Tamaki Tech 2013

The sun was beaming down on me. I could see the food tech place up ahead. Rooms 20, 21 and half of room 22 were heading down to Tamaki College for Technology.

We all split into groups of year 7s and year 8s. Then one by one our names were called to go into our different groups. I was worried for a second because all of my friends were in Hard Materials. “Shoal”, I heard my name being called. The deputy principal had put me into hard materials. Yes!! I got to be with all of my friends.

Mr Grundy is the hard materials teacher. I enjoyed his class last year and was excited to be in his class again. He gave us a little book and told us to put our names on them. I saw that this year our task was to make a box. It could hold anything you wanted in it.

The 6 ideas I drew were down on my paper. “Mr Grundy, can you check my work please?” I called for him to come but he instead said to pack up.

I am really happy that tech has started up again. Last year was really fun and exciting learning and creating new things.

A Very Hot Holiday! (Part 1)

The plane was bumpy and moving the way it shouldn't have been. I wasn't having the best time. So I pulled my book out and started to read. 40 minutes later we landed smoothly in beautiful Mangaia.

Since I have a lot of family connections, there are a lot of family reunions held in different places. I have been to Wellington, Tahiti, and the Cook Islands when I was 7. It was the second time I had visited the islands. Over the last 6 years, I had missed the beautiful scenery and wonderful family members. 

Mangaia. One of the 15 outer islands located in the southern cooks. I have been to Atiu and Rarotonga but before this trip, never Mangaia. I was nervous and excited at the same time when we got to the place we were staying at. Mangaia School. Other family members that I had never seen before had arrived before we had. Food was set out on the tables for us to eat. Chop suey, chicken, taro and rice. YUM! Real islander food. 

We stayed there for about two weeks. The first to introduce our-selves to the family and the other to enjoy Mangaia and its wonderful atmosphere. We had been slit into groups and had chores to do as well. So we weren't letting the environment around us be dirty and disgusting. 

If I had to choose one thing that I didn't like about Mangaia was that the island was basically rock. Plus the beautiful waterhole that everyone was talking about, was just a small hole in more rocks filled with fresh water. It could only fit about 3-4 people in it! Not a really great swimming place.

During the course of the two weeks we had some really fun evenings where we had a riff off(singing battle) between two teams, played and learnt new games to play with cards and had a really good laugh with the family.




That all changed after my Aunties Leonie and Jaky, as well as cousin Hyrum and I left Mangaia a day earlier than expected. Our departure was set to be on the 10th of January but we went on the 9th and swapped sets with a guy named Sam who wanted to stay in Mangaia for just another day. That was fine with us because we got to go back to the fabulous Rarotonga!

ME...

My name is Shoal and I am 12 years old. I was born here in Auckland but my heritage is Cook Island, Niuean. I am the oldest of the 4 children that my parents had. Khaia, Cree and Kensi are my 3 younger sisters.