Book review:Holes by Louis Sachar!

Time for the monthly book review which hasn't been so monthly oops! Holes by Louis Sachar is a surprisingly suspenseful story that story that weaves in and out of the past events from camp green lake and the present situation of a teenage boy Stanley Yelnats. It is a well written novel but also a great movie.Stanley Yelnats's family has a terrible history of bad luck and Stanley always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. So its no surprise to Stanley when his bad luck gets him in court for a crime that he didn't commit. He was given a choice of jail or camp Green Lake. Of course he chose camp Green Lake I mean what would you choose. The camp turns out to be a lot different than he expected. He was forced to dig one hole every day five foot wide and five foot deep through a dried out crusty layer of earth that used to be covered by a beautiful lake. While hes there the past begins to unfold on how exactly the lake dried up, how the Yelnats family came by such bad luck and how all these event tie in with camp Green Lake and the people residing there.

This is an interesting and suspenseful story that will confuse and excite you withs its many twists and turns. The book is great and movie is almost just as good.Holes by Louis Sacher.

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Being that age!

Being a teenager isn't all I thought it would be. When I was younger I always looked up to my older brother. I couldn't wait to grow up and be a teenager.I guess I thought that it was easy turns out I was so completely wrong in that respect. I mean people say that this is the best time of you life that you should live every moment of it to the full. I find that it is fun but its hard. When your a kid you have no responsibilities. When you become a teenager everything becomes difficult. It feels as though the weight of the world is on your shoulders. Weather its looking after you younger siblings or your family to the smaller things. Pimples, relationships with your friends and the people around you, school, exams and god knows your future.

Sometimes it seems hard.Sometimes it feels as though it would just be easier to go back to being a innocent little child.Yet as these thoughts occurred to me today I know that if I had a moment to reflect on this I would choose to be where I am today. If only because despite all the embarrassment and stress of growing up it is like they say the best time of your life. So from now on this will be my motto...
" The hardest thing about this world is living in it so take every day as it comes.Live life to the full, because tomorrow you could be dead."

United Nations (UN) world enviroment day!

Last week on June 5th the UN World Environment Day was held right here in NZ. The UN World Environment Day is held every year on June 5th to stimulate Worldwide awareness on environmental issues. It is used to enhance political attention and action on the matter.

The Logan for this years UN W.E.D was "Kick the habit!Towards the carbon economy". This year the program is calling out for countries, companies, and communities to focus their attention on greenhouse gas emission and how to reduce them.

Actions are being taken to improve on the situation such as alternative energy sources, and forest conservation.

This event is celebrated in many different ways including street rallies; bicycle parades; green concerts; essay and poster competitions in schools; tree planting; recycling efforts; and clean-up campaigns.World Environment Day was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972 to mark the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. It is hosted every year by a different city and commemorated with an international events held throughout the week of June 5.

So we should do our best to make a contribution to help save the beautiful nature all around us. Every little thing helps so "Kick the habit!towards a low carbon economy"

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Best experiance with a reliever.

Last week our year ten English class had some trouble with a reliever. Our teacher was out for the period so another teacher from the school took over out class. The period didn't turn out to be very good and when our teacher got back she wasn't happy with us. So our punishment was to write a five hundred word creative writing story about the best experience you could have with a reliever. It was kind of hard to think of ideas because she said it had to be realistic but when it comes to creative writing my first instinct is to blow everything out of proportion. To exaggerate everything.So trying to write an interesting story but keeping it very realistic is very hard. Anyway ill stop rambling this is my story about the best experience with a reliever.

We had always heard abnormal stories about Mr. Witmore. Just little things shared at sleepovers and around bonfires at camping trips but they were enough to make even the staunchest of the guys a little bit scared of him. Of course they were meant to scare kids so were often over exaggerated. Sometimes people would tell stories about him being a blood sucking fiend who would trick you into staying behind after class then he would eat you. Or he was an alien with a really big body but a tiny head who would steal you away fr om you class and take you to mars to be studied by marsion scientists. Yes; we heard a lot of stories but we knew none of them could possibly be true. However when our teacher had a cold and was taking the day off we were told that our substitute for the period would be Mr. Witmore. The news spread quickly and by period four (the last period of the day) everyone was just hoping to get out alive.

Its kind of funny because at the time he looked so normal. He was tall, dark hair, young and he put on a smile that contradicted all the stories. He had a normal sized head on his shoulders and he didn’t try biting any of us once but that didn’t matter to us. Our imagination took over and from the moment he walked in the class we were frozen in our seats. We kept our heads down and tried not to make eye contact for fear he would prey on one of us. It was obvious he was uncomfortable because he immediately attempting to calm out nerves by talking to us. In the perkiest voice possible he said
“Hi class. I'm Mr. Witmore. Ill be your reliever for today, I hope we can have fun” All he got in return from the class was a chilling silence.

We were soon proven wrong in our judgments of Mr. Witmore. He didn’t set us any work at all he just sat down at the computer and put some of the best music out on. He turned it down and continued to talk to us. He told us everything about himself and we shared funny interesting and sad stories. Before we knew it we were laughing and chatting away as a class to Mr. Witmore. His jokes were hilarious and he was an all round cool person. The time came when he eventually had to set us some work but we were all having so much fun talking about and working on the topic that we didn’t notice how well we had done it. The class flew by as time does when you’re having fun. It was by far the most interesting lesson all day maybe even all week. The scary stories about Mr. Witmore weren’t so scary anymore.

At the end of the class, when the bell had gone and every one had packed up and left I stayed behind. I walked up to Mr. Witmore and said.
“You know sir your nothing like I thought you’d be. Those stories were all wrong”
“What did you think I would do? Suck your blood? Please, the worst I would do would be to make you do lines.”
His reply sparked an idea in my mind and before he turned ti leave I said
“Why would you make up those horrible stories about yourself? Aliens, vampires, and the evil teacher Mr. Witmore?”

A smile spread across his face as he replied

“Well I didn’t. You see I'm known as the horrific, mean teacher but when student see that I can be quite nice I'm not so scary anymore. So I tell them to keep it quiet. They make up the stories. So whatever you do keep it quiet, you wouldn’t want to ruin my rep now would you?”

To Kill A Mocking Bird!

To kill a mocking bird is a powerful American classic written by Harper Lee.told from the point of view of Jean Louise Finch(scout), the youngest daughter of the lawyer Atticas Finch. It tells a story of small town Southern America in the 1930's.Through the eyes of this little girl scout we see both the rich characters of her town and also the prejudices lying just below the surface of the town.

The dramas of the book are opened up when Scout, her brother Jem and their friend Dill decide to meddle with the isolated and vulnerable Radley family. The kids imaginations had always made up tales of the Radley house and the tragic story of the handicapped Boo (Arthur) Radley. Although they had never actually seen Boo Radley, their stories seem to over power them into thinking he is a creepy evil and mysterious person that they needed to catch a glimpse of.

The second part of the story is based in the jail house when their father Atticus Finch, a lawyer is chosen to defend Tom Robinson. This was considered unthinkable as Tom was coloured. It spreads rumours all over the town and eventually all the kids were being teased.The family was considered poorly they were called "nigger-lover". Discrimination was huge in this time and Atticus was the only one to stand up for Tom. He stood up in a situation that nobody else would.

These two story lines seem separate but throughout the book they become carefully interwoven. This is a profound book that has enchanted readers for more than 40 years. It shows the damage that racism can do in society. Atticus's only offense was to offer real defense to someone who was consider beneath everyone else. He offered a real enough defense to make the people of the town question the injustice they did to all the black inhabitants.It is an amazing book and I really recommend it.

I rate to kill a mocking bird one of the best books written in the 20th century and out of ten I would rate it 10 out of 10.

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Concealed Friend...

Ok, new English assignment . We were told that we had to write a paragraph about a friend without describing any physical characteristics. Sounds easy right well not really. Trying to describe someone without describing what they look like is like trying to describe eating an apple without describing what it tastes like, only harder.So I made an attempt. My first attempt was my mom and now im doing a friend and here's what I came up with when describing my concealed friend...

...There are many attributes of her personality I could start with, but the one that stands out the most to me is what a devoted friend she is. She is the kind of person that will always be there for her friend no matter what. If they need advice on how to devise evil schemes for sleepovers she will definitely be there. If they need to ramble to someone she makes it the easiest hour of talking ever and if someones being horrible to them she will help you yell at them.If she is scheming it would be best not to be the first one asleep at a sleepover (especially if shes teamed up with other characters from our group, for eg:Charne).
Rambling is a speciality of hers from things like school to things that make no sense at all like, I don't know, teeth( not really teeth but I couldn't think of anything).She puts up with my "out of it days" and when I tell dry jokes. Shell laugh at little things that noone else notices but deserve to be noticed, such as some people pushing their glasses up and scrunching their nose. (I wont say who).She is focused and determined. Her priorities all mesh and she can focus on her school, sports, and friends all at once.She is closest to normal out of our entire group she balances out all the craziness of our group. When were walking to class together we always get sidetracked easily and we are constantly late to class. Yet we never leave earlier because its so fun on the way to class to hear her say"oops I think were late again" and have to sprint there.She is a fun and hilarious person and she is one of my closest friends.

- My concealed friend is Cassie.

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Mystery Family Member!

Shes my best friend always.She inspires me to work hard and she always believes in me. Although she can get over protective, and there is no doubt she can be very embarrassing she sees the best in people. She is a fun and caring person. A great quality of my persons character is her outgoing adventurous nature, she'll think about the fun before she worries about the fear.Her fear of heights wouldn't stop her from jumping out of a plane,she takes everything as it comes. The amazing way she looks at things has an sort of silver lining effect on people, instead of the glass being half full its always completely full (and never any where near empty).Taking into account all the great things I've said about her, she does have her flaws. She is almost always late. So its always best to tell her the real time is half an hour earlier than it actually is, thus insuring shes on time.If your talking to her while shes txting she wont reply to anything you say until either ten minutes later or even longer once shes finished the text.The good and bad list goes on but ultimately my person is a smart, caring, enthusiastic, and most importantly fun person. She is my mother Marsha Marshall (no pun intended with the two M's just a mere coincidence).

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Creative writing assignment!

In class today we were told that our topic this term is creative writing. A picture was projected up onto the smart board of a young man in a bmx competition. He was half in the air and their was a crowd of people below him cheering. The assignment was to write a piece of creative writing using the picture as a visual starting point. Here, this is what I came up with:

The wind rushes past my face and slides across my skin like water over sand and in one moment I am detached from the rest of the world. I no longer notice the roaring cheer of the crowd. My feet are moving on the petals and I am performing my trick without even thinking of it. When I am riding I am free. Free from all the dismal feelings of the world, From the dramas and grievances it can create, From the feelings which portray the memories of my past life that makes me who I am today. Sickness seems to be less susceptible to me, War doesn’t exist where I am, drugs don’t corrupt so many people, the environment still contains the beauties it did decades ago and my family isn’t screwed up like it is now. All hopeful of these are just hopes and figments of my imagination because when I'm in this place, when I'm riding anything is possible. So even though I know at some point ill have to come rushing back to reality, I still close my eyes and hope that when I pull the brake and land my bike on the pavement all the horrors will be gone. Only the genuinely kind people will exist.

Every time I land (even if it isn't a landing of particularly good quality)it brings me back down to earth. That is why I ride,to escape the rest of the world. To get a chance to dream what is just not possible when I'm not riding. As I begin landing the cheers of the crowd below me break through the barrier of my imagination. Although only a few minutes past while I completed my ride (and only a few seconds while I was in the air) by the time I had landed it felt as though I had spent a life time in the air or on that bike. It was a great ride but a mediocre trick and I didnt win the competition. None of that matters though. As I took my bike of the track a smile spread across my face. I wouldnt give up rideing for the world.

Just my first attepmt at creative writing. It will get better, I promise.Well I hope!

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Hard Times: Book Review

Hard times by Charles Dickens is a book i read recently and since were supposed to write a book report on our blog i thought id do it on that.
Hard Times is based in an industrial revolution sort of time where all the machines are just being made so alot of people were out of jobs. There was alot of beggars and alot of thief's. Mr Grandgrind who is the father of Tom and Louisa Grandgrind. He had raised them by nothing but fact, they were taught not to imagine not to believe in things unless they had been taught it. They were raised with repressed feelings and taught not to show there emotion. As Louisa grows up she gets married to Mr Bounderby who is at least twice her age. It does not matter that she does not love him because she doesn't care and she feels she can grow old with him forever. But when there is a robbery everything gets ruined. She finally realises all her repressed feelings when she falls in love with Mr Harthhouse and she knows that the way she was brought up was wrong. The mystery of the robbery is still intriguing them and by the end of the book they are shocked to find out who it was!

This book is a classic, it is a must read. It is the kind of book that everybody should read. It was intriguing and challenging. I really recommend it. I rate it 8/10

Hard Times by Charles Dickens: A must read.

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pirates of the caribean

*Pirates of the caribbean*

Since i cant think of anything to write about today im writing about the best movie ever.It seriously is the best movie i mean Johnny Depp is brilliant in it hes like a box full crazy and you seriously cant meet anyone who idolizes him more than me and my mate charne.Johnny Depp is our idol and not to far behind is Orlando Bloom.

SOME AWESOME JOHNNY DEPP LINES:
"no,if we dont have the key we cant open whatever it is we dont have
that it unlocks, so what purpose would be served in finding whatever need be unlocked-which we dont have-without first haveing found the key what unlocks it"

"no,you want you to find this because the finding of this find you
incapacitoraly finding and or locating in your discovering the
detectinging of a way to save your dolly belle,ol whats-er-face"

see awesome.....

So any Johnny Depp fans your always very welcome on my site because you rock.

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