The End

The sun sets on Wantirna College for another year...

Good evening, Wantirna College community!

You have now reached the end of this wonderful blog! This week is the 25th and final edition, and while nobody will read it due to cramming for tomorrow's English exam, I thought this one had better be big!

Over the last year, as a year twelve group we have been a part of some extraordinary things. We've been moved out of locker bays, outrun by Mr. Lewis, twisted around construction fences, locked out of toilets, and have endured countless hours of lectures by Bob Hillman in mentor groups every Tuesday.

In between, we've had to deal with Ms. Bell and Mr. Churchward's political structure of the school, some fantastic assemblies (my favourite being the notorious "Wantirna Goss" assembly!) as well as the turbulent nature of the year twelve social committee!

Every Wednesday night, these events have been documented (with a few stabs at Canadians, Tasmanians and Salford park residents kneeded in along the way!) on this cozy little website! It has been an absolute honour writing this blog for you, and I hope its content has provided some relief during the stressful times!

Thank you to the students and teachers who have followed me over the last few months. Thank you even more to the teachers whose daily jobs gave me inspiration to write this! And lastly, thank you to Ms. Bell! While I have not heard directly that you have read this blog, I will now confess that it was me who edited the School's wikipedia page, so I'm glad you enjoyed that at least!

The time has now come. We must all go our seperate ways. I myself will probably spend next year sitting at Knox City shopping centre, with a sideways hat and a straightened fringe! ...Hey, while I'm at it, maybe I should become a DJ!

Not really - I'll be heading to Libya to study a degree of military leadership, so I can head back to Wantirna College to teach!

All the very best,

Sam Sinclair
Wantirna College Student

A day in St Kilda

Wantirna Watchers!

Good evening. First and foremost, welcome to the second last of the great 25 blog posts of "Adventures of a Wantirna College Student". If you are new to the blog, please take a moment to look through some past entries and relive some fine year 12 moments of 2011!

For those of you who do not know, it has been a highly successful year for the year 12 students - the college's current alpha group. But just as Mufasa was brutally scratched off the side of a cliff by his comrade, yesterday meant the end of our reign. It was a grand day, full of uniforms fashioned into teen-appropriate clothing, sombreros and music!

Today was also quite a memorable day. In a bid to get us out of the school, the senior co-ordinators and social committee sent us to St. Kilda's Luna park for the day. As well as trying to stop glad wrapping and silly string turning nuclear, the excursion was designed to allow Wantirna's year 12's to explore St. Kilda culture as a 'stepping stone' into the real world.

Ringwood Secondary College also joined us for the show, succeeding us in the Luna Park trip. While St. Kilda was a very welcoming place, it was surprising to find that it in fact is not as it is portrayed. Despite there being hundreds of schoolgirls in the suburb today, Ricky Nixon was nowhere to be found...

Overall, it was still an excellent day. We headed back to school, and after a brief propaganda speech, were dismissed - forever! Goodbye Wantirna College!

Please help celebrate the year by joining me next week for the final (25th) blog post ever! There will be ice cream and wine tasting and the splendid unveiling of my gift to all of you - "The Coachroll!"

Sam

Black Dog

Hello Wantirna Watchers!

It is great to be on the web again - as some of you may have noticed, blogging for "Adventures of a Wantirna College Student" has been on unnofficial hiatus. This is because of a recent hip replacement that rendered me unable to use the internet!

No, I cannot lie to my peers. I did in fact not get a hip replacement (or undergo any medical procedures). The truth is that many of my teachers decided to play practical jokes, scheduling SACs just a few short weeks before exams! I unfortunately fell victim to the amusement, and as a result, blogging ceased temporarily. I do love a good joke at someone's expense every now and then, so I am keen to forgive on that one!

As many of you are by now aware, Wantirna College has a new "community member". A black dog by the name of "Tyrone". As a young twelve year old boy, I strongly remember struggling fiercely to have my enrollment accepted by Wantirna College - scraping in at last minute. However, these days it seems the college are accepting enrollments from all mammals in the animal kingdom. Well done Principal team!

Now our furry friend was introduced to us the other day at assembly as a "guide dog in training". However, due to the presence of a police officer, combined with the unneccessary need for Tyrone to walk through the students on his way to centre stage, it appears bluntly obvious what is going on.

Tyrone (if that is his real name) is not a guide dog, but a sniffer dog in disguise! It is a known observation that the college, in the eyes of the media, has been notorious in the past for shady events, and now it is that time of the year again! And coincidentally, the school enroll a "guide dog" to innocently sniff students' bags for the most destructive of narcotics! The school's plan last Tuesday was to catch students red handed using Tyrone to walk through the crowd! Ms Bell and a police officer were both present at the time, at the ready to apprehend any suspects!

However, unfortunately for College staff, "Tyrone" ditched drug sniffing for a toilet break. A rookie's mistake.

That will teach the school for locking the toilets!

Sam

Your average college week!

Hello again Wantirna Watchers!

This week has been another big week at Wantirna College - there are a few events that have happened that I must comment on. First, it is great to see the language/science centre finally completed. I noticed that apart from the sandstone bricks, much of the outside is painted a dark navy colour. Great colour choice, Principal team! It's going to look brilliant once the year nines make themselves at home!

Now Mr. McMillan has got busy this week! The renowned senior Legal Studies teacher has managed to band together the VCAL group and organise a charity can swap for a sausage and drinks, with donations going to the salvation army. It was inspiring to see many students swapping their cans for food items (and putting the canteen out of business!!), however there are two flaws in the plan!

A:)      Due to the lack of advertising in advance, many students were forced into donating slabs of beer and spray cans from their lockers - all they had on hand!

B:) Once a can was donated, the can of drink could be again donated for another once drunk. Thus the cycle repeats infinitely!

The third and final topic I'd like to discuss was the English practise exam held in the senior centre yesterday! Ms Sgroi (The famous rival of the great Mr. Newnham) has done a tremendous job of rounding up the year level's core English students and holding them in a room for three hours! While in there, her subordinates watched as the year was forced to discuss making rugs, burning witches and fighting by the bay. Sadly I do not study core english, so rather than partaking in these activities I was at knox, eating fast food like every other greasy teenager... However it seems that the material used in the english course has become rather bland when compared with its importance in life!

It's almost like a man of any profession can walk in to the VCAA these days and their material will be included in the course. Personally, I'd sooner read the "movie novel" of Brokeback mountain before I read a book about making carpets!

Well that's another week at Wantirna College! I hope to see you all next week for another exciting adventure!

Sam

Ross Huggard - Hero

Hello friends in Eastern Melbourne!

Well the end of the year is fast approaching and we are at the midway point through unit 4! How fast the year has gone - it seems like only yesterday we were discussing the motives behind the locked toilets. Some cheap stabs at Mr. Arico and some canteen jokes later and many of us year twelves are picking courses! How ridiculous!

Yesterday in mentor group, many of us year twelves witnessed a life changing phenomenon. we all sat in the lecture theatre, eagerly waiting to be addressed by Ms Sgroi. When the moment came, Ms Sgroi gave us a quick motivational speech, before introducing the most perculiar man on the planet!

Okay, so the man wasn't an eggplant (Although perhaps somebody seated in the back of the lecture theatre may disagree!) but he was dressed in purple! His hair was neatly groomed and his shoes were reflecting the lighting. Excellent!

Ross Huggard was his name, and he was here to teach us how to survive the English exam! Before his talk, Ms. Sgroi told us that taking notes was "imperative" if we wanted to pass. I must say peers, when I looked around the room, I was impressed that everybody was taking notes! Not about the topic he was speaking about of course, but also notes about him! After the assembly finished, I gathered the combined notes of a few people and found the following:

ROSS HUGGARD:

Maths formula:

(Willy Wonka) x (Mr Fernando) x (Moustache) = Ross Huggard

Possible resemblances:

Talking Eggplant

Cadbury Advertiser

Willy Wonka

Skinny Bob Hillman

Tinky Winky

U.S President Theodore Roosevelt

Any of these may be true, although due to the picture above, our guest speaker most likely bought their clothes from the Cadbury headquarters Op shop! Nonetheless, his speech to the year level was riveting! With a powerpoint that long and the voice of Chris Lilley, how could it not be!

I will finish off tonight's blog with the famous conclusion of the man himself:

"I hope you get the score you need, I hope this has helped you. Good luck!"

See you next week!!

Sam

Big Brother is watching...

Greetings school chums!

I have some exciting news that will benefit the ears of my more "stalker" fans (if you have a lifesized poster of me on your wall wearing metro designer clothing and expressing a "cute" half-smile, I'm talking about you) and that is that today marks the 21st edition of "Adventures of a Wantirna College Student". The number 21 is an important number at Wantirna College for three reasons:

21 individuals - The number of Year 12 students who are present in mentor group at any given Tuesday.
21 Hours - The longest detention Mr Arico has ever given.
21 Litres - The amount of pink paint that was used to decorate the year 9 locker bays last week!

How exciting! While you are celebrating this fine fact, let's move on to our serious issue for the week...

Peers, I am being watched. I knew this day would come! They are onto me! This week, many of Wantirna's teachers have been behaving quite strangely in my presence. Countless times this week I have walked into the senior centre to find Mr Moschetti and Mr Kelly cowering in fear of me! Countless times have I been studying in the library, to find Ms Lindton staring bullets into my head! Other teachers have shown not much more than subtle twitches as they pass me in G block, but that is certainly not accidental! Were the teachers blaming me for the price increase of Dim Sims at the canteen? Were they still holding a grudge on my hideous Deb ball dancing last year? No, I found out the answer in an encounter with Mr Pearson last monday...

"Encounter with Mr. Pearson"

This is horrible news peers! Now it is a known fact that Wantirna's "Code of Cooperation" system is just a fancy name for communism. And I hear Ms Bell has been learning a thing or two from China's president, Hu Jintao over the last few months. This recent alliance will most likely mean the internet will be censored by the Bell government, while I am hunted off the face of the earth.

Never fear peers! Like Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, I will never remain silent! It is my duty to portray the spirit of the College students, whether communism likes it or not! I must break the chains of oppression,  return next week!

It will be a difficult journey. I'm sure Mr Booth will be on my tail as I escape the country for a safehouse in Zimbabwe...

Farewell peers,

Sam

Band Camp

Hello my good friends!

Well tonight is blog day, and it is great to actually get a post out on a Wednesday! The last few weeks, due to taking up harp lessons and starting a stamp collection (which I intensely gaze at during nightfall), most blogs are being released on a Thursday. While this is not a good habit, a large portion of teachers are usually a month late with marking work.

This past week at Wantirna College, two HUGE events have taken place. Alot of you may not know what they are, due to the communist structure of the school, but there was infact two camps that ran for select students of all years. The camps were open to all years, from the prepubescant year 7's to the pleasant and tasteful year 12 students. Last week was production camp, a gathering of all the flamboyant, confident and charismatic individuals in one small room. Having been there as a special guest this year, I must say the experience was more intense than serving kangaroo meat at an animal rights meeting. The second camp was the notorious band camp...

Band camp students came back today. It sure is a suspicious event! In fact, the whole music program is a suspicious thing. The program, to the naked eye, seems like a perfectly healthy normal school group. But why is it that the school only plays brass music, when there are so many other genres! Mr. Hargrave's absence this year has only made the program appear to be more of a cult...He left telling students he had found a job at a girl's school, but this is untrue, as only females are allowed there. FLAWED EXCUSE!

No sign of Mr Hargrave...

Thus, I have three questions about music, which I need answering to!

1. Why are only brass players allowed on band camp?
2. What country is Mr Hargrave currently hiding in?
3. Why do they only play brass music? Is it some kind of mind control?

Please answer these questions quickly in the comments peers! Best answer wins. If you don't, the cult will grow before we can stop it! If the music program continues to exist secretively, we may very well lose our freedom to live...

All the best!
Sam