Closing Time

Graduation Dinner. It's all been building up to this. It's finally time for me to say: "well, goodbye folks, great knowing you... Stay in facebook touch..." Well, I say that and more.

Graduation Dinner this year was fantastic. Firstly, I have to say a big congratulations to the active graduation dinner committee who put quite a bit of hard work into organising the venue, playlists, liaison with the venue and making slideshows and what not. Fantastic work. It was a night that many considered as memorable, some more, than ball night. After all. This night was ours. Not to be shared with some fifth or sixth formers.

Pre-grad at Nadia's house was awesome. Big thank you for organising that. I love 'the girls' and I can totally imagine the same bunch of us coming back and having our girls' nights except half, slash most of us will be married. Woohoo! Nothing beats a little wine and salmon. Very classy. Taxi van arrived and before we knew it we were stepping into the Crowne Plaza ball room.

Sparkling wine was a nice touch and we mingled a bit, checking out the surroundings before heading instead taking a billion photos. Hahaaa. Very soon dinner was served and we all agree it was a pretty bitchin' meal. Butter chicken and fish and salad. What next?! Dessert was crazy good too. Chocolate mousse could have been a bit more chilly but meh. We had five cakes to pick from!

Shortly, the main 'formal' part of the night began. The awards ceromony. Here's a short run-down of the winners. Apologies for my slightly lame-o handling of the powerpoint btws...

Best Laugh

Hayley Atkinson

Cutest Couple

Eddie Hunter-Higgins and Taylor Evans

Best Hair

Tim Lokes

Life of the Party

Alina Oleinik

Rebel of the Year

Rupert Woodroffe (nice backflip)

Bachelor of the Year

Christian Gower

Bachelorette of the Year

Nina Reutlinger

Number One Legitimacy Award

Kurt Matthes

Great valedictorian speech by the most legit guy of the year can be found on my facebook somewheresss... The the love kick started. The dancing that was. Two or three hours of good, solid dancing that even Lew-Dawg himself got into!!! Good sport. Song of the night was most definitely Dynamite... aka Dale-mite. The song was written for us man! I will always remember jumping around in a crowd of 100 odd sweaty teenagers squished into the space half the size of a small classroom.

The night out after was just insanely tiring and essentially me (and I'm sure many other girls) asking for more pain. Oh but it was worth it. A warm-up trip to Cassette and then an easy take-over of Met and Code cemented the night's awesomeness and well... Left us all mother-bitchin' tired afterwards. I didn't sleep until four which wasn't too bad but man I am feeling it now.

Looking back on all of my blog posts, all 40 of them (what a great rounded number) I am bloody happy I did this. Oh here we go. Me being all proud and high and mighty and what not. I'm over that. I really like how we can look back on the year 'in-the-moment' and you should totz come and visit here occasionally.

Nostalgia is a beautiful thing.

So ends a chapter of my life. Our lives rather. This is my final post. Thanks for reading if you have been reading from the start. Special mention to Mr Edward Hunter-Higgins who never failed to 'like' each blog... and to you... If you're reading right now. It was all for you.

Next chapter: After School Activites: A Blog for the Bored

I'm Beached As.

Today is the 11th of October 2010. Officially the last day of school.

It's such a strange feeling to be top of school, leaving it to a bunch of lame-o sixth formers (jokes, it's been great getting to know a lot of you perpetual sixth formers) and having to move on into a new stage of life. Geez that's corny. Anyway, let's skip that mush and save it for Grad Dinner.

We headed into school for a mid-morning assembly. The last ever (ooo...these 'last evers' are crazy eh?). Good thing no one had to sit on the floor! Ms Lee, Ms Learmonth, Mr Dye and even Mr Lewis all received hearty applause for the final time. Gotta make mention of good ol' McIvor reading the NCEA rules... pulling Keanu up to read them. What a nice touch. At least we were more engaged by Keanu's deadpan. Fantastic effort.

I really enjoyed the present of an Avondale College pin and ribbon. May have been small but I will find that pin and ribbon one day and be happy. Happy. Happy Happy.

What was really on minds however was this...

Piha hang times on the last day of school. Classic combo. Even better when the sixth formers are there stamping a small establishment and then half of seventh form rocks up and acts as if they own the beach... Which, let's face it... we pretty much did ;)

Great summer times. Here we come guys. x

Senior Prizegiving 2010

Again, I am lacking a cool and witty title. However, I will pass on cool titles for a sentimental and meaningful post instead.

Firstly, thank you Alejandro for a beautiful photo! I will frame it and put in on my shelf fo sure!

Jess and I arrived a little bit off 6:30pm and found the lovely Mr Gould fretting over our seats! I was picked to deliver a flower pin-thing to Mr Lewis' wife.

Me: "Ms Sterling? Who's that?"

Gould: "... that's Mr Lewis' wife"

Me: *slightly awkward pause*

The powhiri was intense with one girl in particular (Jana help me out?) who was going so all out! I was scared and impressed. Then to Kevin Glubb's speech... followed by Year 11 prizes. That was niceeee. Well done in particular to Adeel my lovely! Owning up in Drama :) No pressure to do it next year kiddo! ;)

Music performance by the string quartet - a highly professional group whom I have come to really admire and love!

Year 12s. Well done to all of my kids who got prizes! You know who you are. Fat LOL to Zak for sharing the Drama cup with Jess.

After an always excellent performance by Big Band - Mr Lewis' 20 minutes speech. I was told after that the staff bet on how long he takes and then chase up on it at a big staff piss up in F block. LOLLLLZZ.

Year 13 prizes. What a nice surprise! Congratulations to you subject winners and an even bigger one to special prize winners. I won the Moppy Williams Cup for spirit towards Taurewa Camp only to have my first name left out :( Being fixed :) I also won the Phil Raffils Memorial Scholarship. This gave me a handy sum of money which I shan't disclose. Let's just say I bought a camera.

I want to thank everyone who has supported me and helped me to do well academically and through service at Avondale College. To the ones who made it harder for me, thanks too. I appreciate your crap because it only made me strive harder. This will pay off in uni I am hoping?

Oh yes.

Time to use the camera.

Tradition Fulfilled

Today's blog entry will feature the importance of 'tradition fulfilled'. As such, it will have few words and many images. Once again - courtesy of the amazing Jana Nee who throughout the year has never ceased to amaze me. x

Sorting out mock assembly is one of the hardest things you will ever do next to exams - so to whoever tries next year. Best wishes. The worst part is the scrutiny you're under by the teachers and your own peers. The best thing about it is, obviously, seeing it come together. We have camera footage of the whole thing. Let me know if you are indeed organising mock assembly 2011. I will hook you up gee.

Thank you to:

Hayden While - Mr Lewis (the hardest role, might I add)

Jess Ghaemaghamy - Ms Brown (also hard - opening the whole thing)

Andy Long (Mr Hill)

Daniel Young (Mr Dye - a late addition)

Keanu Hargreaves-Clyde (Mr McIvor - classic deadpan. LOL at McIvor making him read the exam notices at the final assembly!)

Guy Mardell (Mr Healey - you were the only one with the accent!)

Jamie Buckley (Healey's shoe and head shiner!)

Jenna Malkin (Sarah Woolley)

Kurt Matthes (Ben Maiava)

Edward Hunter-Higgins (Mr Jamieson)

Kieran Barling (Christina Gower - too sexy)

Courtney Vowles (Moppy)

Steph Glubb (Nicola Thomas)

Akash Anthony (Deelan Patel)

Kevin McMillan (Ash Hulme/audio!)

Monique Simpson (Jana Nee - kia ora!)

Sam Russell (Ms Wynne - last but not *whistle* least)

Nick Rebers (Mr Weeks)

Georgia Harris (Mrs Weeks)

Nicola Thomas (Ms de Vries)

Ellice Giles, Kevin Fong, Dan Liu, Greg Shubel and Anthony Gampell as various teachers

Thanks times a billion for anyone else who helped out and anti-thanks a million the intense island hecklers. Heckling is OK but when you're yelling at the kids "dry!" and stuffsss... That's pretty gay. Especially when you didn't have the guts to do anything even when we gave you chances. Cheers.

Anyway - no use in ranting. After this - oh, oh boy! After this was just sooo much fun! Raving on the field to Taio Cruz, shoulder rides, giant circles, water fights, cricket, gridiron and the streaker. Like I said. Tradition fulfilled. He was all right. Right? Good stuff.

I really cannot believe that it has come to our last day of school. Timetabled day of school rather. I'm not quite ready to give my final blog post and so I will not go all mushy on you yet. Only semi. Like... crushed or the level above crushed...?

Hand 'em Over

Oh yes. Prefect Initiations. I'm just going to get right into this.

Firstly, a congratulations - no matter what others say you - future prefect- are important to the school. Life is a pecking order. There will be some people who reeeallly deserved this title. You know who they are. We 2010's know who they are. That's life. You will still have an amazing year and hey! You non-Prefects may even show up some Prefects. Trust me. It happens.

Sorry for the Cambridge kids who didn't have a chance at a proper initiation. There may come a time where you will be called up randomly and we will throw things like water, eggs and life - at you. Your year was the first lot of 'Cambridges' so at least you can combat this problem next year!

Here are a few of my favourite photos taken by Amanda and Jana :)

In backwards order sorry...

After

Head Boy Ben the Slavedriver

Isabella Wilson. Sexy, sexy make-up

Water boys

Know you all had good fun. Best wishes for next year, kids!

-Prefects 2010

Jazz in the Park

I am seriously running out of cool and witty titles. Ah well, no matter. Still going to update on the hapsss. Today (Friday 5th of November) was the highly successful, highly cool, highly sexy Jazz in the Park.

Sarah and I have been thinking about this for some time. Sarah came up with it... ooo... Must have been like late term two, early term three... We approached our Dep. Prin. and we got it cleared about a week just before.

We got a lot of interesting build up. First of all. We introduced the event at assembly as a Devereux playing simple tunes for the students to guess. That was pretty sweet. Then we get the Jazz Combo saying that Dev hadn't actually told them yet. LOLZZZZ. Alll good. A gig is a gig. Apparently, when a musician complains about a gig... they have it too good. Nothing against you guys - Jazz Combo - you were fantastic.

Although we had been given the mean spiel about wagging or asking teachers for time off, we did it anyway. Sarah and I actually ran around the school searching for favours from the sports department to the drama department to Ms Wynne... Connections peeps.

We managed to get a reeeeaallly long extension cord from BRENDON and hooked that up to the College shop then we were finally in action. We spent some time, spinning around in circles and marvelling at the sun which had finally decided to turn up

Soooo many good shots from the day were taken - thanks to Jana Neeeeeeed you...

I semi-lied. I took those photos... Jana's camera was amazing!

It was a really amazing day and we were totally surprised by how many people really got out there and cranked picnics and pumpkin pasties ;) Even Mrs Kemp, Moppy and her crew were out there with the whole antipasto thing going on. Highly impressive! Great spirit Avondale College. Keep it up for next year mmkay?

Sports Dinner 2010

Could have thought of a much cooler title but it's all good. Sports Dinner 2010 marks the beginning of the end. Ugh. Hate to use awful cliches. However, in the words of Steph Glubb: "This is true." Pretty soon it's prize giving and then -

Well it's the end.

Anyway, let's start this off with a nice picture of TeBay holding a golf trophy a teeBay? Geddit? OK...

The 'sports council' gets to spend the whole day preparing which really means sitting in the PAC waiting for orders. Nothing too interesting. Except at about 11am some guys came in to deliver the tables and jugs which... we had already set up. Awkward. More tea? More jugs?

The set up this year was really, really nice thanks to Ms Elijas who did the flower arrangements and had a fantastic table set up like so:

It looked even cooler with the candles lit up at night.

After set up (which ended up being all day long) we gapped home and got changed. When I say we, I say Jess, and when I say "gapped to get changed" I really meant slept for as long as we could leaving us with half an hour to get ready. Not too pressuring to be honest.

We arrived at 6pm-ish and sneaked into the PAC to our reserved seats. This is the first photo taken of the night from iPhone.

How mischievous. A little while later when guests started arriving, we settled down for a welcome speech from the always awesome Kevin Glubb (who DID NOT sign my certificate! Oh sadness). Promptly following was a spit roast dinner. Omnomnomnomnomnomnomnomnom. I enjoyed the fact that the jazz combo got their own reserved table at the back this time ;) I eat a lot and felt quite botz eating next to Maggie Bradley... Hey! Gotta make the most of $30.

Anna Scarlett was our guest speaker and probably the best we've had for years. She was super funny and really animated so I am told - I sat in the wings with Monique to deliver flowers and we only heard her voice. She seemed nice. Afterwards, Monique and I sat next to her and told her a story about how we had seen her training at College Rifles once. Now she's coming to watch a game. Oh hooray!

One of the highlights of the prize giving was Mr Shaw for Coach of the Year. Everyone was stoked. This year, it was the 1st XI Girls' Football who made all the noise - a stark contrast to the years prior where boys have been the 'life of the party'. We gave him a standing ovation that I'm sure he absolutely loved. Mad respect.

I would go over the prize winnings but what I'm really writing about is the 'togetherness' we enjoyed. Cheesy but you love it.

Dessert was a selection of Pavlovas, fruit salad and brownies and afterwards, Mr Lewis spoke followed by Ben and Leaper. Ben - your speech making has really come far! So proud of the way your spoke and how you incorporated other peoples memories. That was a nice touch. And Leaper - even hough you ripped the girls' worlds from under their feet again, we love you. Your story straight from junior sport was nostalgia-city and man was it good.

Well done to all sports winner and to all sports players for once thing. Sports really gets people together, competitive, social -

...we're all winners.