The lady in White [Narrative]

For writing, we had to write a narrative with a prompt from Pobble 365. I wrote 'The Lady In White', about a ghost's story. Do you like it? Why?

The lady in white

A footstep had woken Melanie up. She turned her head to look at her bedside clock. 1:23 was too early to wake up. Just as she was nearly asleep, she had a glimpse of a hand.

A hand that wasn’t her mum’s, or dad's.

A white glow illuminated the room. At the centre of the room was a woman, in her early twenties. A tall, proud figure, with silver skin and platinum blonde hair. She was wearing a timber wolfskin coat.

The other shade, other than extremely light colours, was a bloodred neck with a hangman's rope around where a necklace would traditionally be worn. “I am here to warn you.” the lady slurred.

“Who are you? And WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING IN MY ROOM!?” Melanie screeched.
“As I said, I am here to warn you.”
“About what?”
“A terrible force greater than mankind’s strength and wits put together!”
“Wow.”
“Yep.”
“No, I didn’t know you were so passionate about extreme pranks.”
“THIS IS NOT A PRANK!” raged the lady.
“It is so. Anyways I don’t know you. What’s your name? I’m Melanie Skirtz. Nice to meet you.”
“I’m Maria Silvergem. Surely you’ve heard of me. The wife of Andrew McArvin?”
“Nope.”
“I’ll tell you my story.”
“Ok. Get started in thre-”
“Not that long ago, in the sixteenth century-”
“Wait, your FIVE HUNDRED YEARS OLD!?”
“No. I’m twenty-three.”
She is a ghost, and she’s been around for five hundred years, but since I haven’t studied ghostology yet, I cannot really place an age on this ghost. Melanie thought.
“Well, you’ve been around for five hundred years. Carry on.”
“So, I’ll share my last memory. My husband led an expedition into the depths of the Earth and eventually found a cavern full of a diamond-like substance, never before seen. Andrew called it Marium, after me, and took a gem from the cavern. It was a silver gem, hence my nickname. But ‘Marium’ was meant to be left untouched.”
“What happened next, Maria Silvergem?” pushed Melanie, with a tone of disbelief in her voice.
“Andrew took the gem back up to the surface and gave it to me as a present. That night, I had a terrible dream. I was falling into a body of water. I dared open my eyes and looked down. I saw a hangman’s rope the colour of blood, and my neck was too. I tried to scream, but instead, I engulfed a gallon of water. Then I woke up, realizing I wasn’t breathing. I couldn’t understand that dream.”
“How did you become a ghost then?”
“I was walking over a bridge and it collapsed while I was walking on it and I fell into the stream below. The stream was deeply polluted, with a log, and it cut my throat. A lasso hooked over my head and got caught on something. That’s my terrible story. I am warning you about the weirdness of the world and to watch your step. Otherwise, you could turn into me.”

Melanie couldn’t believe it. “Maybe I am a ghost, but ghosts don’t exist. And if they do, then that would be the second weird thing that has happened on Earth. I have seriously just been resuscitated by the forces of who knows what in your bedroom.”

Melanie went to sleep again but didn’t expect to wake up to the sound of seagulls and crashing waves.


“Thing number three,” noted Melanie.

My quote [Maara Kai / Reading]

For reading this week our class had a task on the class website called 'Maara Kai - Food from the garden'. One of them was to create a quote, and this is mine. What does it mean to you?

My Gardening Meme [Reading]

On Tuesday our class had created memes about the garden. This is mine. What do you think of it?

Alice-Miranda [Book review]

For reading, since week 4, our class has been working on book reviews. My one is about Alice Miranda at school, a book by Jaqueline Harvey. If you have read the book, could you tell me what you think of it?

Women shouldn't be paid less than men [Speech]

This term, we had to write speeches, and as I couldn't put the doc itself onto the blog without looking stupid, I have the whole speech written here:

Envision Aotearoa 100 years ago: silent movies, no fast cars and no cell phones!
Now the absolute worst thing about 100 years ago is women were considered less than men. They were not allowed to work once they were married, in many couldn’t vote, or own a house.

1000 years ago, things were even worse!
In general, women were not respected and had few rights. Women were felt to be untrustworthy and more easily seduced by the devil than were men. Since women's intelligence was viewed to be not as good as that of men, their education was limited to learning the skills needed at home.

 But these are modern times when various laws and social customs say that everyone is equal. So why do women still get paid less than men?

In 2017, Dr Sin and her colleagues at the Motu Institute found that women in the same job, making the same value of the contribution to their employer in New Zealand were being paid 84 cents compared to every $1 a man earned. 16 cents doesn’t sound like a lot of money. But if you are earning the average weekly income of $1000 per week, that 16 cent difference all of a sudden becomes $160.

So how can this be?

In the past, women weren’t considered important in the workforce, so they were limited to only a few job opportunities. Until they were married they filled roles such as typists, nurses or teachers. The women's main job was to get married and have children, while it was the husband’s job to earn a living. So men tended to do the “more important”well-paid jobs, such as doctors, lawyers or business owners.

According to the Ministry For Women, these historical trends explain about 20% of the gender pay gap.

The other 80% of reasons come down to human behaviour, attitudes and bias. Even though there are plenty of laws that say women should not be discriminated against in the workforce, human behaviour takes longer to change. Some people still believe - whether they realise it or not - that some jobs are made for women and others for men. This sort of bias or favouritism can be really hard to detect. Sometimes it can be as simple as who gets asked first for opinions at meetings - the male boss is often more likely to ask the men in the meeting for their ideas first. This may not be intentional, it's just that people of the same gender are usually more in tune with each other, so are, therefore, more comfortable asking them first. This is not that different from when selected captains are asked to choose a team for sports. People are most likely to choose from within their group of friends first because this is who they are used to being around and they know them the best.

Another reason for this problem is that men and women tend to cluster into certain types of jobs. Women usually end up dominating careers that involve caring and unpaid work. For some reason, these jobs get paid less. Also, it is usually the woman who takes time out of her career to look after her children. So this lost work time also means lost experience, which can count against the woman when she is competing for a job against a male who has not taken time off work.

So should women be given the same amount of pay as men?

Of course, they should!

We all know that women are just as intelligent as men. They have the ability to cope under stress. They can work just as hard. They are more organised and have the ability to multi-task - usually better than men - to be honest about that one. Sometimes women might not be as physically strong as men, but in today's mechanised world this is not such an issue.

So, if we really want to reduce the gender pay gap in New Zealand, women need to make sure they make the most of the educational opportunities available to them. So they are able to compete on an equal footing with men for the more highly paid careers. They should also convince their husbands to take a more equal role in raising their family, so they don't fall behind as much when they take time out of the workforce.

So while our current laws are trying to encourage pay equity, I hope the change in people's attitudes keeps up. Then in the future, I will be able to be employed in a world, where I am able to work in the same career, doing the same thing with the same experience as a man, for the exact same pay.

Do you think women should be paid the same as men? Why?

Save the world [Infographic]

Our topic this term is 'Zero Waste', and we had to create 'infographics' (something made on a computer with pictures and information). This is mine! Do you like it? And why do you like it?