Explosion causes Cambridge power outage

Twelve thousand customers in Waikato, Cambridge experienced a power out and it'll be there until at least noon on friday after an explosion at a substation.

The Transpower staff had been told about it happening and that there was damage to the substation's 11KV indoor switch gear, don't know what that is but it sounds important and crews would be trying to fix it and the repair will be finished around midday.

I think that because of this people will be reduced to finding new ways to do stuff. I also think that it's not too much of a big deal as it's getting fixed so there's really nothing to worry about.

Same-sex marriage law passed

It is now, as of last night, legal for two men and two women to marry within New Zealand. It seems that until the parliament deemed it to be legal that two people of the same gender were only allowed have a civil partnership.

This has been debated about frequently around last year within New Zealand. This looks to be because some religious and ethnic groups had a very strong opinion against this law. Now because of this law change New Zealand has become the thirteenth in the world to have this legalisation.

Fist-pump. I'll tell you something dear reader, I am a supporter of gay marriage. Kind of like a major supporter because I believe in equality. I don't know what's wrong with it because the way I see it love is love no matter who it is. A lot of people I have met completely disagree and, religious people especially, believe that some strange thing will happen if the law is passed. Yeah, I'll tell you what will happen; people of the same sex will get married!

The Boston explosion

There were two explosions during the Boston marathon in the United States near the finish line killing three and injuring more than one hundred.

The explosions happened approximately four hours after the race began and there were many people there as the Boston marathon is one of the most popular in the world. The runners were in shock and a few spectators had gotten injured.

I think of this whole explosion thing and I really feel a little bit upset. I mean, I know the whole explosion was devastating but come on. This happens all the time in other countries and there are way more deaths than three and because it does happen all the time people just think, "Oh, just another few hundred deaths in Iraq." It's just as saddening but nobody cares unless it happens in some western country. Why is America so special?

Saturn's rings produce rain

It seems that the rings around Saturn are made up of electrically charged water droplets making Saturn able to make it's own rain astronomers have recently found out. This was discovered by the scientists at Leicester University

Originally it was known that there was water in the upper atmosphere but nobody seemed to have any idea where it was all coming from. Until now as the droplets fall from the ring and is expected to change Saturn's atmosphere and make up. The theory is that the water is pulled towards the planet's magnetic field.

I reckon this is a cool discovery. I didn't know what Saturn's rings were, I assumed is was made out of whatever a milky way is because I don't know too much about space. I want to see it rain on Saturn if it's possible because that would be awesome.

Stand up for kids march

In central Tauranga on the fourteenth there was a march with around eight hundred people protesting against the proposed changes of our education system.

There were support staff, parents, teachers and education professionals within the large crowd. Every single one was against the privatisation of education and introducing charter schools and league tables.

Though there were eight hundred in the Bay of Plenty there were many more people across the country making the total count of people who were against the changes up to roughly one hundred thousand plus.

I was there and it was so cool. People everywhere were shouting, "Stand up for kids! Protect our schools!" and people played drums to the chant. I was with my mum, my brother and my mum's friend. I found what they were all saying once we had stop very interesting and listened the whole time. The government should let the people run us.

The story of Jonathan Eggderp

S6: Design your own challenge: Look after an egg for five days.

This wasn’t my first time looking after an egg-child. I had done it once before in my old primary school when we were learning about looking after children, it was a challenge of who’s egg could stay alive the longest and it was random boy-girl pairings as the parents. Sadly my egg died when I was taking him to the mat and that was it.

John Egbert

This time I was especially determined to do it well without killing my egg-child. I named him John Eggderp or just Eggderp for short. I got the name from Homestuck, which is an online web comic and one of the character’s name is John Egbert and his nickname from one of his friends and all of the fans of the web comic is basically Eggderp.

John Eggderp

It was a really fun challenge to do as Eggderp began progressively rebellious so I had to lock him in his room from time to time but other than certain days he was a good boy and did what he was told. He enjoyed coming to school and meeting his cousin Egg but still yearned for attention as he explored my desk area.

He slept in a small lunchbox tube that Catherine lent me for the task and he had some nice tissue bedsheets and a mattress in there. I treated Eggderp carefully because I didn’t want him to die the same way my other egg-son did by falling onto a hard linoleum floor. I had to clean up Junior’s guts…It was…so tragic and traumatising I think I’m going to cry. 

Moving on…Luckily Eggderp didn’t die until the challenge was over in the incident where he so devastatingly and…mysteriously died from accidentally flying into the ground three to ten times not that I would know.

They grow up so fast! And then get viciously murdered by some random person that is definitely not me. I swear on…uh…Don’t sue me. 

Homework Expectations

Amount

We think that 30-45 minutes every weeknight is a reasonable expectation for homework. Per week that equals approximately 2.5 hours per week of homework.

2 terms = 20 weeks. Every homework task should take you 5 hours to do.

Quality

You need to work on each homework task for at least 2.5 to 5 hours. It should like it was done by a year 8 student. The product you make (if relevant) should look good quality.

Blog Post

- must be at least 2 paragraphs

- has to be punctuated correctly, spell checked and no errors

- you must include which category and task number in your post title so Miss C can sign you off.

Pike River families want someone held accountable

Family members of those who had died tragically in the Pike River mine disaster are angry as nobody has been held accountable for the deaths.

An inquiry into the Department of Labour and Ministry for Economic Developing that were monitoring the mines has found no staff member responsible for the deaths. Apparently it was all due to systematic failures.

"All the families want is accountability." Says Bernie Monk, a spokesman for the families, told Fairfax. He also claimed that Lesley Haines who was a part of department to do with the health and safety section should be fired.

Well thats just dumb. Personally I think that if the families want someone to hold accountable I think somebody should stand up and take the blame. I know I would, I will if you take me there and I will literally say that it was all my fault. If someone needs to be fired then fire them if you want the families to stop being annoyed.

The New Zealand Security Bureau gets more power?

The Government Communications Security Bureau of New Zealand is going to get more powers, or rather authority, like the ability to spy on New Zealanders. It seems that they still did this without it being legal at all continuing to spy illegally on eighty-eight New Zealanders over the past decade.

Apparently under a law made in two-thousand and three the agents weren't allowed to spy on citizens or residents but there was another organisation, The Security Intelligence Service, that thought they could by misinterpreting the law.

John Key has said that the Kim Dotcom case was completely separate as the agencies believed that he was a foreigner and therefore was an allowed target. This however, was not the case at all.

I think this is a little creepy but still pretty good in the way that I really think our spies really aren't all that good. If they have the admission to spy on us I think it's kind of scary but good for them in a sense and they were doing it anyway.

Danish MP takes powhiri wrong way.

Marie Krarup, an MP from Denmark has come over to New Zealand and has expressed her disgust to a Maori powhiri that she was welcomed with upon coming to the country. Two of the words she had used to describe it were uncivilised and grotesque and had written a danish article about it being so. She had described it as being greeted by a "Half naked man, shouting and screaming in Maori who was poking his toungue out.

Afterwards Marie had been criticised on her article and she apologised saying that the comments were taken out of context and the meaning had been lost in translation.

I think that she had obviously misinterpreted it and took it the wrong way. She probably saw it differently because she's from overseas but I still think she should learn to appreciate our culture. It wasn't very nice of her to dis it straight away like that.

Student Led Conferences

Me and Mum