My First Visit to St. Ben's - 2015

(First of all, this post will probably bore you since nothing much happens)

Today, the 1st of April 2015, was my first visit to St. Ben's, my old primary and intermediate school. St. Pat's had a Progress Conference, which is a meeting with your parents and Tutor Teacher, so school was cancelled for the day. After my meeting, my parents and I had lunch at some Chinese restaurant in the city. My mum and I then dropped of my dad at work and drove straight to St. Ben's in Khandallah.

As I got out of the car, I remembered my days at St. Ben's and how it felt to walk up the steep hill to school. I realized I just missed dodge ball (which was the main reason the Year 9's were coming to St. Ben's) as I saw two familiar red balls rolling down the drive way. I picked them up and threw them out onto the courts for the P.E. Monitors to collect.

I got to the main office and met Coralie and Emma, the school secretaries. I greeted them and they asked me how I was at college and when did I get glasses. After, I walked up the same old inside stairs. I heard the laughter of the intermediate kids in the classrooms, I walked in to see Anthony, James, JMK, and Bernard crowded around the computers with Thomas. The Year 8's said hello and carried on with their Mission Fair planning. It was 10 minutes 'till lunch, so the Year 9's and I decided to walk to Khandallah village for lunch, as there was no tuck shop (mini cafeteria) to buy from.

We were walking down Ganges St. and I remembered the times my brother, my friends, and I walking down this very street. We joked and talked about what we would do for the rest of the day. We went to New World first because Anthony wanted to get the cheap 'Pringles', and as we browsed the shelves, an elderly couple stared at us. They probably thought we were 'rebels' ditching school.

We started strolling down the shops, and JMK said he would buy chips. But then we had to stop to have a debate on which Fish and Chips store to buy from since there were two of them. We stood their arguing for 5 minutes when JMK finally said he would just buy at the 'Golden Takeaways' which were 20 cents more expensive and had less chips. But JMK claimed that they tasted better. So while JMK headed over to the store, the rest of us went to the dairy. Anthony bought two sodas and a mini pizza jelly thing which we shared. Once we were back together, we went to the 'Filipino Mafia Head Quarters, AKA 'the playground by the library'. When we were finished eating, we started our walk back to school. We met Sam A. and Jacob (A friend from college) and decided to walk together.

Finally we arrived back to school. It was lunch so we decided to play cricket and basketball. Paolo and I walked around the school first, checking if anything had changed. Before we knew it, the bell had rang, and our Year 9 group went back to class 'like good boys'. \

Now this brings us to the fact that I am writing this while Miss F. Bolger is doing Teacher Reading. Ok, I am going to stop now. Bye.

Note to Year 8's: Enjoy your finally days in intermediate, because once you are in college you will be doing 'holiday homework'!!! JMK and I have to write a 6 page essay on Archimedes, Aristotle, Euclid, and Pythagoras, and what they contributed to modern mathematics. Then we have to write two book reports for English.

College Life. Yay.

My first week of college was just playing games and tours. It was ok, I guess. I got lost a couple of times, but the college cleverly coded their room number with the house block it's in and the floor. A house block is just a part of the college building that's called one of the four houses.

We got divided into our houses, and it was actually all good. I was in Watters (green) with James, Ben P., and Sam A. Then Paolo, JMK, and Arthur are in Redwood (red, obviously). Anthony, Bernard, and Matt are in Kennedy (yellow) and Rory is Chanel (blue). And somehow I got into the same form (tutor) class as James, which was great.

The second week was starting to get into actual class, and there was little homework. I got into stream class with JMK and Rory, and our class code was 9P. There are seven classes for Year 9. It's all named after PATRICK. For example, there is 9P, 9A, 9T, and so on. These classes are only for core classes which is Math, English, Science, Social Studies, Art, Music, Technology, and R.E.. Then there are Option classes, which is Economics (Business Studies), Graphics, Music Performance, History, and some language classes.

My favourite class is Science, because it's the only class we actually do something, not just writing and typing. Just today we got to play with professional and expensive microscopes. Math is a little harsh. Last week, my classmate got detention for not bringing a protractor. And there heaps of Year 9's in my class who do simultaneous algebraic equations. Our stream class does Year 10 work, but some of my classmates do Year 11 math and they go to a theatre with other Year 11's to do it, and they're starting NCEA this year! The rest of us 9P start next year, in Year 10.

We did three athletics days, one was for practice and for the college to see potential athletes, the second was between the houses, and the third was a competition between St. Pat's Silver Stream. And St Pat's Wellington (Town) won (as they did last year and so on, apparently). And there are some seriously annoying traditions. Everyone of the Year 10's to 13's eats and drinks their food in the stands, but  they don't bother to throw away their rubbish except Year 9's. We were confused on our first athletics day that people were having food fights and stuff, just to find out that all Year 9's have to clean up the mess afterwards. There were banana and orange peels everywhere, and plastic bottles, some half eaten sandwiches, and they were all cleaned up by us Year 9's. And we have to do it again at McEvedy which is real soon.

Oh, funny story, it was the second athletics day, and I took the Railway Station bus that was suppose to go straight to Newtown Park, instead it dropped us off at St. Pat's. Everyone was complaining at the bus driver that we were suppose to be at Newtown Park, but the driver said that this bus was to drop off students at school. So he made everyone get off at school. When we got off, we saw another bus group of St. Pat's were already there before us. We both had the same dilemma, pay to get on another bus or walk to Newtown Park. Neither was a fun option. So the group of about 80 students walked to Kilbernie shops to see if we could catch another bus. But there was none. Then some senior students ditched us to go to KFC and cafes. So we were just a group of Year 9's left in the city. We split up into three groups. Some went on a bus, some walked through the city, and my group went around.
So Anthony and I, and some other Year 9's were walking with us. We asked the public, they said to follow the road that we were on. Eventually we got to Newtown Park. But we arrived at St. Pat's at 8:30am and we got to Newtown Park at about 9:45am. We gladly didn't get told off, though some of missed our sports events. So yeah, we walked from St. Pat's all the way to Newtown Park. And all the teacher at the gate of Newtown Park said was "Well that was some great exercise! "

So week three was pretty much a normal week.
Classes were well underway. And there was tonnes of homework. But anyway, morning teas (or Intervals, as they call it there) and lunch is boring. Everyone just sits down, walk around, or play a game called Hand Ball. St. Ben's people (except Sam A., Rory, and Matt who've found other friends) hung out together in the first week. Then I talked to some of my other Filipino friends. And somehow by the end of last week, they merged together forming a massive group of Year 9's. We always sit at one bench and talk and eat. That's it. That is all we do. There are a few half - courts for basketball, but no one could be bothered to bring a basketball.
Sometimes we play on our Chromebooks (BYOD - Bring your own device, Year 9's got mini Google laptops). But that's it.

So this pretty much sums up the first few weeks at St. Pat's. Year 8's at St. Ben's have nothing to worry about. The only challenge is to get to school by 8:45am and not be late for your classes. Enjoy your last year at St. Ben's, and hopefully I'll see some of you at St. Pat's.

P.S. - For Year 8 boys going to St. Pat's. They do have dodgeball, but the balls are really bouncy unlike the ones at St. Ben's. On the first week when we were playing games, the most me and James could do was stay at the back and not get hit by Year 13's. LOL.