Rock Eisteddfod Heats

Blacktwon Boys & Girls High School 2009 present:

CLEOPATRA:

VICTIM

OR

VIXEN?

Blacktown Boys & Girls did EXTREMELY well, both performance wise and award wise winning 10 out of 19 available awards, not including the participation award.

here are all the awards for the night:

Award of Excellence for Choreography :

KINGSWOOD HIGH SCHOOL 

HORNSBY GIRLS HIGH SCHOOL 

EAST HILLS BOYS HIGH SCHOOL 

PlayStation SingStar Award of Excellence for 

Performance Skill: 

HEATHCOTE HIGH SCHOOL 

HORNSBY GIRLS HIGH SCHOOL 

UNSW Award of Excellence for Stage Use:

BLACKTOWN BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL 

Department of Education, Employment and 

Workplace Relations Award of Excellence for 

Concept: 

KINGSWOOD HIGH SCHOOL 

HORNSBY GIRLS HIGH SCHOOL 

EAST HILLS BOYS HIGH SCHOOL 

Nine Network Award of Excellence for Drama:

 KINGSWOOD HIGH SCHOOL 

HORNSBY GIRLS HIGH SCHOOL 

BLACKTOWN BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL 

 Award of Excellence for Soundtrack:

KINGSWOOD HIGH SCHOOL 

HORNSBY GIRLS HIGH SCHOOL 

BLACKTOWN BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL 

Award of Excellence for Costuming Character:

HORNSBY GIRLS HIGH SCHOOL 

PENRITH DISTRICT PCYC 

BLACKTOWN BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL 

Award of Excellence for Health, Life Skills and 

Creative Thinking: 

BLACKTOWN BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL 

Award of Excellence for Visual Enhancement:

HORNSBY GIRLS HIGH SCHOOL 

EAST HILLS BOYS HIGH SCHOOL 

Award of Excellence for Set Design and Function:

BLACKTOWN BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL 

IGA Award of Excellence for Student Achievement:

KATOOMBA HIGH SCHOOL 

INTERNATIONAL GRAMMAR SCHOOL 

Award of Excellence for Student Leadership:

KATOOMBA HIGH SCHOOL 

beyondblue Award of Excellence for School 

Community Support: 

KINGSWOOD HIGH SCHOOL 

BLACKTOWN BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL 

Award of Excellence for Environmental or Social 

Awareness: 

EAST HILLS BOYS HIGH SCHOOL 

BLACKTOWN BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL 

Department of Education, Employment and 

Workplace Relations Award of Excellence for 

School Initiative: 

KINGSWOOD HGH SCHOOL

 

Award of Excellence for Lighting Design:

 HORNSBY GIRLS HIGH SCHOOL 

CCUSA Award of Excellence for Stage Crew:

BLACKTOWN BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL 

PlayStation SingStar Entertainment Award:

HORNSBY GIRLS HIGH SCHOOL 

Gemma Dale Award:

BLACKTOWN BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL 

i got some videos from throughout the day, which will be up on youtube and facebook soon!

Suing google

trying to finish off my whitechapel murders essay and can' t find a tiny detail!

does anybody know the year walter sickert drew his sketch "he killed his father in a fight"?

no of course you don't. and stupid google doesn't know either.

i'm gonna sue google one day for false advertising and lack of information.

shamefulness

un-original. subliminal. i don't mean to be so traditional.

take a guess i'm lower than simple.

it seems senseless to me when people don't respect other's opinions. you don't have to agree with them, but it makes everything a whole lot easier if you respect them. obviously some people aren't mature enough to think of that so in the past week i have learnt from a few different experiences. in light of saying that, nobody reads my blog so i have pretty good faith that i won't have any problems. believe it or not, no disrespect is meant anyone, i am simply expressing my ideas and feelings. don't like it? well don't read it. down to business:

This last week has really opened my eyes. I have had a few separate and un-related experiences that have hurt me, offended me and saddened me all at the same time. This week was my first week back from school holidays and though my two week break was very un-eventful, I was smacked in the face when I got off the bus at school being met by a fantastic silence between my friends. What followed was a day of silent rage at one person for her mistrust and immaturity of the other who was innocent and unaware to what she had supposedly done to cause this problem (Reference to Screw you guys we hate high school).

In other parts of my life, I have been enjoying a little more freedom with my parents as I approach the big one-eight. The last few months I have had a few bumps with my parents when our opinions and views have conflicted (as can be expected) and I felt that maybe my parents were having a hard time accepting the fact that soon I would be 18 and have/need alot more independence from them. And so I with that thought in mind I prepared myself for the weeks ahead as dad's workload became a bit fuller and expected alot more stress to be on all of us. I was pleasantly surprised then to find that our hard work and extra efforts to maintain an active family life aswell as balance school, work and church worked out. So the last 2 weeks have wound down without any hiccoughs. That is until a few nights ago.

As all my faithful readers know by now, my wonderful father was the person who got me started on blogspot and I enjoy reading his daily posts on his own blog. My father is a wonderful man who enjoys looking at everything and anything with a view from the outside and tries to look at things unbiasedly. He never tries to offend or embarrass but many people misunderstand this simple man's words. Recently there was a misunderstanding of one of his posts on his blog in which he expressed his feelings and instead of approaching him neutrally and asking why he felt this way an trying to understand, he was told that he was being offensive and should be ashamed of what he had said. What makes it even more unbelievable to me is that this behaviour is coming from people that I respect and love and who are older than me. Well, I don't know what kind of twisted, warped values I have been taught in today's dying world but that's not normally how we approach people we have issues with.

Are we ready for this lesson again little kiddies?

you don't have to agree with other people's opinions, but it makes everything a whole lot easier if you respect them. 

Think about it. How do you feel when people assume something about you? How do you feel when people attack you without good reasoning? How do you feel when you are told that it doesn't matter what you think or how you feel? Well, maybe you don't know how it feels but it doesn't matter. Christlike behaviour entails the correct treatment others. So until all you other losers start acting your age, stay the hell away from me.

Huzzah for Art!

So I already updated you on how my music exam went (my most stressful) and I thought I would update on what I thought was my best exam I did. It was my Visual Art exam and let me start at the beginning...

It happened on the Friday and my only exam for the day was Visual Arts which started just after midday, so Alexis and Lizzie decided to come over to "revise". Mom had gone out for the morning so for four hours I did:

• Guitar hero battles
• Lizzie fell asleep on the couch
• Tried waking Lizzie up and ended up flashing her instead (accidental of course)
• Had a fifteen minute conversation with Elder Hulse, trying to understand what he had rung for.
• Laughing hysterically at Lizzie and Alexis as they stretched and warmed up to beat the song "Black Magic Woman" by Santana.
• Exchanged a family dinner appointment with Elder Hulse for a packet of his companion's St. Patrick's Day mints, 2 packets of tissues, a pair of freshly laundered socks, a pair of giant blue sunglasses and an inflatable australia day hand.
• Ate half of Lizzie's apple pie then put it back in the packet.
• Strung Alexis' shoe up the flagpole.

And that was just some of the things we got up to BEFORE the exam.

Our exam started at 12.15 so we agreed to arrive at school half an hour before hand. 11.50 and we were still in the house. 11.55 and we were still in the house because Lizzie and Alexis were determined to beat "Sunshine of your love" on Guitar Hero! 12.00 and we were finally leaving but had a short stop on the front porch as Alexis searched for her missing shoe which we only gave back to her because we were running late for our exam. Lucky I only live 10 minutes away from school. As we approached the school it was 12.10 and Lizzie decided to tell me the clock in her car was out. That's when I started hyperventilating and laughing causing me to suffocate because Alexis and Lizzie started "singing guitar". So as we ran to our exam (which everyone had already entered in for) we were laughing, crying and out of breath. As we entered the hall Alexis whispered to Lizzie and me: "I have one thing to say to you. Du-du-duu-du du-du-du-du-duuuu-du!" ["Sunshine of your love" on guitar].

As I sat down for my exam behind Lizzie, I felt refreshed and prepared for what lay ahead. Visual Arts is one of my best and most enjoyable subjects. In the exam you have your small section worth a few marks, your medium section worth more marks and your large section at the end worth ALOT of marks (they have technical names but it would get confusing). The large section at the end is always an "extended response" (an essay really) and usually takes about an hour to complete. In my Ancient History exam from the day before I had run out of time when completing the extended response (yes, I know about time management, please don't lecture me on it!) so I took a gamble with my Visual Arts exam and did the extended response first.

It is always with V. Art extended response, that you are not presented with a question to answer. Oh no. They have to give you the choice of choosing ONE question to answer out of TEN. It takes 10 minutes to choose the question alone. I chose my question and using two of the environmental artists we had studied in class, I answered the question, then I thought of another artist we hadn't studied in class but would apply perfectly to the question. So I took the gamble and wrote about Barbara Krueger aswell.

I answered the extended response in good time and good spirits so turned to answer the other sections. When I turned to the middle section, I nearly jumped in excitement. Who was there in the case study but none other than Barbara Krueger, the female artists I had studied in Year 10 Visual Arts and then done a personal study for in Year 11. I know I aced that section.

After finishing the whole exam with a few mintues to spare and after going through my paper, I noticed Lizzie was also finished so resting my feet on the back of her chair, I tapped out "Sunshine of her Love". I could see Lizzie laughing.

After the exam finished the three of us went outside and just about screamed! We were so happy we had finished and we all told each other how through out the whole exam all we had stuck in our heads was "Sunshine of your love". I told Lizzie and Alexis how I was really happy that Barbara Krueger was in our exam and Alexis said that when she saw it down in our exam she thought "Yep. Ashlea will ace that." Our Visual Arts teacher and Year Advisor Ms Ward came out and asked us how we liked the exam and I told her that surpisingly, I had enjoyed it. The mixture of favourable materials used in the exam and the duration of the exam (it was an hour and a half, all my other exams were two and a half) had made the experience a fast and great one.

To celebrate and because we had time left before Lizzie had to go to work, We all drove to Maccas in the turdmobile (as we call lizzie's car) and got ice cream, hot chocolate and hot apple pies to eat.

Ah. The good life :)

Misery Business.

so... tuesday music practical. came and went. one of my team mates dropped out DURING OUR EXAMS 3 DAYS BEFORE THE PERFORMANCE, making 4 turn to 3. Okay. What to do. We decided we had to do an acoustic song because 2 guitarists and a vocalist can't really pull off the alternative song we were practicing before. Lex and Liz (the loyal guitarists) chose a song but i didn't feel comfortable singing it so on the monday we finally settled on a song that both alexis and myself were familiar with. Lizzie grabbed the tabs and took them home. I learnt all the lyrics in a night and got to school the next day to find that poor Lizzie hadn't been able to even look at the guitar tabs because of exam revision and work. At the last minute Lizzie decided that she would perform separately to Alexis and I so she wouldn't screw it up for us and we saw the logic in it but I felt bad. Poor Lizzie would be performing at the last LAST minute all by herself. 

So, Alexis and I turn up and i'm confident that we are going to do great because I know all the lyrics off by heart. 2 lines into the song and I stuff it up. Have to start again. I felt really horrible for Alexis because I stuffed it up and also because I had know idea why I stuffed it up. I am a professional when it comes to signing, never get nervous (i wasn't nervous) and am totally unsure what happened. I think I relaxed too much. I thought "it's all good. we can do this. I know all the words" then I blew it. 

Oh well. Teachers said we did great. Sounded great too.

I have no idea what I would do without 2 of my close friends. These guys understand. They won't let me down and they know I won't let them down. We tell each other what we mean, how we mean it. 

We are aware because we've been through it.

x

laid back.

My half yearly exams start this coming monday and go for a week and a half. I'm not stressed. Well, I am but about the wrong things. I know I'm as prepared as I can be and that I'm going to do my best and give my best. So I don't stress out about exams. My approach, is not to talk about them - especially as they come nearer but to act normal and talk about whatever I normally do. What does stress me out is when everyone constantly say "What do you think is going to be in the exam?", "I'm stressing out - I don't know much about the topic!" 

I mean, I really don't need other people stressing me out about exams by talking about them. Honestly, can you think of anything worse? Obviously people don't get that.

Another thing that bugs me is that, because I don't like to talk about exams right when they're about to happen, people snap and get angry at me because I dared to talk about something other than exams. Geez people, get a life.

So for the next week I'm gonna try play it smooth.

I've got exams for:

Visual Arts

Modern History

Ancient History

Extension History

Advanced English

Hospitality

Music - Aural

Music - Practical

whew! Alot of exams to be preparing for! The only one I'm freaking out about is my music practical because my friends and I aren't completely prepared. We're so under prepared that we don't even have a song to practice. And we have to perform it in two tuesdays time. 

uh-oh.

Better hurry up.

:)

REPORT - SEMESTER 2

I'm coming in the top 8 of every subject - except for English.

My English teacher didn't write one positive thing about me on my report. I think he's out to get me.

Each ranking is out of a class of approx. 30.

Rank:

English - 15

Hospitality - (I don't get a rank)

Visual Art - 5

Music - 4

Modern History - 2

Ancient History - 8

For my Modern History Yearly Exam mark I got 90/100.

Woo hoo!

Go me!

I only really care about Modern and Music.

YAY!

I got 72 out of 80 on my Modern History Year 11 Exam.

YAHOO!

That was the only exam I would have been concerned about failing.

i know i tried my best on all of them so oh well.