Zahn's Skiing Experience

''Come on guys. It is time for your lesson,'' Mum says.
We all group together and go up the first chairlift to Park lane and it is there that we meet our instructor Kyle. In our group there's me, Amber, Brooke, Charlotte, Hannah and another school who had been skiing all week. Kyle tries to get us to do parallel turns the whole lesson. After about ten turns each going down, it was time for the ultimate challenge ... to go down the Giant and Bone yard; one of the top climbs on the mountain.We race down narrowly avoiding a couple of collisions with some dare devils who don't look where they are going. Kyle yells at them.
We go back down to Park lane and Kyle announces that our lesson is finished. We say thank you and get going. But it's not long before I'm back up, this time at the top of the mountain and ready to ski down Vertigo. Suddenly I'm speeding down too fast to steer, going and going until I fall over and I'm afraid to say ... that happened a lot. Anyway as I whizzed down the powdery white snow, I gazed at the magical view spread out like a picture on a piece of paper ... until... smash I thud into the snow losing both my skis and both my poles. I hop up and try to get a ski on but it doesn't work. I try and try and try, getting awfully frustrated, until about ten minutes later when I get my first ski on. Now I have the challenge of getting the second one on. Then a lady comes and helps me and I finally get it on and am able to zoom to the bottom, my ski tips skimming the white snow.
What a wonderful day.

Life without the Internet

Can you imagine life without the internet?  Though it’s only been around in its present form for a few years, it has enormous influence in almost every area of modern life.  Most people, in the developed world at least, would struggle to live without it.

Imagine being lost in say in say San Francisco with only an iPod and a Wi-Fi connection.  You need some where to stay.  What do you do?  Use the internet of course.  Go to trip advisor and find the top ranked budget hotel in town.  Check in with an email reservation.  But wait.  Your credit card is declined.  No problem.  Go to online banking and transfer more money to your card.  How are you going to find the hotel – Google maps of course?  But what bus should you catch.  Simply Google the bus routes and time table. 

You arrive at the hotel but immediately encounter a problem.  The desk clerk only speaks Mongolian.  You whip out the iPod and go straight to Google translate; problem solved!

Once you’re settled in, you’re ready to relax for the evening.    You Google cinemas, theatres, restaurants and every other form of entertainment you can think of.  After reading the online reviews, you decide on a restaurant.  Going through their online menu, you select a couple of mouth watering dishes.  After paying online, you sit back and wait for the meal to be delivered to your door.   

After dinner you decide on a movie.  Something action packed you think.   You choose “The Terminator”.  Netflix streams it to your device for a small fee. It’s a movie about the destruction of humanity due to the rise of the machines.  The machines come to power through “skynet”; an internet-like structure set in the future.  For a moment you feel uncomfortable as you wonder if the future is already here.

After the movie, you feel like some exercise to work off the big meal.  Of course you log on to a gaming website - HALO reach.  Racing around, shooting all manner of monsters is great exercise and all in a nights work for a serious gamer like yourself. 

As you begin to tire after a busy day, you feel a little homesick for your friends in Feilding.  You check out the Feilding herald online to bring you up to date with what’s happening in town.  You facetime your friends; it’s good to see their faces and swap a few laughs.  You upload a selection of videos and photos of your recent adventures to your online travel blog. Finally you check out your facebook page for the latest gossip and goings on.   

Yawning, you’re ready for bed.  But even now the influence of the internet has not finished. You listen to the soothing music of the latest AC/DC release that you downloaded from iTunes as you prepare for bed.  Finally, you set the alarm on your iPod to wake you up at 2am the next morning.  The All Blacks are playing France and you plan to listen to it live via the Radio NZ app on your iPod.   

But then disaster strikes.  While brushing your teeth, you accidently knock your iPod into the bath full of water.  The screen goes blank, your mind goes blank.  You are no longer connected to the modern world.

Could you survive without the internet?

   

Camp recount - PAUA

Pink hard bumpy outside. It is easy to mistake for a rock. I’m talking about Paua just so you know.

So anyway, we were fishing at camp with a few parents and our lines kept on getting caught and snagged in the rocks so Dan, one of the parents, swam out to retrieve a line and he came back[without the line] saying that he had seen tonnes of paua.

I shot my feet thinking, “Finally!” “I’ve always wanted to do this,” I thought.

Our teacher, Mrs Fielder said, “If you sit on this fallen down log you get a go quicker.” so my rocket feet jumped up and my arms heaved themselves upwards and I zoomed over there. It was like I threw some of Harry Potter’s instant darkness powder I was so fast.

Then came the wait. It was so long. Waiting waiting and a little more waiting!

Hannah went for her turn. Time passed and went and in a little while it was my turn. As soon as I felt the hypothermic coldness, I dived under. When I got a little further out to sea I felt the rip gently pulling me across. It was like I had a dozen small turtles pulling at my body.

Beneath the surface the Paua were cowering amongst the gently swaying seaweed, clinging to the rocks for fear of the current. The knife had a hard time getting them off but Dan and I were on a mission and we would not come back empty handed. With Dan’s expertise, we dived down with knife at the ready. Ready to prize off the biggest.

Dan handed the paua to me to check its size. It clung to my hand, searching for safety, as I held it. But all I had in mind was getting them back to shore and learning how to gut them and prepare them for cooking.

Rob got them ready for dinner, with the addition of a few special ingredients. Paua fritters ... a succulent, mouth watering delicacy.

Army visit

Far out! That’s cool!
Red and purplish blue smoke grenades whizz over onto the field leaving a few coloured marks.
“Can we run through it?” Alex says casually.
“Yeah you might as well,” says a medic named Hamish.
All the rest of my group run through but it had basically fizzled out by then so I didn't really bother. We finished that station and went on to the ration station. A ration pack is food that is dehydrated so that it lasts for a long time and is energy for the soldiers. In the field all the food was packaged and brown which is a big plus as it does not reflect the sun.
I think this is a clever design idea. Imagine this ... a sniper with a rifle sees a reflection in the sky. He looks down and there you are. Bang! You are gone. Dead. Lying on the hard sandy ground. Boiling and in a pool of your own blood that is rapidly getting soaked into the sand. 
One of the medics, a corporal, has been to Afghanistan. I reckon that’s good because she can help other people. I can't imagine what it would be like over there. Medics are in a no combat zone and only some carry a sidearm. 
I learnt that most medics train as nurses and work in hospitals before they go into the army. Only people who need special training, like a trauma doctor, train in the army. I thought that they trained in their country’s army to be a nurse. 
I learnt a lot about the army from their visit and it made me imagine how hard it would be to be living in Afghanistan.

Wake Boarding

''Show us how its done Louis,'' Dad says.
''Okay'' says Louis, we were on the Seivright's boat going wake boarding. Louis gets strapped in and jumps off the back of the boat. Johnothan accelerates and the boat jumps forward and Louis jumps forward too. He stays in the middle of the two wakes and then goes over the wake. He keeps on going then drops the handle and he goes down down like he is squelching down into mud.
And he is pulled back into the boat. Next it's my turn I get in the water and it's freezing. I get up and fall flat on my face. Next time I get up and go for a little while before falling again. I have a few more goes exactly the same and then it's Amber's turn. She is amazing. She gets up on her first turn and falls, her second turn is way better. She gets up and goes for ages before falling. Johnothan has a go and he jumps off one wake and on to the other wake. Next he tries a grab and it works. Then we have lunch at 5:30