ArlaC

So far in the story, the main characters are:

Sam Lopez: The main character with an attitude…but changes later on
Matthew Burton: Sam’s cousin; the main guy who comes up with the plan in the first place
Jake Smiley: Matthew’s friend, who also has a problems with his family
Tyronne Sherman: Matthew’s other friend…who’s mum wants him to achieve lots during his lifetime
Mark Kramer: A guy who every guy wants to be and every girl wants to go out with
Zia Khan: A musical girl who shares her talent for music with Sam
Elena Griffiths: The “leader” of their group who wants to become Sam’s best bud
Charley Johnson: Zia and Elena’s best friends but she’s the one who keeps them from fighting

The story so far is that Sam wants to be a part of Matthew’s group…so…he insists that he prove himself worthy of being in their gang.  Matthew comes up with a plan that will humiliate Sam and their enemies (Zia, Elena, and Charley) and that would be to have Sam dressed up as a girl for one week at school.  Two days have passed already.

Along the pavement outside the local park late in the afternoon.  Sam wearing his girl’s uniform walking with Matthew just turning round the corner when Matthew spots his mum’s car.

Matthew: Don’t say a word.  Just do what I say.

Sam: What?

Looks up and notices Matthew’s mum.

Matthew: Turn around slowly and naturally.

The boys turn around casually.

Matthew: Here we go again.

Matthew swings his arm around Sam’s shoulders.  Sam attempts to break free but Matthew keeps him steady.

Sam (muttering): You are going to pay for this big time.

Matthew: Just stay like this until we round the corner.

Both boys walk to the end of the path.  Towards the end, Matthew turns back and sees his mum looking at them.  They round the corner and jump away from each other.

Sam: You are sick, Matthew Burton.  How come you’re always hitting on me these days?

Matthew: Now who’s losing his nerve?

Camera turns to Mrs Burton with a confused and surprised expression on her face.

Prologue
I have two best friends at my school; Amanda and Tammy.  We do everything together; school projects, shopping sprees, holiday activities, going to the movies, etc.  The only thing that is different about us is that both of them are the more out-going people.  I’m more of a follower and I don’t really have any say in anything.  Mandy and Tam are in the debating team, SRC, and drama club.  Now, you might think that them two are meant for each other and why am I tagging along?  Well, to tell you the truth…I’ve felt that way a lot.

There’s only one more day of the holidays until we go back to school.  My mum’s all fussy about whether I have enough supplies for school, fixing the last minute touches to my school uniform, and helping my siblings with their problems.  The only thing that I was looking forward to was seeing my friends.

In Year 6 we had a couple of fights; I was always in the middle.  It’s really stressful when two of your best friends are fighting and they expect you to pick a side.  All you can think of is to let it die down.  We somehow get along…but when we are together…it feels like our friendship will last forever.

Anyway, back to school…  As soon as I walked through the gates, I could hear my friend’s hysterical laughing.  While walking towards our group, my head was flooded with things that I could talk about.  But when I got there I saw that there was another girl talking to Mandy and Tammy.

“Hey guys!” I said cheerfully

“Hey Crystal!  Meet Isabelle,” responded Mandy.

“Hi, I’m new around here and I’ve just discovered that I live one street away from Mandy.  That is so cool coz now I can have sleepovers and walk to her house any time I want,” started Isabelle.

It was from that moment that I knew that things are going to be a little different around here.  I didn’t get a chance to tell my friends what I did in the holidays, which is like a tradition in our friendship.  As I said before, I don’t usually get a say in anything.

It was the first day back at school after the summer holidays, so that was when we get sorted into our classes.  It was just our luck that our group had to be split; I went with Tammy and Mandy went with Isabelle.  I’ve always felt that I always have to impress Tammy in some way; it feels like I can never be myself.

Things got a little better in class.  That was our base class.  Luckily, we’re in the same class for Art, Tech, and Language.  During class Tammy seemed a little distracted, so I tried to be more conversational.  Unfortunately the teacher caught me and gave me and Tammy a detention.

“Thanks a lot Crystal!” she hissed at me at the end of class.  This was definitely not going to be a great year.  Tammy didn’t speak to me at all in any of the lessons.  At lunch we all got together and started talking about what they did during class.  Mandy, Isabelle, and Tammy all seemed to like chatting.  No-one knew that I was just listening politely, nodding and agreeing with Tammy.

When I finally got Mandy on her own I started telling her about the issue between Tammy and I.

“She’ll get over it eventually.  She’s still upset about us all not being in the same class.  You should get to know Isabelle; she’s full of interesting topics to talk about.  She’s also very smart.” soothed Mandy.

‘Yeah right.  All you can think of is Isabelle.  I might as well not exist.’ I thought to myself.

Epilogue
I ended up changing schools.  After Isabelle came I got cast out on my own.  Now that I think back to it, I was pretty much a loner (so much for my self-esteem).  I’ll bet at the next school I go to, there will be rumours about how I have no friends and that is why I had to move schools.

Have you ever got that feeling where you have been replaced by someone who just seems to appear out of nowhere, or the person who has replaced you has just been left stranded and your closest friend feels sorry for them and starts hanging around them instead of you?  You have no idea how hurt you can feel because someone has been excluded from friendship.

Just remember that everyone has feelings and they can be damaged in a simple move.  Include people in your conversations; always make an attempt to meet new people.

8th May - Thursday
I can’t believe I actually did that…I auditioned for the school play.

It all started when the drama teacher put up a notice on the noticeboard in the “Art’s Block” that I started to form a plan in my head about how this could be my big break to stardom.  All I had to do was audition…piece of cake…  The only thing is that you wouldn’t really call me “confident” when it comes to public speaking and all that sort of stuff.  But my friends were behind me all the way and convinced me to try out.

The drama teacher, Mrs Drenond, was quite shocked that I had turned up to audition.  I wasn’t the only one who turned up (obviously).  I looked around and saw quite a lot of the more confident people and I started to sink back more into my seat.

‘This isn’t going to work,’ I told myself.

One by one the students got up and auditioned.  Many people recited poetry or passages from a famous book.  It wasn’t until then that I realised that I had nothing prepared.  When Mrs Drenond called my name I quietly went over to her and told her that I had nothing prepared.  She said that was quite alright and that I should see her at the end of the session.  I thought I was a goner.

But Mrs Drenond took sympathy over me and gave me a passage to read from.  I was a bit nervous at first but as I read on, I became more confident.

14th May - Friday
You’ll never believe what happened today!!!  I got picked to be the lead in the school play.  The school plays at my school are a big deal because our school is within the boundaries of where talent scouts live.  There are talent scouts of everything you could think of; cooking, music, sports, art, singing, writing…you name it.  That’s why I was sooo excited when I got chosen to be the lead in the school play.

We’re doing a play set in the scene of a university that is opposite a very old library.  The government is going to demolish the library and put a new and improved one up instead.  My character was really quiet and spent a lot of time in that library.  She was shocked to hear that they were going to get rid of the old library and started to go round and try and get people to sign her petition.  But since she was really quiet no-one listened to her.  So she decided to do some research and found that the site was a historical element of their suburb.

She ends up saving it and gets a reward for saving the library.  At the end she finds that there is actually a vault hidden in the library that contained millions of dollars worth of merchandise.  Then once again she gets a reward for discovering the great fortune.

18th May - Monday
There was only one week and a half left to go until the big day.  Everyone was rushing around frantically trying to fix up props and costumes while the actors were busy reciting their lines.

27th May - Wednesday
Today is the day that my future depends on.  In the morning we’ll have a run through the whole play before the big performance tonight.  Not sure if I can do this…

27th May - Later
Well…I don’t think it went that bad, apart from the times when:

1. Louisa tripped on her skirt because someone was blocking
    her way
2. the backdrop fell down because someone pushed it over
3. the music stuffed up because someone knocked the CD
    player over
4. someone forgot their lines
5. someone forgot her cue
6. someone left the stage at the wrong side
7. someone said someone else’s lines

I’m guessing you know who that someone is…it was ME!  I knew I couldn’t handle it…I tried my best to cover up all the mistakes I made; you know…improvise.  After what happened tonight…I don’t think I can ever take up show-biz again.

1st June - Monday
When I got to school this week, everyone was saying bad stuff about me like how I ruined the school play, injured people, destroyed people’s hard work and effort, broke almost all of the props, and mostly…ruined people’s chances of being spotted by one of the talent scouts that just happened to be at the concert.

Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, Mrs Drenond asks me if she could see in her office.  I thought that this was it…I would be eternally banned from show-biz and everything related to drama.  She told me to sit down and introduced me to a man standing by the window; Mr Taloni.

He told me that he was quite impressed with my performance on last Wednesday night.  All I was thinking to myself was ‘This has to be a joke…’  Mr Taloni started to explain that it didn’t matter that I make mistakes as long as you learn from them. 
“It was also very interesting to see you cover up all the mistakes you made by improvising”, he complimented.
He gave me a whole bunch of forms that my parents needed to fill out.  I was so excited that I just had to tell my friends.

4th June - Thursday
 Mr Taloni just told me that I was going to start my acting career this weekend.  We were going to start filming this TV series called “War At Home”.  It’s just a matter of time before I can know what my peers think about it.

The giant earthquake that occurred on 26th December caused the Indian Ocean to erupt and crash down on South and South-East Asia wiping out millions of innocent people.  It was recorded to be the second largest earthquake to have erupted which measured a 9.0 on the Richter Scale.  The tsunami triggered tidal waves to reach up to 30 feet high that swept along the coasts of many countries, travelling up to 500 miles per hour.

Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, Myanmar, the Maldives, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Somalia, Seychelles, Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania, La Reunion and Mauritius were affected by this tidal wave.

I see the tsunami to be a terrible and frightening event that had to occur on Boxing Day; a day that was supposed to be for celebration.  Family members, loved ones, friends, and people you knew were lost in the tsunami.

It was a natural disaster that couldn’t really be helped; nothing we could have done could prevent it from happening.  But we did our best to help those injured, today up and restore what was washed away.

The tsunami could affect the future because many people would be afraid of living close to the coast in case of another tsunami.  No-one would go to the beach or rent any of the hotels and apartments on the seaside because of fear of being washed away by another tsunami.

 *~Sahar~*: She is a very nice girl who you can’t stop when she goes on a high.  When you poke her, she will jump and squeal.  She can also be very random sometimes.

 *~Jess Chow~*: Jess is a very happy girl who will always find a bright side to things.  She, like Sahar, can’t stop laughing.  But when you do poke her, she won’t squeal.

 *~Diana~*: Diana is a very loyal friend who is always there when you are down.  Although she is quiet most of the time, she can still surprise you.

 *~Alka~*: MY BEST FRIEND!!!  She always will be there to give you advice when you need it most and listen to your ideas. 

 *~Tsing~*: MY OTHER BEST FRIEND!!!  Tsing is always full of ideas and always in action to get them done.  She’s always there for your support and never lets you down.

 *~Rose~*: She’s very tomboy-ish and lurrves soccer.  Rose is always looking for the humorous side of things which makes her more enjoyable to be around.

 *~Mei-sze~*: Mei-sze always gives out great advice and helps you out when you are in need of help.  She can be very funny sometimes and brighten you up when you’re feeling dull.

 *~Grace~*: Grace always makes you feel better when you make a fool of yourself…sometimes…and always makes the conversation more interesting.  She has a lot of great ideas that makes her a great working partner.

 *~Erin~*: She is very quiet but very fun to be with.  She can be quite cheeky sometimes…so WATCH OUT!

 *~Pansy~*: Pansy has a lot of energy in her and will share her enthusiasm with you if you stick around her for a long time.

 *~Jess Chen~*: She’s very smart, kind, thoughtful, funny, and sporty.  A lot of things packed into one personality…that’s Jess!

Every English lesson it’s always the same.  I enter the classroom, I sit down with my friends, pull out my books, and sit like an angel at my desk.  Then she comes in and all hell breaks out.

It all started on a quiet Monday afternoon and all of our class was waiting patiently for Ms Opal to arrive.  Everyone was saying that she was the nicest and best teacher in school.   There was a shadow at the door and we all held our breath.  But to our complete and utter horror, in walked a teacher with the foulest of smells, the most crooked and evilest of smiles, owl-like glasses, and dressed in very old-fashioned clothes without a thread out of place.

“Good morning everyone!  My name is Mrs. Palmer and I shall be your teacher for the rest of the semester.  Now be nice little children and you won’t get as much homework as I had planned for you,” she said with a wicked smile.  I felt so uncomfortable with this new teacher but I had enough courage to put my hand up and asked her where was Ms Opal.

“Ms Opal shall not be attending school to teach you young people any more, she…isn’t in a good state to be teaching,” she added with a smug look.  We all glanced around nervously and few scared looks, we could tell that this semester was going to be very…unusual.  She then told us to turn to page 104 in our history text books to read 20 pages and write an essay about the Crusades and by the end of the lesson, we must hand in a good-quality essay, about 10, 000 words.

“BUT MISS - IT’S NOT FAIR!” I complained “How can you expect us to write a good quality essay in less than an hour based on twenty pages of facts on the Crusades which we haven’t even started to discuss yet?!”

“YOU WILL NOT CONTRADICT ME YOUNG LADY!” she shouted “You will do as you’re told and if you do not finish…there will be serious consequences,” she retorted.  So, the class had no choice but to do as she told and do the essay.  I actually think I did a pretty good job, considering the fact that we were given 40 minutes and that we hadn’t even touched the topic yet.

The next day, a new student was introduced to our class, and guess what…it was Mrs. Palmer’s niece; the spoiled one who is also every teacher’s “pet”.  But then I realised that she would make my life even harder because I recognised her as being my arch nemesis, Prunella, from primary school.  That would mean that she could get away with anything.  It’s just not fair.

There were so many things that Prunella got me in trouble for.  I’ll give you some examples:

1. Mrs. Palmer set us this big assignment that was due two days after it was set.  As usual, I got straight to it.  When it was finally due, it looked stunning.  I was just about to hand it in to Mrs. Palmer, when who would come along with a steaming hot mug of coffee for Mrs. Palmer but Prunella who so happened to spill it all over my assignment.

“Oh I’m so sorry about that, here let me help,” she said sarcastically.  But instead of helping me she made it worse by smudging and creasing and scrunching it.

“This is not an acceptable assignment; you must do it all over again!  With addition to your assignment you must stay back after every day for the next month and write essays about punishment,” Mrs. Palmer spat.

“BUT MISS - IT’S NOT-”

“NO ARGUMENTS!  End of discussion!”

2. Our school Open Day was coming up and our class had to come up with artistic ideas to put on display.  My head was swimming with them.  Every lesson we would work hard on them because the best art work would get a prize and have their picture taken for the newspaper, representing our school.

It was finally Open Day and I could hardly wait because I knew I could have a chance of winning.  Just as the judges were passing, the Deputy Principal asked if she could have a word.  The discussion went on for longer than I had expected and when I heard applause I knew I had missed out on something.  I quickly ended our conversation and went back to where I last saw the judges.

To my amazement, there was Prunella grinning from ear to ear standing in front of my artwork holding up a plaque and smiling so sweetly for the cameras.  I turned to Mrs. Palmer and said:

“Miss, you know that’s my artwork.  Why is Prunella receiving my prize?”

“You were not here to collect your prize so someone had to go out and collect it and Prunella asked me so kindly that I just had to let her,” Mrs. Palmer replied.

“BUT MISS-”

“I have already discussed that with you, now I must go and congratulate Prunella on her fine effort,” she said in a satisfied voice and walked off.

Those were only the beginning ones; Prunella and Mrs. Palmer did worse things to me than you could imagine.  You know, now I’m beginning to think about it…revenge might not be such a bad idea. 

On one hand I could get away with it and prove to Mrs. Palmer that Prunella is a snobbish and unfaithful girl, or prove that Mrs. Palmer is wrong, or get her sacked or Prunella expelled.  On the other hand, I could be the one who gets expelled; Mrs. Palmer will always try to defend her “precious little buttercup” and never listen to both sides of the argument, or Mrs. Palmer would have to talk to my parents.  You will never know…

Wednesday the 26th of July was a night where Carlingford High School’s Senior Dance and Drama groups performed spectacularly. 

The day of the concert, there was a rehearsal where Year Nine, Eight, and Seven were invited to watch and support their peers perform for the upcoming performance. Some of the drama items were individual creations and were performed by the creators.  The dances were mostly put together by Year 12’s and then performed in mainly two’s and three’s.  There was also a Year 10 dance item performed by Year 10 and others.

What was very interesting about the Performance were the effects of the lights, the meanings and storylines of the dances and drama items, the very entertaining people performing, and the music put to the dances.

The dramas were very dramatic (like they should be) and very convincing.  As entertaining as they all were, some of them were not what you would expect.

Overall the performances were very enlightening to see the compositions put together by people from our school and have it turn out so well.  Lots of hard work was put into the Matinee Performance and it was a great opportunity to see the hard work pay off for a well earned performance.

Wednesday, 19th of July was Carlingford High’s International Day, where everyone got involved in their cultural group and dressed in their cultural costume or dressed in the colours of their cultural flag.  There were a variety of activities, food, and performances from different nationality groups.

The first two hours of school were like any other school day, apart from some people helping with stalls or helping with the preparation for the concert later on in the day.  At the concert there were many performances; songs, dances, musical items, and a couple of fashion parades.

After the concert, everyone was allowed to wander round and look at or help with the stalls.  There was music in the air and a lot of chatter.  Everywhere you went there would be a fantastic stall waiting for you to try some of their food or activities.  A lot of the food was sold quickly on account of them all tasting so wonderful.  There were many stalls including China, Korea, USA, Australia, France, Japan, Italy, Germany, India, Middle-East, and UK.

Even though the weather was not at its best, everyone still had as much fun and enjoyed their time.

The most recent movie that I have seen is Brother Bear.  This movie is set in the North Pole and the characters are Inuits (aka. Eskimos).  Every now and then they hold an initiation ceremony, where a boy becomes a man.

Kenai is the boy who is going to get his totem (what he must act out as to become a man) and Tanaha is the elderly woman who holds these ceremonies after taking a trip to see the spirits. 

After being driven out, because everyone was blaming him for letting a bear get to their food, Kenai finds the bear and they have a fight.  Sitkar and Denahi come to the rescue but Denahi falls into a crevasse and Kenai has to stop and help him.  Sitkar keeps the bear occupied so that the bear won’t go after Kenai and Denahi.  Unfortunately Sitkar was lost in the attempt to save his brothers’ lives, while the bear still survives.

As revenge, Kenai then goes after the bear and ends up killing the bear.  Sitkar appears as a spirit and magically transforms him into a bear.  Denahi arrives just after the transformation and he thinks that the bear killed Kenai. So now there is a chase between the two brothers.

Tanaha finds Kenai and she explains that Sitkar is the one who changed him and that he was the one who needed to go see Sitkar and sort everything out.  On the way, Kenai meets up with a bear cub named Koda.  They make their way to the Salmon Run where bears meet annually, which so happens to be next to the mountain where the lights touch the Earth; in other words…where Kenai can find Sitkar.

Every year at the Salmon Run the bears each tell a story.  When Koda tells his, Kenai found out that he had made a terrible mistake and finally understands why Sitkar transformed him into a bear.  He goes off to the mountain alone…ashamed of what he had done.  In the meantime, Denahi is still out there…not knowing what he is doing anymore.  He is then led by an eagle to Kenai’s destination.

This is a very touching story that tells us that all living things have feelings and we need to respect each other.  It also teaches us that we should think about what the other person would be feeling if you were in their shoes.  The movie “Brother Bear” also reminds people of the saying “the hunter becomes the hunted” meaning that the hunter, Kenai, now knows what it feels like to be hunted, to have to run for your life every time you see a hunter, knowing that you can never be safe.

There is quite a lot of humour along the line of this story and quite a lot of meaning.  I would rate this movie for kids aged 7 and up.  Brother Bear is about “a boy who became a man, by becoming a bear”.

When I first heard that we were going to do a speech in class I felt my heart drop.  I HATE speeches!!!  But nevertheless the speech was compulsory unless you wanted to get a zero.  I quickly searched my brain for topics to talk about.  Everyone else around me was discussing with their friends about what they were going to do as their topic for their speech.

I find it easier to do a speech when you are given a topic to talk about.  Last year I did it about Santa Claus and it was a bit interesting learning about the real Santa Claus, but I still didn’t do as well as I would have hoped.  People will listen to you if you talk about an interesting topic and you have an interesting voice.  That’s why I find it so hard to find a topic that everybody will enjoy.

At first I was going to do something about electricity like if the world would be better off with or without electricity.  But then again that topic wasn’t really interesting and I couldn’t find the information that I needed.  I asked my friends what they think I should do.  They suggested that I do “Peer Pressure” or “Mythological Creatures” (coz I like myths and legends).

I ended up doing mythological creatures because I found it more interesting that peer pressure and thought that we would have learned enough in PDH already.  Then came the research.

There were a couple of sites that I went to and they all gave me a whole list of mythological creatures, then I thought that it was going to be quite difficult to decide what I was going to talk about.  I asked my friends for advice and they suggested that the format would be:

• Start off explaining the topic you are going to talk about
• Give some examples of mythological creatures
• Explain why they were made up/put into stories
• Give some examples of myths
• Then conclude speech

I found that when I followed this format it helped me a lot.

Unfortunately, I left it till the last minute and then I was in trouble.  I was frantically phoning my friends (coz it was in the holidays) and asking for help.  I finally got my act together and calmed down.  It took me about half the night to finish and I finished the day we were supposed to say our speeches.  Fortunately, while I was writing it I remembered what I was writing so I didn’t need that much practice.

Then came THE DAY, the dreaded day.  I’m not really much of a volunteer when it comes to talking in front of the class, so I waited until the teacher called my name out.  Some of my friends went first and they told me that I should volunteer because the person before me said that she’ll do it if I’ll do it.  So I ended up doing it.  Not because I volunteered but because my friend jinxed me and the teacher ended up calling my name…

I was a teeny-weeny bit shaky when I went up to the front of the class, but when I started talking I guess I started to relax.  In my speech there was a little section that I wasn’t quite sure about and I didn’t know what to say so I paused.  I panicked!!!  Everyone looked up at me (the ones that weren’t looking at me already) and I quickly racked my brain for something to say.  Eventually I said something and finished my speech.

At least I had gotten it over and done with, but there’s still next year and the year after that that I can “look forward to”.

 My speech ended up something like this:

“Stories called myths include monstrous and rather bizarre creatures which are mythological and made-up animals that the Greeks put in their stories to explain universal or supernatural happenings. 

Some of the more main mythological creatures are Argus; a monster who had a hundred eyes, the Centaur; an animal who had the body of a horse and a torso and head of a human, Cerberus; a three-headed dog who guarded the gates of the underworld from humans entering and the dead escaping, Cyclops; a type of giant with one eye, Medusa; an ugly monster who had serpents as hair and would turn you into stone if you looked her directly in the eye, Harpies; half-bird and half-woman creatures who stole everything and turned food inedible, Pegasus; a winged horse, and the Sirens who lured sailors to their death by singing to them sweetly and leading them to the raging seas.

The Greeks put these creatures into their stories because it makes the story more interesting where it claims to be a true story but on the other hand we know that it is not.

An example of these myths is about Medusa, the beast with serpents as hair and could turn you into stone if you looked her directly in the eye.  Medusa was actually a beautiful maiden who had lovely long hair.  She thought that she was the most beautiful being in the world, even more beautiful than the God Athena.  Athena got offended and got Zeus to punish her.  Zeus punished Medusa by turning her into a hideous monster that could paralyse anyone who dared to look at her.  He also turned her lovely long blonde hair into poisonous serpents.  Persus, a Greek hero, beheaded Medusa while she was sleeping using the messenger God, Hermes’, winged shoes and Athena’s sword by using the reflection of her from his shield so he wouldn’t look into her eyes directly.

From the blood spurting out from Medusa’s neck, out sprang Pegasus, the winged horse, who flew up to the heavens and became a constellation after trying to be ridden on.

Now you know a little bit more about mythological creatures and what happened to Medusa and where Pegasus came from.”