Friday, September 28, 2012

Inspirational Day

This morning we got a visit by an inspirational speaker who wrote the poem “Brown Brother.” Joshua Iosefo and his parents came to visit our senior school to recite and talk about his poem. Joshua is a prefect at Mt. Roskill Grammar School. His culture is Samoan and Niuean.

Before he got to speak us year 7 and 8’s did a Mihi (Maori Speech), Karakia (Maori Prayer) and Waiata (Maori Song). Finally we got to hear Joshua reply. Instead of him doing his speech in Samoan or Maori he did it in a surprisingly did it in Japanese.  He did it in this language because he couldn’t speak any of his languages.

Have you heard his “Brown Brother Speech?” 63,000 viewers saw this inspirational spoken word on the web/internet. Was even on the “Campbell Live News.” When he re-recorded his poem many viewers then commented on this very performance.

His inspirations are God, his parents and especially his grandparents. When ever he went and visited his grandparents all he wanted to do is interview them. What I mean by “interview them” is that he always wanted to know more about his grandad and his grandma. He also wanted to know when they emigrated to New Zealand.

After he’d finished his speech then he had to answer our questions that we asked him. The questions we asked him were awesome and the answers he gave us were also awesome. It was an amazing and inspirational day.

Friday, September 21, 2012

Olympic Day

“Let’s go Scotland, let’s go (clap clap clap),” Matthew (our leader) yelled. We were playing a game against Italy. The game we played was called 3-legged soccer. Today was our second “Olympic Day.” Instead of just us seniors, it was the whole school.

A sea of multi-coloured t-shirts were hubbed in excitement. Talking and yelling from one side to another, we were getting ready to start off our olympic rotation. Before we did anything we had to do our procession. For our procession we made chants and we cheered.

After a while we started our rotation of various activities. The activity that my team and I first had was 3-legged soccer. The rules were to tie your legs with a pair. It was actually hard to maneuver. Trying to get away from my opponents was hard as well because we had our legs tied up and we also wanted to get a score for our team. Winning to us was important because if we won we would win the big prize.

After all 6 rotations we came across to our last rotation. I was disappointed because I didn’t get to play. This rotation was actually my favourite rotation of them all. The game we played was Basketball. I was energetic to play but when I heard that wasn’t allowed to play I went and sat down with my heart full of sadness. I was even looking forward to playing against my own brother. He was the leader of the Jamaican team.

In 3rd place there were equals, and those 2 countries were Sweden and Argentina. In 2nd place it was Spain. The winner was Ireland.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Sports Rotation

“Yay!” most people said walking towards the hall. Unfortunately the sky was grey and it was pouring with rain but this didn’t dampen our enthusiasm. Today all senior teachers were going to wander around the junior area.  So we were going to have our very own “Mini Olympics” with the theme  “Go For Gold.” It was going to be very different however because the weather meant the mini olympics were going to be indoors. I was in Takitimu 4 and our captain was Vanilla.

We had a lot of activities, Singstar, Jump Jam, Cyber Coach, Movie Watching,  Cookie/Shell Decorating, Obstacle  Course and many more. Our first rotation was the obstacle course. Dribbling the ball around the cone was difficult to maneuver. Walking on the balance beam was also challenging as well. 2nd rotation was the cyber coach. All you needed to do is repeat the same moves as the teacher on the screen.

And last but not least, our 3rd rotation. It wasn’t like an activity session but like a movie watching session. We watched our last production that happened a few years ago. It was called the Toy Shop. It was about a storekeeper who doesn’t know that her store is magical. The storekeepers name was Angela. Anyway whenever she locked the door after her shift all the toys that were in the shop came alive. Some of the characters that starred in the show left our school.

At the end of our rotations we all headed back to the hall to watch PENN. It was a fun circumrotation, even though it was our first time. It was amazing. I hope you enjoyed!