As an elective this semester I have chosen to complete yr 9/10 ceramics, this has been a challenging and exciting class to take. Our main goal of the course was to create a surreal tea pot. The class went through multiple techniques, designs and even had a ceramic expert, Fluer Schell come in to discuss our designs and show the class how to make a basic tea pot and cup.

For my own tea pot, I went for a pot with a face and feet. I chose this because at the time of making designs in the visual diary, I was ‘obsessed’ with drawing silly faces on all of my school work and chose to make a real life face on my pot.

Before making the start of the pot, I had the goal of making a tea pot with 2 faces, one angry and the other cheery. However as I was making the eyes for the 1st face, I realized that the clay would be to heavy for the pot to not sink, so I adapted and stuck to 1.

During the making of the pot, I attempted the coil method as we were shown, this worked well until I forgot to bring the ‘coil’ inward to close the pot earlier. This lead to my pot being just a little bit bigger than the expectations.

Towards the end of the course however, my pot started cracking from the top all the way to the middle of the inside of the pot, unfortunately this was unfixable and that was the end of the face pot life.

I was very grateful for this opportunity and it was a different experience that I was glad to be apart of.

Earthquakes are severe and kill’s 20000 a year, this is why we are learning about earthquakes and the best concepts for an earthquake-safe building. The criteria included,

Only using spaghetti – $1 a strand and blue-tack – $1 per gram

Budget of $60

Must be at least 60cm tall

Base not over 30cm x 30cm

Be able to support a 5cm x 5cm

No damage when facing a P wave, S wave and Surface wave

The class was split into multiple groups of three, my group of three included Justine, Joseph and myself. Justine’s role was taking the lead and keeping the group controlled, Joseph’s role was noticing the flaws with the design and I helped with creating the design concepts.

Throughout the topic, we were asked to research different earthquake design concepts. My group decided on using triangles. This created strength because the triangle is a stronger shape. We had a template that we used to create the perfect angle and height for our building. This benefitted us hugely.

We were able to test our design multiple times and the only challenge we found was the spaghetti snapping during the rough of the surface wave. My group fixed this by removing blue tack from certain spots that were not as needed as others and moved that to the snap. On the second test, the building did not receive any damage. We made sure our building was stuck onto the board, and it was able to go upside down without falling off.

It is important that we learn about this topic as many deals with earthquakes often and if these places don’t have a sturdy structures, they would be many casualties.

Pamela Lawrence was murdered on May 23^rd 1994 at her own Jewlery shop, following a brief investigation, police determined that Andrew Mallard was the murderer in 1995. At the subsequent trial, police detectives presented evidence that supported a conviction much of which was obtained under duress or proofed to be incorrect and clearly unreliable based on other available evidence which was withheld from the court and defence counsel.

Andrew Mallard’s family turned to a journalist for help in 1998 who eventually, upon realization of a miscarriage of justice, contacted John Quigley, an eminent lawyer and ex-attorney general who eventually collated enough evidence of unjust practice and police failures to launch an appeal. Despite further police stubbornness and intransigence, eventually, at the third attempt, Andrew Mallard was released in 20 February 2006. By this time, Mr Mallard had served 12 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. 

The legal system incorporates a variety of principles of justice to protect the rights of all Australian citizens. Although the legal system is imperfect and justice can be subverted, these principles are crucial because they allow legal disputes and criminal cases to be decided in the most impartial manner possible. In the case of Andrew Mallard, for instance, numerous rules of justice were disregarded, resulting in the conviction of an innocent man. Investigation into the Andrew Mallard case revealed that police detectives violated and disregarded the need for reliable evidence and the right to remain silent.

The principle of presenting reliable evidence was violated in the Andrew Mallard case as a pathologist presented evidence to the court that a wrench, the murder weapon, was later proved incorrect and not the murder weapon. This was exacerbated by withholding contradictory reports that showed the evidence incorrect. In this case, the autopsy report stated the weapon of the damages was not by a wrench but rather a smaller unique weapon, that could not be immediately identifiable. Furthermore, police presented to the court the drawing of a wrench which had been obtained from Andrew Mallard under duress, as police stripped and beat the accused man to create the drawing, which was shown to the court as main evidence.

Another element of the case, therefore, was a disregard for Andrew Mallard’s right to silence, as he was stripped naked and beaten until he produced the incriminating evidence the police were seeking. Later events which demonstrated that the murder weapon was not in fact a wrench, rather a smaller unusual object, strongly suggest the police directed Andrew Mallard to create the exact evidence they required for conviction. Safeguards which could have prevented this abuse of the principles of justices such as interview witnesses, video recording of the interviews and meeting notes were not implemented and should have been a strong signal that something was not correct about how the investigations and interrogations that were conducted.

In conclusion, the principles exist to ensure as much as possible an impartial and fair legal system to protect individuals and society using the rule of law, if these principles are not followed as in the Andrew mallard case, injustices can occur with devastating consequences can transpire to the unfortunate individuals involved.

The West Australian netball team, West Coast Fever is a success for Western Australia and is currently sitting on the top of the ladder. The team was established in 2008 and has won the 2018 and 2020 grand finals. West Coast Fever wasn’t always called West Coast Fever, they were actually named Perth Orioles, but they changed the name to “truly become a West Australia club”. The club’s coach is Dan Ryan but previously Dan coached for the Adelaide team, Adelaide Thunderbirds, so is no newbie when it comes to netball coaching. West Coast Fever plays at RAC Arena and plays away on other days.

Verity Simmons

Verity Simmons is a Centre and Wing Attack for West Coast Fever and has been playing in the club since 2019. She has played 10 games this season and has had 131 assists. She earned herself a spot in the 2021 Origin Diamonds Squad and is planning on competing with West Coast Fever for the next 2 seasons. Verity Simmons is 31 and she is from New South Wales. Quoting Suncorp league Verity Simmons ” is one of the toughest players”. A strength of Verity’s is she has fast agility and is has speed as well. Verity can read the play well and strategies her next move when the time is right.

Overall Verity Simmons is a good asset to the West Coast Fever for future years.

Neuroplasticity:

Many people might think that brains are a fixed mindset, where if you can’t do something the first go or believe you can’t do it, you’ll believe you won’t be able to complete the task. Well, this isn’t true as the brain can be trained to be open-minded meaning you believe that anything you want to achieve is possible.

Training your brain:

Being open-minded can be hard if you have a record of having a fixed mindset but believing that you can become open-minded is the first step to not have a fixed mindset. Training your brain is simple as playing a few brain games such as the memory game. After practising/playing these games you can see clear improvements inside the brain.

Resilience/Grit:

-Grit is the tendency to keep interested in a long-term goal. In class, we wrote a paragraph individually about our own grit idols. My idol was Louis Tomlinson as he has been put through a lot over the recent years and he is still continuing his passion. Grit is related to resilience as their needs both mean to not give up when something gets tricky.

Happiness:

-Happiness is a mindset, for example, you can see the light in the small things instead of ignoring them is a mindset. Hating someone you are draining your energy towards them instead of the energy being used somewhere that you enjoy. Nick Vujicic is a disabled person who does not label himself as a disabled person and he has grit as he does all the normal human activities and he makes the small things the highlight of his day.

In woodwork this semester we created spinning top holders with personalised grips. Our teacher was Mr Haddow who taught us all the skills and requirements to be able to create useful spinning top holders. This project went through semester 1 and after everyone had finished their project we were allowed to laser cut the design of our choice

Procedure

At the start of the term, we learnt the safety of using wood machinery and learnt the need for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). After everyone had passed the test for safety we each got a rectangular piece of wood and were taught how to construct the pedestal drills with jigs. We created two holes on each side of the wood. We took a rest on the wood and started designing our personalised grips, we were told to create 5 different designs and then check with Mr Haddow for the best one. Next, we got to use machinery to make our designs come to life. I used the Disc and Belt sander to cut and smooth the edges and used the scroll saw to cut out the 3 dents. After the cuts, I sanded until the wood felt smooth.