Niall's Blog Just another Edublogs.org weblog 

As it is getting near the end of the year already, we are writing about the highlights of the year.

One of the highlights for me is that every Friday, we have a guitar practice after school from 3:00-4:00.  Though it started out with five people in the class, and there are now only two people in the class, a friend and I, this gives us more one-on-one help with fixing our mistakes.

Another highlight was going to the Alert Bay T-school to play basketball, where we won all of our games.  I never got to shoot, and I was not able to go to the second tournament, but we had fun at least.

For next year, some suggestions would be that there should more of an emphasis on music and creative writing.  If most of the kids do not want to do it, then fine.  However, I strongly believe that these subjects help fuel creativity which is one of the most important tools in life but, as they say, `if you do not use it you lose it.`

I hope you have enjoyed the recap of my personal highlights.  Goodbye 2014-15 school year!

Music Programs Should be Mandatory

Personally, I think that music is an extremely important part of our society. Where would we be without it? We listen to it in our vehicles, we listen to it at parties, we play it for fun, it is everywhere we look. Though it is everywhere, we are just not getting the same amount of quality tunes. Everyone has different tastes, true, but so much of music has to be filtered, like sifting a river for gold. In the Atlantic provinces of Canada, 80% of elementary school music teachers have a musical background. The rest of us on the other side of Canada should have that benefit too. Also, there are some who believe that there should be more music in the world, including a woman who actually grew up in this area, Georgia Murray, who supports helping children have an opportunity to sing. She even started her own fund-free singing program for kids, called “Wild Heart.” For these reasons, I firmly believe that music should be mandatory in all schools because…

A: quality tunes are disappearing; if you started at the low levels of recognition, working up to the point where your name is circulating somewhat, then you put out one music video, or whatever, the record companies will probably find you. Next thing you know, POW! You get a contract, you are a star. There are many people who get their music out there in a very similar way, by skipping the filter. By skipping the “wood-shedding.” In this way, we are certainly still getting music onto the airwaves, but is it as good as it was, say, 40 years ago? For some people, maybe, though there is no denying that you have to put a lot more of music through a screen than you used to.

Also, based on the kind of training that music teachers have, do you think that the government really cares about musical education? 38% of responding elementary schools in Canada have teachers with no musical experience whatsoever heading the music programs. In Ontario alone, our most populous province, 58% of responding elementary schools have a non-qualified music teacher. However, in the Atlantic provinces of Canada on the east coast, 80% of the elementary schools do have a teacher with musical background teaching music. What’s the deal?

Finally, there are many famous supporters of singing programs, including Georgia Murray who I am grateful to for starting the “Wild Heart” foundation, of which I am a proud member. Recently, she came to our school to sing, and told us that she too believes that there should be more emphasis on music programs in schools in Canada. That is what gives me hope that things might change.

As you can see, I strongly believe that we need more music in our lives. I think that with a little help here, a little nudge there, that we can do this. That we can lead a way to a world with more music programs in schools.

I believe that Sointula should get a public movie theater.

I think there should be a movie theater here because then more tourists would come.

I also think there should be a movie theater here because then people who live here don’t have to go off the island to Port McNeill or further down-island just to watch a new release.

A third reason that I think there should be a movie theater in Sointula is that if people don’t have a copy of a movie they would like to see, they can go to the movie theater to see it.

Because of these reasons, I KNOW that Sointula should have a movie theater.

My Incredible Journey

Suddenly there was a tremendous crashing sound.  It seemed the stone roof of the tunnel had finally decided to cave in.  “Quick, get over here before you get crushed!” shouted Will.  I dashed to my mentor’s side just as the roof fell where I had been standing a moment ago.

My name is Jason, Jay for short.  My mother is a witch and my father is a wizard.  Because of this I ended up being a wizard.  Since I grew up among witches and wizards, having magical abilities was normal.  When I was younger, it was a time of peace.  But no more; the goblins of the Yarganash Mountains are mustering all of their strength.  Now that I’m a pupil, I have to go on missions with my mentor.  Now that you have some background info I’ll get back to the story.

We could hear the goblins screeching and snarling behind the broken slabs of stone.  “Hang on a second” I muttered.  “Where’s Lara!”  “I’m right over here” she said in an annoyed tone of voice.  “Oh, that’s where you were” Will sighed.  “Duh, can’t you even keep track of your own sister for one blasted minute?” she scolded her brother.  “I hardly think that I need to keep track of you” Will retaliated.  “Why don’t you…” Lara began.  “Shut up!” I said.  “Hear that?” I asked.

Great drum beats shook the tunnel.  Or were they footsteps?  “Troll!!” Will bellowed.  “Back down the tunnel, quick!”  I didn’t have to be told twice.  Sword and staff in hand, I raced down the tunnel not caring if I crash into a whole squad of goblins.  “Try light the gems on your staffs” Lara advised.  We all took the suggestion by pausing to light the gems worked into the tops of the staffs.  Mine glowed a deep red while Lara’s glowed blue and Will’s glowed green.  So on we went again, three little lights bobbing in the dark.

We then heard pounding on stone behind us.  I wanted to turn around to see what the noise was but Will grabbed me by the shoulder and thrust me in front of him.  “No, we don’t have time to spare” he said.  “Keep going!”  Again there was pounding then the sound of falling stone.  This time I ignored it.

Just when I thought that I couldn’t go a step further, the tunnel ended.  Now we were in a wide cavern lit with torches, carved into the living rock.  At first glance it seemed the cavern was empty save for a deep gorge nearly full of water, flowing with a strong current to a hole at the back of the cave.  When we ventured farther forward, it became apparent that we were in fact not alone.

As soon as we stepped into the torchlight goblins sprang from nooks and crannies in the walls.  When we started to slowly take a step backward, our exit was cut off by the same squad of goblins we had left in tunnel.  They must have pushed the slabs of rock aside I thought to myself.  Just as I thought that matters couldn’t get worse, a gigantic figure lumbered into view in the mouth of the cave; a troll, just as Will had thought.  Startled, we sidestepped away from the arched entryway toward the gorge.  Now all our exits were cut off.  Then it hit me; all of the exits were not cut off.  I turned to my left where Lara was brandishing her staff and her sword at the goblins.  Noticing that I was trying to get her attention, she looked back at me, despair etched into her face.  I jerked my head toward the flowing water behind us then nodded at the hole in the wall where it ran out of the cave.  She gazed at me confused, but almost immediately afterward, comprehension dawned on her.  She nodded in understanding then snapped her head around to her left to pass on the information to Will.

Once my friends knew my plan, it was just a matter of creating a diversion.  Quickly seeing that Will had taken the plan into hand, he shouted “Now!!!”  In perfect synchronization, we created a burst of bright light, sending the goblins quailing in fear.  With that we all dove into the water.

As soon as the icy spray enveloped me I was completely numbed.  Struggling to stay above water without knocking my head on the roof of the water’s passageway, I was tossed and turned in almost every conceivable direction.  On top of this, I couldn’t see a thing let alone my friends.  After I started to wonder when this darkness would end, a light came into sight.

When I reached the light I noticed that there wasn’t any water past the light.  That was when I started falling; it turned out the light was a waterfall.  I had been falling for how long I didn’t know.  All I knew was that after a while I felt numbed again, which meant I obviously wasn’t dead.  Looking farther ahead I saw Will and Lara bobbing along the river.  The main difference I found between the passage in the dark and the river was that I felt nearly drowned in the river because waves were crashing down over my head.  Somehow I managed to grab a floating piece of wood that was drifting by me.

Once the current slowed down a little, I grabbed a piece of rock jutting out from the shore.  Seeing my friends scrambling up the bank, I crawled after them.  Eyeing the horizon, I observed that the sun was setting, which meant that we had been drifting down the river all day.

Attempting to stay calm, I assessed the situation.  We had no food, no clean drinking water, no means to start a fire, and to top it all off, we-or I at least-had no clue whatsoever as to where we were.  Painfully regarding myself, I noted how soaked, torn, bloody, and weather stained my garments were which included my cloak, jacket and tunic.  Well, at least I still had my staff.  Turning to my friends to make sure they were okay, I soon found that they appeared to be as miserable as I felt, and that was saying a lot.

Groaning, I found the softest spot of dirt I could find and lay myself down.  What a hard life being a wizard is.  Chuckling, I closed my eyes and let sleep take me.

Niall                                                                        April 4, 2014

When I grow up I’d like to be an author.  3 of my motives that I have to be an author are that I love learning languages, am always coming up with stories, and that I’d like to be someone people can look up to.  The type of books that I’d write would be fictional to-most of the time-the extreme.

One of the reasons that I would like to be an author is my love of words and languages.  My mother told me that when I was little, she would talk to me in Japanese while my father would talk to me in English.  Soon she found that I was speaking a made up language composed of Japanese and English words.  Later, I seem to just suck up stories like a sponge, absorbing words (not necessarily English) to add to my vocabulary.

Another reason that I would like to be an author is that I have a very active imagination; I’m always coming up with stories, whether it’s in words, a picture in my head, or just with my toys.  Even at the age of 11, I’ve come up with DOZENS of stories.

A third reason that I would like to become an author is a bit of a tough one to answer.  However, if I had to pick a third one I would say that I would like to be looked up to; not frowned down upon.  I want to be someone you could quote and/or say “you don’t think you can achieve your dreams, well look at Niall.  He lived on a tiny island that almost no one had heard of, now look where he is.”

All of these reasons contribute to my yearning to be an author; my love of words, my active imagination, and my desire to be looked up to.  With this career in mind I hope to get decent marks throughout elementary school, high school, and university.  Although at the moment, I am content to be an average gr.6 student typing up essays.

In school were’re learning lots of different types of things like math, language arts, french, social studies, and P.E.  I find P.E. and social studies slightly interesting, but I must say that my favorite subject is language arts.  Even though some people say that I’m good at it, I really “dislike” math.  I also find french very very very very very very- you get the idea- boring (though I enjoy learning Japanese as well as German from my mom and dad).  This may not sound very exciting, but at least I’m learning something useful.

My favorite piece of art that I did earlier this year consists of  lots of geometric shapes.  I based a lot of my designs on eyes and alien like objects.  Here is a picture of it.

This is my french comic strip about ordering food at a restaurant in french.  I accidentally didn’t capture the top little bit of the comic strip (I’m not very good at using cameras).  I made it with a friend of mine, his name is Michael.  My favorite thing about it was that I didn’t have to stare at a text book most of the day to draw it.  Well here it is.

My first track and field took place on Wednesday, June 12, 2013.  I was entered in triple jump, the 200 meter run, shot put and relay.  Since it was my first track meet I was getting rather mixed up and confused.  Trying to figure out which event to go to when while thinking about the reason I was there in the first place.

I got to talk to a friend I met at Camp Homewood named Jackson, at Camp Homewood we spent most of our free time debating theories of what might of happened to Atlantis.  I didn’t get to talk to him as much as I had hoped but at least I got to talk to him later in the week.

My favorite event was triple jump because it was the only one that I was told what place I came in.  All together it was a fun day (at least I think so).  I would like to do it again if I get the chance.

Talk to you later! 🙂

Last Friday there was a softball tournament in Fort Rupert.  The whole thing was quite hectic, trying to figure out which softball diamond  to go to and when to go there without thinking about how nervous I am about screwing up while batting or being out in the field trying to catch a ball and dropping it.

My team that I was put on was called the Wolves.  We nearly won all three games!  I got to talk to a friend that  I met at Camp Homewood named Jackson, and not just that, we ended up being on the same team!  I also met some other kids on my team  and their names were Luke, Devin and Michael (I may have spelled Jackson, Luke, Devin and Michael wrong).

All in all, I’d say that it was a pretty fun and exciting day with all of the games and people that I got to meet.  I hope I get to do it again.  Bye for now!