Stalking!

Haha, I'm going to crack up laughing when I get home because my mum is going to ask me, "Hi honey, what did you do today?" and I'm going to reply, "I learnt how to stalk people!" 

No, I'm kidding, we're not actually stalking people - we're people-watching and writing down lots of details about them. There IS a difference, you know!

So... a pleasant Monday afternoon with a hint of Spring found one fabulous school teacher and five rowdy children walking around town stalking people. (You know what I mean!). We went ALL over the place - up and down busy streets, up and down quiet streets, sitting on walls and even into the Library, because lets face it, you see some pretty - err - interesting people hanging around libraries. 

So as we were walking around in a pack with our little notebooks and pens, somehow a story involving murder unfolded in my mind. Little disconnected ideas were jotted down on my notebook, and soon they came beautifully linked together in a story about a creepy man with his eyes hidden sending murder letters, signing them, "Rest in peace - Murphy" to a seventeen-year-old girl called Mallory who naturally gets all freaked out and starts to investigate. Turns out she should have just kept out of it because she gets pulled into a big irreversible mess, discovering horrifying secrets about her assassin Murphy along the way. The grand finale takes place on top of the water tower at night where Mallory (stupidly) confronts Murphy and ends up getting thrown off the top of the water tower. I haven't decided if she dies or not, by the way. Oh, and I forgot one more crucial little detail - the second before Murphy chucks a screaming Mallory off the water tower, he growls, "Rest in peace."

I haven't decided what I'm going to call the story yet - I'm torn between Rest in Peace and Mallory and Murphy. Some advice, s'il vous plait? 

   

Uh - I Think I'm Lost

Today's Mapping and Geography workshop with Darryn was really cool and interesting, but I'll admit it was a little confusing at times because Geography and Logic is NOT my thing. I hate it! It's so confusing! Although it was much easier today, I still felt a little lost when Darryn started talking about C43 and North Mag/North Grid! I mean, wouldn't you?

But you're probably feeling pretty confused as it is, so I'll back up a little and start from the start, which I think's a good place to begin, don't you?

Today when we did the Geography and Mapping workshop with Darryn, I learnt about grids, compasses, how to make a 'bearing' and navigate my way through an enormous mass of forest, jungle, push, mountains, lakes and ocean!

Here are just some of the things we did...
We unfolded a few of Darryn's maps that he uses for hunting and studied it carefully, with Darryn telling us where what was and what all the lines meant and what was land and what was water... then we joined two maps together and he told us a crucial piece of information - that of you have two different maps but one leads on from another, then the two overlap because if they don't then in the middle you've got this big blank part and you're like, "Hey, what the heck's over there?"
Then it was... COMPASS TIME! Darryn plonked a compass on the map and the red side of the needle pointed to where was North so we could align our map, because the tops of maps always face North. Then we spun the dial on the compass so that the little 'N' was what the red line was pointing to, and then we turned our map around according to that so we were all exact and lined up.

Mt Izzy...
Next Darryn told us about 'bearings'. Some of us faced each other pretending to be mountains (Mt Izzy and Mt Emma) and another person had to make a 'bearing' from one mountain to the other.

We also covered things like one square on the map was one kilometre, there's a twenty-degree difference between the angle North Mag and North Grid, and more.
And to think I thought that maps were just a piece of paper with a bunch of lines all over them!

Newspaper

For once I'm not going to prattle on about my Passion Project, because that must be getting pretty boring by now. No, today I'm going to prattle on about something completely different - 
(Drumroll please...)
My newspaper article.
No, no, don't exit out of this post! Newspaper articles SOUND boring, but at Enrich they are the OPPOSITE of boring. For this article we're allowed to write about anything we want to. I only started last week but now it's DONE - well, at least, the actual writing part is done. I'm going to change the font and maybe add a picture and blah-de-blah-blah, but in terms of the hard stuff, I'm done. So I'm pretty relieved! 
So... I suppose you're wondering what I'm writing about? Well, I'd like to tell you, but you know me. I like to keep you in suspense, so I'm not going to tell you right this minute. I suppose you're just going to have to read next week's post to find out!

Catching Up

I have to catch up this week because I was not here last week (well, nobody was, Queen's Birthday, remember?) but I wasn't here the week before that either because I was in Auckland for an aerobics competition, and the week before THAT I was sick. 

So that's three weeks (well, two weeks, really, because nothing happened last week) of catching up to do! Not that catching up is a massive task at Enrich,  because we don't really have things that we go back to a lot, like Maths Contracts or Inquiry or whatever. Except...
PASSION PROJECTS!!!!!!

My historical fiction diary was exactly as I left it three weeks ago - so nothing had been done to it for three whole weeks! I had to get cracking. My fingers went flying over the keyboard. Click-click-click-click-clickety-click-clickety. Click. And one more click for luck. 

I'm going to ask if I can work on my diary at lunch (we're not allowed on the computer without permission today) and no way will the extra work make up for all the time I lost, but hopefully it will help!

I've just completed my 'Passion Project weekly planning' sheet, which is reflecting on this week's passion time and planning for next week. 
Hope I get my story finished soon!

Je suis si excite!!!

If you're wondering what 'Je suis si excite' means, it's French for 'I'm so excited.' And I am - really excited! Another thing you might be wondering is why I chose French. I mean, why not Italian, or Spanish, or Japanese? Well, I chose French because next week I am going to do a French workshop with Madison, as part of the student-led workshops.

I've wanted to learn French for ages, and I've heard of lots of different websites but I never found the time. Now I'm going to be learning with Madison, a student who has been studying French for her Passion Project. And, like I said before, I'm REALLY EXCITED! 

I don't really know why I want to learn French, of all languages. I don't have any French heritage or anything. Pretty much the only connection I have with France is that I do ballet, and all the moves are in French, and ballet originated in France and all that. Also, my older cousin Madison (not the Madison who's going to be taking the workshop) went to France last year, and she had the most AWESOME time. I was so jealous!

Anyway, I know a bit of basic French - Bonjour, Au revior, je, suis, si, excite, oui, non, maines, maman, papa. But I can't wait to learn more!

My Story

I didn't just call this post "My Story" because I am writing a story, and it's mine. I called it My Story because that's an example of the type of book I'm writing. I don't know if you've ever read the My Story series, but they're really, really good. They're all diaries, set in the past. The ones I'm most interested in are the ones set in the Tudor times, like...

Lady Jane Grey 

Elizabeth

Henry VIII's wives

Anne Boleyn and Me

Bloody Tower

And now I'm writing a historical fiction novel in the form of a diary. I don't know what it's called yet, because for some reason I always put the title of the story last. But I can tell you this. The years it's set in are 1533 to 1536 (Tudor times). The main character is called Annabelle Richmond, and she's aged 11 - 14 as the years go on. 

I started at 2 January 1533, and, by skipping days as diaries do, I'm now on the 25 January 1533 (the day that dear Henry VIII got married to him doomed second wife, Anne Boleyn).

I want to get the writing side of it done as soon as possible so that there's plenty of time for me to think about the publishing side of things, and so I can start on a new Passion Project hopefully at the end of this term.

I did some more research on those lovely Tudors today after I had done some writing, mainly about Anne Boleyn, Henry's second wife, (cousin of his fifth wife) and her EXECUTION!!!

This project is really beneficial. I'm learning so much while still having fun, I'm learning to manage my time well, I'm learning research skills, I'm learning task commitment, AND I'm practicing my writing! And all of it ties into one big passion, probably the academic passion I'm most passionate about: 

WRITING A DIARY ABOUT THE TUDOR TIMES. 

Passion Project Progress

Mwahahahahaha (laugh of Henry the Eighth)

As you know, for my Passion Project I am studying History (Tudors) to make a Horrible Histories type of book. The research is coming along, but boy, are those guys evil! And I thought I knew just how cruel and spoilt Henry the Eighth was. If you'll believe it, he had his own whipping boy when he was a kid, who got punished every time Henry did something wrong! Unfair or what? I also learnt that the Tudors were dirty old weasels. Henry's daughter Elizabeth the First had a bath once every three months, and people thought she was some kind of hygiene freak! I'm learning lots about the Tudor family tree. One of the things is that our current Queen, Elizabeth the Second, is actually RELATED to dear old Henry! The lines are vague, but yes, they are distantly related. I looked it up and found a Yahoo answer (don't worry, I cross-referenced) that told me exactly how they were related. I would put  the answer on here, but it's really confusing. Basically, Elizabeth, Henry's daughter, was succeeded by her cousin James the First, who was also related to Henry. His granddaughter Sophia married into the Hanover line (the current English line are descendants of Hanovers) and produced George the First. Charles the Second, James the First's grandson, had no children so next in line was his brother then he had kids and blah-de-blah and so on, and then Parliament took it all back to James the First, hence George the First, and then along came Elizabeth the Second. 
Told you it was confusing! 
And now I'm thinking of altering what I'm doing a little. Instead of making a book like Horrible Histories, I'm going to write a historical fiction story, like the My Story series. All this research is still crucial, as it's important to know as much as possible about the period of time you're writing historical fiction about.