Hey!
Figured I should update this given results are tomorrow.
On Friday I had interviews for the new math teacher. Can't really talk about it much but we were told we had 3 candidates, turned out we had 4. We had a half hour break between the 3rd and 4th because they were interviewing someone for a different position who could only come in then. I'm hesitant to talk about how it went because I don't know how far along hiring decisions are, and I don't know who's reading this. I just wanted to say that the interviews for this particular position really showed how much value the student panel has. The students had unanimously agreed on a favourite, we all loved this person. The staff seemed a bit hesitant, but they took our feedback on board, and agreed to do the referee checks on the person. This was the first panel I've been on where the students and staff had different views (although 1 staff member agreed with us), one other i did we had a slight favourite and a different person got the job, but we like both of them.
After Interviews I had SSDP, during which time i coughed most of my lungs out, almost suffocated a few times, then realised that it had been long enough that I could have more medicine.
3rd period I had fish. My teacher took one look at me and pulled out a carpet (I don't know where from...) and the big roll of filter wool (its about 2m long and 40cm high when rolled up. It's like soft toy stuffing but in a sheet). He told me to sleep and I would have but the carpet was full of so much dust I probably would have died. After mucking around and not doing much for a bit i wandered over to check on my fish. One of the adult Maingano's had died
After we pulled him out we checked the water quality and everything seemed ok so we think he died from bullying, which happens when fish move tanks (they claim territory). Maingano's are a type of cichlid and cichlids are known for being aggressive. The Mphanga who already had marks and scales missing from when they were in the tank with their babies also died, which was expected.
Monday I didn't go into school again due to still being ill. Some of my attendance was at 50% after this (to get an 's' we need 90%...not a good start).
Tuesday was orientation day for next years entry (year 7) students.
Wednesday I had English and Math, both of which were boring. In maths we're doing things we already did in General.... 3rd period I had Outdoor Ed. The first half of the class we helped remove tables from the resource centre for one of our principals farewell which is tonight (Thursday). The second half of the class we presented on a topic but I didn't have to because I wasn't there on Friday.
Today I again had English and Math, again boring (I don't remember how to write a media analysis...If I ever knew) I had fish 3rd period which was great fun, as always. We did prac, I had a few people with me and we rinsed the filters in a lot of our tanks, they were getting dirty and clogged up by fish poo.
My teacher told us he has PD tomorrow so he isn't going to be there, I'm kinda sad about it because it is our last class for the year, and he was my 3/4 bio teacher so it would have been nice to talk to him after the results come out, but at the same time it might be better not to because he was hoping I did really well and I made a lot of silly mistakes on the exam so I'm just hoping I get 40
I'm honestly not too concerned about what I get. The number doesn't matter to me unless I fail really badly, the course I want needs an 80, so I will get into it so long as I pass English next year
At the same time I know that I'm going to be dissapointed in my score because I know the content, and there is only one question on the exam that I got wrong because I didn't know the answer (the one about classifying a species as autralopithicus or homo) so it annoys me a lot that I got so many wrong due to silly errors. Whilst the number itself doesn't matter to me, it still would have been nice to get a score that reflects how well I know the content, rather than how well I can read questions under exam conditions. I think I will get over it quickly, but having people who expected and wanted me to do well ask what I got is not going to be much fun
Tomorrow I'll be up around 6 (normal time) to get ready for school, i'll have a few minutes to check before I need to leave, I'm sure i'll be on my phone on here on the way to school tomorrow.
I have private study 1st period, at 9:45 I have an interview to be the fish keeper (the only leadership position in fish- its a new position because my subject is becoming part of working with animals rather than the science subject it was originally intended to be). I'm fairly sure the teacher in charge of interviews (there's one teacher and two students on the panel) wants me to get it, there's 2 other applying for it, who are actually doing fish (there's a couple of people applying who are doing fish for the first time next year but they won't get it). Both of them have had there interviews, one of them is 99% sure he won't get it, he's expecting to get invertebrates and amphibians, so I'll probably get it, unless I really stuff up the interview.
2nd period I have outdoor Ed which is always a fun class. SSDP apparently my house (4 SSDP groups) are having a picnic - Apparently I need to bring food.
3rd period I have fish, my teacher won't be there but he's asked me to grab some people and do a water change on some of our fish. Then I'm done for the year
I'm so curious to hear about this fish elective, I've never heard of anything like it! Is it a part of your timetable for the whole year and what does it involve?
It's so much fun
It's a semester length elective but I've been in it since it was first created at the start of 2016. Originally it was intended to be a science subject, focusing on science related to water. However we inherited some fish when the working with animals program was split into 2 subjects (Feathers & fur, Reptiles). We ended up spending a fair bit of time caring for the fish, and most people enjoyed the practical side more than the theory. The first semester It ran we cleaned out a storage area (big enough to fit 2 cars?). It was full of old tables/chairs etc. We cleaned it out, put concrete paint on the floor and then had to clean the tanks that were donated to us by a fish shop. These tanks had black paint on them which had to be scraped off with heavy duty razor blades (they were 'safety' razor blades - one side was blunt) Then we had to scrape the silicon off. It took weeks to clean them all.
These days we get lots of tanks donated - more than we can possibly know what to do with, we also get some fish donated. Through the existing working with animals program we have the company behind aquaone/reptileone/etc sponsoring us so we get their equipment cheap. We have also recently got sponsorship from Aquarium Industries (the largest importer of aquarium fish into Australia) so they will sell us their fish at cost - Both of which are awesome for us as a poor public school.
From next year we are going to be a working with animals elective so our lessons will mainly be practical. Everyone will have a species (or 2) that they are responsible for taking care of, as opposed to this year where whoever wanted to do prac took care of them. Basically we will do around weekly water changes, feed the fish daily, get to know their usual behaviour so we can notice when water conditions change/when the fish become unhealthy. We will also do a few theory projects throughout the semester (this semester I have done a project on the impact of European carp on our native Silver Perch and a project on ocean acidifcation).
EDIT: I should proofread before i post.
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Topic: PhoenixxFire's VCE journey (Read 33433 times)