some sleep.

I didn't have any exams on Tuesday but on Wednesday morning I had a physics assessment. Because I sat year 13 physics last year I had already done this assessment, and so I was expecting to do the same experiment as last year (and I happened to catch the physics teacher setting up the same equipment the day earlier!). When I came into the room the next morning while everyone else was doing the experiment I did last year, the physics teacher gave me a special seat with a different experiment to do, while I had studied for the other one the night before!

Today I had history in the morning and statistics bi-variate data in the afternoon. History wasn't too bad, but while everyone wrote heaps of pages for at least one of their history essays, I only wrote two and a little pages for each of my two essays, and for the resource interpretation (where they give you a whole page to write on for each source x6) I only wrote about a paragraph for each! Hopefully I pass!

The statistics paper was in a different format to what any of us have encountered before. I managed to answer most questions but...we'll see. The statistics teacher told us at the beginning of the week that there would be a reassessment for both statistics assessments but by today she had changed her mind! I'm really screwed...

By the way our debating team had our last debate last night against Howick. It was the same team I went up against last year...and lost...Amazingly the Howick team remembered me from last year! The moot was

'That low taxes are preferable to extensive government services"

with us negating. Unfortunately...we lost by three points. So that's it for us in the ISAY Debating Competition this year!

Unprepared

Exams tomorrow! I definitely don't think I'm ready. I've got a statistics time series assessment and Chinese exam tomorrow, a physics assessment on Wednesday, and on Thursday a statistics bi-variate data assessment and history exam. I feel the least confident in statistics! At least there's only a week of this to suffer through!

After that though I've got the accordion competitions to prepare for. I had no idea how close they were till yesterday during music lessons my teacher told me we have one more lesson next week and then the week after will be it! Our trio and duet are so not ready! We can't even play in time yet and my brothers still can't play two hands together! Let's hope we're the only entries in our classes!

Choir is going so well at school! I counted the number of people at the last rehearsal on Thursday lunchtime and it peaked at about 34 people which is amazing! Not only does the number of people make the choir so much different to last year's but the sort of sound we're producing, which is a much louder and confident sound. Hopefully people will take notice of our school choir and it'll no longer be the laughing stock of the school! Now if only we could boost orchestra numbers by that much...

Last night my neighbour came over and we had a little chat which was cool because I haven't talked to her in quite a while. The night before she had asked me to go jogging with her the following morning at 6am, and so I tried not to be late for once and set my alarm clock and the cellphone alarm to ring at 6. I happened to forget where I put them (which meant I couldn't just switch them off that fast) and managed to wake up on time! However she never showed up! So I just studied history instead...

Spacifix Visits

Today was pretty interesting. We had orchestra in the morning before school, but only about six or seven of us turned up, and the conductor was really frustrated the violinists weren't there (you know who you are! :P). Because the conductor only comes to school once a week I suggested having lunchtime rehearsals so that everyone would be at school so it looks like we might not have to wake up so early from now on on a Tuesday morning!

I met a few people around school I haven't talked to in person in aaaaaaages which was really cool! Spacifix also came to perform during lunch. They were pretty cool the audience were absolutely hooked (from the looks of it). Afterwards I wanted to see if I could get one of the band members to write a little message for our student website like we got Bill English to do (actually I still have to email him about that...). While waiting for them during form period I met Steven Thomas, one of the band members who used to be the headboy at Rangeview in 2000 when I was form one. Amazingly he remembered my name and surname! I talked to a few of the guys for a while before they had finished packing and then managed to get a photo of the group out by the gate where it says RUTHERFORD. So when they hit the top of the charts at least we'll all remember they performed at Rutherford!

By then the first half of statistics had already passed but I managed to come to class late without much hassle.

Frustrating Debating

After being plagued with ongoing problems our school was finally able to enter a team in the Russell McVeagh Regional Debating Competition! Patrick, Chen and I represented our school, and basically all of West Auckland as no other West Auckland school bothered to show up including surprise surprise Avondale College!

It was quite interesting though. When we first arrived, one of the organisers greeted us saying that it was good to have some representation from the West. At least she knew where we were from!

When the roll was later called out and the guy called out

RUTHERFORD

This girl a few rows ahead of us turned to her mother and asked

"Where's Rutherford?"

And the mother replied by saying it was probably somewhere in West Auckland. Phew!

When we went up against Takapuna Grammar School, they said to us:

"So you guys from Rutherford? Where's that? Don't think we've heard of that school before. So you guys like Rutherford Grammar, Rutherford High...?"

We replied by saying that we were Rutherford College from out west.

In terms of success we had a bit of it.

1. "This house believes that New Zealand has too much censorship" vs St Kentigens, with us affirmative. We lost by 12 points
2. "This house believes that Maori seats should be abolished" vs Takapuna Grammar, with us negative. We won by 1 point
3. "This house believes that military action should be taken against Iran" vs Westlake Boys, with us negative. We lost by 2 points.

So in the end we didn't make it to the quarterfinals. If only we had won that last debate! In fact we believed we should have won that debate! The adjudicator failed to acknowledge any strong arguments we put forward that countered the affirmative team but instead claimed we didn't counter the affirmative team's argument well enough! He said our points were OK but that the affirmative team were able to reply, but he didn't take into consideration that we dismissed their reply legitimately! OK enough of that I won't go on!

Anyway at least us three gained a lot more experience in the art of debating and will put it to good use in our last upcoming debates in the ISAY Competition. Hopefully both our teams get into the quarterfinals of that competition!

Metalmouth

I left school before lunch today to go all the way to Middlemore Hospital for my orthodontist appointment. Because of my crossbite I have to go for a check-up each year. Last year the orthodontist determined that I had stopped growing so she decided to put me on the waiting list for surgery on my jaw. Today when they measured my height to double-check I turned out to be 6 mm taller than last year big YAY!

Despite this the orthodontist decided to go ahead with the correction process, so they made a model of my teeth and took x-rays of my head and jaw, and the hospital photographer then took a few photos of my face at different angles.

After that they told me they'd see me sometime soon. Since they have a new orthodontist who hasn't had too many people to treat at the moment they've got some space for me, so you might see me later this year with braces! That ain't going to look good with my glasses. That's why I really want contacts but my mum doesn't trust me with putting stuff in my eyes!

The Winning Continues!

We won our debate against Avondale tonight!! The margin was only two but hey that's an improvement on our last debate which we lost by ONE point! That brings our record up to 2-2. We definitely have to win our final debate if we want to make it into the quarterfinals.

The Avondale team were probably the nicest I've met out of all the teams we've debated against so far this year. I was only Mr Chairman of the debate so I got to play with the swingy chair and sit in between the teams, which meant I could swing around to the Avondale team and have a little chat. They told me their first speaker was a last minute replacement because their team were having commitment issues. It's great to hear other schools face the same problem too (even if not to the same degree)!

Tomorrow afternoon I'm going into Middlemore Hospital for my annual teeth check-up with the orthodontist. Last year they said they would put me on the waiting list for an operation to correct my jaw (cross bite). I would have to have braces for a year before the operation though. So I guess tomorrow I guess I'll find out how soon I'll have to fill my mouth with metal...

Weekend Music

Yesterday I went to this Auckland Symphony Orchestra concert in the city, with the music performed revolving around the British royalty sort of thing theme. The orchestra played Crown Imperial March which is what our school orchestra played last year, only that they played it...slightly...better! It did motivate me (again I admit) to try and recruit more people to our school orchestra and choir, so if you go to Rutherford College, join the choir!!

After the concert I was walking down Queen St and I must say you definitely see quite a lot! There were emo's, goths, gays, hobos, and even some guy dressed up in a gorilla suit jumping up and down on a bench beating his chest. He had this container with a sign

"SOLO DAD...THE STATE TOOK MY GIRL!"

I felt sorry for him (well you know...) and asked my mum for a coin so I got 50c and approached him, asking if I could have my photo taken with him if I paid him 50c, and he agreed!

Good Luck

Today wasn't such a bad day for me! It started off with me making it to school ON TIME to realise the chemistry teacher was late so it didn't matter. Next I found out I got excellence for my statistics assessment, and then after that I had to attend a meeting with the school IT guy and Carey a guy I've asked to help design the student website. There was a little dispute over how it was going to be arranged, and Mr Edmeades (the principal) who was running the meeting was trying to understand web design through the use of analogies such as

"So you speak Swahili and you speak French?" (referring to the web design language the two were using)

The IT guy replied:

"No well we both speak Swahili but just different dialects."

In the end the outcome was that our student website will be an independent website with its own .com web address.

Later in that day we were surprised to learn that Bill English, the National MP and former leader of the party, current spokesperson for Education, was coming to visit. At the beginning of lunch all of us prefects met in the library and greeted Bill English and Tau Henare, another National MP. We explained to him everything we've done so far this year, and had a discussion on various matters.

When we came to the end they asked us if we had any more questions. I asked them if they could give our school some free publicity and told them not to forget our school IF Bill English becomes Minister of Education sometime in the future (embarrassingly water was dripping from the ceiling right in front of him!)

It was a really good experience meeting them. They seem like really down-to-earth people, but I'm not too sure if that'll be enough for me to vote for them though ;)

Finally to cap off a day of good luck I managed to win my first squash game against some guy from Lynfield College by 17-15 (I think) while my brother and another teammate won which meant our team won overall!

Finish Already!

Arrrrrrrgggghhhh!!!!!!!! My friends are telling me they're not too sure if they're going to the ball or not this year! Why am I the only one who definitely knows he's going? I don't want to be a loner!! Actually that reminds me I've got less than two months to fulfil my New Year's resolution of taking a girl to the ball. So far there's been no one, but there's still time! Plus going by myself isn't too bad. I guess at least then you can do whatever you want whenever you like without being stuck to one place..wait that's not the right attitude!

 

Annnyway what a loooong day I had! Unfortunately my free period was the last period of the day, which meant I had to get through five straight periods :S I made it to first period physics on time for the first time in the last three weeks of school I think! One out of one, eight to go!

 

I had to run Junior Council meeting today and I was hoping ALL the members were going to attend. I even went out of my way yesterday to put a notice in the notices for today reminding students of the meeting, but guess what? It never got put in! When I was in the deputy principal's office after school today using her phone, I saw tomorrow's notices and noticed my notice in it! Ai ya I don't know what I'm going to do!

 

Our debating team is officially competing in the Russell McVeagh Regional Debating Competition! Apparently this year there are 28 schools competing, the largest field ever. All I have to say is watch out Auckland Grammar, we're going to get you back!

 

After school I had to stay for our trio rehearsal. There's Josefia on flute, Catherine on piano and me on cello (struggling to be...thank goodness for piano covering me up!). Fortunately the teacher was slightly nicer today and rehearsal only lasted an hour!

 

Beginning of another term

School has started off not too badly. Classes haven't been too boring and haven't dragged on for hours, and we were told we have no chemistry exam this term! YAY!!! That means the only exams I have are for history and Chinese, and internal assessments for Physics and statistics.

The deputy principal has asked us to organise the farewell assembly for Mr Edmeades our principal so we've got to get started on that! I've got to stay at school right up till 7 tomorrow night, having to attend string trio and then a debate meeting. Our team is up against Avondale next week. They're below us, and we're currently 11th equal (4 points from 1st) while Avondale are 25th equal. If we want to get into the quarterfinals then we've got to win our remaining two debates! I'm sitting out the next debate so it'll be up to Christine, Heather and Patrick, who I have complete faith in to go the whole way and win!

Anyway I'm off to go read more on the Treaty of Waitangi...fascinating stuff...(nah really!)

Addicted

Hi my name is Calum and I'm a chocoholic...no thanks to Easter! My mum bought us each a big chocolate Easter bunny and I just started eating it bit by bit the other day. I was meaning to do my history essay but I kept thinking to myself OK I'm just going to get some chocolate and then I'll get right on to my essay! Maybe a little bit more chocolate...

Unfortunately I still haven't finished my history essay, but I've read a lot about the Treaty of Waitangi and I think I'm starting to see where all the unhappy Maori fellas are coming from! I've been trying to find books written by historians offering a completely opposite point of view, but I can't seem to find any at the Henderson Library. I went in there today and was about to borrow a couple of books by Maori historian Ranganui Walker, till I found out they were all UNITEC books!

I just watched The Last Samurai, and that was a pretty cool movie despite Tom Cruise (honestly I have nothing against him! His belief in Scientology is just a little bit...interesting...), all the squirting blood and rolling heads, it was a really good movie! I didn't even notice that parts of it was filmed in Taranaki! I feel so much more Asian now...