Not for me but for all the seniors and year 13's in particular at Rutherford College. Yesterday was the school's Senior Prize-Giving. Originally we weren't going to bother going as Aonghas didn't get any award. It was not till a couple weeks ago that Mrs Martell, Aonghas' dean rang up and told me that Aonghas was to get a special award that was supposed to be a surprise and so he didn't know about it and we weren't to tell to him. Along with this, Chen was strongly twisting my arm to come and support him and the school. That then made the perfect cover! My mum and I told Aonghas we were only going to attend the prize-giving because Chen wanted me to, and my mum would be coming just so I wouldn't feel weird being by myself.
We weren't too clear on the actual starting time of the prize-giving though, as I thought it was 1.10pm while my mum thought it was 1.30pm! We ended up getting there at 1pm to find that the proceedings had just started, and so we had to walk up the aisle amongst the teachers so we could go join the other parents and family at the front of the hall. There was just one seat left so I let my mum take it while I stood up and just filmed the whole thing!
NB. The following order events may be incorrect, but they did happen!
The prize-giving started off as usual with an opening by principal Mr Moore, followed by the year 11, 12 and 13 awards. The school choir and the 2007 and 2008 prefects groups then got up and sang The Rutherford Way song. That was interesting as I've never seen some of those guys (such as Chen, Gwen and Angie!) sing in front of a crowd before! I heard...that some of the people were quite tone deaf! You couldn't tell by their performance though as it sounded quite good.
Chen and Yvia then got up to do their farewell speeches. Yvia's was quite good and was well received. I can't really summarise it but I'm sure that if you really really want to watch it you can watch it when it gets uploaded to the internet. She pretty much talked about her time at Rutherford and how she had grown and so on (I think??). Chen then did his speech which apparently lasted longer than 10 minutes! That must be a record for Head Student farewell speeches! His speech was quite well-received as well.
Now it was down to the serious stuff - the big awards. There was over $100,000 worth of scholarships awarded.
First of all, congratulations to Miss Gwen Tay! She was awarded the Cliff Edmeades Scholarship!
Congratulations too to Aone, Melissa, Micaela and Angie (I'm sure I've missed someone out!) on being recipients of the Waitakere Licensing Trust Scholarships! I actually kinda knew Angie would probably get it as she told me a couple days ago that her parents were coming to prize-giving for no reason. That's when I thought to myself...she's got it!!
John Kim wiped the floor clean with firsts in year 12 subjects, however Luke Sizer got Top Year 12 Student as he came first in three year 13 subjects. That was a bit sad for John as he had worked quite hard and did quite well this year. Craig was awarded Top Year 11 Student.
My brother was awarded some new award called the Rutherford Values Award. At first when Ms Heath, the school's deputy principal was talking about the award and about the Rutherford Way song, I thought Aonghas had only won it for singing that song as part of the choir! It turns out he has the Rutherford Values instilled in him,,,or something like that...
Then down to the top awards - the Dux awards. Micaela Cole received Dux Artium, Samantha Roebeck got Dux Ludorum, while Proximae Accessit went to Cameron Fraser who also won this Price-Waterhouse Coopers Scholarship. Finally Dux Litterarum went to..no guesses needed here...Mr Chen Liu. It was his day to shine.
After the prize-giving I went around the hall towards the tuck shop and came across Shirley, a friend who I haven't texted in a while. Fortunately she doesn't have any texts! I met this adult student (who's not actually that old!) who told me his mum knew me! He said his mum was one of those exam supervisors.
I was now on the hunt for Aonghas to try find the bag for the camera and tripod while coming across all these other people. I met Cathy, this girl who was in the same year as me until she left for Avondale College in year 13. She came back to Rutherford College this year to do year 12! She said it was because she went back to Korea and was a bit behind. Fair enough!
I also caught up with the accounting teacher and the chemistry teacher which was cool, and met Angie's mum who was also looking for Angie. I then spotted some of the old Village crew - Alex and Zahir! I tried to persuade Zahir to take up Health Science at uni next year, but he just could see right through me! I was trying my best to promote the degree!!! I received another comment on my bad hairdo, that I looked like a mad scientist! I WILL get a haircut soon!!!
AND then, there was Gwen with Isma! She was the first person I had seen at the school who was in tears which was (not meant to be in an evil way) kinda cool to see because you don't often see people show much emotion these days! I don't think I've seen any of these guys in ages so it was cool to see them again. Not too sure when I'll see them again though!
Esther and her mum, a maths teacher at the school were trying to persuade my mum, Aonghas and me to come to afternoon tea but my mum was too ashamed to come until her mum dragged her along. I didn't actually talk to too many people at the afternoon tea! It was a bit sad. I would have liked to have talked to Mrs Britten the old deputy principal who announced she wouldn't be coming back, as well as Mr Edmeades, the old principal.
Aonghas wanted to go off to his form class's shared lunch so my mum followed Esther's mum to her classroom for a chat while I went to look for Mrs Taylor, my old dean, for a catch up. There I spent some time talking to her about my dilemma and not knowing what I was going to do next year. Actually Chen told me last night the careers advisor told him that it was good dealing with someone who knew what they wanted to do for once, as in the year before it was HELL sorting Calum out. I must be a careers advisor's worst nightmare!
I went to Esther's mum's classroom to join my mum who was badmouthing me to Esther's mum in Cantonese. What a shame I could understand it all! One of Esther's mum's students who had just received a bit of help from her had to wait a while for her mum and so Esther's mum told her to talk to me, which put me on the spot a bit as I had never talked to her before! She said she knew me though so that was a good start! Her name's Annette and for some reason I already knew...She's in Aonghas' year though so I suppose I may have heard it somewhere. Anyway we had a good long talk with each other and she was telling me about this stuff (I like listening! lol) and I forgot to check my phone, as Aonghas had been trying to text me asking me where we were! He had tried searching all over the school looking for us!
So it was finally a break from being stuck in the house and it was so good to see some of the guys at school again. It's going to be weird seeing them around uni next year, as I admit that I'm used to wandering around uni and the city during the day thinking
"Poor sods, locked at school HAHAHAHAHAHA"
Nah nah I'm not that evil! It'll be cool seeing them more often next year and possibly hanging out with them. I don't know why I was feeling slightly sad at the prize-giving today when I've already left this school! Either someone infected me with the sadness bug and I was just feeling sad for those year 13 students who were feeling sad, or maybe the prize-giving just reminded me of everything I didn't achieve at the school and my failures! But it was really encouraging and enlightening to see all of the students who achieved so much and how all the students had reacted positively throughout the ceremony towards academic achievement and towards each other. If only they could be like that all the time!
I've just attached a few random photos that Aonghas took of the last day of school at Rutherford (hey there's one with me in it!!!!)
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