• 20Feb 08

  My School ...

  Yes, as you may guess by the title, this blog is about my school. It's a pretty long one, and before I loose you all, I will apologise for not replying to blogs. Throughout this blog I will explain why I have been so busy.

  I'll get it off, first. The school which I go to will be called SCG (the abbreviation of our school name). It's in south-western Sydney, has quite a good reputation and is well known, as it is on about a thousand acres of land. Also, it's an all-boys school.

  Now, before I get further into this, I will get a little history on the school. It's an old Marist Brothers school which was set up about 82 years ago on donated land. The buildings are old and the school has gone through development with rooms just added on in the decades. Our school is known for our sporting feats, being tops in both league, soccer, basketball and cricket. We have not been known much for our academic achievements, though in the past 2 years we have toped 3 subjects (2006 - Primary Industries; 2007 - Legal Studies and Studies of Religion 2 Unit). So, now this is done, lets get into the juicy bits:

  I've been going here since year 7, and I've always thought of it as an ok school. Nothing more, but sometimes less as the people in charge (our 'Headmaster' as he called himself) wasn't a very nice person. Our old principle looked down on the students, though he was supposed to be friendly to those who he knew, he really didn't do much as he always seemes to look down on us. One of his most famous quotes is "now boys ...". Whenever we heard this we always knew we were going for a lecture. Well, he left at the end of last year.

  On top of this, the facilities of our school are mixed at best. Our sporting fields and front gardens are great, I admit it. Thing is, we have about 70 class rooms. Only about half of them have ceiling fans, and less then a quarter have curtains. Most of the carpet needs to be replaced due to leaking roofs and the walls have been painted every colour under the rainbow due to Wattle donating the off-shade paints to us. We have 6 computer rooms (about 180 computers), plus a study hall and library, so there is about 250 computers within the school for use by students. About 20 classes have DVD/Computer/VCR projectors, 2 have SmartBoards, and 10 classrooms have air-con. None have heating.

  Early last year our school was donated by the local Catholic Club $250,000. This, along with Government Grants, gave us enough money for fixing all this. They did do some necessary work, but the majority of the work was doing a new staff room on the top level (abandoned level) of one of our buildings and old library. They also made a new library and new study hall, as well as a new administration area. They also put in VolleyBall courts and new cricket nets. This is all well and good, but it didn't help the classes.

  At the end of last year our school got another donation fo $1,000,000 by the Marist Brothers. This is now where things get good. We have a new principle and a new director of students. The new principle is bloody awesome! He's a brother and is pretty old, yet he gives us a voice. In the first assembly he had said "if any of you boys have any suggestions, or just want to say hello, just walk into my office or email me". Well, we had an assembly today. To cut a long story shorter, he has planned to spend the million on air-cons in all classes (previously not even considered because it would 'cost too much). He also said all the classes would be curtainted and re-carpeted. The road (which is currently ****) will be resurfaced, as well as them doing up our dustbowl of a Seniors Area.

  Too bad that I am leaving at the end of this year, as it seems this new principle we have is a breath of fresh air in our school. He seems to be doing great things. I wonder why they didn't get him in 5 years ago.

  PS - Don't think that we're that lucky getting that large donation. Our school sold half the land which we have and used that money. I am very fortunate to go to such a great school as I do now!

  • Posted Feb 20, 2008 2:22 am GMT
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• 8Jan 08

  Many blogs in one

  I'm going to talk about a lot of things in this one blog ... enough to make about 5 different blogs. Please find the time to read this, as there won't be another blog from me for a while probally. Also, I'm trying to get back up-to-date with blog post replies ... should reply to most of your blogs within the next few hours.

  ---

  Quad-Annual 'Social Gathering which involves Playing Games and Drinking Coke'

  For the few people who have been on my blog for a while, you would probally know that me and my mates have bbeen having what is essentially a Nerd Party of playing games and drinking Coke. Normally it alternates between me and my mates place, but it's been around one of my mates ('Spike') for the past few times. It's usually an overnight event (3 days max) which involves playing games such as Halo (2 normally, but since njow nearly everyone has a 360, 3 now), Call of Duty 4, Gutar Hero 3 and any other game which we have for each of the 4 360's set up.

  As for this time, there were 11 people there, with 9 there constantly. We had a lot of fun killing each other on many of the games .... myself normally either 2nd last, within the middle or at the top, depending on the Slayer type. For example, we did a 250 kills random everything slayer, in which I got to about 150 kills and was around 3rd last. Then we did an all-rockets slayer and I got 2nd to 100 kills.Other popular ones were 100 kills Jugarnaught where the jug had the other 10 people on him, and some other things on him (one had him at 300% shield yet 25% speed ... another one had the Jug at 150% shields but 300% speed in a very long level which was littered with swords ).

  There was many times which we played GH3 also. This was something which I suck at. I can barely hit 50% notes on normal. Two of the people (Vile and Tom) are expert players and do Through Fire and Flames on Expert hitting 3000+ notes and getting really high scores. CoD4 system link was not working to what we though so we played little of it. We also played a little of 1-Player Resistance, Rachet & Clank, and Halo 3 Co-Op.

  Now, where's the party without the food and coke? How about deep-fried snags on the barbie (deep fried in fat) for dinner, as well as choc cereal in choc milk for breakky? As for Coke ... well, we filled up this bin of Coke cans:

  

  So overall I can say that there was a lot of happy gamers and happy Coca-Cola Amital shareholders who walked away from these 2 days happy

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  29/01/2008 - Wish Me Luck!

  On this date I will be going for my Red P's. It involves the first and only time I will need to drive with someone who will be marking at how good I drive. I reckon I'll be ok, but I will need some luck to get it. For all you people from overseas, this is a half-hour driving test you need to complete to be abe to drive by yourself as well as drive above 80k's (limited to 90 though). I have another lesson later this week and another the hour befor ethe test ... I hope I do well ....

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  The Chronicles of Coles: The First Flight

  Many of you would not know this, but I am an employee of my local Coles Supermarket. For you overseas, Coles is an Australian supermarket, being the 2nd largest supermarket chain in Australia. Owned by Coles Group, the second largest retailer in the Land. It was just brought out by Westfarmers, so now Westfarmers is the largest retailer in Australia. Anyway, I work in Fruit and Veg, and I get a lot of funny stories from work, as well as some not-so-funny ones. Many of these stories come from my boss, who is a total dumb ****. For example, he has been working for Coles for the past 30 years. We were talking when I last worked and he said "The sales of Coles is up since Westfarmers brought out Coles. People are thankful that it is an Australian company now and will buy Australian, unlike when the Americans owned Coles". Thing is, Coles was always an Australian company .... he has been working for a company for the past 30 years and didn't know which country owned it .... WTF????

  Another famous quote from him is "I don't know why grapes have to go into the coolroom to stay fresh. They weren't in the coolroom when they were growing and they still survived". Also, 'Coolroom' is spelt 'Colroom', 'Floor' is spelt 'Flour' and 'Tonight' is spelt 'Tonite'. I'm not saying that I never say anything stupid, but my boss does things which are stupid every day.

  On another note about work, I'm cutting my shifts from 54 hrs a week to 24 hrs a week due to school ... and I have 85 hours of annual leae (leave with pay) accumulated ... so I can take almost 4 months off work PAID!!!

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  Schoola-Sucks ... even in the Holidays

  Yes. I have 8.5 months at school and I am counting down the days already. Now I don't mind school, I can say that I even enjoy school. Thing is, this is my final year at school. This year (my HSC year) is the hardest and most stressful one. For me it will ocnsist of (if I can drive) getting home at 3.45 after 6hrs at school every day and doing straight from then to 7.00 schoolwork, then 7.30 to about 9.00 the same. Not a very exciting year to look foward to .......

  And holidays ... well, I go back to school in just over 20 days. I've got to do 63 pages of questions for Snr Science, 10 pages of Business, a Chapter of Maths and read two books for English, as well as get up-to-datye with notes for eveything in these 20 days. Looks like there is no more time for games ...

  Whoo ... anyway, on that note I will finish this blog to get back to Snr Science questions *cries*

  • Posted Jan 8, 2008 7:03 pm GMT
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• 30Dec 07

  New Years I Upon Us ...

  Yes, 2007 is almost over. Currently I have another 11 hours and 15 minutes before 2008 begins.

  Personally, New Years aint that really important to me. Sure, I like it, but it ain't really that exciting. Though, it is a large milestone, and I seem to do New Years Resolutions every year and don't keep to them. Here are what I said I was going to do this year:

  - Get down to 75 kilos in weight. I'm currently still 92 kilos
  - Finish 12 Video Games (1 per month). Finished a total of 3 games this year
  - Get to Level 35 on Gamespot. Only level 32 now
  - Spend more time hanging out with my mates! Sorta happened, though not as much as I hoped

  I'm not really that good with New Years Resolutions .... I'm going to keep setting them, though, as I think they are sorta fun to set. Thing is, I'm not going to get 'resolutions' this year, but 'goals' of things and such, and hopefully, by this time next year I can look back at them and see how I went.

  - Get a UAI of 80.00 or above.
  - Get an average of 80% or above in every assessment task I do.
  - Keep up-to-date, on a weekly basis, with study notes and textbook questions.

  - Get up to level 35 by March's end.
  - Get up to level 40 by the end of the year.
  - Sustain my moderation position and try to average over 150 mods a week.

  - Buy SSBB and Mario Kart Wii.
  - Finish (fully) SMG.
  - Buy a 360 at the end of the year when I finish my HSC.

  - Get a Girlfriend.
  - Get my P's and drive to school and work, so it takes less time.
  - Go to the gym.

  There are my New Year Goals. For a bit of help you you non-Australians, UAI is the Universities Admissions Index. It's a rank of everyone in the State to do the HSC that year. I want to get an 80 or above to prove I am in the top 25% of the state (it's confusing). Getting an 80.00 will allow me to be able to go into my desired course (Economics such-and-such) at the Uni of Woolongong. Even if I don't get it, getting a UAI of 70+ will get me into it at my local university, but I want to go to Woolongong.

  Anyway, thanks for reading this ... and if you didn't see my last blog, my SMG review is up. Thanks!

  • Posted Dec 30, 2007 5:58 pm GMT
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