Band and Estedfords

I went to senior band this week on Thursday and it was SO HARD. But the band sounds SO GOOD!

Everyone was so in tune! And Sam and Jacqui weren't even stuffing around. I don't reckon they're that well behaved every week ... unless they're scared of Mac.

I was in Senior Band at the end of last term, but I hadn't been to any rehersals untill this week cause I was getting braces and then I was on camp.

I think I like senior band. I should be able to play the music if I practise. Which is good, because I don't even have to practise for junior band. The only thing I don't like about senior band is that if you muck up Beck (the grade ten flutist) glares at you.

We have estedfords on Tues next week, and I am playing in three bands.The junior stage band first. Then imediatly after that I have to switch my Trambone for my flute and go on again with the junior concert band.

Then we, me and all the other Senior Band grade 8s, get to hang round in the area with Simon till the Seniors arrive to play in the afternoon.

Btw, Simon is Mr Reade.

My B'day

Its my B'day 2day!!!

And I got lots of pressies and I had a great time last night and I wish it was my B'day every day!

So...I'm 14. It isn't really a big deal. Like, no-one really makes a thing out of 14. Its not a scary age, its not like when you turn 13 and everyone's going on about how you're a scary teenager now. Believe me, you're a teenager WAY before you turn 13!

Yesterday I got my ears pierced as a pressent from Mum and Dad. I've got these pinky-purple, hexagon-shaped (I think) stones that change colours in different light. They're really pretty. And it didn't hurt much at all.

Yesterday evening I went to zone 3 with my family and my two of my best friends, Jacqui and Hayley. Zone 3 is this really cool laser game where you run around shooting everyone else and capturing their baces. Its really hard to explain, you actually have to play it to understand. But anyway, that was a ton of fun.

Me and Jacqui and Hayley eating before we went to zone 3

My Lemon-Merange-Pie Cake from after zone 3 last night.

Today has been fairly relaxed. I had to go wake my family up at 7:15 to get them to give me pressies. And after that I went to church and I've spent the afternoon looking at my pressies, especially the mp3 player. But I havn't even told you what I got!

Me looking at my mp3 player in bed at around 7:30

Me opening pressies thismorning.

This is what I got...

From Mum + Dad; my ears pierced, my mp3 player and Taboo, which is a really fun game about thinking outside the square quickly.

From Ray; Alvin and the Chipmunks on DVD, a high bounce ball and a wonderfully, awazingly, good picture of a rabbit (done in pastel)

From Kez; music earings, coloured studs and marble chocolate

From Beck; black-gold mascara, eye shadow, blush and this really nice sparkly lipstick

From Grandma; money.

From Aunty Julie and co; a gift voucher (btw, thanks very much for that! I'll thank you in person if you call me, but I'll thank you here anyway)

From Faye Pilgrim @ church; Ferrero Rochers

From Lauren Bosveld; a pen

From Jacqui; a head torch (cause mine died on the overland track)

From Hayley; a really cute cat ornament and a growing towel (you put it in water and it expands)

From Lucinda; something. she's bought it, but she hasn't given it to me yet

From Boost (the smootie shop) - a FREE large smoothie!!! That would normally cost over six dollars!!! Just cause it is my b'day!!!

And here is a photo of it all! (but not the boost smoothie, cause I've eaten that)

Stupid Science Teacher...

...who doesn't know what she's talking about...

I just remembered something else from camp. Something both bad and funny-ish at once.

We had a quiz on the thursday night. There was a science section (boo) and I'm suck a spock (I spelled that just for you, Aunty Beck) that my team got nearly all of them right.

My science teacher, the grade co-ordinater, Mrs Morrow, wrote the quiz. One of the questions was, 'What are the imaginary lines that run east to west on the earth?' And guess what the stupid dump teacher had as the answer? LONGITUDE!

My team and Jacqui's team both had the answer, LATITUDE. We are both smarter than our science teacher! (But I guess thats not hard, seeing as she can have 4 grade 8 camps organised and have FORGOTTEN TO BOOK THE CAMP CENTRE!!!)

Anyway, we were both fairly sure we were right. And our english teacher, Mrs Palmer, who was running the quiz, had no clue. Luckly Mr Bradley came in right then (he's a science teacher who actually knows what he's talking about) and said that yes, we were right and Mrs Morrow was WRONG.

So me and Jacqui are both smarter than our stupid dump RETARDED science teacher.

20th June

Its my B-day 2moz, my b-day 2moz, my b-day 2moz, my b-day 2moz, my b-day 2moz, my b-day 2moz, my b-day 2moz, my b-day 2moz, my b-day 2moz, my b-day 2moz!!!

And I got my ears pierced 2day as an early pressy! And I'm going 2 zone 3 tonight with my family and Jacqui and Hayley! And my little sisters are gonna wake me up 2moz to give me pressys! And I only just started being excited! Cause I only just got over camp!

Camp

I returned from grade eight camp last night and I started this post then, but have only finished it now.

It wasn't very good; as far as camps go. It was only one night, and it was only in Luaderdale (thats 15 min from my place, 2 min from my friend Hayley's and 30 sec from my friend Saku's).

The activities were a mixture (like all camps). We did some really fun stuff and some rather boring stuff. But all of it was better than Maths and SOSE and Science, so it was cool.

The other thing that was really cool about it was the teachers. We went with Mrs Palmer, our english teacher and the best teacher we have, Mr Bradley, the best teacher in the school and Mrs Musket, our second coolest teacher. Mrs Palmer is cool cause she just is. Mrs Musket is cool cause she's nice and she teaches sport. And Mr Bradley is cool cause he can make science the best subject ever, as in, better than art best.

Mr Bradley is also cool cause of all the stories he has. He spend around 2 and a half hour just telling us stories! And no-one got bored! Only six of us have had him as our teacher, so all his stories were new to everyone else. He even told some he hadn't told the six of us before!

I've got some photos of a few of the things we did, and a lot of my friends. Here they are.

Me, Alicia and Hayley.

Left to right; Alana, Sara, Jacqui, Hayley, Liana, Alisha and Saku. I'm taking the photo.

Rosina and Liana

Me and Liana.

Liana, Saku, Hayley and Jacqui playing a hand-clapping game.

Jacqui (in the hot pink) playing a clapping game with Hayley. Sara and Alana in the background and Liana's arm at the side.

Saku.

Liana, Hayley and Jacqui hanging of the monkey bars.

This next lot of photos is of my class playing a game called sharks and dolphins. You start of with one person as the shark and the rest of the class as dolphins. Phill was our shark. So all us dolphins have to run away from Phill. But it was more complicated than that. Phill had a noodle and if you got hit by the noodle then you had to join the line, or the 'shark'. The person on each end of the line had a noodle, and if you got touched by either noodle then you had to join the 'shark'. Eventually my whole class was holding hands in one long line.

Here is Matt being chased by Josh and Phill; the first two members of the shark.

Left to right; Alana, the dolphin being chased, Phill, with the noodle, Jacob, Josh, Zac, Matt, Jasmine, Saku and Figgy (Dylan Figg).

The shark is growing! Here it is 11 people; Josh, with the orange noodle, Ollie, Luke, Phill, Zac, Figgy, Matt, Jacob, Saku, Jasmine, and Jaydon with the purple noodle.

And here, fianaly, the shark is nearly my whole class. I don't reckon you care who all these random people are, but I'm gonna tell you anyway. Left to right; Seb, Saku, Jasmine, Sara, Jacqui (one of my best friends), Hayley (one of my other best friends), me, Alana, Ashlee, Luke, Jaydon, Stumpy (Chris), Jacob, Ollie, Zac, Josh, Matt, Phill and Figgy.

The other activity we did that I have photos of is when we were making juggling balls with the pathway planning (careers advice) people. We were looking at setting and achieving goals, so we made juggling balls and learnt to juggle. It was fun, but not as much fun as playing sharks and dolphins to learn about team work. The pathway planning people took the photos of sharks and dolphins and also the photos of making juggling balls. They are for the newsletter, but none of the teacher-people had a camera. They borrowed mine, and I don't mind, cause it means I have a copy of all these photos.

So, anyway, making juggling balls.

Along the back of this table are the cool kids in our class. There are 5 of them, but only four are in this picture. Josh, wearing the white and red checkers, Phill, with his jacket around his neck, Matt blowing up a baloon and Figgy on the end. Jaydon is also one of the cool kids, but he's been cut out of this photo. In the front is Luke in the hat and Ashlee in the blue hoodie.

Here we have Jasmin wearing black in the shadow. I don't like her cause she tries to make friends by giving out free food, she's a retard, she died her hair black and now there's about 5cm of her old light brown colour showing at the top, she really needs braces (and she's not getting them), she turned up to a fluro themed disco wearing some old construction sight fluro vests, and cause she's fat (but that doesn't matter so much). Behind her is Ollie. Left of her is Pat and Jack. Ollie and Pat and Jack are all in band; Ollie and Pat play clarinet and Jack plays bass guitar.

If you're bored with these captions, feel free to just look at the photos.

This is my table making juggling balls. You can see me up the back on the right. My friend Jacqui's head is just visible behind me (she's wearing the hot pink top). Zac is reachnig over the top of me, you can see Saku's black hair next to him, Jacob, in the hat, is next to her. Then you have Seb, Hayley, Liana, Alana, Sara standing up, and Alicia standing next to me.

This is my table again from a different angle. You can't see me here, but you can see Jacqui in the hot pink top with the messy hair and you can just see my arms in the cream on the table next to her and a bit of my hair. On the other side of Jacqui is Zac, then Saku in the 87 hoodie, Jacob with the hat, Seb, the top of Hayley's head, Liana, The top of Alana's head. The side of Sara's face is closest to the camera, and between her and me is Alicia.

Gumleaves

We have spent this longweekend at Gumleaves on the east coast. According to the ad it is 'a family bush retreat, just an hour out of hobart'. It took an hour and a quarter to get there - but that might be because Mum was driving the corrola and the falcon was pulling Dad's new boat.

Ok, so you are probably wondering why we took two cars. And no, its not bacause we had too much gear for only one. We took three extra kids with us! (brave Mum) We took the Morleys to gumleaves with us for the weekend!

For those of you who have forgotten, the morleys are Sam (Samantha), James and Ollie; and they are our friends from the shack.

We had a lot of fun. There are lots of flying foxes, tyre swings and other outdoor activities. There is mini golf, tennis and little dingies to row. If I described the whole weekend to you, it would take too long and you would get too bored, so I'm just going to tell you a few of the highlights and lowlights of our time.

Highlight no1

On Friday it rained a lot. In fact, it rained a lot all weekend. And no, the rain is not a highlight. But the rain was necessary for this particular highlight.

There are two big flying foxes (and lots of smaller ones) at Gumleaves. There is the big one over the lake that needs parental supervision. That one is right next to the office/reception, so they actually check to make sure you DO have an adult there.

The other big one also says it needs parental supervision, but its right at the other end of the place, so no-one checks on you.

Bored yet?

Here's the highlight...

This particular flying fox is very hard to get onto. You have to shuffle across a very long wire with only another wire to hang onto. This is very scary, cause only half of the way has safety nets underneath, and those safety nets are full of holes. Here is a photo of James shuffling across those wires.

And when you're finnished climbing along about 100m of wire - you get to have some fun! You strap yourself onto a plank of wood then zoom fast through the trees to till the tires stop you at the other end. James went on this before me on Friday afrternoon after we got there.

I was scared when I was watching him from underneath. He wouldn't do the seat belt up, he just st on the board and held on tight. I was so sure it wasn't safe. Do you know what? I was nearly as scared when James was on it as I was when I was up the top about to go myself.

So James is flying towards the tyres. He hits them, and guess what??? They were full of water! So all this water cascaded down on James and then we were both laughing our heads of. He was soaked!

I went up and concured that particular flying fox after that.

Lowlight no1

Sam and I were on the big flying fox over the lake. Mum was there watching, cause Dad was out fishin with Rachel and James and Ollie. It was my second turn, so I was getting confident on it. Here is a photo of me sweeping over the lake on this flying fox.

Anyway... So I hit the tyres at the end; not hard enough to be much fun. And then I started trying to get out. I pushed myself forward in the seat and slipped out. But the seat belt was still done up tightly round my waste!!!

You can probably guess what happened then. The seat belt was done up too tightly to alow me to slip free, so it rose up my body. It pulled its way up to my boobs - taking my tops with it! I was standing there with a bare stomach, my tops up round my boobs and neither Sam or Mum came to help me! They were both too busy laughing at me.

It's funny now I look back on it, but I was pretty mad at the time.

I was really lucky James was out fishing, cause he'll never let me forget it as it is - and he wasn't even there to see it! So his teasing would have been imbarable if he'd actually been there!

Highlight no2

On Saturday James managed to convince me to go fishing with him and Ray and Dad. I don't really like fishing . . . normally. I find fishing very boring . . . normally. I don't even get a bite . . . normally.

But this was no normal fishing trip!

I got two fish; both flat head and both too small, but that wasn't what made it so fun.

I was the only one who got any fish; making me better than James, but that wasn't what made it so fun.

Curious yet???

The waves!!! They were so high and so scary and I was so freaked out and it was SO TOTALLY AWSOME!!!

Heres some more details...Dad has a boat. Its new and its got a good motor and its biggger that the one at lake leake. He'll take three kids out to fish in it at a time and he'll take it out into the sea when its fairly ruff. But last Saturday he didn't realise quiet how ruff it actually was.

Dad sais it was so ruff and the waves were so big because of a combination of the tide, the wind and the swell. But I don't really care WHY it was so ruff, all I care about is that it was SO COOL!

We were heading out; making it easily over the small waves in close to shore. Then the waves started getting bigger. I wasn't really paying much attention to them - so it came as a huge shock to me when we zoomed over an almost vertical one and into the air!

I was freaked. James was more freaked. Dad was even freaked. I wasn't ready for it, so I wasn't holding on very tightly. I flew up of my seat and landed back down on it really hard when we hit the water again. It nocked the breath out of me and I only had time to get a good grip on the boat before we were in the air again - but not as high this time.

We went over another basicly vertical wave on our way out; it was just starting to break and it looked VERY dangerous. It was the last wave we had to go over before we reached calmer water. We were all glad it was the last wave in the group. We were thrown into the air for long enough that if there had been another wave as big coming after it, we would have been thrown into the middle of it.

That was the first time I've seen James actually scared. He cam do about anything on the land and be fine with it. But he told me later that the water scares him. We both thought Ray would be crying if we were both very scared - but she wasn't! THAT came as a shock. And all four of us were so glad Ollie hadn't come out with us. That would have been a disaster.

And this is a highlight why, you ask? It was fun. It was scary. It was dangerous. It was completely AWSOME.

Lowlight no2

This one won't take very long to right about. As you have probably figured by now, James and I are good friends. I'm friends with Sam too, but she's not as much fun to just muck around with. She's too serious. And around our families James is my friend too. He chooses to spend time with me over any of our siblings.

Then Fin showed up on Saturday night.

Fin goes to James' school. They're friends, pretty good friends, I reckon. When Fin turned up, James started spending a LOT of time with him. Rachel followed them around for a bit, but I didn't want to stoop to her level of pest-ish-ness so I hung out with Sam for the morning.

Time spent with Sam isn't half as much fun as time spend with James; so Fin turning up is mst definately the biggest low point in my weekend.

Highlight no3

Mini Golf. And beating bith James and Fin at it.

After lunch an Sunday, the rest of us (me, Sam, Rachel, Kez, Beck and Ollie) ended up rowing on the lake at the same time as James and Fin. I was in a boat with Sam and she was rowing. Which is a good thing, seeing as I can't row. The other people on the lake with us were James and Fin - with James rowing; Kez and Beck - with Kez rowing; and Ray in a boat all by herself.

Sam decided it was my turn to row. We swapped seats and I started trying to row us somewhere. We ended up going in circles, because apparently one of my arms os better at rowing than the other. It didn't take James long to realise that I was finally trying to row. He yelled out to the other two rowers and all three of them started heading over to me. The all ran into me and then I had no hope of getting anywhere. We were surrounded by the three other boats and Sam was yelling at me and James was laughing at me and Beck was looking bewildered cause she couldn't work out what was going on.

Sam had to take the oars back and get us away from them.

I know this paragraph started by talking about mini golf, but this trip on the lake counts as a highlight too. Mini golf can be highlight no4.

Highlight no4

I was playing mini golf with James and Fin later on Sunday. Its a really easy corse and they are both guys, neather of them are unco, and Fin being weak doesn't matter in mini golf. So I expected thewm both to thrash me. But they didn't!!!

Winning against James is a big thing to me, because it doesn't happen very often. We are both really compeditive, which makes winning better and losing worse.

At the end of the game the scores were...

• Me on 22
• James on 25 (he tryed the whole game cause he really didn't want to be beaten by an unco girl who would never let him forget it if he lost)
• Fin on 36 (he stopped trying when I was five infront of him)

So that was fun, and btw, me and James were gonna play with his Dad as the third person but then Fin came and played instead. Fin's kinda wierd, but not too psycho for a grade six guy.

I have no idea if this is a highlight or a lowlight cause it was both fun and hard.

That was a long title. And this is a long section.

After we (Me, James, Fin) had finnished our game of mini golf, we went over to the big flying fox where the rest of Fin's group was.

By that end of the trip we were all bored of just using the flying foxes as basic flying foxes. So on this one we started pulling people back over the lake sitting on the flying fox. This is lots of fun if you are the person sitting on the flying fox getting tugged. But it is not so much fun if you are the person struggling through the mud as you tug some one else over the lake.

Any guesses as what I had to do for most of the time we were using the flying fox?

Fin, his little sister, his little sister's fat friend and James were all up the top. The plan had been that Fin came down, I pulled him back across. Then his sister's friend came down and he pulled her across. Then his sister came down and we both pulled her across. Then James cames down and Fin pulled him across while I climbed up onto the starting platform. Then I was supposed to go down and both Fin and James would pull me across. That was the plan.

But the plan became useless after the first stage. Fin came down and I pulled him across the lake. He's not too heavy and he was first and I at least sorta knew him, so that was OK. Then our plan because useless.

Fin is weak. James had said that, but i hadn't guessed he'd be quiet as weak as he was. He was very weak. He started pulling his little sister's friend across and started struggling very quickly. I was going over to help him the rest of the way but he couldn't even hold onto the rope long enough for me to get there! So I had to start from scratch and pull Fin's little sister's friend over the lake, cause he couldn't. Then I had too pull his little sister across aswell, then James.

I don't mind pulling James across the lake cause he's my friend, and he pulled me across the lake aswell. And I didn't mind pulling Fin across the lake cause I knew him a bit by then. But pulling my friend's friend's little sister's friend across the lake aswell??? Not good.

But I couldn't say no to them after I'd pulled Fin across and knowing I was gonna pull James across. I couldn't let them miss out cause Fin is so weak. So I pulled them across the lake anyway.

Then James pulled me across the lake. Being pulled across the lake is fun because

1. It feels so wierd to be going across the lake so slowly
2. It's scary cause you're high up and you actually have time to think about where you areThe view is pretty specky
3. It felt good to make James groan about having to get me all the way across; he knew that if he let go I'd just make him start all over again
   

I haven't got many photo's in this post yet; so lets finish with a...

PHOTO GALLERY!

Ollie rowing on the lake.

Ray rowing on the lake.

Kez flying over the lake.

Climbing up to the flying fox over the lake.

Left to right; Beck and Sam on th ground, James climbing onto the first bridge.

Waiting up the top of the flying fox. Left to right; James, Kez, me, Fin's little sister's friend.

Sam on the flying fox.

Rebekah on a tyre swing.

Keziah swinging on a tyre swing.

Me on the flying fox.

James on the flying fox.

Sleepover no2

The twins have two of their little grade four friends here at the monent. they are sleeping over and we sorta just fed them red cordial (Creaming Soda). They are going COMPLETELY spastic! Feel sorry for me. :(

How long does it take for fizzy red cordial to wear off???

Sleepover

Its the holidays here in Tassy at the moment (just in case you didn't know) and I had a sleepover last night.

My friends Jacqui, Hayley and Lucinda all came round to my place at around 1:30. Mum took us into Hobart and we saw Monsters vs Ailiens in 3D at the cinemas there. It was very cool. The 3D affect was best in two places. There was a guy with a pingpong bat hitting the ball out towards you and that was SCARYLY realistic. Then there was this spoon floating in mid air right infront of your face which was even better. But you don't visit my blog to read wacky film reviews, do you? So I'll continue with my story.

On the way home Mum dropped us at the video store so we could get out some movies for the night. We got Princess Diaries, Stick It (which Lucinda chose cause its about gymnastics, and was actually very good), St Trinians and Twilight. we got home and watched Princess Diaries with my sisters, then we had tea.

We played 500 after tea and me and Kez lost to Jacqui and Lucinda because Kez wouldn't concentrate. Then Back come and parternered me and we won!!! Go beck!!!

THe others went to bed at 8:30 and then the four of us got down to buisness; movie watching. We watched Stick It, got into pj's and stuff, watched St Trinians, then it was midnight-ish. We were trying to decide what to do, then Monopoly came up in our conversationand Jacqui decided playing Monopoly at Midnight sounded rather fun. And it was.

Because, you see, when teenagers are still playing monopoly at 1 o'clock in the morning, monopoly turns a bit wierd. Like how Jacqui was determined I WOULD NOT win. So she kept cheeting and re-rolling the dice for no apparent reason until she rolled numbers that landed her on Lucinda's property and so she went broke on Lucinda not me. So I didn't inherit her lovely properties, Lucinda did. Lucinda won, but I would have beaten her if Jacqui hadn't cheeted.

It was a quater to two when I finaly surrended to Lucinda. We decided to play truth or dare and Hayley was in the process of proposing to the couch (with feeling), when Rachel decided to through a cry-ee on me.

Rachels room is directly under the lounge room. You get into it through a hatch in the floor. When I started to plan having a sleep over in the lounge room, I sugested to both Mum and Rachel that it would be best for her to move into my room (on the other side of the house) for the night. But NO, Rachel would be fine in her room and NO we were not alowed to close the hatch so we didn't anoy her. And guess what??? My friends and I had to pay the consequences for Rachels stupidity.

She was crying and all, and she was saying how she couldn't sleep cause of the noise and how it was really mean of us and how she doesn't have to be nice to my friends but me and my friends have to be nice to her. So we had to shut up and go to sleep. and it was only 2 AM!!! How not cool is that???

And another reason why I'm mad at Ray right now is that she huggs my friends, like, CONSTANTLY. I tell her to get of; they tell her to get of; MUM tells her to get of; she eventually doen get of, just to come back again later. And my friends aren't even huggy people! And they don't like her, she knows that, and she's just making the whole thing worse! Kez and Beck can act nice adn grown up and fun to be with around my friends, but rachel has to get all clingy and huggy and THAT MIGHT BE ACCEPTABLE FROM A TWO YEAR OLD BUT NOT FROM A ****** GRADE SIX.

Its no wonder none of us want her at Clarence, invading our music room. I hope Sam (a grade nine boy, who is always in the music room) hates her, so that he can be the bully who kicks her out constantly and me and Jacqui and Hayley don't have to be mean to her like that. If Sam won't kick her out for us then we will have to do it ourselves cause she is just so UNBEARABLE around us when we're together.

So, I had a fairly good night but Rachel is constantly slipping further and further into my friends hated-people books. Great.

P.S. Don't wory too much; ****** is bloody, not something worse.