Highlights of 2014

The year has come to an end. And for us Year 8's, it will be our last year at St. Benedict's. But it would be nice to list our highlights of the year. I've been at St. Benedict's from Year 1 to Year 8, and I have enjoyed my time here greatly. I've seen everyone improve in their academics , sports, and their own character.

As always, OPC Camp will be the biggest highlight for Year 8's. It was week full of adventure and fun with classmates. It was great experience for all Year 8's.

The theme for the Production this year was different to the other years. It was like a futuristic space story named, 'Agents of Space'. Unlike other years where the theme has been 'Not Another Fairy Tale, 'Uno's Garden', and 'Remember the Days of the Old School Yard'.

I don't know why I'm putting this as a highlight as it is a very minor highlight, but basketball at school has always been really fun. And for me, it was big highlight for this year. I played for the basketball team last year and I was rubbish, I guess you could see the improvements. But everyone improved in their skills, partly from playing every morning tea and lunch. Even though there is basically no rules, where people can get away with 'travelling and 'double dribble', I guess you could describe it as street rules. But it still helped everyone to get better at whatever skill they lacked.

There are many more highlights but I just can't remember them, so yeah. Have a fun last two weeks of school.

College (High School) - St. Patrick's

It's funny for me to think that I've already had my 8 years at primary and intermediate. The years went by so quick, but I can't even remember half my time at St. Benedict's. All my cousins say to enjoy primary while I still could. They always talk about writing a lot of essays and being given a lot of homework in college. The college I will be attending is St. Patrick's College. Their school logo is similar to the St. Benedict's but with a motto written under it. The school motto is 'Sectare Fidem' which I forgot what it meant.

Usually people would be anxious and agitated to go to college, but I'm really calm about it. I've enjoyed my time at St. Benedict's School, but we all have to move on someday. St. Pat's have tried their best to not intimidate new Year 9's. They talked about how easy it would be to just fit in and find new friends. And getting lost is not a challenge because they explained that all students will help guide each other. So as you can see, St. Pat's is nothing to worry about.

I'm really glad that most of my friends and classmates are going to St. Patrick's. That will help with the making friends part. The other thing that is good about St. Pat's is that I know heaps of other Year 9 Filipinos going there. 

There are a lot exams that you have to take in college, first there is the entrance exam, the scholarship, and the NCEA stuff. My cousins always had a hard time with the NCEA exams because apparently they were to hard and complex. But I'm determined to actually try hard and aim high to get good grades and stuff. 

St. Pat's is well known for their basketball programme. I really want to get in to one of the three teams. The college held a one day basketball tournament for the Year 8's going to St. Pat's. I think I did fine, but my biggest concern is that all the people I've seen going to St. Pat's are really tall. I guess my height is about medium, I'm not too short. But when I stand next to my future classmates, I look like a midget. Not all of them super tall, and I've seen other older students who are shorter than me, so I think I won't be too bad. I'm still thinking if I should try for the swimming club and other water sports. I can swim pretty well, but the main problem would be practice, for both basketball and swimming. I've heard that the basketball and swimming practices were pretty early in the morning. I can wake up early enough, but it will still be a huge trouble.

The only challenges I will face is how to transfer from class to class, keeping my grades good, and being confident in an enormous school of over 800 students.

Well I still have 2 weeks at St. Benedict's and I'm feeling really positive. I can still be able to visit because of my younger brother anyway. But I will still miss being in a smaller school where I know mostly everyone's names. At St. Patrick's, I won't be able to even know half of the students there.

My Trip to America Part 2

The plane back to LAX was ok I guess. It was boring and dull. Anyway we got back to L.A. and got picked up by my Aunt. We stayed the night there and the next day we went to an NBA game. It was the L.A. Lakers vs. North Carolina Hornets. Lakers are kind of doing really bad so everyone was expecting the Hornets to win. But to everyone's surprise, the Lakers won! It was the first win for Lakers.

The ride to San Diego should be an hour and a half or something but with traffic it took two and a half hours. I fell asleep during the ride and woke up to see lagoons of clean blue water on both sides of the freeway. Then huge villas and mansions on an extravagant cliff side overlooking the harbour of the tourist part of the city of San Diego. We passed Lego Land and drove pass Sea World to Hyatt Hotel. sea World and Hyatt was like 3 minutes away from each other. After we were checked in to our hotel we just slept because it was already late.

The next morning we went to Sea World. To quickly summarise the theme park, we just saw heaps of marine animals and there were two fun roller coasters. Some of the marine animals were sea lion, otters, dolphins, and mantas (stingrays). The roller coaster were called Manta and Journey to Atlantis. Mata was just a quick roller coaster that went around and around and into loops. And the Journey to Atlantis was like a water ride thing where go down a steep part into water. There was more things to do but our time was short. But we came back the next, next day.

Our second day in San Diego we went to Lego Land. It wasn't as fun as it sounds though. The two huge water parks were closed and only the actual theme park was open. And that was not to big. As I walked around I saw heaps of children aged 5 - 11. But still it was a nice experience. There were mediocre rides that weren't that dumb but out of the two theme parks I went to in San Diego, I liked Sea World better.

The next day we came back to Sea World to watch the Shamu show. Shamu is the killer whale mascot of San Diego Sea World. It was fun and the tricks were complex. Then we went to the Shark, Turtle, and Fresh Water Aquarium. And the Arctic Enclosure. The Arctic Enclosure had Manatees, Polar Bears, and Penguins. So that was interesting.

That is pretty much a quick summary of my San Diego trip. After that we went back to L.A. and went shopping and stuff.

But we also went to Hollywood and Universal Studios. I went there 5 years ago and nothing much has changed, but it was still fun. There were two new rides. The Transformer one and the Minion Mayhem Ride. It was all in 3D, but the Transformers was kind of like a roller coaster and the Minion Mayhem one was 4D.

This is pretty much what I did in America. Hopefully I can come back again sometime later.

Getting a Speech and a Truck Load of Task Dumped on me . . .

I just presented my speech and to be honest, it wasn't that bad. I understand everyone is scared and anxious but I tried my best to create a calm atmosphere in my head. It was working until the part where I was walking up to the front of the classroom. I was nervous. I just came back from a trip to America and a truck load of tasks just got dumped on me. I'm surprised that everything is going according to plan.

I know I should have finished my speech and memorized it while I was gone. But since I was only gone for a couple of weeks, the sight seeing schedule was very tight. Once we came back from Dallas, it was a straight drive to San Diego. Every night I was exhausted and every time there is a chance to do something, I would fall asleep.

But anyway, I did my speech and I was happy with my performance. It wasn't flashy and super vibrant, but it was not so average. But the question that stuck in my head was, why didn't I have a heart attack?

I guess because of countless sleepless nights of typing, reading, and writing, I accomplished most tasks by Wednesday! I'm just glad that my mind is still in L.A. time which is 4 hours early! 

My Trip to America

Sorry I couldn't post anything because everytime I have the time to write anything I won't have wi - fi. But finally this is how my trip has been going so far.

The plane was okay. I watched a couple of movies to make the time run by quick but the games were a rubbish. The flight to Brisbane, Australia was about 3 and 1/2 hours with no entertainment screen on the back of the seat. The airline I flew on was Virgin Australia and instead of having entertainment screens, they used an app and wi - fi. There is an app on Google Play and the App Store called Entertainment - Virgin Australia. And when you open it on your tablet or phone, you can access all their movies, music, and the flight path. So that was great.

And the flight from Brisbane, Australia to Los Angeles, USA was the longest but definitely the best. They had entertainment screens and gave dinner and breakfast (The meal times changed as we left Brisbane because the time is different in America then in Australia and New Zealand.) But the other great thing was they had a self services snack bar. Though it only had a bag of chips called Ruffles (which is probably a brand of chips in America or something) and a Coke can, it was unlimited. The obviously huge plane had a bar (an actual wine and beer bar) but I don't know if it was only for the Bussiness class to use. And again the airline was Virgin Australia.

We got to LAX in the morning (LAX is the Los Angeles Airport, the X is just some random airport code or something) and one of my relatives picked us up. It was weird becaause we left New Zealand on Tuesday but when we got to America it was still the same Tuesday! It was Fall (Autumn) in America so it wasn't hot, you could imagine a Summer day in Wellington. But the smell was totally different. It smelt like cigarettes and car exhaust smoke. Basically we stayed in L.A. for 2 nights and departed for Dallas. Yes, where Ebola is but we stayed far away from the area, somewhere in Colleyville which is several hours away from the Ebola area.

We were picked up by my cousin at the airport and drove straight to their house. The airport had a lot of random people wearing mouth masks which my cousin thought was funny because apparently the televised Ebola scenes were exaggerated so much and that the US government already had it in control. 

I'm writing this in Dallas so I don't know what will happen next in my trip. But we got to my cousin's house and left our baggage and drove to a formal chinese restaurant to meet my uncle. After we ate we did some shopping and stuff and went sight seeing. But one of the best things we did was go to the street where John F. Kennedy was assassinated. We saw the exact spot where he was first shot, and the second where the fatal shot was taken. We also saw the building and the window where the shooter was. There was a grassy area covered with bushes and trees, and some say there was another assassin hiding there waiting to shoot.

After that we went to an actual Texas style country town, where they had a cattle drive ( A bunch of cowboys riding cattle down the main street.) We ate at a B.B.Q Ribs Buffet, but I didn't eat much because after the appetizer which was corn nuggets I was already full. 

A few days after we went to the new Perot Museum of Nature and Science. It was about 5 floors. the lowest floor was on sports and physics. The high light of that floor is the Sports Run. You can race a T Rex, athletes and a cheetah. My brother and I raced a T Rex but we out runned it. ( The T Rex, athletes, etc. were on a screen beside the race track, not real or robotic.

We explored the rest of the museum, it had rooms on Energy, Minerals and Gemstones, Elctronics (Robots etc.), astronomy, and birds. Overall the museum was fantastic. Porbably better than Te Papa.

After that we ate at a hotel. 

I have a few more days left in Dallas, but when we fly back to L.A. we drive to SanDiego to go to Lego Land and Sea World and stuff. So that is what has happened in my trip so far.

P.S. - 

I also had Halloween in Colleyville, a small city in Dallas as I said. I borrowed by cousin's Batman mask and we went around the neighbourhood and we got a lot of the American candy that you wouldn't normally get in New Zealand.