Little Pink Eraser’s Blog

HELLO!!!! It’s the end of the school year and weeks of sleep-in’s await us! Sooo much happens around the end of the year, it’s great to have some time off doing absolutely nothing (or a lot, depending on what you have planned…).

I think the only downside is Christmas shopping, us teens have no money until we can get a job, and we are still expected to use what little we have to buy gifts for everyone. Oh well, if it makes everyone happy, it’s good. Ish.

Christmas itself is great though (all in agreement, say ‘Aye’), you get presents (from people who HAVE money), and you get to catch up with family. My immediate family always goes to two get-togethers, one for dad’s side and one for mum’s side. The only problem is that-and I’m sure I’m not the only one-some of my relatives are quite strange and it’s hard to hold a normal conversation with them! But there are just as many great relatives to hang around with, and it’s really funny when people get drunk! :D!!!

I have absolutely nothing planned (other than Christmas) for my holidays, but I think my family was planning to go up to some lake and camp. (My family, camp? Never!!), plus a friends birthday is happening and me and my friends are getting together for that!! YAY!!!

So anyway, I hope that you (yeah, that’s right, I see you!) have a great Christmas and holidays and a happy new year!!!

Hey, everyone!

This Sunday (23rd November) my dance school had their 5th annual dance concert, entitled “A little bit of magic”, so I thought I might write a bit about it and stuff! So… On Thursdays at 5.00 pm I go to In-Step Dance school (best dance school ever!) and do jazz dancing for an hour. Then at 6.10 ballet class starts, and it goes for an hour, too. We do that all year, and then theres a concert! I’m in the Intermediate class, by the way. The dancing you can do there is ballet, jazz and contemporary. we also used to do tap, but no on ewanted to do it after a while.

Anyway, for the concert I was involved in 5 dances. There was Gimme Gimme Gimme by Abba, which involved just the Intermediates, and Soldiers (They don’t care about us, Michael Jackson) involving Seniors and Intermediates for jazz. For ballet there was Dolls (some weird polka music) with Seniors and Intermediates, Witches for Intermediates, and Clouds with Seniors and Intermediates. The second half of our show was based on the Magic Faraway tree by Enid Blyton, so an effort was made to classify the dances as something and stick them in a Land of some kind. (Land of Dreams (Clouds), Land of Spells (Witches) etc.).  If you haven’t read the book you probably have no idea what I’m on about!  

There are lots of classes, especially as most of the Seniors don’t ever quit until VCE is up, and more younger people come in every year. There are Tiny Tots, Juniors, Intermediates and Seniors, but the Juniors are split into lots of groups, like 9-10, 11-12 etc. It’s funny, because until the Seniors quit, more classes just have to be made! It’s difficult to figure out which classes to mesh, because often there is a lot of skill and experience difference between classes. You can’t stick the Tiny Tots with the Juniors, for example, because then they would actually be required to dance and not just run around cluelessly on stage, doing a random jump every now and then! 

Every year you get an option to do a ballet exam (with the Southern Federation of dance). They’re in August, and for most of the year beforehand you study excercises, a dance, and some theory to get the best mark you can. I’ve done grade 2, 3, and 4, but I skipped it this year because it was too much of a workload with everything else (school, piano, trombone, etc.). I do, however, plan to do one next year, and join the Contemporary class as well. To balance, I’m not doing the school production, which accounts for much, much stress. Also I’ll avoid joining any other bands, I’m already in 4! I’ve definitely blabbed on enough now, I’ll let you get back to your life now!!

Hi, everyone! In class we are doing blogs on this years Blog Action Day Topic, Poverty! So yeah, heres mine!

I think poverty is a serious issue that no one really does a whole lot about. You see the ads on TV and feel terrible about how hungry and sick the kids look, think you should do more about it, and then the Simpsons comes back on, and you forget all about it. That happens to me a lot.

We’re always told by our parents, relatives, teachers, in fact almost everyone that we are lucky to live in Australia and have the life we do. I get so very, verry sick of that, but at the same time I know they’re right and feel quite bad that while I’m sitting here listening to Grandpa lecture me poverty, there are hundreds of kids 7 years younger than me working in dangerous, dirty factories or being sold into prostitution.

I read a book about a year ago called ‘Sold’ about a little girl living in India. I think she was about 8. The story wasn’t true, but it was based on the lives of many girls living in third world countries. She lived in a little hut with her mum and dad, but her mum died of something. Her family was really really poor, and their dad couldn’t take care of both her and her little sister. One day a man came to her house and promised her she could have a wonderful job in a city, and half the money she earned would be given to her father. So her father agreed and she went with the man with high hopes that she would send her family out of poverty. But when they arrived at the city, the man sold her to a woman who owned child prostitutes. She was introduced to a few dozen other girls and shown her room, very dank and dirty, although a little better than her room at home. She got to know some of the girls, who she found mostly nice, and they told her what the place was for. Every night (and also during the day), men would arrive, the girls would be lined up, and the men would take their pick. Then they would pay the owner the amount they thought the little girl was worth. Some of the girls would steal contraceptives from a woman, to stop themselves ‘getting a disease from the men’, against the owners will. Most of the girls in the place had gotten used to being sold to dozens of men, but the girl in the stroy hated it. Eventually she escapes, at the end of the story.

Many girls in third world countries live this kind of life. They get promised a good job for lots of money, then they live their lives as prostitutes or factory workers, or something like that. Personally, I thinkt thats just disgusting.

Other children are ‘child labourers’, who work badly paying jobs in order to feed their family tiny portions of food every day because their parents are unable to or can’t earn enough money. They don’t have access to any clean water, and only earn 15 rupies or so every day. Thats about $2.00, and their family lives off that. Imagine what life would be like living on $2.00 a day! You wouldn’t have a real bed, or a house that could withstand much weather, your clothes would probably be made of whatever you could find at the village dump. Lots of child labourers get cuts, bruises etc. all over them from the factories they work at, which aren’t what you could call safe. These cuts would get infected, the family probably unable to treat them properly, and some children would die from this. It must be so hard for pregnant women to keep their baby healthy, if they could at all. The children would be unhealthy before they were even born! 

What can you do? Well, earlier this year the 40 hour famine was held, and some friends and I did that, we raised somewhere around $120. That is definitely a good fundraiser to find out about and take part in if you can. You can make donations to World Vision as well. Although the donation might not be a million dollars, I can guarentee that it will be greatly appreciated for whatever it’s used for. You could ask your parents to sponsor a child, (Mine have ‘no’ a thousand times) or you could when you’re older. For more information go to www.worldvision.com, there is lots of stuff there.

Hi, bloggers!! Our english teacher has assigned us a writing task, to write about a holiday memory for 300 to 400 words. Mine is actually slightly over 400, but you know… here it is!!

 Dalhousie Springs

The Dalhousie Springs are located in the SA outback. While we were driving towards the Simpson desert, we stopped there for a night so we could swim. Dalhousie Springs is a popular tourist attraction, famous for its 38 degree water. My brother, sister and I went down to the springs at about 5.00 (pm) to swim. There were mossy green steps leading down into this beautiful cloudy-blue water, I can remember the view walking up towards the springs. When I stepped into the water my whole body relaxed with the heat. If I put my hand just above the water I could feel the warmth and my hand would sweat. The springs were surrounded with green trees and grass, so very unlike the outback we’d seen so far. The bottom was sandy and you sunk down a few inches every time you took a step. I remember swimming slowly to the middle and treading water. Looking up I could see the tree-tops framing the white sky, which was scudded with grey clouds. It looked so cold up there, but the water was soooo waaaarm… THUMP!! Suddenly there was a pain in my leg. I automatically turned around while swinging a heavy punch. Adam (my brother) screamed and flipped in the water, kicking my face. (Wait to kill the serenity, Adam!) Angie leapt on top of him and Adam shook her off, then both of them pushed me under the steamy water. The thing about play-fighting is that no one ever takes sides. Suddenly there was a flash of silver brushing past my face. I could still feel Angie holding my legs, but I reached up and pulled. She lost her balance and I kicked my way to the surface with my lungs screaming for air. Adams fist pulled back, but before he could swing I had yelled: “Fish! Near the bottom!” Of course I knew there’d be fish, but I’d hoped they wouldn’t be cleaning my face! Adam duck-dived under immediately, to get a look. I wondered where Angie was. I looked up towards the stairs and dove out of the way in record time while she yelled “CANNONBALL!” I swam back to the stairs, where there were also tiny little fish, but they didn’t come near you unless you kept still for a few seconds. I watched Angie and Adam play ‘who-can-do-the-biggest-splash?’ for a while before I swaggered out of the water, practically steaming. It’s surprising how quickly heat gets to you.   

Soo…

Now I’m finally back from the three week trip we took (refer to post below) and here is a rough overview of what we did from day 9 onwards!

On day nine some stuff happened. Dad somehow managed to bend the rear bar on the ‘truck’ (he has no idea how, and nor does anyone else!), so we had to stop at a really small town to get it temporarily repaired. There I distinctly remember drinking a raspberry softdrink and eating chips for lunch, while almost everyone else had chocolate milk. After those shinanigans, we got to Mt. Dare, which was a great place to stay. We had dinner at the pub, the locals and the staff were really friendly people. The mechanics there got the car fixed and happily pointed out that the car was overloaded. Also that the vehicle had a few problems. Er… hello, does the car SEEM to be falling apart? Cuz I sure hadn’t noticed!! Anyway, it was a great place, except the mechanics, and all was good.

On day ten we stayed at Dalhousie springs instead of going as far as we planned. A good choice, as the water was lovely (except for the biting fishies) and the facilities were good. The water there was about 38 degrees and it was too hot for the little girl we were travelling with (lets call her Charlie, her little brother Alex and her parents Sam and Dave) to get in.

On day eleven we actually went into the Simpson desert. I think that this was the day where the sand was actually really red. The rest of the time it was more like normal sand. We drove on the French line, then on the Colson track. There were lots of small dunes in the desert, and some corrugations. That really was the worst part of it. We saw a camel, too, it was just running on the track in front of us to get away, rather than turning. Really quite comical to see it swaying from side to side. It looked like it would fall over! The terrain in the desert was very different to what you’d think. There were actually plants everywhere! Mostly yellow, but my point remains! We camped somewhere between Colson and Erabana.

For days twelve and thirteen we just stayed at Poepples corner, the corner of three states-Queensland, South Australia and Northern Territory. It was fun being in three places at once!!! We set up this tent thingy that we’d brought and used for shelter against the swarming flies. Sam brought out all this craft stuff she’d brought for Charlie to play with and told us to go nuts. (No, really, thats exactly what she said!) We had hired a fold out toilet which we placed over a deep hole. Theres actually a company called ‘Jimmy’s Thunderbox’ (ROFL!!!) that makes them! I remember that after we had dinner (spag bol) there was this REALLY weird music wafting over the dune seperating the two campsites. Dave and Dad had a good time tryng to guess what it was! (Celine Dion? Some flute player? The Lion King soundtrack? The possibilities were endless!!) ALso both trucks neede a little fix up. I dunno why, they LOOKED fine, they DROVE fine for 250 km a day…

Fourteenth day, (MY BIRTHDAY!!!) we went over Big Red (It took dad two attempts and Dave tried 6 times but couldn’t make it. BOth men were having this convo over the radio about gears and stuff, but I didn’t get it. We stayed in cabins and went to the pub for dunner. Dad had pre-ordered this cake for my birthday, god knows how much it costed him, and while everyone was singing happy birthday the whole pub joined in! It doesn’t sound like much of a birthday, but it was actually alright, especially as I got the top bunk in the cabin!!

The fifteenth day and sixteenth day were dedicated to getting to Innamincka via Cordillo downs. On the way we passed… *drum roll*….. Australias largest shearing shed!!! Is anyone falling asleep at just the concept of it? It wasn’t that bad, there was loads of wool!! We stayed at a lake on the 15th day, but the water was shallow, and Dave (who is rather short) walked across and it came only up to his hips. Plus my sis got a cut on her toe. And it was muddy and completely unpredictable. And… the  found a piece of glass in my leg. Dunno how long it was there…

Day seventeen and eighteen spent near Innamincka. Nice place, good fishing (and swimming), and quite cool weather. $9.00 a litre for fresh water there, not a great price…

The rest of the holiday was dedicated to getting everyone home (Charlie: Can we go home? Sam: Soon, Charlie. Charlie: OK, but can we now??) and the last day we spent 800km in the car. The holiday was closed with a sundae from Maccas. The end!

Hi everyone!!

My family and some family friends are heading out to the Simpson Desert, and this is day 6 of our great expedition!

On the first night we stayed at somewhere near Ballarat, thank goodness for free camping! On our second night we stayed at somewhere called the ‘big desert’, not very original… we stayed at Burra for a night at some caravan park which was nice, the showers were heaven! The 4th and 5th nights were spent at a house for someones birthday.

On the the 5th day we went on a Skytrek 4wd, that was a lot of fun, except for the part where it lasted seven hours. There were some beautiful views, always the best part.

Every day we have traveled about 250 km, we have strived to entertain ourselves the entire time. Today we only have 50 km to go which is cool.

I’m glad I finally got a chance to blog, I hope someone actually reads this!! It’s hard to get internet even at carfavan parks. Inconvenient.

Anyway, I have to go now, I’ll keep you updated if I can.

Yesterday me and 40 other year 8 kids came back from school camp. We spent three days on Philip island, touring and stuff. I managed to get a cabin with my friends, and we spent most of the available time playing cards and gambling with lollies.

We saw the penguin parade and that was good, except that we had to wait almost an hour before we could see them properly. They were so cute! On the last day we went to the chocolate factory, and they had the best chocolate ever!!! Unfortunately I could only buy one block, because I only had 5 dollars, and the girl at the counter didn’t give me change. Being me, I didn’t notice. It was only a dollar though, so it doesn’t matter.

We went on a 7 km walk at Cape Woolamai (I think that was it…) as well. It wasn’t that long, but it was on sand most of the time, so it was really tiring. I hate walking on sand, I remember ages ago my family went to Point Hicks and we were hiking on sand dunes. Awful memories. I think I went through a whole water bottle on the first 3! Also we were carrying packs, so that didn’t help much.

But back to the actual subject, we went to the koala conservatory where we saw a grand total of 5 koalas. There were 25 living there. I got a surprisingly good picture of one! Hooray! 

Hello for the second time today!

In English we are working on speeches. We’ve listened to one, we’ve read about them, we’ve studied them, and now we are writing them! They have to go a minimum of 5 minutes, and the topic is anything to change an injustice in the world. I’m doing mine about cosmetic testing on animals. I think it’s an interesting topic and I wanted to know more about it, and I’m having quite a good time with it! Did you know after most tests, all the animals involved get killed?! That even though it’s possible to grow human skin in laboratories, researchers still torture animals with their products?! If anyone has any good ideas for my presentation or anything, then please leave a comment.

Hello, peoples of the blogging world! I’m little pink eraser, and this is my blog (apparently).

This is my first post, so I should probably mention what’s going to be in the rest of them. I’ll mostly post schoolwork that my teacher has asked me to, but I might post other stuff occasionally if I suddenly randomly feel like it. New posts will probably appear every 2 weeks or so.