God's Email

I got this joke from Sararose's blog


One day God was looking down at Earth and saw all of the rascally behaviour that was going on. So He called one of His angels and sent the angel to Earth for a time.
When he returned, he told God, 'Yes, it is bad on Earth; 95% are misbehaving and only 5% are not.

God thought for a moment and said, 'Maybe I had better send down a second angel to get another opinion.'

So God called another angel and sent him to Earth for a time. When the angel returned he went to God and said, 'Yes, it's true. The Earth is in decline; 95% are misbehaving, but 5% are being good.'

God was not pleased. So He decided to e-mail the 5% that were good, because He wanted to encourage them, and give them a little something to help them keep going.

Do you know what the e-mail said?

Okay, I was just wondering, because I didn't get one either!

The Crystal Brook Show

I can't remember what happened at last year's annual show at Crystal Brook show... but I think I'll always remember what happened this year!
We arrived (on time, might I add) to Crystal Brook to start our performance (with the Clare Valley Concert Band), after our first 'set', we went for a walk, and then returned to play our second set. After that, it was lunch. I had the brilliance of a large chocolate thick shake.. yuuumm...
Then, we went to look at the artwork. As soon as I entered the pavilion, I looked up, and said;
"Mum! My David Tennant picture won a prize!"

First Prize! (In the portrait section)

Of course, Mum replied with "What? You can see it (the picture) already?"
I was surprised too, since it was at the opposite end of the pavilion!

When we reached the part where all of my drawings were, I'll admit it, I was disappointed. In 3 out of the 4 categories I entered in, I was the only one to enter, ah well. The only section that had other entries in it was the 'open' (anything) section. All in all, I entered 12 drawings.

Second Prize (In the portrait section)

Third Prize (In the portrait section)

First Prize (Animals)

Second Prize (Animals)

Third Prize (Animals)

First Prize (Black & White Drawing)

Second Prize (Black & White Drawing)

Third Prize (Black & White Drawing)

First Prize (Open)

Third Prize (Open)

No Prize (Open)

And because I won the most prizes in the '17 years and under' section, I got a 'trophy'!

But that wasn't all! After we looked at the art in the pavillion, we went off to see whether we could find a hat stand (Mum wanted a hat). Dad found one, and there was a hat there (no surprises there). But the thing is, that this hat was one I had been looking for for months!

I've had the one on the left (the pink one) for a few years,
but I always wanted a black one as well!

So, yes, I was very very happy! But then, as I was walking along with Mum, I hear Daniel calling out to me, and see him beckoning. I walk over to see what in the world he wanted me for. He showed me a competition for the intermediate rural ambassador (I don't have to do anything, it was just a fun competition on the day).
I filled out a form with my name, age, school (homeschool!), where I live, and some hobbies and interests.
Then, I went up and answered a few questions.
"So, you play clarinet, does that take a lot of effort?" (person asking questions)
"Yeah, I practice for around 1-2 hours every day." (me)

"Is drawing a big part of your life?"
"Well, I draw quite a lot, in fact, I've entered quite a few drawings today, and I've won a heap of prizes"

"What do you want to do after you finish homeschooling?"
"I hope to go to university to continue my study of clarinet"

Those were the three questions I was asked, and my three answers! Then, the judges talked for a few minutes, and the winners were called out.

"The runner-up is Daniel!" (his prize was $20)
"The winner is Helena!"

Here's my ribbon;

My badge/ribbon

Then, after one more set of playing in the band, we started packing up to go home. We went for a quick skwizzee through the pet shed, and what do you think we found?
There were border collie pups for sale! (their mother was a pure-bred border collie, their father was a kelpie)
They were $80, and guess what? We bought one!

Our new dog, Crystal

So yes, all in all, it was a brilliant day!

Epic Heroes

In our Literary Lessons From Lord Of The Rings, we have just finished The Fellowship of the rings, and as our final 'unit study', we learnt about epics and epic heroes.

An epic was originally defined as a "long, narrative poem that recounts the deeds of a hero and represents the values of a particular civilization of culture"

Some of the greatest epics in history are;

The Odyssey - Attributed to Homer

The Iliad - Attributed to Homer

The Aeniad - Vergil

Epics, of course, have epic heroes in them. But an epic hero could also be in a story that isn't an epic.

Anyway, I was reading through the classifications that is needed for a character to be classed as an epic hero, and as I read through them all, one particular character of a series came to my mind; The Doctor from Doctor Who.

At the end of this unit study on epics, I had to choose one of five writing assignments. I chose number 4;

'Have you read any books or seen any movies that portray an epic hero? Write a paper telling how this hero fits some, or all, of the qualifications as an epic hero.'

Of course, Doctor Who is a series (although there is a movie and books!), but I figured that was close enough... anyway.. here's my essay (apologies for any spoilers etc. in the second to last paragraph [the one with 'The Eleventh Doctor' next to it] for those of you who haven't, but plan to, see Doctor Who.)

The Doctor: An Epic Hero

By

Helena

08 / August / 2012

   What is an epic hero? He is not necessarily the main character of a story. Epic in the modern day society means large, or massive. In the early days of poetry, however, an epic was an extensive, narrative poem that recounted the deeds of a hero and represented the values of a civilization or culture. Being classified as an epic hero in these poems meant that he (or she) had to pass certain qualities:

1. The epic hero is often of super-human origin
2. The epic hero is favoured by the gods
3. The epic hero performs super-human feats of strength and endurance
4. The epic hero must have previously proven his courage in battle
5. The epic hero is of national or universal importance and will hold the fate of a nation, civilization, or world in his hands
6. The epic hero represents the values of his age (culture)
7. The epic hero will usually take a journey to the underworld in order to accomplish his goal

The First Doctor

In BBC’s TV series, Doctor Who, The Doctor, who happens to be the main character, is an excellent example of a modern epic hero; he has mostly passed all of the above qualities. The Doctor, however, has not gone to the underworld, but he has gone to some pretty dangerous places to accomplish his goals!

The Second Doctor

   The first quality of an epic hero states that he must be of super-human origin. In a sense, this is true of The Doctor. He is a Time Lord. Being from this ‘alien’ race, he is therefore ‘higher’ than humans. “Superhuman [means] something that is not human, but considered to be "superior" to humans in some ways. […] A very intelligent or strong alien could be considered superhuman”. ¹ The Doctor is a brilliant alien, and therefore, is classed as a super-human.

The Fourth Doctor 

   The Doctor is not ‘favoured by the gods’, because they are not portrayed in this series. Instead, Time Lords ruled the universe. They chiefly controlled time and space, so they can represent ‘gods’ even though they really aren’t at all. Before the near-extinction of the Time Lords, he is just ‘one of them’; he isn’t favoured at all. When The Last Great Time War was finally over, however, nearly all of the Time Lords were wiped out. The Doctor believed that he had become the last Time Lord, and so, he must have become the favoured one!

Dalek Invasion Fleet

   The epic hero performs superhuman feats of strength and endurance. The definition of endurance is:

The ability to bear prolonged hardship: the ability or power to bear prolonged exertion, pain, or hardship²

Daleks

  To stop The Last Great Time War³, and the destruction of everything in the universe, The Doctor destroyed the ten million dalek ships. The explosions and burning resulted in the destruction of his own planet, Gallifrey, which was put into a ‘time lock’ – nobody could go in or out; it was frozen in time. For many years, he had to learn to live with the fact that he is the last Time Lord. The rest of his race was gone, however, because of that one act. While he may have felt torn, he knows that what he did was necessary. Thus, the obviously has the ability to bear prolonged hardship. This also shows another quality that the Doctor has, which portrays him as an epic hero; the feature to have courage in battle. Performing the act of destroying his whole race, his family, to end a war shows that The Doctor must, indeed, have an enormous amount of courage.

   In nearly every episode, or series of episodes, of this fantastic television show, The Doctor saves:

• The Earth
• Humans
• An alien species
• Another planet
• A combination of two or more from the options above

The Sixth Doctor

Thus, he shows another feature of an epic hero; they are of national or universal importance, and hold the fate of a nation, civilization, or world in their hands. When he protects the humans and/or aliens, he is defending their nation(s) and/or their civilization(s). The Doctor holds the fate of entire planets in his hand, and he protects them, showing that he does, indeed, have this quality of an epic hero.

The Tenth Doctor

An epic hero represents the value of his age.

   The hero must represent the culture he has come from, in the Doctor’s case, Gallifrey, the home of the Time Lords. This ancient race values knowledge, they must have knowledge in order to keep time and space in order. Constantly learning, The Doctor, in all of his adventures, keeps this value true.

      

The Eleventh Doctor

    Although The Doctor has not gone into ‘The Underworld’, in one of the latest Doctor’s episodes he does go into a time crack in order to save the universe. Doing this act meant that he wiped himself from history. He never existed. Because this is not a desirable place to be, this can, in a way, represent The Underworld. By going through the crack, he accomplished his goal; he prevented the destruction of everything that ever existed and everything that ever will.

           

The Doctor's Time Machine
The TARDIS
Time And Relative Dimensions In Space

 The Doctor passes every trait that he needs to be an epic hero. He is a super-human, and the favoured one at that. While he defends the world, he is practicing his endurance to live with the loss of his species. He has proved his bravery. Representing the values of his age, he is constantly learning and working to save mankind. To accomplish his goal, saving the universe, he went through a time crack, which wipes him from existence. He has therefore shown every one of the nine characteristics he needs. Truly, The Doctor is an epic hero!

______

Footnotes

¹ Wikipedia – Superhuman - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-human

² Microsoft® Encarta® 2006 – Encarta Dictionary Tools - Endurance

³ http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Last_Great_Time_War

A Time Lord On Gallifrey

Well, that was interesting!

It was late at night, and we were on our way home from concert band practice. The time was around 10:30pm, and I was dozing, listening to music.

A sudden jolt, and a bam jerked me awake.

Yep, a kangaroo had jumped out from behind a tree, and we slammed  right into it! The roo was able to pick itself up and jump away, but check out our car!

At least we went and wrecked it properly 

Don't you love the new redecoration?

So yeah, we can basically say 'Car, you're not going anywhere!'

Music Exam Results!

My grade is an...

A !

I'm really pleased about this! The comments included how the examiner was pleased that I played all my pieces from memory (even one which was 'lengthy'), how she was pleased that I played my scales promptly and correctly, everything was up to speed, and generally it was very good!

Yay!

Music Exam

After approximately one year of practice, I have finally completed my exam!
Grade 4 - clarinet.

It has been my first ever exam, so I am really pleased with it.

I will get my results within the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned!

I know it's random, but...

CLARINETS RULE THE WORLD!!!!!!!

You people just didn't know it ;)

A thought on feelings... anger

People get angry all the time. For example, people become angry when;

They fail a test

Others laugh at them

They are tricked / teased

etc. etc. etc.

But the questions are; who are they angry at, and why are they really angry?

Now, what are the answers?

I think the answer to the first question (Who) is; They are angry at themselves.

When I am angry, I am angry at myself. I realized this a few weeks ago.

My reasons? Let's say, for example, you fail a test. You are angry. Why? Because you feel like a failure. You feel like if you put some more effort into study, you would have passed.

Ok now for another example; You share a room with one of your siblings, and the room is in a mess. You are interrupted from computer, reading, art etc., whatever you like to do in your free time, to go clean up your room. Of course, it is natural that you'll get angry. Now, who are you angry at? Your siblings? I don't believe so. I think you're angry at yourself. You feel like if you had cleaned your room when you first saw it was messy, instead of putting it off 'till later, you would've been able to finish whatever you were doing in your free time. But who will you blame? Probably your siblings. Why? Because we, as humans, naturally do not like to blame ourselves. When we are blamed for something, we feel guilty, the guilty feeling doesn't feel nice, so we try not to feel it. So, we blame our siblings, so we won't feel guilty. The more we do this, the more we convince ourselves that it really isn't our fault, so rather soon it becomes so natural that we automatically do it!

I believe I answered both questions then but anyway a recap;

Who? We get angry at ourselves Why? Because we don't like to think that we've failed at something.

Well, that's what I think anyway.

Thoughts?

Now for a bit of confusion..

I knew what I wrote and if you don't know that I knew what I wrote than I know that you must not know that you didn't understand it and if I know that you didn't understand it and I know that I know that I am telling you then thus you must know that I know that you don't know but now you know so there!

Ah.. Music

Yesterday, I did an odd thing.

Well, odd for my family anyway.

I walked up to our cupboard of CD's, and started looking through the shelf of classical music.

Usually, my family an I listen to Rock and Pop music, but I pulled out classical music, I wanted something different.

To my absolute delight, I found a CD with some Mozart songs on it, and 3 of the tracks were songs written for 'Clarinet and Orchestra' so I can listen to some clarinet playing now. (My family gave me a couple of strange looks when they heard me listening to classical music haha)

Looking again, I was debating what to put on after I finished with my first CD I found.

Maybe I should put on Handel.

Or perhaps Beethoven.

Or maybe I could listen to Vivaldi.

I saw a thin CD cover, and pulled it out, wondering what it was. Tchaikovsky.

I pulled it out, and looked through the names of the tracks. A few familiar names popped up 'Nutcracker', 'Sleeping Beauty', '1812 Overture',

So I decided I'd try out this one.

I knew most of the songs from The Nutcracker, because I saw a Barbie version when I was little (you know, before Barbie went insane and started ruining movies and stuff, the nutcracker one they did is actually rather good) - anyway, I really enjoy this suite of music! It is entertaining, the mood varies, as does the type of music. Some of the time it's exciting, other times it's calm. It's happy, and sad. It's energetic, then soft. Oh and the whole suite goes for half an hour, so that's half an hour of happiness.

I haven't listened to other composers yet, so I can't pick a favourite, but Tchaikovsky was a genius.

Do you like to listen to classical music? Who's your favourite composer? Have you listened to Tchaikovsky before, and if so, what do you think of the Nutcracker Suite?

Good Wishes To..

All the mothers out there, especially mine


Happy Mothers Day!

May God bless you today :)

Easter

"There is no need for you to be afraid. I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here, for he is risen, as he said he would. Come see the place where he lay..." (Matthew 28:5-6)

Alleluia He is risen!!

Happy Easter everyone!

Quilling

Recently I have taken up another hobby; quilling!



To start with, I take a strand of paper. Then, using my quilling tool, I roll it, and shape it into certain shapes. The quilling tool I use is easy to use, I just need to slot the paper in, and I can roll it up.
It is also possible to use a needle to roll the strips of paper. I haven't really got the hang of it yet, but I'm sure I will eventually.

Taking the rolls and scrolls, I arrange them onto a piece of paper, glue them down, and voila! I'm done! I'm using templates for my little gift-tag-cards at the moment.

Here are the three I have done so far. I did the one on the green background first, the yellow background second, and the red background is my latest one.

I love quilling cause, once I got the hang of the twirling and shaping of the strips of paper, I found that it is quick and pretty easy. I can sit there, and keep my hands busy, but I can still let my mind wander, I can still think about things - unless I'm concentrating on getting something really tricky done (like figuring out how to do the silver flower on the latest one). Quilling is one of my favourite hobbies at the moment.

What are your thoughts on quilling? Which one of mine do you like the best?

Pure & Simple

Last year I began to do computer studies with Pure & Simple book one. It's really good!

In the first half of the book, it teaches about inputting commands. Using a program which is purchased when you buy the book (either Microworlds 2.0 or Microworlds EX depending on your operating system [Linux, Windows 7, Windows XP, etc.]).

Basically, you make animations, learn new inputting codes for this particular program, and things like that.

Then, later on, it begins to teach HTML coding. It shows you the basics, and then sets you a project to make your own HTML website. This is the one I made; (ignore the pop-up ads and whatnot)

http://classifyinstruments.freewebsitehosting.com/

It gets back to programing for the microworlds program for the rest of the book.

In Pure & Simple book two, I started out by making games using the Microworlds program. I made a maze, a hangman game, a race, and one where the player makes a city-type-thing.

Then, it got into 'internet basics' - the first two lessons of this section was googling information. And then it was time to make more websites!

I made one, and I got it to look really good, but then I found that it was supposed to just be a layout, and I was to use an actual website editor.

So I uploaded the one I made - and now I am in the process of making one for the website editor.

spiritlyrics.webatu.com

^ There's the link ^

So yeah, it's great for learning computer basics!

New Carpet!

For the past few weeks, I have been expecting new carpets.
About 5 days or so ago, I began to clean out my room. The first couple of days, I was basically pulling out all the 'stuff', as in, pulling out boxes, clearing out shelves, and basically clearing out everything except for the furniture.
On Sunday and Monday, Dad pulled apart one of the two bunk beds in my bedroom.
Tuesday came around, and I knew that it was time for me to get stuck into it, and get this job done.
I organized for my sister and me to move out my dressing table, which is the heaviest piece of furniture in my room. Then, my older sister's dressing table and our cupboard came out.
Last night, Dad gave me instructions on how to pull out the second bunk bed in my room. About an hour or so later, it was done. The carpet was lifted up. The room was ready for the next morning.
The people came to lay the carpet at around 10-ish (in the morning) today.
A couple of hours later, they were done. I walked down my room, to clean, comfortable carpet.
Because I was used to my old carpet, the new one felt strange at first, but I quickly got used to it.
The rest of today has been spent putting furniture back into my bedroom. First of all, I pulled a desk from our shed (I had one previously, but I grabbed a different and, in my opinion, a better one). After dusting it off, I moved it down my room. Then came my oldest sister's dressing table.
Now I needed help, I emptied out a wardrobe from my younger sisters' room, and my brother and oldest sister moved it into my room. Then my brother and I moved my cupboard back into my room, and, to my delight, it was a perfect fit!
Then, I was given the job of putting one of the bunk beds back together (the second wasn't going back in the room as it is no longer needed). This was quickly shown to be a tougher job than taking it apart. Two and a half to three hours after starting, the job was nearly done. Dad came down to check it, and he pushed it into it's rightful corner. Dad and my brother moved my dressing table back into my room, and all the furniture was in!
Now I just have the small job of sorting out all of the 'stuff' that was in my room... this should be fun!

BeFunky

Imgoen from Dancing With Dragonflies put up a link to a website called BeFunky. It is an awesome photo editing website :) .
Here's some pictures I did of a picture I took of a butterfly;

The Original Picture

Lomo Art 

Cartoon-ized

Underpainting

Cyanotype

Sketch

Impressionist 

Inkified

Line Artopia

Motion Colour

Pop Art

Stencilled

Colour Pinhole effect