What Should I Sacrifice?

Yesterday I went to this Auckland Cultural Festival at Potters Park in Mt Eden. There were heaps of ethnicities represented, predominantly from Africa, South-east Asia and South America. 

The performances were interesting, including this Japanese guy whose Australian visa expired and so he came over to New Zealand. He tried busking down Queen St but was told that it was against the law to use an amplifier on the side of the road. So instead, he decided to busk at this festival! I have to admit he was pretty good. The small little Indian musical instrument he was playing made these BOOINNGGYY BOOOIINGGGY sounds which sounded really good when dance/techo music was played in the background. This other really cool performance was this Bolivian guy who played the panpipes and guitar all at the same time. The only downside was the weather. Even though we usually complain about too much rain, yesterday was pretty much TOO MUCH SUN! It was so hot, and when most of the stalls are selling hot food, it ain’t that great.

Today wasn’t so bad. I realised I did my Physics experiment write-up completely wrong. Apart from that though, the cello/string ensemble teacher was in a good mood, and I signed up for the 40 Hour Famine. I still haven’t decided what I’ll sacrifice for 40 hours though. So far some ideas and suggestions from others have been:

• Sleeping in a cardboard box for two nights
• Asking girls out for 40 hours (not so sure about this one, I might run out of girls to ask and my safety wouldn’t be guaranteed if I turned to the streets)
• Forgoing technology for 40 hours (did this one last year)
• Not eating for 40 hours
• Not studying for 40 hours

Anyway I’ll try think of some more and decide before the time comes.

I’m hoping things are getting better between Zippo and me. She has thought of me as weird and disturbing (for some reason…must be something I said), so I’m really trying hard to get back in her good books. I decided to part with my $5 and fulfil the bet I made with her (actually it’s money from Young Enterprise but don’t tell the twins! I’ll pay the business back when I find enough loose change around the house). I like to think of it as compensation for whatever psychological damage I’ve caused her. I’ve talked to her on the phone a few times in the past week which is hopefully a good sign, and let’s hope things get better.

I’ve realised how important friends are recently, and so I’m determined to keep the friends I’ve got so far, and hopefully in thirty decades’ time, I’ll still be close friends with them.

In Another World

We beat Diocesan which was really good 323-314 (I think it was) to us. My speech didn't go too well though. I dropped the documents I was about to table, and had to instead plonk the mixed-up pile of papers down. I then went slightly overtime and had to cut some bits out of my speech. When the adjudicator commented on each of our teams, he was like:

"When I first heard your speech [Diocesan's first speaker, remember that she was also the first speaker of the debate], I thought that you guys were definitely going to win!"

It's amazing he thought that way even before he heard the other team's case! I wonder if it's because they're just Diocesan, the rich private girls school who should be the best at everything because they have everything and can afford it unlike Rutherford.

I have to admit that I was stunned upon arriving at their school. There were girls sitting outside on benches playing around on their laptops, and the main office was several stories high! The classrooms in this big building all had projectors in them, smartboards (like whiteboards only that they're like a huge touchscreen which can also be connected to a laptop) and each table had those swingy-round office chairs that can go up and down! Man do I wish I went to Diocesan, and not because of the girls!

Chen's team was up against St Kentigens (another rich private school), and unfortunately they lost, but at least a little bit was salvaged from it - Chen got the highest mark for an individual speaker.

Four out of six Rutherford teams won in the first round, including the advanced team which beat Macleans College (yes another rich school, not too sure whether they're a rich private or a rich public school though...)

As you know I applied for the recorder teaching job at the Lincoln Music School. Well yesterday afterschool I had my interview with the principal of the school and the executive officer. I was expecting a man to be the principal but instead it was a woman! Nevertheless that didn't bother me. They asked me quite a lot of questions about how I would go about teaching and controlling little children. I tried to answer them as wisely as I could, going on about how important it is that they are interested and trying to get them hooked on music and classical music, and maybe even offering rewards to those who practised throughout the week. I was told to ring back after 5pm today to find out whether I got the job or not, but right up till 9pm I couldn't get through, but finally after that time I did get through and they told me that I got the job! So now I'm officially Calum Anderson, Recorder Teacher. lol

School's starting to get so tedious - boring boring boring... I think I hang around too many people I don't understand (language-wise), so either I should find other people that I do understand to hang around with, or I should try learn their language so I can join in! I joined the Environmental Committee this week. Don't ask me if that was such a wise decision because I'm still yet to decide on that! They're planning to fundraise for a 'Pride Board' through a 'Feed the Teachers' thing where they sell food to teachers. The 'Pride Board' is to show off some of the achievements of students from around the school. It may sound lame but it's a good start to injecting some of that much needed pride into our school's students! One person suggested just using the abandoned Sports Noticeboard that was up outside the school theatre. The only problem about that though is that the theatre's set to be demolished within the next few months!

I also joined the International Student Newspaper Committee. Don't ask me why I joined that either, because I have no idea. It's supposed to be focused on international students, and this is where one of the problems comes in, because I don't really talk to many international students because they don't often speak English and therefore I don't understand them! I don't know how to go about writing articles either. Would it need to be written in easy-to-understand English? I have no idea.

Anyway I've been so exhausted this week from staying up too late too often, I'm going to go off to bed and try to enjoy the few hours of sleep before I have to wake up early for violin lessons.

 

WE WON!!

WE BEAT DIOCESAN AT THEIR OWN SCHOOL!!

 

(It’s the morning so I’ll type some more later in the day)

A Rather Large Portion of My Time

I know I said I would post more regularly in my last post, but preparing for this debate tomorrow has taken up a lot of my time and nearly all of my weekend, as they do…

I had to stay up till 2.30am Sunday morning just to get it finished! Originally I was going to base my argument that we do not support human cloning on the fact that it is inhumane. That was until I realised Joon was going to cover it in his! Next I thought I’d cover the evil ways people could use human cloning. Guess what? Joon also covered that too! In the end I decided to prove with statistics that we do NOT in fact support human cloning. Thank goodness everyone was OK with it!

 

Anyway the weekend turned out to be pretty exciting. It first started off with my first violin lesson in the morning at Lincoln Heights School (or Lincoln Heights Music School). It was there where Nelly, the school co-ordinator told us that they needed a recorder teacher for six little kiddy beginners and asked if any of us wanted to fill the position. My mum put my name forward, and if I’m successful, I’ll be teaching two half hour classes every Saturday morning and will be paid $26/hr which would be pretty good!

 

Later that day I went with my brothers and my mum to the Chinese Lantern Festival at Albert Park. As expected it was crowded, but nonetheless I still managed to meet up with some of my friends at school like Sarena, Nikki and Ellyce! I was talking to them, and my mum didn’t notice so she kept walking, and when she realised I wasn’t there she started shouting out

“CALUM!!! CAAAAAALLLUUM!!!!”

 

Another girl who called out to me had an American accent and looked very much like Kimberly, this Eurasian girl (finally someone like me!) who used to be in my class. If it was in fact her, than I could be considered lucky to be able to have met up with her again, no matter how brief it was!

 

The festival concluded with a performance by Beijing Opera performers on stilts doing summersaults, back flips and all these other dazzling moves. Our dad who was working in the city till 11pm picked us up soon after.

 

Zippo went for her learner’s license (I think) on Saturday, and upon hearing that, it ignited my mum’s anger towards me for continuing to procrastinate in getting mine. She went on about how Zippo was younger than I was, how heaps of young people were all getting their learners license and I was still doing nothing about it. I’m aiming to get it within the next two weeks though! It costs about $80 to sit the test, and you can only get 3 out of 35 questions wrong, so I’ve always been afraid of being the first person to fail this ‘relatively simple’ test! However after I went through all three hundred and something questions the other day, it seemed to me that all you require is basically commonsense!

 

I had my cello lesson with the infamous Ms Williams. She’s pretty tough and strict because she demands perfection. She’s also in charge of the string ensemble of which the twins and I are members of. Since we had a debate meeting at lunch today, it was my job to break the news to her. Thankfully she took it well and didn’t slaughter me.

 

The practise debate during lunch was between our debating team (Hyun, Joon and me) and Chen’s team. It turned out to be pretty interesting, but unfortunately there wasn’t enough time for Chen and me to read our speeches.

 

It does sound as though quite a lot of time and effort is going into this debate, but if we win against a school such as Diocesan tomorrow, it’ll all be worth it!

A Large Portion of my Time

I know I said I would post more regularly in my last post, but preparing for this debate tomorrow has taken up a lot of my time and nearly all of my weekend, as they do…
I had to stay up till 2.30am Sunday morning just to get it finished! Originally I was going to base my argument that we do not support human cloning on the fact that it is inhumane. That was until I realised Joon was going to cover it in his! Next I thought I’d cover the evil ways people could use human cloning. Guess what? Joon also covered that too! In the end I decided to prove with statistics that we do NOT in fact support human cloning. Thank goodness everyone was OK with it!

Anyway the weekend turned out to be pretty exciting. It first started off with my first violin lesson in the morning at Lincoln Heights School (or Lincoln Heights Music School). It was there where Nelly, the school co-ordinator told us that they needed a recorder teacher for six little kiddy beginners and asked if any of us wanted to fill the position. My mum put my name forward, and if I’m successful, I’ll be teaching two half hour classes every Saturday morning and will be paid $26/hr which would be pretty good!

Later that day I went with my brothers and my mum to the Chinese Lantern Festival at Albert Park. As expected it was crowded, but nonetheless I still managed to meet up with some of my friends at school like Sarena, Nikki and Ellyce! I was talking to them, and my mum didn’t notice so she kept walking, and when she realised I wasn’t there she started shouting out
“CALUM!!! CAAAAAALLLUUM!!!!”

Another girl who called out to me had an American accent and looked very much like Kimberly, this Eurasian girl (finally someone like me!) who used to be in my class. If it was in fact her, than I could be considered lucky to be able to have met up with her again, no matter how brief it was!

The festival concluded with a performance by Beijing Opera performers on stilts doing summersaults, back flips and all these other dazzling moves. Our dad who was working in the city till 11pm picked us up soon after.

Zippo went for her learner’s license (I think) on Saturday, and upon hearing that, it ignited my mum’s anger towards me for continuing to procrastinate in getting mine. She went on about how Zippo was younger than I was, how heaps of young people were all getting their learners license and I was still doing nothing about it. I’m aiming to get it within the next two weeks though! It costs about $80 to sit the test, and you can only get 3 out of 35 questions wrong, so I’ve always been afraid of being the first person to fail this ‘relatively simple’ test! However after I went through all three hundred and something questions the other day, it seemed to me that all you require is basically commonsense!

I had my cello lesson with the infamous Ms Williams. She’s pretty tough and strict because she demands perfection. She’s also in charge of the string ensemble of which the twins and I are members of. Since we had a debate meeting at lunch today, it was my job to break the news to her. Thankfully she took it well and didn’t slaughter me.

The practise debate during lunch was between our debating team (Hyun, Joon and me) and Chen’s team. It turned out to be pretty interesting, but unfortunately there wasn’t enough time for Chen and me to read our speeches.

It does sound as though quite a lot of time and effort is going into this debate, but if we win against a school such as Diocesan tomorrow, it’ll all be worth it!