Performing Arts for The Fashionista in 2015

I just found a pile of posts sitting in my drafts that I had written but obviously forgot to post it. This is one of them. So please check the dates to see when this was actually written. 


It was a very big year for The Fashionista last year in the performing art area. She chose drama as one of her electives which they did for year 9 and of course she of course had to sign up for everything going as is her way.

Early on in the year she performed in the Sheila Winn Festival with her high school.

The Festival is an annual event that involves more than half the secondary schools in the country. During the Regional Festival, students engage with Shakespeare's plays by performing 5-minute and 15-minute excerpts from them with schools in their area.

Schools from each region are then selected to go on to participate in the National Festival.
She played one of the dancers.  Unfortunately I was sick and didn't make it but her dad and Grandma when to see the regional one she was in. Their school got best costumes I think, but the 'boys' school that they are affiliated with won and went to participate in the National Festival.

This is a pic from one of her dress rehearsals. On the night they also had colourful ribbons tied around their wrists with bells so they jingled when they performed.

She was fortunate enough to attend a Black Grace dance workshop in Auckland with her contemporary group, Manu Wairua, in April. The group was so blessed as Black Grace is New Zealand's leading contemporary founded by Neil Ieremia (on chair in pic) in 1995.

Each student got to partner up with one of BG's dancers and so got some one on one treatment. MW's 'manager' I suppose you could say (far left in the pic below) told me it was very funny to see The Fashionista doing one rather flexible move with her legs and the male BG dancer she was working with try it, and laughingly make some joke about not being quite as flexible as she was. She came home from this event on an absolute high ... the BG group are really warm, funny, flexible and helpful apparently. They were all given Black Grace t-shirts ... it's 12 months later and it is still her favourite t-shirt!

Post workshop pic of MW and BG ... I love how they felt comfortable enough with them to take a funny picture as some events the kids are quite reserved. 

Performing an exercise with one of the BG dancers.

Her drama class performed a couple of sketches in June to show off what they had been working on throughout the two terms. She was one of two given the narrators role (first pic), in the class production and then she got to perform with some of her friends in a mini piece that they had put performed in class where she was the wicked aunt (second pic).  She got a bit of the acting bug doing this course and performing ... hmmmm

Apologies for the quality of the photo, I had to cut her out of a larger one.

Outside of school she started 'en pointe' ballet and also continued with contemporary. Unfortunately due to her travelling such a distance each day to and from school the added external class were more than either of us could take much more of (I was spending hours on the road each day!) so she dropped ballet as it was three classes a week but still continued with her weekly contemporary class. Here's a pic of her the day she took her exams, which she passed.

All of the members of Manu Wairua, except for The Fashionista, attend the same small character School (120 students in total). This school is a very progressive maori school (although you don't have to be Maori to attend there). One of the very talented lasses, who started the group, has been sitting her High school levels in dance and had to choreograph and perform a repertoire as part of her assessment and as they don't have a lot of dancers at their school to choose from so they asked XXXX to help out.

She practiced with her partner a few times and had one practice with the group before going on that night. They were the finale and did really well. It was a war based theme, with very strong and theatrical music.

It was a great night held at a centre in the middle of Hamilton. Some students performed a scene if they were doing drama, some performed on a musical instrument and a few sung with a band they had in to accompany the students. They were being assessed as they performed their routines and they did so well.

Around the same time she was also rehearsing for her schools annual performance. Her girls high school joins together with Boys High each year to put on a big school performance. They each take it in turns to host and run the event. In 2015 it was Boys High's turn to run the event and they chose Jesus Christ Superstar. She actually was one of two year 9 girls (there were about 300 girls in year 9 but of course they didn't all apply or audition) to get a part as a dancer in the show. She was over the moon as you can well imagine.

There were hours and hours and hours of work putting this performance together. Every Sunday between 1 and 6 she attended rehearsals at Boys High, along with another 1-2 nights a week there also. On top of that the dancers rehearsed through their lunch breaks at school for the special performances they were doing in the show that didn't involve the rest of the case. It was tiring that's for sure. 

They ended up performing about 6 shows in July and I have got to say, trying not to be biased, that the show was just AMAZING. The singers were awesome, the dancers perfectly rehearsed and looked so professional, and the student band (up the back in the pics) just first class. Anyone who saw the show was just blown away by it.

She just loved being with the cast and crew and they really bonded during the rehearsals. She still has some amazing friends, even a couple of males ones, from this event. I think I was the highlight of her year. During this show the acting and performing bug hit her BIG TIME and she now wants to pursue it as a career.

She's the wee angel up the back right. She did a beautiful job.

Photo by Cirrus Photography

Can you spot her? She's the wee one at the front left.

Photograph by Feisty Photography

Waiting back stage to go on.

In November she performed in her new dance academy's recital doing contemporary. She was only in the one dance as it is a large school and the recital lasted for about 2 1/2 hours or more!

When I advised the owner early this year that she wouldn't be returning, who also was one of two of her ballet teachers, she told me that she thought she danced beautifully in the recital and that she was welcome back anytime, which was just lovely as she is a very exacting teacher who does not give praise lightly.

My favourite photo taken by the photographer the school hired - she hates it.

That's her in the front, middle.

The Fashionista becomes a Teenager

I just found a pile of posts sitting in my drafts that I had written but obviously forgot to post it. This is one of them. So please check the dates to see when this was actually written as some are over a year old now. 


My darling Fashionista turned 13 recently. We are in the middle of renovations and she didn't really want a party (well anything we could agree on anyway) so I took her down to our bach with a friend for a couple of nights whilst Agent Smelly was away on camp a week later.

She is a particularly amazing young lady. She is extremely intelligent, well-mannered and a delight to have around. Her determination and courage blows me away at times and I can only look on in awe at what her Papa and I have created. 

Reward Scheme

The Fashionista's new school (how long before I can stop saying 'new' school I wonder) came home from her first day of school and showed me one of the things that they do there, that I think is a pretty cool idea and have been meaning to share.

Her tutor teacher explained to the girls that at their school they prefer to encourage the students for good behaviour rather than punish them for bad. I was very happy to hear that, as that is how I attempt to bring up my children. I say attempt as sometimes I do end up giving them punishments ... I mean how many times can one ask someone to please get off minecraft and set the table! So no tablet or device punishments come into place sometimes.

So essentially what happens is that each student gets a card which they can place in front of themselves on their desk during their class.

The rules are the student needs to display

• a willingness to learn
• interaction with respect
• strive to understand
• engage to achieve

If they are displaying these behaviours whilst in class, then the teacher of that class signs it. Not all teachers remember to walk around the classroom, so if they want to, the students can go up to the teacher to have it signed once class is finished. Once the card has been filled they hand it back to their tutor teacher for a new one and the signed one gets submitted to the office.

Once three are accrued they received a Bronze certificate, 6 for Silver and 10 they earn a gold owl badge to proudly wear on the lapel of their blazers. They also have it presented by the School Principal at a special ceremony.

No guessing who already has her sights set on getting that badge. She has completed three cards already ... that poor school won't know what's hit them.


I have discussed it with Agent Smelly and we are going to make up something similar here for her so she can earn stuff at home. She doesn't want a certificate though she has chosen food rewards ... no surprises there either!


 

High School Update - Week 3

The third official week of High School has gone a lot better.
 

 

The worst bit for TF is getting up at 6am or even 5.30 if she wants a shower in the morning! She still gets herself up and doesn't display any bad temper but, she says she is tired and could happily creep back into bed each morning.
 
Science that had gone so badly for her the previous week, went exceptionally well. She got a score (1 point less than the top score) that her tutor teacher (who is also a science teacher) told her was a really high score to get on that particular test.  She told her the first one actually didn't matter, so that has returned her to her previous good feelings about science. A huge relief to me!

She was made the Junior Council Leader (Year 9's and 10's) of her tutorial group which she was thrilled about. In full disclosure she admitted to us, with a big giggle, that she was the only one who had put her name forward for it in her tutor group. Apparently in her merry group of 7 friends all them had put their names forward to represent their respective tutor groups but sadly they didn't get elected. I am not sure exactly what's involved in the position but they attend meetings. She thinks it will be good experience for when she applies for more senior leadership roles down the track ... seriously I never looked that far ahead as a kid ... who is she???

She just loves her drama class so much. They are split into groups and have to put on a little performance to be shown to the rest of the group in a few weeks, based on (not the same as) the movie, The Little Princess (with Shirley Temple).

She did her first Beep Test (running test) ... ever ... and got a pretty good score showing she is quite fast. So bam, in response to "how do home schoolers do PE?" ... like a boss I say!

She had her first real homework this weekend which freaked her out and like all good students spent the first part of the weekend putting off. She spent a lot of Sunday doing it. All she wanted to do was rest but it had to be done, so I had to give her a gentle nudge in getting it complete. Some of it wasn't due until later in the week but seeing she has so much dancing it doesn't leave much time during the week to do it, not to mention she's exhausted of an evening too. Got to say, the homework is crazy and I can't see why they can't do it in class. Write an essay on a biography they have read (English), write about a scientist (Science), write about the appendix (Health/PE and all kids got different body parts) and lastly Social Studies which really annoyed me as it was stuff like, what Iwi do you belong to (it's your Maori tribe), what is your spirit mountain, what beach are you connected to, where do you meet friends and a personal favourite 'how do you get to these places?'. Seriously important stuff there!

I have to say she is really enjoying the social side of things and is having fun with her new friends. She has the group she hangs around with ... I call them the seven dwarves as there are seven of them, and also some other lasses that she has met in other classes. A couple even attend her new dance academy, so she is slowly building up a nice group of girls to associate with again. They text each quite a bit even outside school and are quite a diverse but nice young girls. She has tried a lot of new things too that we probably wouldn't necessarily do in a home school environment. The school had a different sport on each lunchtime for the new girls to go out and try and see if they'd like to join. She is keen to join the dance or drama groups so as much as she'd like to join some sports groups she simply can't fit it all in.

In full disclosure it's not all a bed of roses, besides the travel and homework, she doesn't like the time when they are not doing anything and she doesn't feel that they learn enough or are especially challenged and whilst she thinks all her teachers are actually really nice and helpful, she finds it amazing that they can take a subject and teach it so boringly. She said mum, you aren't even a 'proper' (ahem, I think she means qualified) teacher and you always made learning stuff really fun and interesting. She doesn't have much time for emailing, talking to her 'old' home school friends or even visiting them which saddens her.

High School Update

Well The Fashionista has completed two part weeks back at school (Friday was a public holiday in NZ).

She gets herself up every morning at 6am, and gets her breakfast and gets ready (we do her bag and lunch the night before) to leave at 6.50 with me. I drive her to the nearest town to catch a bus into her school for a 8.45 start. Then she arrives back at the bus stop at 4.30ish for me to pick her up and drive her back home ... you can see the exhaustion in her little face. Frankly I ain't loving the early mornings too much myself and I get up half an hour later than she does.

In year 9 they place all the 300 odd girls in random classes, except for 2 classes which they call extended class for the girls who did well in their placement exams that they took late last year and 1 class for children that didn't do so well and require a little extra help to bring them up to speed.

TF was placed in one of the extended classes which she was pretty chuffed about ... don't get me started on how thrilled the mama, papa and extended family were too. It's kind of nice to have confirmation that home education works as well as we all believe it too. She stays in that class for most subjects except for her electives and math. For math they have another smaller special class for top performers which she ended up in apparently so far it is very boring whilst they review math which frankly if they don't know they shouldn't even be in High School.

She also has a "tutor teacher" and every day a tutorial session is scheduled. There are 5 girls from each year level (Year 9 -13 are the High School years in NZ) in her tutor class and the reason they do it this way is for the older girls to help mentor the younger girls with any issues they may have also.

She started off loving just about everything about school but within a week there was a major melt down one evening. She did not do well in a science test (just to see where they were at), fell down a flight of stairs in one of the buildings (there are 1800 girls at the school and apparently it is pretty manic at times), was petrified of her new Social Studies teacher, and was having issues with her IPad and kept heading to the library every day to get it online but the person was never there, so she ended up at the school office which had a queue a mile long and so missed lunch. She just exploded into tears that night. She wanted to keep going to school, but not that one because it was too busy, etc., etc.

Her Papa, who was at work, told me over the phone later when I explained what had happened, to tell her she could have the day off if she needed it, which really brightened her up. Not because she could have the day off, but I think because she realised we had her back. She and I discussed it but agreed that it would be better to get everything sorted the next day, and after a cuddle and our chat she went off happily to bed. I actually drove into her school the next day to pick her up as I was pretty sure it was simply tiredness that had made things so bad the day before (the bus trip home exhausts her as she has to stand sometimes and it's nearly an hour trip), and was pleased to hear that her day went really well. I took her and her sister out for an early dinner and we had a little bit of fun shopping. 

There has been minimal homework so far, more tasks like doing their front pages for their classes, etc. and introducing themselves.  Much to her surprise the scary Texan Social Studies teacher has turned out to be really nice and has offered to help her catch up on any work she has missed due to problems with the IPad situation. There were 3 in her class that had issues but she was the only one she offered to help, when TF was packing up her bag after class. Apparently everyone else rushes out of the classrooms but TF likes to place everything properly away.

I must say that the teachers there do sound quite lovely. All very supportive and nice so far, I am impressed with that.

She absolutely LOVES her electives, drama and digital technology but they only go for 6 months of the year, so will be interesting to see what happens next semester.

I am really not sure how it is going. She gets quite frustrated with some of the things that happen and more especially seem to take forever to happen. She does enjoy most of the actual classes though. So at the moment it's one day at a time.

Pretty in Pink

I went slightly batty covering The Fashionista's school books. Curriculum is such fun, and wasn't too expensive overall, except for the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) which was costly seeing that she got an ipad.

She chose the covering paper and left me to it. She probably shouldn't have ... you really would think that these girls would know what I am like by now ...

Apparently adding little pieces to her pens case was "a bit much" but, the best moment was when I took her glue stick into her ... all pinkefied; she nearly wet herself laughing. I was pretty chuffed with myself. The glue stick has also given a bit of a laugh to her friends and even her teachers have laughed. 

A couple of her teachers have professed they love her books and wish they'd picked that colour too -- her English teacher went the sparkly silver and supposedly is having regrets about not going pink now. Some of the poor teachers have complained to her that they have had to use leftovers from their kids books so had no choice in paper. So tragic!

She already had the pencil case and yes she chose a pink scientific calculator too.

This little Sansha ballet slipper keyring with her locker key was a bit of an oops. TF picked some dance gear for Christmas and whilst in the dance shop I slipped the keyring into my purchases so she at least had something she didn't know about. When I got home, I saw that the price was $15! Seriously $15 for a keyring ... thankfully she loves it ... but seriously I spent $15 on a keyring!  Some of the gear on special, cost me less.


I suggested covering Agent Smelly's books if she wanted me to and she raised her eyes and very dryly said "why bother" and shook her head at me. Pfft ... kids! 

Dietary Changes

November last year when I was diagnosed with diabetes, my doctor simply said "You are right on the line, do NOT eat anything ever again with sugar". He also scooted around his desk in his chair, looked me up and down and said "and lose 10 maybe 15 kilos and you'll be fine. You can make this go away by doing these simple things". My doctor and I have a good relationship, he is honest and straight with me and I pay him for it. In case you think he was being rude by saying that about my weight , he wasn't, I can easily afford to lose 20-25 kilos and still not hit the ideal weight for my height so he was actually being rather kind.


So I left the surgery and with a couple of small exceptions I haven't had any sugary drinks or foods, except for the stuff that's found in fruit and veg. I now only drink herbal tea, the occasional regular tea with almond milk and water. I don't drink or eat anything with "fake" sugar because all it does is make you continue to want the sweet tasted in foods and drinks. Many of my recipes for sweet desserts are now made from raw food recipes so I am still getting "my fix" every now and then. Surprisingly it has not been that hard, maybe because I have HAD to give it up. If I simply wanted to for diet reasons I know I'd fail almost immediately. So I am counting this news as a blessing really; a necessary boycott of sugar.


Ideally I would like to give up wheat and bread but that seems to be harder for me. I am making a little bit of my own to ensure it has no sugar and I try and make it with rice flour, etc. I suppose every little bit helps.


I also no longer drink milk except for almond milk, but I haven't been able to give up cheese or some natural yoghurt (I am not even sure I want to) and as for eggs I get mine from my own free range chookens so I can live with that.


A couple of weeks later, after more tests, it was found another couple of organs were struggling so I was advised again to stay away from anything with FAT. I then made the decision to cut out meat to make life easier for my liver and gall bladder.

So people I am now a pescatarian which means I can still eat seafood but although I ate a bit of it at the beginning I don't eat too much of it now as my repertoire of vegetarian recipes has increased. I am happy to report that the pain in my gall bladder area has cleared up. I had thought once my liver and gall bladder were recovered I would return to having a bit of meat every now and then but, I have tried a small bit of meat on a couple of occasions over the last couple of months and found that it doesn't agree with me when I do. I end up in a bit of pain, bloated and nauseous. So I am not sure what will happen with regards to meat but for the moment I am doing OK without it and it's no real hardship. Now if you think you could never give up meat, think again, I was a huge meat eater so if I can anyone can. I just adored the taste of meat. The Fashionista has joined me, although occasionally she might have a bite of her sister's meat simply to see what it's like. Agent Smelly wanted to do it too but lasted 24 hours, although I have noticed recently that she often enjoys the non meat dishes more than the meat which surprises her. The Papa has been fully supportive and happy to have vegetarian meals and says not to make him meat especially as he likes the idea of eating less meat and is happy to go without it.


You can see the difference in my skin too, it was quite blotchy before the dietary changes and despite not exercising much due to my recovery from the op (like I really need an excuse not to exercise ...who am I kidding) I have still managed to drop 5 kilos. So I am heading towards to my target of 15 kilos minimum.  I would love to face my next operation having lost 10 kilos ... so wish me luck.

First Day of School

There is something decidedly weird about posting a picture of your daughters first day of school when she is nearly 13 yet at the same time I still look at her and think she's too young for it all. How on earth people send their kids off at 5 years of age beats me!

But anyway here she is in part of her school uniform. It was too hot for the school jumper and all their blazers (which are burgundy in colour) have been held up and we'll be getting them in a couple of weeks.

High School or Not?

As mentioned in a previous posting, The Fashionista has asked if she can go to High School next year.

I had always said that the kids could attend school if they really wanted to but when it came to the crunch I confess I have found it really difficult to let go. But she really wants to give it a go, and to be totally honest her Papa thinks it would be a good idea as she gets older.  She is a very mature and responsible girl, so I think it might be nice for her to have a bit of fun with some crazy teens her age. It would be her first year along with everybody else's, so she would start off at the same time as everyone else. She also expressed a desire to attend an all girls school.

So the Papa and I (mostly I really) set about investigating lots of High Schools (girls and co-ed). They all suck; yup that's my findings. Actually some of the schools offer some great opportunities and unfortunately the ones we really liked were private, in the middle of Auckland and cost about $22,000 a year. We did contemplate it but sensibly settled on applying at a public girls high school in a town nearby which we had been considering moving to anyway.

What was funny is that every person I spoke to had good and bad storied about the schools. No people ever agreed on one school, so in the end it's a bit of a gamble I think.

We ended up on the ballot as we are out of the area and actually did not make it in on the first intake. We had already discussed that this might happen and would hold out for the following year but a week or two late we received a week later saying that she was accepted after all. I tell you, it was pretty nail biting stuff! She is over the moon; she has a good dancing friend who attends there which has made her excited about going also.

I still have my reservations about her attending school, part of me hopes it will fail and she comes back to home education but most of me wants really wants her to succeed and have a jolly good time. It is a very, very large school, with a school uniform that has a blazer, tie, etc ... which she is pretty excited about wearing.

 

 

We thought that Agent Smelly might want to go to school also (she would be in her last year of primary next year with two years of intermediate before High School) as she has asked before about going to school. After some to-ing and fro-ing she has since decided that she wishes to stay home and the Papa and I have agreed that a year just concentrating on her would be good for her. She also needs to build her confidence up as she is one of those kids that goes along with whatever the rest of the group wants to do just to keep the peace. She gets taken advantage of by her friends quite a bit, who just walk all over her, it's not necessarily their fault as she never complains except to us later! She may even wait until High School too, so we are going to play it by ear.

As long as they are happy where ever they are and both learning then we are happy.


(The photos were taken when the girls were playing with make up and clothes and having a fashion shoot in their bathroom; they don't actually wear make up out!)