Sugar Sugar

Hello! 


I haven't posted in a long time as I have been REALLY busy with assignments and school work. Now I am counting down to our Spring holidays - only one week to go!


This weekend my family and I went to the city to do some shopping. We got a little sidetracked and decided to go and have an ice-cream! Naturally, I had to photograph the moment as it was perfect for the latest Kids Click theme, 'Delicious'.

A Delicious Ice-Cream

Image taken by me, Maddy, aged 13.

Thank you for having me, Simoney!

Big Al certainly enjoyed his ice-cream, which was caramel flavoured. I loved mine too, which was chocolate and caramel.

All this sugar eating got me inspired to post a song about sugary sweets, and the song Sugar Sugar by The Archies was the perfect choice. I originally didn't know of a song about sugar or ice-cream, so my Mum suggested this song. Upon playing it, I recognised it from the Bee Movie.

The Archies are virtual garage band formed by Archie Andrews, Reggie Mantle and Jughead Jones, a group of fictional characters from the animated TV series, The Archie Show. Ron Dante, Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge performed the vocals for the characters.

Sugar Sugar was the 'group's' most successful song, becoming one of the biggest hits of the bubblegum pop genre of 1968 to 1972. It reached number one on the pop charts in 1969, sold over six million copies and was awarded a gold disc. It was ranked in Billboard's Hot 100 as the number one song of 1969, the only time a fictional band has ever claimed this spot. I can see why the song was so popular, because the beat and words are very catchy.

I hope you like Sugar Sugar as much as I do, and that all the adults out there enjoy reminiscing about the days of The Archies as much as my mum did...





Linking with my Mum's Sunday Song linky party.

Thank you for having me, Mum!

Well, thank you for visiting my blog! Please come back soon! 

I hope your day is sweet,

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

Hello! Thank you for visiting my blog!


As you may have read in some of my other posts, I have been snowed under with assignments. At one point, I had eleven due in the same week! I thought this was rather silly, so I took a photo of all my homework and assignments to share for the latest Kids Click theme 'Silly'.

A Silly Amount of Schoolwork

Image taken by me, Maddy, aged 13.

Thank you for having me, Simoney!

I had Science, English, Chinese, German, Christian Education (CE), Music, Health and Physical Education (HPE) and Art homework and assessment, and cello and piano practice. That's a LOT, don't you think!? At least I had a 350g block of Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate to get me through my assessment!

Well, this hectic assessment period is basically over for a while (thankfully!) and I am in a very good mood. In fact, I am in a somewhat silly mood! And what better way to celebrate a silly mood than a silly song!


Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is the world-famous song from the Disney musical film Mary Poppins. 

The song was written by the Sherman Brothers and sung by Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. According to Richard Sherman, co-writer of the song with his brother, Robert, the word 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' was created by them in two weeks, mostly out of double-talk. The roots of the word have been defined as: super- 'above', cali- 'beauty', fragilistic- 'delicate', expiali- 'to atone', and docious- 'educable', roughly equaling 'atoning for educability through delicate beauty'. It has been defined more simply in the movie, with 'something to say when you have nothing to say'. 


I hope you enjoy this super-silly classic!





Participating in my Mum's Sunday Song linky party.

Thank you for having me, Mum!

Well, I am off to relax after my stressful assessment period. I hope you have a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious day!


I hope your day is sweet,

Another Sunday Song

Hello! I am sorry I haven't posted in a while - I have been very busy with school work and assignments.

As you may already know, I play the cello and I love classical music. The string ensemble I belong to at school has recently started rehearsing an amazing piece by Karl Jenkins called Palladio. Both Mum and I love Karl Jenkins and Mum has even done a Sunday Song with his song Adiemus.

Karl Jenkins is a Welsh musician and composer, born and raised in Gower village of Penclawdd in Wales. He was giving initial music lessons by his father, who was a local schoolteacher, organist and choirmaster, and began his music career as an oboist in the National Youth Orchestra of Wales. He later studied music at University College, Cardiff, and went on to post-graduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied with Alun Hoddinott and met his wife and musical collaborator Carol Barratt.

Jenkins has gone on to compose multiple songs, the most popular being Adiemus. My favourite, though, would have to be Palladio. I just love this piece, especially the cello accompaniment... listen out for it in the background! I have put in a clip of the original version and also one played by one of my favourite string groups Bond.

This is the original version of Palladio. I absolutely love the image used in this clip - it goes perfectly with the song!



This is Bond's version of Palladio, only it is called Allegretto.



I would love to know which version you like best. I would have to say I like the original version, but the Bond one is fantastic as well.

Linking with Sunday Song.

Thank you for having me, Mum!

Well, I am off to do some more homework. Thank you for visiting my blog!

I hope your day is sweet,

Thinking of the Holidays

Hello! Thank you for visiting my blog!


Just a quick post today. Lately I've been thinking about all the lovely holidays I have been on with my family, so I went looking at all the photos we have of these great trips. One of my favourite holidays was when we went Europe for the Christmas holidays a couple of years ago. One of the places we visited was Paris and, naturally, we went to the Eiffel Tower. Although we didn't venture to the top, we had a great time looking up at the giant tower from the ground and taking photos. You can tell how cold we were, despite the beautiful blue sky!

On Holiday in Paris  

Image taken by me, Maddy, aged 13.

Linking with the latest Kids Click them 'On Holiday'.

Thank you for having me, Simoney!

I also thought I'd share a Sunday Song with you, and when I came across this song by Madeleine Peyroux called J'ai Deux Amours I thought it would go perfectly with my picture of the Eiffel Tower. I hope you enjoy it!



Linking with my Mum's Sunday Song linky party.

Thank you for having me, Mum!

Well, I am off to do some more school work and get ready for school. Please come back soon!


I hope your day is sweet,

A Sunday Song from The Karate Kid

Hello and welcome to my blog!


It's the last day of the holidays today. We have done so many fun and exciting things over the last three weeks. Most recently we went to see The Karate Kid starring Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan. 

It was a fantastic movie, about a boy named Dre Parker, played by Jaden Smith, and his mother who move from Detroit to China. Dre is bullied by a tough and nasty group of kids, and the janitor, Mr Han, who is played by Jackie Chan, teaches Dre kung fu in order to restore peace through a kung fu competition. If Dre wins, the boys promise that they will leave him alone. Along the way, Dre befriends a Chinese girl named Mei Ying, played by Wenwen Han, who is an amazing violinist and also Dre's crush. Throughout the movie, Mei is rehearsing for an audition and the piece she is playing is absolutely beautiful. I went home that night and discovered that it is called Nocturne in C-Sharp Minor. I then found a clip of Joshua Bell playing this beautiful piece and thought I'd share it with you for my Mum's Sunday Song linky party.

Joshua Bell is an American classical violinist, born and raised in Indiana. At four years old Bell began violin lessons after his mother discovered that he had stretched rubber bands across the handles of his dresser draw to pluck out music he had heard his mother play on the piano. He took to the instrument and at fourteen Bell appeared as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Muti. He studied the violin at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and received an Artist Diploma in Violin Performance. He has been named an “Indiana Living Legend” and received the Indiana Governor’s Arts Award.

Bell has now performed with almost all of the world's major orchestras and conductors and performed the solo part on John Corigliano's soundtrack for the film The Red Violin. He was also featured in Ladies in Lavender and made an appearance in a movie about the power of music, Music of the Heart, with other notable violinists. I hope you enjoy Joshua Bell playing this song as much as I do!




Well, I had better get ready for school tomorrow. I hope you get a chance to see The Karate Kid - make sure you listen out for this song if you do!


I hope your day is sweet,

Ron Mueck

Hello! Thanks for dropping by!

During the holidays we have been up to many things. We've gone on picnics, been to the beach and most recently we went to the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art to see the Ron Mueck exhibition.

Ron Mueck is an Australian-born, London based sculptor, who began his career working on the Australian children's television program Shirl's Neighbourhood as the creative director and creator of some of the puppets featured in the show. He later worked on the sets of other television programs, and then went on to establish his own company in London, making photo-realistic props and animatronics for the advertising industry. In search of perfection for his sculptors, Mueck made the transition into fine art, working with his mother-in-law Paula Rego to produce small figures for a tableau at the Hayward Gallery. This made an impression on many artists and his piece Dead Dad later featured in the Sensation show at the Royal Academy.

Mueck's sculptors focus on the fine detail of the human body, playing with scale to produce 'disconcertingly jarring visual images' (Wikipedia). Every detail of his sculptors are incredibly realistic, as you can see in my photo of his sculpture Two Women.

Look at the detail in the face. Amazing!

The exhibition featured twelve of Mueck's sculptures, including Dead Dad, A Girl, Wild Man, Woman with Sticks, In Bed, Two Women, Man in a Boat, Old Woman in Bed, Drift, Still Life, Mask II and Youth. 


Our school is taking us to see this exhibition soon and we have to write an analysis of the sculpture called "In Bed"

In Bed 

Old Woman in Bed

Mask II

Some of Mueck's sculptures were a bit graphic but they were still totally amazing. I will be interested to learn more about his work when I come back on my school excursion.

Well, I hope you liked Mueck's work as much as I do. I find his sculptures absolutely fantastic - they are so realistic! 

I hope your day is sweet,

A Sweet Sunday Song

Hello and welcome to my blog!


Recently we went to the movies to see the latest Shrek movie, Shrek Forever After (you can read a review at my brother's blog) and, as always, we had to sit through an endless amount of advertisements. I was patiently waiting for the movie to start when a promotional add for Channel 7 came on. I immediately perked up when I heard the beautiful song used on the add. I later found out it is called Sweet Disposition by The Temper Trap.


The Temper Trap is an alternative rock band from Melbourne, Australia, formed in 2005 and made up of Dougy Mandagi, Jonathon Aherne, Lorenzo Sillitto and Toby Dundas.

  
The group's debut album, Conditions, was released in Australia in June of 2009 and was ninth on the Australian ARIA Charts. From that album, multiple songs have been featured on television, movies and movie trailers. Sweet Disposition was featured in multiple shows and movies, including (500) days of Summer, Greek and Skins.

I absolutely love Sweet Disposition because it is inspirational and motivational and is generally a sweet song. I thought I'd share it with you so you could enjoy it as well, but also because it is called 'sweet disposition' and this title goes perfectly with my blog title! I hope you find it as sweet as I do!



Linking with Sunday Song at 5 Minutes Just for Me.

Thank you for having me, Mum!

Well, thank you for visiting my blog! Please come back soon!


I hope your day is sweet,

Back from the Beach

Hello and thank you for visiting my blog!

I'm sorry I haven't posted for a while - we went to Mooloolaba beach for the week!

Although it was too cold to go swimming in the ocean and the weather wasn't very pleasent on some days, we had plenty to do - we went on walks, read and caught up on sleep. I had a great time taking photos on our walks. Here are a few of my favourites -

On the first night we were there we couldn't stop admiring the moon. We had good reason to be so amazed, as it turns out there was a partial lunar eclipse! We didn't know of the eclipse until the next morning so I didn't get any photos of it, but I did get some of the moon before the event.

We also went to Montville for the day when we were there, which is about half an hours drive from Mooloolaba. We had high tea the Poet's Cafe, which is a beautiful French/English cafe in Montville.

We also went to a great look-out point and admired the fabulous view of the countryside.

I especially loved this photo because of all the different shades of green you can see in the trees. The trees look amazing clustered together like that with all their different colours mingling. It's also great to see so many trees - it is good to know that our environment has a chance to survive deforestation.

The Many Shades of Green

Image taken by me, Maddy, aged 13.

I loved this photo so much that I decided to link it up to the latest Kids Click competition theme, 'Green'.

Thank you for having me, Simoney!

Well, thank you for visiting my blog! I hope you come back tomorrow for another Sunday Song!

I hope your day is sweet,

Picnics in the Park

Hello! Thank you for visiting my blog!

Lately, because it's school holidays, my family and I have gone on quite a few picnics. We found a great picnic spot on the Brisbane River, which we have been to a couple of times now. Because its on the river, we have enjoyed watching all the boats pass by.

This one we found out was called the Young Endeavour.

I'm not sure what this one is, but it's interesting all the same.

The natural surroundings of the park were also something to enjoy. We loved looking at these columns, though were not sure of their purpose. I think they might be made of the wood of old jetty that had to be knocked down because it was falling apart.

They were so tall,  it was amazing.

We loved looking at the shore-line too.

Yesterday we went on another picnic, but this time it was to the North Pine Dam, also known as Lake Samsonvale, our source of water!

It was great to see the dam over 97.2% full because, as you may know, we recently had a drought and during this time the capacity of the dam dropped to 14%.

Before

Now

We had a great time picnicking -

But we had some uninvited guests...

I was quite disturbed to discover that we aren't the only ones who drink out of our dam. The many ducks, birds and even swans that inhabit the area use it as a water supply as well. I guess the water gets treated before we drink it.... I hope!

Well, I hope you enjoy your next picnic as much we did! Have fun in the great outdoors!

This post is linking with Outdoor Wednesday.

I hope your day is sweet,