Anna’s Cross Country Writing

The cold, winter wind hit my face as I conquered Mt. Everest (aka. the hill) I took a small glimpse of the horizon behind me, “Go Anna, you can do it!” Shouted Mrs. Foster, which gave me a slight boost of the energy I needed.

i felt as tired as a 99 year old man doing the Tongariro crossing. Although my body was exhausted, I kept on trundling along the worn out, rutted track.

I felt like every step i took, it got me closer and closer, to either collapsing onto the soft, green grass or vomiting.

Suddenly, I heard screaming. I look to the left and Kim has ALREADY crossed the finish line, I have around 100,000km to go.

 

Instead of focussing on how much i wanted to be at home laying in my cosy bed, drinking some refreshing, ice cold lemonade, I tried my hardest to think about chocolate...mmm… or what delicious food my mum was cooking for dinner.

YES!!!! I’m finally there! The finish line was waiting for me!! The finish chute was a red carpet, and I was the star doing the walk (run) of fame.

                b  BY ANNA

         WHY ANIMALS SHOULD NOT

               BE KEPT IN ZOOS

I strongly believe that animals should not be kept in zoos for these reasons, they are locked up in a cage with visitors, they don’t have lots of friends or family there and they can’t hunt for their own food.

First of all those poor, innocent animals are locked away behind bars like prisoners. Imagine being a cute little zoo animal, and you decide to go for a little wonder, you take about 5 steps then you pretty much face plant into the wall. You try your hardest to escape, but NO, YOU ARE TRAPPED!!! and also you pretty much can’t do anything in private. People watch you eat, people watch you pee, people watch you do rest. People watch you do EVERYTHING. There is NO PRIVACY.When back in the wild you feel as free as a student rushing out of the evil world of detention!! (DUN... DUN… DUNNNN) You (the animals)can run around anywhere they like, they will live in FREEEEDDDDOOOMMMM!!

Next, They don’t have a lot of friends or family there. Imagine just having your new born baby getting taken away… BY A COMPLETE STRANGER!!!! Or imagine just having the first glimpse of your Mummy and you get snached.

Now imagine a poor, little, harmless, lonely animal BY HIMSELF. I’ve been to the zoo before, and once there was animal all alone, by himself, in the rain, crying…(just joking) (but he was all alone)

Third of all, Those animal can’t even hunt for their own food , or even pick what they want to eat. The closest the zookeepers can get to the real wildlife is putting food in a little cage, then in a tree for the giraffes, and for the lions they tie up meat to a string and hang it up. Delicous (mm..mmm.mm)

So… Do you believe that animals should NOT be kept in zoos or do you think they should live in zoos… Well i think they should live in FREEEEDDDOOOMM!!!!!!

Why camping is better than

        staying a hotel room

I absolutely believe that camping in the outdoor is WAY better than staying in a hotel room and here are the reasons why you should agree with me. Fresh outdoors, entertaining and waking up to

the the peaceful sound of birds.

First of all there is fresh air EVERYWHERE, (well except from the toilets) but otherwise EVERYWHERE! In hotel rooms the air is so stuffy so you decide to open your window, as soon as the window comes open you get a whiff of polluted city air. When back at the campsite you’re surrounded by fresh air you get the wonderful aroma of flowers, leaves, wood and dirt.

Imagine waking up to the peaceful sound of birds singing songs, chirping away. You get out of bed and see all of the beautiful, tall trees and the shining sun which heats up your relaxed body. But when you’re in your hotel room…

You would be very likely to either wake up to the frustrating sound of your screaming alarm clock or the annoying sound of cars beeping at each other.

I believe that camping is far more better than staying in a hotel room. There is SO MUCH MORE TO DO.So.. Do you still think that camping is better than staying in a hotel room? Have you ever been camping? If not do you want to? I have and I LOVE IT.

Anna's mathematical flag

 SUGAR

Hi, today I’m going to be talking about sugar. No not the song... the

sugar you eat, the one that’s killing you very very slowly, the one that’s EVERYWHERE even in the foods considered “healthy”

Did you know that if you removed all of the products with added

sugar from your average supermarket you will be left with only 20%

of items, or that you can use Coca-Cola to remove old rust or even clean

dirty toilets.  Is sugar really that bad for you? What can happen if you eat too much? Those are the annoying questions taking over the our confused minds.

When you eat sugar your body has 2 options about how to deal with it.

Option 1 burn for energy, or option 2 store in your fat cells.

Problem is there is much more room for fat than room to burn

sugar as energy.

The average 9-19 year old is recommended to have around 6 teaspoons of sugar per day, when Coca-Cola has 44 teaspoons of sugar.  Heres a fact you

might not know.. Coke is actually green, yes you heard me right... green!

Did you know, not only can you drink Coca-Cola you can use it to clean grease

and oil stains, kill slugs or snails, melt frozen ice, get rid of hiccups,

attract bees or wasps and at McDonalds they even clean their trays with

Coke. Now imagine what it does to your body.

Sugar cane began to grow wild in India and south-east Asia about a hundred

million years ago. Most people ate sugar for energy when they ran and to work hard, sugar provides a lot of carbohydrates - and it tastes good too. 2500 years BC is when Indians really started eating sugar. 3 thousand years after that, only people in India and south-east Asia ate sugar cane. This was because you had to eat it fresh.

Then after about 350 years (AC) Indian food scientists finally invented a way to make the sweet sugar cane juice into crystallized sugar. You did this by grinding or pounding the sugar cane to get out the juice. Then you dried the juice in the sun and you got lumps of sugar.

When people began to travel back and forth between India and China, they brought sugar to China with them. The emperor got interested in sugar, and he asked the Indians to come to China to explain how to grow sugar cane and make sugar.

In 1822 Americans consumed 45 g of sugar every day 5 days and in 2012 Americans consumed 756g of sugar every 5 days. 29.1 million people in

America have diabetes. In NZ we consume 54,000g of sugar per year,

that is equivalent to 37 teaspoons of sugar per person per day.

I hope the next time you open your pantry to get that delicious piece of chocolate you’ve been waiting to have hopefully you’ll think twice before you’ll grab that piece. Or hopefully you wont have any chocolate in your pantry in the first place.

                         THE NEVER-GO FOREST

                     BEFORE:

   Come to my silent forest, you’ll love

          the peace and cool colors

                     AFTER:

    As you walk into the spooky forest you

           feel almost as if you are

       never going to see the sun again.

You legs start to get cold, you get surrounded

 by grey, cloudy fog. At first you  have a slight 

bit of hope, you keep searching for a way out.

     Later you start to realize you’re

       trapped. You look into the

   horizon and see one tall, lonely tree.

   You trundle along yet to see every tiny

step you take your surroundings get darker,

             and darker, and darker…

          Although you’re still not sure what

       to do, you start running faster than

             lightning… You hear voices.

        You’re as confused as a chameleon

               in a big bag of skittles.

  The tree stands tall, You see a gap with a

       tiny bit of sunlight. You use all your

   energy and sprint towards the sunlight.

                  BY ANNA

DESERT                  

          By Thomas, Anna, Jaeha and Simon

As I walk along the sun shines onto my body and scorches my skin. Suddenly I look over my shoulder and see a myriad of sand blowing around everywhere. "Water?” nope that was just my silly   imagination playing tricks on my confused mind.

The sound of snakes hissing like crazy chaotic beasts rings on my ears. The sandstorms are strong enough to knock me off my feet. I could taste dry gritty sand getting blown into my eyes and mouth, it felt like sand was all over my body. The cactus danced in the heat.

Then without warning a slithery snake starts crawling along my body, I hold in my breath silently  hoping it won’t hear me, my fear has overtaken me.

Meanwhile I see a brown , rusty , gritty tumbleweed trundling along. In the horizon I see a pack of grizzling coyotes (obviously I avoided that direction).

As I trundle along my tired feet sink into the burning hot sand.