Elliot :P

It was a dark and misty night at Shipsterns Bluff and Mike and Sam could faintly see the large swell lines running down the bay and the loud crash of the waves that were hitting up against the large rock cliff below was an obvious indication that they were going to have an awesome session the next day. The heavy off shore wind was blowing Mike’s long, blonde hair everywhere and made it an effort to try and stay stable above the cliffs edge. They both decided to head back to their tents that they had hiked in with that morning, along with their boards.

Mike and Sam were brothers and had surfed Park Beach as kids until they developed enough skills to surf at Roaring Beach where they had a small shack that was up in the dunes. Sam was the eldest of them both and was more interested in the thrill of catching giant waves unlike Mike who preferred to pull off radical tricks on the waves.

The morning had come and Mike and Sam gathered their gear together for the big day ahead. Sure enough, the swell was still there and a huge wave was smashing over the reef. Without any hesitation Sam began to dial his phone to call his close friend Tyler who was going to help with the tow-ins on his jet ski. A few hours later Tyler showed up on a boat along with the redbull team and his jet ski. The boat seemed to almost glide through the air as it cut straight through the gigantic swell lines.
“These conditions are perfect!” boasted Mike with enthusiasm.
“Yeah I know offshore winds, a good tide over the reef and a huge swell pumping directly in the right direction,” Sam explained in a stoked voice.
“We better get down their and set up,”

The climb down the almost sheer cliff was very difficult because of the fact that they had to carry their boards and avoid them banging against any of the rocks. They both dived in off a wide rock ledge that was ruffly a metre above the waters surface, over the wave of white wash that had just came in and then they began to desperately paddle towards the boat making sure that they avoided the break that could smash them against the cliff if their timing wasn’t exact. Luckily they didn’t collide with any oncoming waves although their biggest challenge was still ahead of them.
“I call first ride!” called Sam as they approached the boat.
“Alright then I’ll set up the jetski!” Tyler yelled back.
Soon they were all ready to go and Tyler began to tow Sam up to the line up. The horizon looked like it had suddenly rose as a huge wave began to build up far out in the ocean.

“Here comes a set!” Screamed Tyler from the jet ski, trying to be heard over the roar of the jet ski’s powerful engine.
The wave had caught up to Sam in a matter of minutes and Tyler began to tow him in. The Monster wave started to build until it was at least 20 foot tall just behind Sam. Sam loosened his grip on the tow rope then threw it away and harnessed the incredible power of the huge wave. The wave jacked up even higher on the reef and came crashing down behind him. Sam began to stall until he was slotted perfectly into the barrel. The wave slowed down dramatically and Sam came shooting out of the barrel then dropped down off a step that was protruding out of the face of the wave. He free fell down the waves face, landed hard on the flats then nose dived in the critical section of the wave. Sam found himself skidding along the water till he lost speed and got smashed by the surprisingly thick lip of the wave. Everything was a blur as the dangerous pull of the wave was tossing him about and keeping him under. He saw quick flashes of the reef below and hoped that he wouldn’t make contact.

Finally the wave slowly decreased then disappeared into the deep water at the other end of the reef freeing Sam to get a breath of air. As soon as Sam broke through the waters surface, Tyler was already on his way over on the jet ski and gave him a quick lift back to the boat. The tow board was shattered against the rocks because of the crazy wipeout that had pulled off the feet straps.

When Sam and Tyler got back to the boat every one was curious about what had happened and whether or not he was okay. Sam felt really dizzy and sore in his head due to the heavy lip landing on him and when he had been dragged a long way under water.

All of this didn’t put Mike off though and he was determined to that he was going to have a ride. Tyler got geared up then towed Mike out to the take off point, the waited for a sign of a set that would come in. Not long after they got out there a huge wave was once again building up gradually out in the distance.

Mike was up and going immediately and came flying down the extremely steep wave face the performed a stunning bottom turn to retain his speed from the take off. He followed this up with a powerful tail slide then trimmed along the centre of the wave. As it built up to its maximum height, Mike only focused on riding the wave instead of big turns because he was worried about wiping out and it was a far to difficult task to achieve. The wave began to turn bumpy towards the end of Mikes ride then a chunk formed in the face and barreled over in front of him forcing him to crouch down as low as he possibly could and ride the narrow tube through until it died down at the end of the reef and became nothing but a small curve running towards the cliff.Tyler came on the jet ski and gave Mike a tow back to the boat.

“Nice ride,” commented one of the redbull team members.
“Thanks I guess it was okay i’m pretty stoked about it,” Mike replied.
“I’m going again!” called Sam from the other side of the boat. “I’m going to get it right this time,”

Tyler decided that it would be okay because Sam had recovered a lot from his previous  wipe out and began to tow Sam out to theline up for a second chance. A few decent waves had come past but Sam was looking for the best and he had been waiting for about 15 minutes and had accidently drifted into the inside break. A huge set suddenly appeared and doubled its height on the reefs edge. There was no hope of making it over the gigantic wave and all they could do is watch as the wave came smashing down over Sam, catching him in the barrel then the unbeleivably high wall of foam followed by the heavy lip, crushed through and took out Tyler and the jet ski. When Sam eventually came back to the surface and gasping for air, the jet ski and Tyler had been washed over near the cliff and were still being dragged. Just before the next set came through over the reef, Tyler got back to the jet ski and only just avoided the next wave that had hit Sam and pulled him even closer to the cliffs edge. Tyler hurried over to Sam and picked him up just as another crazy wave came rolling through.

Everyone back at the boat were surprised that no harm had to be done and called it quits before they had another problem then headed back to the bay of Nubeena. Over all it had been an awesome session despite the critical wipeouts.

Image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7788536@N05/2979606860

Last term, in skills for life blocks, we were working on friendship skills and watched the movie “Cars”. This movie shows the main character “Lightning Mcqueens” friendship skills which change during the movie from being popular, selfish and not thinking about his actions so he has few friends to helping others and having lots of true friends.

These are some questions that we have to do:
What are the differences between popularity and friendship?
popularity may not mean having friends and if they do they are not always true friends although friendship is having friends that will stick up for you when you are having problems

While being forced to stay at Radiator Springs, Lightning learnt much about friendship.
How did he change during this period and what did he learn specifically about friendship?
While Lightning Mcqueen was at radiator springs he had to fix the road that he had accidently wrecked the road and while he was working he made friends with the other cars in the town because they were being nice to him.

How did knowing Mater, Sally and Doc help Lightning develop into a better friend?
He had never had a true friend before until he met Mater, Sally and doc so he had to learn how to be a good friend and be nice to them instead of being selfish and only thinking about himself.

List five characteristics that you value in a friend.
1. Trustworthy 2. Loyal 3. Friendly 4. Reliable 5. True friend

Write a description of one of your best friends-not necesserily a student but could be an adult in your life.
My dad because he always goes surfing with me and he goes out of his way to go places with me. Hes always wanting to go surfing at new places with me and does lots of fun things.

Picture from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/72825507@N00/3072645479

Mary Mackillop was born in 1842 in Melbourne. Her family was very poor so they relied on relatives to keep on going and when Mary was fourteen years old she left home to work. All of the money that she earned she gave to her family.

When Mary was fifteen she had decided that she was going to be a nun so that she could give her life to help the poor. She went to work in Penola, a small town in South Australia, in 1861 where she met a Catholic priest whose name was Father Julian Woods and they became close friends. They worked together to open Australia’s first free Catholic school because at the time it was only the rich families that could afford for their children to get an education. The community was very fond of Mary because of the good deed she had made. Mary declared that her and her followers were going to beg for money. The Catholic Church leaders didn’t approve of the begging although Mary would not change.

Mary decided to move to Adelaide in 1867 so that she could open up another school that was free to the public. The leaders of the church didn’t acknowledge her independence and she had now started 17 schools that she had to control.

Mary wanted all the nuns to listen to her although the Bishop of Adelaide wanted her under his control so she got thrown from the church. She was still very poor but she kept on running the schools and the next year the bishop changed his mind and accepted Mary back into the church. Marys work eventually came to the liking of the Bishops due to her commitment to the poor. The Pope was very impressed by her determination when she went to see him.

In 1909 Mary died and all over Australia where her St. Joseph’s Schools. People have been debating whether Mary should become a saint and they say her hard work for Australia shows her devotion to God. People are only made saints if she has been believed to perform a miracle. Mary has been said to have cured a women who was dying due to cancer. Recently Mary Mackillop has been declared by the Pope to be Australia’s first saint.

Picture from: www.flickr.com/photos/65768710@N00/5088862327

These are some search engines that I recomend you use.

1.search-cube.com  It is very easy to find things due to its use of pictures instead of words.

2.http://www.sleedo.com/  Every time you make a search it donates 10 grains of rice to poor people in other countries.

3.MetaCrawler.com Is a very fast search engine that comes up with websites that are very related to your search.

This years school camp was alright but there is lots of things that could have beeen improved. First of all we had to sleep in a wagon that had no doors so it was freezing and a wombat came in and went through our bags. The activities weren’t all that great either with a short flying fox, a few billy carts down a small hill, two tramps, archery with only one target board and a scavenger hunt. The food wasn’t the best but was good enough although the pool table was ook but the table tennis was crowded and they played ping pong. We alsowent for a walk at night and almost half the sky was still lit up because of the lights in Hobart.

If camp could have been improved I would say that we should have had better sleeping places, more exciting activities, better food and done more things during the day and not waste time. Hopefully next year we can have another school camp but have it in a better location and consider doing the improvements that I suggested.

Monkey Undercover is a story by Gabrielle Lord about the main character Gusty, who goes with some friends to kidnap an ill-treated bull terrier off a bikie gang. This leads them to be in the middle of an international smuggling ring and have to get away.

My opinion on the book is that it is very exciting because it has a good story line and the words are very descriptive. This novel kept me engaged throughout the whole story, it inludes themes for slightly older readers and is very well written so I recommend it for teenagers.

image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/20542125@N00/233683059

Aboriginal Project Groups

(1.) Group 2 (2.) Group 4 (3.) Group 1 (4.) Group 5 (5.) Group 3

Ranking
I ranked group 2 as my choice of the five groups because our timing was good and it took the most time without having big gaps between the presentations. We also had lots of different information and we had confidence as a team.
I thought that group 3 didn’t achieve what they were aiming for because they only showed a picture and a riddle which wasn’t enough and others in the group had nothing to share.

My Team
Georgia, Douglas, Isaac, Krista
I think Georgia put in the most effort because she wrote a good story as if she was in the place of the aboriginal child which it think is fairly difficult and did lots of pictures related to the “stolen generation”. My opinion on who did the least work would have to be Douglass although he did get two photos of maps showing the states although they did not get to be printed for his presentation.

My Effort
I think that I put in my fair share of work in the group because I completed a two-page timline on the important aboriginal events that have taken place since 120,000 B.C and did two pictures, one of an aboriginal hunting and the other of Cathy Freemen, showing how aboriginal life has changed over the years and how aboriginals have fitted in.

The commonwealth games have just started in Delhi (India) 2010/ The commonwealth all started from England that sailed the world looking for new lands to claim and took some countries by force. That’s how the British Empire (Britain being the old roman name for England and Empire meaning the countries that they ruled) started. England sometimes had wars over land, business deals  and through discoveries of the land that they said was empty.

Australia was said to be a discovery althogh aboriginals had been living there fora long time before English settlement came and this is how Australia became part of the British Empire that is now called the “commonwealth”. At first, Australia was ruled by England but since 1901 Australia got it’s own government.

Because Australia was part of the British Empire, it shareda lot with England. Australia also shared a passion for cricket.

If England went to war with another country Ausrtalia would go as well but over many years Australia got more of its own identity and didn’t rely on England as much.

Some countries from all over th world that where part of the empire became independent by force or peacefully which caused it to come to an end.

The commonwealth is still together now though having 53 countries are members. It isn’t like the empire any more but like a club that countries can choose to be part of by working together and support human rights.

The commonwealth is best known for the commonwealth games that were first held in 1930 to try and bring countries back together in the British Empire and back the it was known as the Empire Games.

The Commonwealth Games sre held every four years in different locations throughout the commonwealth countries.

India has been desparetly working to getnew sporting venues ready on time so that they can put on an amazing show because many people from around the globe will be watching.

Questions
1. When was the first commonwealth games?
2. What was the original name for the commonwealth?
3. How many countries are in the commonwealth?

Image: ‘Commonwealth Games‘

Surfing was originally developed by Hawaiian islanders, before the 15th century and spread in the early 20th century to Australia and the USA when they rode really heavy boards made of timber that they called the “malibu” which they rode directly towards the shore. Surfing was brought to Australia by a Hawaiian professional swimmer named Duke who taught a girl how to surf at Bells Beach. The sport grew popular in the 1950′s and 1960′s when cheaper and more maneuverable and lighter surfboards that were made of fierglass and foam that became available so the surfers enjoyed driving to new places and experience the new maneuverability of the board.

image from: http://wavesmag.com.au/images/gallery/Taj-Burrow-L.jpg
2nd image from: http://flickrcc.bluemountains.net/flickrCC/index.php?terms=surfing&page=2&edit=yes&com=no

When Courage Came To Call

 Author: L.M Fuge

This novel  keeps you interested in it the whole way through and you are unable to put it down because of the amount of exciting things that happen each chapter. It keeps you wondering the whole time how the two brothers are going to survive after they’re home, Zamascus, is bombed by their unknown enemy taking many lives.

My opinion on the book is that it is very descriptive and almost makes you feel as if you are in the role of one of the two brothers because of how Fuge describes the setting and feelings in the book. I am sure that I will keep reading books by this author because it kept me motivated and had few uninteresting parts in it.

The book was a very devastating story and I recomend it for teenagers to read.