Third question of 'Unfamiliar Text': Compare and Contrast

 Both authors are discussing about their experience in New Zealand except one writes about how she faces the poor reality of it being shattered away with new changes of the city as her memories were a dream of primeval beaches, whereas the other one writes about how her first sight of New Zealand comes to be a  dismal and gloomy country in terms of first setting foot there as a refugee. Although both authors sets a melancholy tone about New Zealand when they arrive or as they return, both have differing approach of their writing. With using strong connotation and the use of diction, the first paragraph of the poem approaches the reader with a very gloomy tone as it compares New Zealand hills "are packed like cement", diction like"cemeteries lush with centuries of flesh" and "The people smile with missing teeth like hosts of a drunk party...clearly, the North has been here forever". Cemeteries lush with centuries of flesh, the choice of diction in this sentence was to intentionally reinforce an image in the readers mind of the North of New Zealand as a very old spooky place, shifting us away from an image of a bright and happy place. Comparing the people to a drunk hosts engages us to the author meeting the kiwis during her arrival in New Zealand as if they never gave her a express of kindness or respect. With hills like packed of cement sets to say that the mountains in New Zealand aren't as captivating. 

Whereas Fiona on the other hand approaches the reader with a more enchanting and bright tone in her first paragraph with the use of her choice of diction. For example, she says "as the plane climbs up over Europe and watch it turn into a pristine place of rested hills and snow-topped mountains through which win the rivers..." the words like pristine, and snow-topped mountains gives out a bright tone as we as the reader create vivid imagery of beautiful landscape and snow, the word snow gives out a happy sense of emotion as snow reminds us of happy memories and Christmas movies.

Both authors approach the reader describing a country and the characteristics of it with a differing tone. Fiona talks about the mountains of Europe as "snow-topped" whereas the poem says that hills of North of NZ are "packed like cement".  

However, when coming further down with Fiona's writing, we start to have a similar mood of how we felt when reading the poem. She expressed a similar tone of despondency with such choice of diction to form a melancholy tone, "that dream of primeval beaches scattered with driftwood...", "plains burned to a tawny hide in late summer.", "That dream she knows to be corrupted by reality: the beach is already threatened...

Reflection on Music & Drama Performance (June 30th 2021)

Here is my reflection on my night of the performance. Wednesday 30th June

After frequently practising my piano piece, 'Easy' by the Commodores, I was confident because the practices I've been doing sustained my ability to play through the whole song. While standing behind the curtains, waiting to announce my piece and my name, I was a bit agitated but also exited because I had an opportunity to show my parents plus the school what I am able to do on the keys. Agitated because although I know how to play the whole piece, once I'm nervous, my hands won't do well. So I keep saying "Just relax". Once my name was announced, the sound coming from the audience motivated me to really 'play' the piano other then just do it. So despite the nervous feelings I had, all I can think of is making sure that the sound coming out of the piano will astonish my parents. What motivated me to be relaxed is my parents and my friends listening and watching me play. 

Before all this, once the first act have begun, everyone was well behaved, calm and listened to what Matua Solomon and Ms Clark and Ms Beer's instructions. What I love the most was the encouragement and support we gave to each other, especially to those who were about to go on stage and needed it. The applause from the audience after each act was amazing as everyone who took part in the performance received really loud applause by the audience. No one had to feel shamed. The flow of the whole performance went smoothly, although it was long, we managed to go through everyone by how it was planned out. After the performance, all I hear is positive comments by evryone, especially from my friends and parents. What made my night was knowing that my dad made it and filmed me, and knowing that my mum cried through it. The positive comments I got from Ms Beer, Ms Clark and Matua Solomon made my night too. Not just me but to everyone else. Everyone had a great time after the performance and nothing troublesome happened in between or start and end of the performance.