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?