Friday, 31 July 2015

The Lost Thing

 The Lost Thing
               

Story:
                                         
Yawning Dave (who is truly an amazing chef) wakes up and stretches. It is another lovely, calm, cloudless day. Dave looks out the window and opens it to get some fresh air when he  hears a peculiar bang coming from his baking factory. He gets changed and goes downstairs. He hops into his car and drives down the road to see what the noise was. Half way there he runs out of gas so he starts walking he walks round a corner when suddenly a big robot comes out of nowhere and tries to grab Dave. He grabs Dave but luckily Dave slips out of his hand and runs away but the huge red robot chases him and demands for his cooking recipes or he will kill him. He also demands all of his food on top of that. he looks for a place to hide but then he has an idea.




The giant red robot with spiky hair,6 tentacle legs and two giant claws  with lots of strange little doors,chases Dave into his big baking factory. Dave feels frightened he is shaking in his boots there is no where to hide in his baking factory. On the robot he notices something very familiar the logo on the robot's arm. Dave shouts at him “leave me and my food alone” The robot does not listen and tries to grab him.  Dave dashes towards a corner in his baking factory he is cornered.



Dave throws a blueberry cheesecake at him but the robot just catches it and crushes it in its hand like it is an ant.  “F-f- fine g-g-grab the recipes” Dave stammers. Head to toe trembling in fear shaking like a leaf Dave hands the recipes over to the giant robot but when the robot bends down to grab the recipes out of one of the doors comes flying out his arch nemesis Bob. Bob runs another baking factory down the road called Bob's bakery he is always trying to steal his secret recipes because Dave's food is way better than Bob's and Dave is way more successful and gets all the customers. Dave calls the police and they take him to jail for trying to steal his food and threatening to kill him. As Bob is being driven away he yells “I will be back and I will have my revenge and mark my words I will be the better baker one day!” 2 years later Dave wakes up yawning he then stretches its a lovely, calm, cloudless day “Wait?” he says to himself this is awfully familiar. He hears a peculiar noise coming from outside his house he peers out his window and there it is the big red robot with Bob controlling it this time it looks bigger and stronger Bob has come out of jail and he has come to Get his revenge. See what happens next in the lost thing two and you will find out why the title is called the lost thing!




Thursday, 2 July 2015

Matariki Explanation

 
Matariki is the Maori name for the cluster of stars also known as the Pleiades or the seven sisters.  It rises in mid winter, latish May or earlyish June. To Maoris it is  the start of a new year. Matariki literally means the eyes of god or tiny eyes.


The Maori new year is marked by the rise of Matariki and the sighting of the next new moon. The pre-dawn rise of Matariki can be seen in the last few days of May every year and the new year is marked at the sighting of the next new moon which occurs during June.


How is matariki celebrated Matariki is celebrated with education, remembrance and the planting of new trees and crops signalling new beginnings. Matariki was the time for new harvests, and ceremonial offerings to the land based gods Rongo, Uenuku and Whiro to ensure good crops for the coming year.  It was also seen as a perfect time to learn about the land we live on and to remember whakapapa the ancestry who have passed from this world to the next and the legacy they left behind.


The Matariki star constellation was used to dictate how the coming year would be in regard to the size of the harvest, so it was very important for Maori to prepare the land as best they could in order to enable the coming year to be successful


For Maori the land that they live on is one of the most important aspects of life.  Preserving their way of life depended on the treatment of the land and all things living on it, this outlook was paramount to their survival and was reflected and filtered through  to many other aspects of Maori culture.