Fruit and Vegetables Salads

The quality of fruits and vegetables:
 1. Some of the qualities we looked for in our fruits and vegetable were the firmness of the fruits and veges. We made sure that they weren't too mushy and checked for any signs of rotting. We also checked that they were bright in colour.

2. It's important to cut vegetables evenly so that when it comes to cooking them they all cook evenly. We cook our starchy vegetables first because they take longer to cook.

3. For our couscous salad we used pesto for the dressing. We mixed all the the ingredients together enough so that the pumpkin and feta cheese wouldn't get all mushy together. We put the salad into a deep bowl so that everything was to stay in place instead of putting it in a plate where everything would fall apart. Some additional ingredients we added to our couscous salad were the pine nuts to give our couscous salad that crunch.

For our Ceasar salad we made our own Ceaser sauce to add to our salad. We arranged the salad onto a plate and created layers so that the chicken was able to soak up the flavouring from the egg. Additonal ingredients we added to our salad was the egg for the nutrients and crutons to give your salad that crunchiness.

Our vege baskets were made up of mixed vegetables wrapped in pastry and cooked for about 20 - 30 mins.

The fruit flan that we made consisted of us making our own base and filling. We used different fruits that would work together flavour wise with the filling we made to give it a tropical sort of taste. We also added a melted chocolate to the fruit flan for extra sweetness to our flan.

Steaming

Dumplings

1. The type of steaming used for cooking our dumplings was low-pressure steam. This is done by frying the dumplings and then we put a bit of water in the frying pan and put the lid over the dumplings and all them to steam.
2. Photos

3. The qualities we were looking for in our ingredients for the dumplings were that there were no blemishes in the cabbage and that it was bright in colour.

4. Serving quantity for dumplings was half a dozen per person.

5. We mixed all the ingredients together and made sure that they were cut into small and even sizes to make sure that they would cook evenly. 

6. Firstly we fried our dumplings in a pan on the stove for a couple of minutes till they were nice tan colour on the outside. We then put a bit of water in the pan and put a lid over the pan and let the dumplings steam for a couple of minutes. This was done at 100 degrees.

Lemon Fish

1. The type of steaming used for our lemon fish with vegetables was low pressure steam. This was done in a bamboo steaming basket that was on top of a pan filled with a bit of water.

2. Photos

 

3. The qualities we were looking for in our fish were that it was bright in colour and that there were no signs of it beginning to rot. As for our vegetables we checked to see that they were bright in colour.
4. The quantity of fish for each person was a palm sized piece of the fish and as for our vegetables we had to have 2-3 and a half cups of veges.
5. For our fish we had to put in baking paper and seasoned it with salt and pepper, lemons and spring onions. For our vegetable we had to slice our carrots to make sure they were the same size as our peas and wrapped them small bunches with string to be ready for steaming.
6. For both out fish and veges we put a bit of water into a pan and then out our fish and veges into a steaming basket. This was done at a low pressure steam. Our fish took about 10-12 mins to steam. We checked to make sure our fish wasn't over or under cooked by being able to put a knife through and for it to come out nice and smoothly without it falling apart. But as for our veges it only took a couple of mins. Once they were done steaming we made sure that the veges didn't look all mushy or that they wouldn't fall apart.

 

Grilling

Type of Grilling used

1. For our bacon and pancakes, we grilled our bacon under the grill.
2. For our steak sandwich, we grilled the steak between the sandwich press.

Quality Checks

For our veggies, we wanted to check that there were no blemishes and they firm and bright in colour. As for our bacon, we checked to see that it wasn't any sign of mould on them and that they didn't smell off. For our steak, we checked to see that the colour of the steak wasn't green or black and that it had a slimy texture to it.

Degree of Cooking

We cooked the bacon for about 15 - 20mins in the oven at 200 degrees till it was crispy, golden brown. For our steak, we pressed it in between the sandwich press for a couple minutes till it was brown and it had the grilled lines on the steak.

Presentation

Our pancakes were accompanied by bananas along

with golden syrup and bacon. Each person had two pancakes each and half a banana chopped up and put on top of the pancakes.

                   

Steak sandwich was accompanied by with aioli sauce and vegetables. Each person had a palm-sized sized sandwich


07/08/18
1. Kebabs - lamb

Quality checks 
We checked that the colour of the meat was red as an indication that the meat was fresh. Also checked that the meat was nice and firm and that it sprung back nicely which also meant that it was fresh and if it didn't spring back nicely then it would've been a bit old. Also, check the smell in case it smelt a bit off and rotten. We then trimmed the fat off the steak and cut them into serving size pieces.

Degree of Cooking
We cooked our lamb kebabs on the stove at a temperature of 70 - 80 degrees for about 10 - 15 mins.

Presentation

Our lamb was accompanied by red onions and each person had 2 kebab sticks each. 

Boiling Assessment

Boiling

Part 1
At the beginning of our practical we checked that our vegetables, eggs and potatoes were clean and free of any soil, they weren't damaged, they were an even shape and size and they were firm and soft and not soft and spongy. We also checked that it didn't smell off and that it wasn't expired. 


Part 2
When boiling the veges and eggs we made sure that they were cooking at the right temperature and that they were cooked properly for the correct amount of time. So for the veges we needed to cook them for about 10-20 mins at 100 degrees and for our eggs we needed to cook them for about 5-10 mins at 100 degrees. 















Part 3

When presenting your food your dishes should look like alike and the proportions for each person is the same and reasonable. A proportion for each person it should be 2 medium eggs, 110g per person of root vegetable, 125g of tuber vegetables and 100g of green vegetables.

Mashed potatoes and eggs with bacon

Schnitzel with baby carrots and peas

Scotch egg with salad

Knife Safety

138285 - Handle Knives

Occasion 1 - Fruit Salad

Before working just make sure that your area is clean and ready for use. To make sure that the chopping board was secure we placed a wet cloth underneath the board to prevent it from slipping it off the bench.







When walking around the kitchen you must remember to hold your knife in a sensible manner to avoid hurting anyone or yourself. Before using your knife you must check your knife is clean and sharpened. The photo below is a demonstration of how to sharpen your knife. You must hold your knife at 45 degree angle and sharpen from one end to the other.




Once you have finished cleaning your knives are stored in a safe manner and in a suitable cupboard or draw that is kept out of reach of children. 

Chicken Srir Fry Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon vegetable oil, divided use
• 1 cup broccoli florets
• 1 cup mushrooms, halved
• 1 yellow bell pepper, cored, seeded and thinly sliced
• 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into 1 inch pieces
• salt and pepper to taste
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• ¾ cup chicken broth
• 1½ teaspoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Place 1 teaspoon of oil in a large pan and heat    over medium high heat.
2. Add the broccoli, mushrooms and bell pepper to the pan. Cook for 5-6 minutes or until vegetables are tender.
3. Remove the vegetables from the pan; transfer to a plate and cover with foil to keep warm.
4. Wipe the pan clean with a paper towel, then heat the remaining tablespoon of oil over high heat.
5. Add the chicken to the pan in a single layer and season with salt and pepper to taste.
6. Cook for 3-4 minutes per side, or until chicken is browned and cooked through.
7. Lower heat to medium, add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds.
8. Add the vegetables back to the pan.
9. In a small bowl, whisk together the chicken broth, sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil and cornstarch,
10. Pour the sauce over the chicken mixture and bring to a simmer.
11. Simmer for 1-2 minutes or until sauce has just thickened.
12. Serve immediately, with steamed rice if desired.

Hospo 2018

167 - 05/04/18  

Task 3 - Before/During/After Food Handling

1. Here you can see that these hands have been washed using the 20:20 rule and are nice and clean and is also clear of jewellery. Jewellery is to be removed because this is where bacteria can grow from all the moisture in you hands and no nail polish is to be worn. This is to avoid your foods from being contaminated with germs to keep your customer from being sick. If there are any cuts or open wounds you are advised to cover them to avoid bacteria getting in your foods.

2.  As you can see in this photo hair is to be tidy and tided back or put up in a bun. This is to keep unwanted hairs from falling into  the food. Avoid any scratching or touching your hair, mouth and nose as this can cause any contamination.

3. In this photo you can see that the shoes are all tied up. This is to avoid tripping up when handling anything dangerous like knives or dropping food.

4. Wearing an apron while working in the kitchen is important. This is to prevent hairs, fibres and other things that carry bacteria get into food. 

5. You can see that in this photo we are using the appropriate chopping board for the right set of meat and using the same coloured knife for white meat. This is because this stops us from contaminating our foods with other foods. After handling raw food it's            important to rewash your hands to avoid                                                    contamination.

6. Food preparation is key; as you can see we put our foods into different bowls. This is to keep foods from mixing with each other. Use clean utensils when preparing your food is important as well.

7. Food preparation should allow your creativity to flow through and amaze your customers. Because the way it looks on the plate would tempt people to want to taste your creation.

Task 5 - Health and Safety

When working in the kitchen it's important to keep the kitchen nice and clean. So it's ideal to empty all rubbish bins after everyday; this is to prevent pests and unwanted animals being attracted to the kitchen. It's also important to wipe down all benches after use to avoid any bacteria from transferring onto something and creating an endless chain of bacteria. 
When storing food in the kitchen it's important to not store meat in the fridge and in a place where meat juice wouldn't drip onto your other foods and contaminate it. Foods should be stored in the right places at the right temperature. When storing leftover you should let it cool down before storing it in the fridge and shouldn't be left out on the bench for more than 2 hrs. After a couple days throw away any leftovers as they may be bacteria growing on them that can cause you to become ill.

Task 7 - Temperatures of Food

When cooking food (especially chicken) it's important to cook it to the right temperature. This is to prevent any food poisoning. To check the temperatures of our meat use a thermometer; for ground meat and meat mixtures it should be cooked to about 75 degrees celsius and for red meat it should be 70 degress celsius. When reheating your food you should reheat it to 60 degrees celsius and this to prevent food poisoning bacteria from spreading.

Year 11 Music

Composition #2:

25/08/17
Today we had a special visit from Matt Barus a member of the band "The Dukes". He had a composing workshop planned for us for the whole day. It started of with Matt listening to the compositions we created earlier on and he gave us feedback on it as well as the other students who attended the workshop. Matt then gave us chance to come up with our own melodies to tracks that have already been created. This was followed by us also been giving the chance to come up with a lyrics too. Anna and I were working together which was great because I work well with her (well most of the times) but we did come up with a killer verse, pre chorus and chorus that was about a friendship falling apart and the friend not knowing what went wrong or even why. At first when and Anna and I were writing down the lyrics we didn't know what exactly we were writing about but it seemed to flow so we worked with it; until we looked at the lyrics properly and they explained exactly what went down in one of our friendships.

29/08/17

Today Anna and I had come up with another verse and a bridge to go along with it. The verse that we came up with we decided to base on how things are now when running into that person we use to be so dearly close with. In this verse it just explains some of things they tend to do when we bump into each other. The bridge is about how things are now and how better off we are without that person in our lives as we seem to be heading into brighter futures. 

3rd of September on wards

From here on out  Anna and I just finished out composition off and cleaned up a few errors we thought that needed to be fixed. We then had our music teacher, Mrs Beer, work along aside us with a but of harmonies that Anna and I liked to add into our song. After we polished our composition we then recorded it and here is a snippet of our composition

Reading Log #7

Title: Like Father, Like Son

Author: Kevin Brook

Text type: Novel

Date Finished: 21/09/17

The book Like Father, Like Son is a book about a young boy named Johnny on the search to find out who killed his father. Johnny had a little help from his friend Marcus as Marcus knew a lot about the drug dealing business and the gang affiliation life. Like most other teenagers who may not know about one of their parents. Johnny had a million questions about what happened, how it happened and most importantly who did it. Johnny eventually finds out the truth after doing some investigating himself with the help from his friend Marcus and other people who had known what was going on to the point where Johnny’s father passed away.

The situation in this text was different to my situation and how my life is. Johnny grew up not knowing a lot about his father and being the only child his mother cared for. When his father was still alive; he was a really busy man when it came to the drug dealing business and gang affiliation life. Johnny’s father had an affair with Johnny’s mother when he was married to some other woman. Johnny also found out that his father had a child with his wife which made him think that he could have a step sister. I on the other hand know both my parents and they are well and alive and I have siblings that I live with too. I don’t have gang wars going on in my neighbourhood and my father isn’t involved with drug dealing or anything like that. But one thing I can relate to with Johnny is having a step sister that I had no idea about until 3 or 4 years ago. I felt sorry for Johnny because he was dealing with a lot. From his father’s death to gang wars going off in his neighbourhood to looking after his mother. Johnny was a very curious, very strong minded and brave. He had a goal and that was to find out who killed his father, as stated in the book, and he wasn’t going to stop till he go what he wanted. I can relate to this in a way where I set goals in life whether it has anything to do with my personal life or school; for example my personal life goals aren’t as big as Johnny’s but it’s the simplest things like getting a job and learning how to drive so I’m able to get my license. Johnny was also strong minded when it came to wanting to know all there was about his father’s death. An example of this would was when he questioned Marcus about who knew what might have happened the day his father was killed and he wouldn’t leave the situation alone till he got the answers. They then went to look for these people Marcus had mentioned. One person they came across was a young girl named Tisha. After talking to Tisha, Johnny discovers that the person who killed his father was sent by a well known man in the drug dealing business, Jack Taylor. The person that was sent by Jack Taylor was Tisha’s brother Robbie. After finding this out Johnny was determined to see Jack Taylor. I am strong minded most times but it just depends on what situation it is but Johnny has showed me that he is a very determined person and won’t stop even when he has challenges in front of him. As stated in the book; Johnny went to visit Jack Taylor but the receptionist wouldn’t allow him to see Jack as he was a very busy man. It even got to a point where she was going to call for security because Johnny was refusing to leave. Jack Taylor then comes out of his office a few moments later and has a brief conversation with Jack. This goes to show that even though he didn’t his father that well that he was going to do defend his father and help him get revenge on Jack.

The book Like Father, Like Son shows characters personality of determination and bravery. This could be an example to us that if you are really determined and strong minded about something that you really want to do or find out about; it’s important to go ahead with it being 100% confident with what you do. Even though there will a lot of challenges on the way it’s important to fight through them because in the end it’ll all be worth it. As Johnny witnessed himself, the person who set up Robbie to kill his father had been shot in the head by one of his security guards.

Reading Log #6

Title: White Fang

Author: Jack London

Text Type: Novel

Date Finished: 20/09/17

The story White Fang written by Jack London is a story about a half wolf, half dog called White Fang. He was one of 5 cubs his mother gave birth to. His father had died when he was very little because a wild cat had attacked him. So he was left to help his mum survive with the rest of his siblings, as he was the tough one out of the 5 cubs. One day while White Fang and his mother went out into the woods to look for food to feed him and his siblings and their mother; they came across a wild cat. Whenever White Fang came across another animal he thought of them as the enemy. White Fang was also the type who loved to fight, kill and eat dead animals and they did exactly that to the wild cat they came across. One day White Fang was found by a group of Native Americans who took him in and looked after him until he was passed onto the chief to be looked after by. When he was passed onto Beauty Smith, one of the chiefs, he used White Fang to fight all the dogs that were put in front of him. People in the village loved to watch dogs fight and loved watching White Fang kill other dogs within minutes. One day White Fang had to go up against a tiny but heavy dog called Cherokee. Unlike other fights White Fang fought, this fight lasted longer. During this fight two men spotted what was going on and ran over to stop the two dogs and tried to pull them apart; while everyone else was cheering on the dogs. One man called Scott asked the other man called Matt how much a sled dog cost and they discussed the prices and everything. Once they had finished Scott turned to Beauty Smith and said he would give him $150 for White Fang but Beauty Smith refused it and said White Fang wasn’t up for sale. But Scott didn’t take that as answer and still handed Beauty Smith the money and left with his partner Matt and White Fang. Months on in and Scott slowly taught White Fang how to love and that everything that happens doesn’t need to be solved by killing everything.

An important lesson to learn from this is that people do change. But in this case it’s animals. An example of this was in the beginning of the book White Fang was a vicious and dangerous dog/wolf. But towards the end of the book he learnt to become a caring and loving dog/wolf. I reckon this was because throughout the book whenever White Fang did something wrong he was always punished for it. So when Scott spotted White Fang killing all the chickens in the barn, Scott punished him lightly by hitting him with the whip. Then having Scott explain to him that he wasn't allowed to kill the chickens and that he should never do it again. As White Fang grew up being brutally beaten up by whichever master that took care of him at the time, he grew up knowing that violence was the answer to everything. But further on down the road when someone came White Fang’s way and taught him how to be caring and subtle; I think White Fang realized that there was better ways of dealing with things other than using violence. This can relate to some people who may have grown up with no one there to love and care for them but when being surrounded by the right people and being taught a few things you start to see that they do change. It just takes someone to take them under their wing and they will eventually learn how to love and care towards others.

So I think that people do change it just takes the right people to show them what love and care is. Instead of using violence as the answer for everything. It may take longer for some to get their heads around the fact that everything doesn’t need to be solved by starting a fight but they will eventually come around and they will learn from their mistakes. We just need to learn not to punish them and yell things at them as no one really learns from that. If you’re wanting them to do things differently then it’s important to talk to them nice and calmly and they will understand.

Reading Log #5

Title: A Day of Weeping

Author: Benjamin Nicholls

Text Type: Short Story

Date Finished: 12/09/17

The short story, A Day of Weeping, is a story about a Cook Island family. The father was an alcoholic and was very abusive towards his wife. One day when their eldest son was coming back home, after a day's work at their plantation, there was something happening in their family home as multiple people from the village gathered around. Teiva, who was the eldest son, asked what was going on and his little brother filled him in saying that their mother had been beaten up by their father. Teiva was mad at his father for this as this wasn’t the first time it had happened. Teiva thought that it was about time they had done something about this issue; because Teiva was fed up with his mother being poorly treated by his father. So Teiva wanted to get away as far as they could away from their abusive father. Teiva, his mother and his brother were offered to stay at a relative's house for the night just so that Terekino, the father, wasn’t able to harm them during the middle of the night. In the middle of the night Teiva was woken up by a sudden voice that sounded like it was screaming out for help. Teiva goes out in the dark to find that the cry for help was coming from their house and the lights of their cook house was on and people had gathered around to see what was going on. When Teiva got closer to the scene he was informed by a fellow villager that his horse had kicked his father; breaking his ribs and also given him a swollen face. Teiva wasn’t actually bothered by this at all as he thought that his father deserved it. His father was then sent to the hospital and was in there for a good 2 weeks. During his time in the hospital Teiva’s mother had planned to get boat tickets and travel far away as they could away from Terekino. The day came around for Teiva and his mother and brother to pack up and leave the Island and Terekino was still lying in hospital. When Terekino received the news that his wife and kids were leaving the island for good; he ran out of the hospital and made his way to the wharf where the villagers were farewelling everyone who was leaving. A loud cry had bursted out and everyone had turned to see Terekino struggling to make his way to the wharf to stop the boat from leaving with his famliy. As the boat was leaving Terekino had kneeled and just started crying even more begging for the boat to return with his family but his famliy was free at last.

An important lesson to learn from this was that if you do bad things towards others, bad things will happen to you. This was seen in the story where Terekino brutally beat his wife up and then later on in the story he was kicked by a horse. Just like that famous saying “What goes around comes around.” As a result of Terekino’s brutal actions towards his wife; his wife had enough of it and said to her two boys “I have three tickets for the boat. We are leaving tonight.” I can relate to this in a way where I grew up with a certain relative who was an alcoholic and beat up his wife. It even got to a point where he was reported by the neighbours and was arrested too and was sent to jail for a decent amount of time. His wife had enough and wanted to move in with other relatives and keep her children safe as they were so young and she just didn’t want her children to watch her go through something so painful. This also got me thinking about family abuse. Most polynesian families are known for family abuse and alcoholic relatives. I’ve never liked being around my alcoholic relatives or being around my relatives when a fight was about to break out. I never liked the idea of family abuse either; it just didn’t seem like something that should’ve have been happening in these families. It isn’t ok for someone you love to beat you up because they want to take their anger out on you; especially when being under the influence of alcohol. So when these things happen you shouldn’t be surprised when your family decide to move away from you.

So if you want to carry on treating people with disrespect and abusing them because you're angry with something else; don’t be surprised when they finally had enough of your rudeness and decide to leave you. So start treating people like you want to be treated like everyone else says. Because if you don’t change; it will get to a point where you will be left alone with no one by your side when you’re in need of support.

Reading Log #4

Title: Freedom Writers

Director: Richard LaGravenese

Text Type: Film

Date Finished: 03/06/17

The film ‘Freedom Writers’ directed by Richard LaGravenese is a film about high school students who have grown up in a violent environment. Woodrow Wilson High School started off as a high achieving school but were later on faced with difficulties as the school adopted a new racial integration system. Mrs Gruwell who was a new teacher at Woodrow Wilson High School, was a really enthusiastic teacher. These kids were not your typical high school students; some of these kids were involved with gangs, had been in and out of refugee camps, homeless, or were drug dealers. These students grouped themselves into their own small groups of Africans, Cambodians, Latinos and other racial groups.  

Mrs Gruwell is faced with a lot of challenges while being at school; not only does she have to earn the students trust she is also facing little support from her fellow co-workers. This is seen in the film when Gruwell turns to the Head of the Department for help with damaged resources, but she is denied. Instead she advises Gruwell to teach the students about self discipline and respect. She overcame this by seeing the Ministry of Education and asked him to allow her to let the students read books that were more advanced than their vocabulary. These students ended up reading the diary of Anne Frank and most of them  enjoyed this book as they were able to relate to various difficult situations Anne Frank faced in her time

In the film the director displayed a number of important ideas. One of these was tolerance. This was shown when the students in room 203, an english class, learnt to respect and understand that their differences should not affect them. After this they began to work together and become more successful with their education as they had learnt to tolerate each other. This happened after ‘Mrs. G’ confronts the students about a drawing they drew of Jamal. This picture of jamal was drawn with big lips just like the Nazi’s propaganda poster with jews and their big noses. The teacher then compared it to the way the Nazi’s labelled the Jews by their ‘big noses’ in the times that the Holocaust occurred.  This idea allowed me to have a better understanding of how students presently tend to judge each other for being different. Teens tend to judge each other for being a different race or not being the type of person they should be. This idea is important because people are letting others control how they should look with what they say. We may have been brought up differently, in different areas of the world but we are not all that different. We all breathe the same air, we are all entitled to our own opinions and because we are different to each other we shouldn’t let other people’s words justify who we are. We were not bought into this earth to be exactly like each other or even live up to everyone else’s expectations. We are the way we are because that’s apart of being a human; being different isn’t a bad thing it just means you’re brave enough to be ourselves. The students in room 203 later on in the movie realise that they have all been through similar situations; for example they all had lost someone close to them because of gang purposes. This allowed the students to open up to each and help each other heal from the pain they had endure from losing someone due to gang related incidents. You may think to yourself sometimes that there isn’t anyone out there who wouldn’t understand what you’ve been through. But if you take the time to talk to other people and get to know about their background a little bit; you’d be surprised with what you and that other person would have in common.

A lesson to take from this is that we should never judge people by they way they showcase themselves; but actually take the time to get to know people and understand why they’re the way that they are. There’s that famous saying “Never judge someone without knowing the whole story. You may think you understand, but you don’t” this clearly states that you can never fully understand why people are the way that they are till you get to know and understand their situations.

Year 11 Music

Composition:

For the past few weeks in music Anna Pohatu and I have been working on our music composition as apart of our level 1 music curriculum. 

It first started off with Anna and I trying to work on our own compositions by ourselves. But that didn't seem to work out very well; our teacher seen that Anna and I were struggling individually and suggested that Anna and I work together to make things a little bit easier. 

2 weeks in and everyone else was underway with their composition and Anna and I had nothing at all to work with no lyrics, no melody, nothing! We even struggled trying to even come up with a simple title for our composition. During one of our music periods after a couple of minutes of critical thinking we came up with the title 'Summer Breeze'. Later on that week we successfully came up with things that cooperated with the title 'Summer Breeze' but struggled to put it into a song. This left Anna and I back at square one. 

It's fair to say Anna and I mucked around (well I definitely did) during the making of our composition. At times we complained about how hard it was but most times we just couldn't be bothered in all honesty. But during one of our music periods Anna and I thought it was about time we put our heads together and actually tried to come up with something for our composition. We sat around for half the period messing around spitting our lines and trying different melodies. After all that time I finally came up with a simple melody and Anna, being very talented when it comes to music, was able to pick up the melody on guitar just by listening to what I was humming. 

Now that Anna and I had something to work with we were able to get underway with our song. Since the whole 'Summer Breeze' theme didn't work out and Anna and I had already decided that we weren't going to compose a depressing song cause it was just too sad for us; but a depressing song seemed to be the only option as they seemed to be easier to write about. Because we know that when writing a song it just flows free without having to put a lot of thinking into it. We decided that we would write one of my past relationship. At first I wasn't really keen about writing about it because there are just some things I don't like sharing with everyone. But it was pretty much the only hope Anna and I had for something to write about. Anna and I later on decided that it wasn't going to completely be depressing but also a song about a strong and independent woman moving on with her life after a heart breaking relationship. We mucked around for a while like we always did and ended up coming with the chorus. 

Chorus:
 Don't want to wait around for you
 Ain't gonna waste my time on you
 When you realize you're missing me 
 I'll be off doing better things

 Not going to sit around no more
 No gonna cry about you no more
 When you realize you're missing me
 I'll be moving on

We tried to think of things that someone would express when moving on after a relationship. There was also a rap that we added later on; and in one of our music periods our Maori teacher, Matua Corey, heard we were composing our own songs and decided that he wanted to listen to a few and chose to listen to ours. He gave us feedback and feed forward that were really helpful. One of his suggestions were to right what I was feeling and what happened from beginning to end. After I wrote out everything; about how it all started and why we ended things; and Anna then picked bits and pieces of what I wrote and put it together into verses. Anna spent a few days on trying to come up with verses and she was successful with it. We then put it all together and it sounded great but it was just missing was a second verse and a bridge. We then spent some time together coming up with another verse but Anna ended up doing it herself and I came up with the bridge. When we went over the song a couple times we figured that it was too long and so we just stuck with a verse, rap, bridge and the chorus sang 3 times. 

Anna and I felt very proud of ourselves as we didn't think we would complete it seeing as we took longer than we should have. But we did complete it and we're proud of what we came up with. Something we could do better for our next composition is to manage our time better; maybe by setting a due date for each sections to be done for example by the end of a week lyrics would have been written and another week we would have a melody ready to put together with our lyrics and the rest of the time we have is to just tweak some things to make it better. Also update our blogs while we're at it so things aren't rushed and put all onto one bog post. But one thing we did well was when we were really feeling it we just got to work and we actually got a lot of things done. But Anna and I still achieved with coming up with a song because it isn't all that easy. 

Here is a shot clip of our composition before we perfected it...