Yes Over and Done With!!!

I was just so nervous when Mr. Burt was about to smack the starter blocks together and when he did, that was the signal for us to start. "Okay, ready, set" and as Mr. Burt was about to yell out go he smacked the starter blocks together and off the lot of us raced, like a flock of birds shooting off to a place with a warmer climate. Oh and because we were running out of time the 11 year old girls had to run with the 11 year old boys.

But luckily we weren't racing against each other. It'll just be the normal race but we'd be running with the boys.

But back to the race. My feet were as wobbly as jelly and my feet were always like this when I was nervous. SMACK went Mr Burt with the race starters (which were two blocks of wood that you smack together.) Like I said before we were like a flock of birds shooting off to a place with a warmer climate. We were told by the teachers to jog before we sprint so that we have more energy to sprint to the finish line. Not many of us did this because some of us were eager to win.

I was coming forth but unfortunately I stopped and Vaha and somebody else ran ahead of me. I wasn't really worried because if I didn't come first I didn't actually really mind. I didn't really mind because even though I didn't come first I still ran the whole race (with a few stops.)

So as I was still running and coming seventh place Destiney was coming first which wasn't quite of a surprise because she's someone who always comes first. But I was proud for her because she's my friend. She and a bunch of other people who came a place in the race are going into the inter-zones which I think is at Glenn Brae Primary.

Anyway I was near the finish when I stopped to wait for my friends so we could run with each other. So we did and we all run to the finish line. That was when I was really happy because even though I came eighth place I was so happy because I had gotten it over and done with!!!!

Even though Cross Country is over we've still got Athletics to go which I would love to do!!!!!!!

Hamish Campbell a Very Clever Person

It was on the morning of the 5th of August that we had another one of those special video conferences.  This time our special video conference was with a famous paleontologist and Geologist who's name was Hamish Campbell.

We have had a video conference with him before but that conference was based on chatting about our topic from last term which was about dinosaurs.  This time our chat was about the Fiordland earthquake.  Hamish explained to us a few interesting facts about earthquakes and about the earthquake that happened in Fiordland.  Some of the facts that he shared with us were very hard to understand because we aren't experts on earthquakes (like Hamish), but luckily Hamish is a talented person who can take difficult words and make them sound easier to understand for children like us.  

Anyway back to the facts.  He told us that there are 2 different plates covering New Zealand called "the Australian plates" (which is on the left  side of the New Zealand) and the other set of plates called "the Pacific plates" (which is obviously  on the right side of new Zealand.) Another fact was that the Fiordland earthquake was named Dusky Sound and it measured up 7.6m on the Richter scale, it is said to be the largest earthquake in the world since the 2nd largest one 80 years ago.  He also said that there was once an earthquake that hit a village in China called Tangshan and lasted for 15 seconds, unfortunately it only lasted a vast amount of seconds but killed over 200,000 people.  It was a very sad tragedy.   

What is also very sad is that Hamish told us that Joan Wiffen died.  If you don't know who Joan Wiffien is well, she was the first person in New Zealand to find a fossilized part of a dinosaur. She is famous to the extension group because we did research on her when we were learning about dinosaurs.  She is also well known to the rest of New Zealand because before she found the fossilized part of the dinosaur, it was thought that no species of the dinosaur had ever stomped around on the land we now know as Aotearoa-New Zealand.  Thanks to her we now know that dinosaurs stomped around in our part of the land.

And thanks to Hamish Campbell, Diana-Grace and Te Papa museum for setting up another awesome video conference.  Not most kids get to talk to a famous Geologist and paleontologist!!