Should you really read Harry Potter and The Cursed Child?

After J.K Rowlings's marvelous literacy finale to the seven book saga of Harry Potter, readers were privileged with the future of wizarding world (and Harry, of course) that remained a limitless void to fill with our own imagination, just enough tantalizing info given and enough withheld.

Perfect for us to close the book with satisfaction.

So when the news of an eighth book set 19 years later spread, there was certainly some mixed views. At first, many readers were excited to get hands on another Harry Potter book as well as eagerly waiting for the first book to star on the London's West End stage. 

On the other hand, there was much confusion as to whether the eighth book, was really a book and even more if the script, written by the playwright Jack Thorne (and based on a original story by J.K Rowling, Mr. Thorne and the director John Tiffany), was really any part of Rowling's masterful writings. However, when the book turned up in all of our bookstores, some decided that the eighth book was simply not fit to be part of the Harry Potter series.

Personally, I think that a lot of the problem comes from the fact, the story is written as a script. Readers, especially ones who have traveled through all the books, are used to Rowling's free flowing, emotive writing that describes the scene so well, it becomes easy to visual and become part of the story. The pace of The Cursed Child, in contrast, is exhausting and some could say that the plot twists implausible. Perhaps, this should have been expected by a story that was written for the stage and not a reading experience in itself.

Jake Thorne has tried to reawaken the magic of the first seven but the 308 pages feel like they are driven by a theater setting and a need to sell tickets which leaves us awaiting readers with awkward pacing, far fetched scenarios and out of the blue plot twists. 

Despite this, it's certainly a decent read that will keep you entertained for a few hours and perhaps, remind you of the other books that made this series a hit.

Hanshi xx

26/10/16 Update: On the other hand, this book has certainly given me some amazing memories with people :))

Excerpt of my NEW STORY Chronophobia!

Day 1 - Copy down the last sentence of a random book and use this as the first line of our new story.

Emerald Green

The halls are dressed in black and white and the tiles are a checker board with humans as the pieces. The whole building sends a chill down my spine and reminds me of something out of my nightmares. I do not want to be here, I think and stupidly I've brought Finch into this too. 

I take his hand, holding on tightly, trying to prepare for the cameras and dreading the moment when I will finally have to let go. I look at Finch, his face etched with worry, one that I had never seen before, despite all we've been through these past weeks.

Even when I failed.

He looks down at me, his chocolate brown eyes showing a kind of gentle concern but I know it is the mask behind a face of distress and panic. I want to wipe it away, all the pain, but I can't.

Because I am the cause of the pain. How stupid could I have been when I thought a young, ignorant girl like me, could save the town? Was I trying to be Superwoman? Ha, ha that really failed, didn't it? Finch lays his hand lightly on my shoulder and speaks with a soft voice that seems to calm me more than his actual words. How could I have not considered my actions, when they profoundly effected him too? I nod, only vaguely aware of what he said, before looking up at the wall.

Against the washed out tones of grey, the red clock ticks like the timer on a bomb, dragging me forward to the time of doom. I know I can't avoid it no more than the beating of my own heart as it pounds against its own cage of bone and cartilage. The agony is an invisible demon sitting heavy on my shoulder; my head becoming a little giddy with all of the thoughts bashing around in my head. All I can do is wait on this plastic chair until they are ready for me: the failure.

"Amber, the public are ready for you."

Check out this link to read the rest of my new story, Chronophobia: https://www.wattpad.com/story/81412164-chronophobia 
Comment your thoughts :))

Thanks, Hanshi xx

Downe By The Riverside :)

Downe Scout Activity Centre is only 10 minutes away from school and didn't seem very exciting. How wrong was I? Very. 

Our school camping trip lasted 4 days that bought us from singing The Periodic Table (x16 I think) to building a raft that was the strongest of all to zip wiring backwards while everyone else was acting out Let It Go. Yep, absolutely crazy...regardless, the mobile (and parent) free trip, let us face challenges and make friends (and also get closer to teachers) while having an awesome time.

As Grey 1B tent group, me and my four friends arrived with their Grey Group hoodies and huge DOE sized backpacks on the Sunday evening. As soon as we arrived, we were faced with our first challenge, one that was very important if we wanted to sleep safely for the whole trip...putting up our tent. After having too short ropes, a hook that didn't fit and then having the whole tent fall down, we pulled through and finally filled the tent with our stuff. Free to explore until dinner, we met up with our other friends and played in the fields next to our tent site. 

Let me just put this out there, all our food for the trip was way better than our school lunches and we were pleasantly surprised...although you can't really go wrong with chilli and baked potato or hot dogs. That night we joined with Tent 1A to make our group for all activities and had a scavenger hunt for the ingredient of a pancake that involved us decoding code and doing different challenge (thanks to the blazerbox for helping us). However we did get sidetracked wanting to get a water gun from the teachers who kept soaking us...we didn't get one yet some of us got the chance to soak the teachers back at the camp for being so persistent. The ingredients we collected created a decent pancake/omelette considering we split most of the milk and had wet salt. 

The next three days consisted of many water and camping activities, a nature hunt, singing and a campfire night. On Monday, we took a coach, after walking for 20 mins and seeing a llama (and singing the llama song), all the way to Surrey Aqua Sports for a day filled with water activities. That day we did Kayaking, Sailing (with the boom), StandUp Paddle Boarding, WindBoarding? (not sure) and Raft Building. Of course, we all fell in at least once and pretty much swam during Raft Building when the other team's raft broke (we were told to swap). After struggling out of our wetsuits and making our way back to camp, we had a nature hunt with some unusual items such as Size 6 Walking Boots (we took a pair from our tent), an edible item and the number of the security installed. Although we potentially could have been thought of as 'cheating', we came second! 

On Tuesday, we were staying at camp to do activities round the site. We did Zip Wire including a lot of singing of ASAPscience songs (all of which our leader, a physics teacher, enjoyed) and Crate Stacking in which although I shook a lot, was fun. After lunch, we were due to do Aerial Track and Rock Climbing, both of which was slightly scary and challenging to some of us (someone, on the other hand, was like a monkey and did the Aerial Track backwards and eyes closed, saying the alphabet!) However, we all did the Aerial Track (x9, once backwards) and all reached the top of the climbing rock. It was a great achievement! We went to the shop to get ice creams and plan a performance for the night's campfire before going back to camp. That evening, we enjoyed having a campfire for our last night, singing songs and roasting marshmallows, although our Grey group song performance was...not so good.

On our last day, we had two more activities before we would sadly leave Downe. We first did Archery before going on to do Jacob's Ladder which I was told was difficult by many who had done it. Despite our group of 4 not reaching the top, I was still happy to do as well as I did. After this, lunch was under a tree in the warm weather that we were lucky to have the whole trip. We climbed trees (with a conveyor to carry food to the trees) and had a mini water fight. Grey being the last to leave, had time to make OneWord stories, play Frisbee and Rounders, have a circle of Dares and Truths and relax in the sun eating leftover ice cream and Pringles.

In the end, we were glad not to put the tents down since putting them up had been such a challenge for us! It was a cool experience that I would so do again (better than how the Y9 said it had been) and definitely made me closer with many people. 

May the MASS x ACCELERATION be with you, 

Hanshi x

Stop Animal Cruelty

Half a term in to school and we have done all sorts of things already, with some great successes. One of the main projects we are working on is for our Enterprise subject. In essence, the project is to make money and spread awareness of a chosen charity using £50 as starter money. Firstly though, what charity would we support?

Around the world, millions and millions suffer because of major issues that have struck our world. And we realized this. When asked to come up with one charity, my class come up with various charities with a vast variety of goals and ideas. After a full 2 weeks, we came up with our class charity: PeTA.

As they say on their website 'PeTA is a UK-based charity dedicated to establishing and protecting the rights of all animals. Like humans, animals are capable of suffering and have interests in leading their own lives; therefore, they are not ours to use – for food, clothing, experimentation, entertainment or any other reason.' 

Charity chosen, we planned and discussed, coming up with roles and ideas. Now that is after half-term we have started making items to sell, doing events for awareness, etc. We also have been talking with the charity to give us some merchandise and talking with shops, companies and estate agents such as Lush (who also promote the stop of animal cruelty) to donate samples or products in order help promote the charity. I ,also, as Project blogger am writing about what we are doing on the Giving Nation organization website. This organization is one that lets schools across UK do projects like ours.

So far we raised around £200 from a school cake sale and a 'Popcorn and Candyfloss Wednesday'. With the bag packing we are due to do in the local M&S shop and the Christmas Fair which will include stationary, perfume, make up, cakes and bakes and jewelry, I believe that we can raise around £500 at the end of the the project. The project is a great opportunity that will benefit no only the charity but ourselves :)    

I can code a new world

Back to school today and not excited...Sorry, guys. However my half-term was more exciting. But I wasn't planning my Halloween costume or deciding how to get the most sweets trick or treating. No.

I was going to code..Code a whole new world.

Wait, does making a rock, paper, scissor game count?...No?! Nonetheless, I planned to learn Python, doing the basics first, working through some websites and finally making a game and program. 

I went through the basic such as if and else statements, arrays, lists and functions referring to a website called http://usingpython.com/ which I found was very useful. I did one exercises for each basic info I needed to know throughout 4 days.

Then I made two working programs: 

• Takes away the items in list 2 from list 1 to create list 3 
• Rock, paper, scissors game

Although the first one looks simple, I actually found that one a lot more difficult in terms of finding a solution. Both of them were great fun though.

A trip, a run and a wild goose chase...

My cast (smaller one)

Okay, summer is over and it's back to school for a new year of work now I'm a Year 8. But I'm sure you want to know what I did for 6 weeks during summer hols (yeah, I know you didn't hear from me). I spent my days in India and I definitely did a lot of things. Along with having the opportunity to meet relatives and experience the culture over there, I also managed to make a bunch of new friends and memories to remember, good and bad.

Me in The Hindu

It’s funny thinking about it now but it definitely wasn't fun when I fractured my arm only 2 days in to my holidays. While running after a goose in my friend’s farm, I slipped and, lo and behold, my arm was stuck in a massive cast for 5 weeks. Eek! :( Arm stuck in one position, I spent the next week unable to play anything but cards with my cousins before they were off to USA again.

The village area

Guess who ran cast and all for 10k and then was in the The Hindu newspaper the next day. Yes, meeeee! :) Me and my mum ran in a night marathon, it was sure hard especially at the end but I persevered and for my first run managed to finish just 5 mins off my target time of 1 hour 30 mins. I made good friends with all the kids too, rushing to get multiple Glow-bands. The next day, we went to the movies as a treat, me and one of my new found friends enjoying popcorn and ice cream throughout.    

Fun in the stream

With the upcoming of Independence Day, a couple of messages around and we were going to Agali, Kerala. At this point, I had a removable cast, so I was okay going. On August 15th, we all met up and trooped into two minivans ’sorted out' by moi and set out on our Freedom Agali trip. 

Freedom Agali group

On the way, I saw the Western Ghats and beautiful sights and then we arrived at Agali, to swim in the river for hours. It was absolutely amazing because I had never swam in a river in such beautiful surrounding, making my way through the rocks and current while posing for photos, playing in the water and falling. One of the Best days ever!! :) 

Fixing the casing

A few days after, one of my relatives let me and my parents visit their Transformer factory which I have to say was a life experience. I was fascinated to see the whole production line from plain steel to workers coiling the wire to fixing the casing and even final quality checks. 

Finished Transformer

I saw the making of the plastic moulds just like how I had made Injection-moulds in school but on a bigger scale. I even got a view of the gardens, its unique plants and koi fish as well as getting a lesson in how a generator works too. I learnt so so so much and saw the way factories worked in India especially compared to here in the UK.

Local restaurant

Arm finally healed, I said goodbye to my friends and then we took a sleeper bus (yes, I know, it was pretty cool) to Pondicherry to spend a week doing eye exercises in the School of Perfect Eyesight because my power is -6! I went in the morning and in the evening for a week checking my power at the beginning and at the end. It was different to how I expected but at the end of the week I had improved by 0.5. During lessons I went through all the given exercises including Palming and Candle-lighting reading. The lessons were a different way of benefiting the eyes and I thought it was actually really effective.

Chennai beach

Holiday almost coming to an end, we headed to Chennai for the last three days and it was impossibly HOT! We went to the B.M Birla Planetarium and Science Museum indoors. Although it was pretty quiet that day, we had plenty of time to view all the areas and learn a couple of things too. The planetarium was really cool and I loved being immersed in the stars! We also went to the famous Chennai beach in the evening on our last day.  

Finally at the end, we took our plane home, happy yet tired, a great holidays behind. Yep, it was definitely one of the best summers :)

France Fun!

At France!

On Friday 26th June 7:00 am, I left my house with my suitcase in my hand, grinning madly in anticipation. Why? As part of a school trip, the whole of Y7 were going to France for 3 days. To apply our knowledge of the French Language. Yeah ok, but I was waiting for the roller coaster rides and awesome hot weather.

Day 1

Our dorm group

After everyone arrived at school that morning, the teachers hushed us towards our coaches, doing registers and taking suitcases. We were all given pink (yeah, pink of all colours) hats to wear at all times so that they could quickly point out an Newsteadian. We all waved goodbye to our parents with promises of phone calls every night and finally the coaches, one by one, left heading towards the port, Dover, to take our ferry. 

Nausicaa Aquarium

During the drive, we sang, played games, ate sweets and talked loudly, very loudly. The time passed quickly and we boarded the ferry. The ferry was basically an hour of roaming around with my friends after we had eaten a small snack. to different places. 

Turtle just peeping

From France, Calais, it was a quick drive to Boulogne-Sur-Mer where we visited an aquarium called Nausicaa. It was good fun and we did see plenty and beautiful fishes, turtles and sharks. One we had all completely seen the whole of the aquarium and manage to successfully find the exit (I admit this may have been a small problem), we were pretty hungry and drove to Flunch (a french restaurant) to eat dinner. 

My yummy dinner

Unfortunately, it wasn't as easy as it sounds. We had to make our way through the salad and desert areas to face the till where we all spoke in French to order our meals. I had fish and chips with some salad plus a strawberry and custard tart. I was full to the brim! After this we settled into our rooms with our trios at the Ibis hotel in Roissy de Paris, unpacked, tried to get the TV working and eventually managed to sleep.

Day 2

Breakfast at hotel 

The next one of my roomies and I woke up at a very early 4:30 am in excitement for supposedly the best day ever at Parc Asterix (a theme park based on the stories of Asterix and Obelix). As we woke up so early, after having breakfast downstairs we watched a French cartoon called Les Lapins Cretin featuring some really cute rabbits! I was suprised to understand most of the plot as it was all in French. At 9:15 am, Y7 gathered together in the lobby and set off to the theme park only half an hour away. 

On the way

It did take a long time to get our ticket and enter but then we had 5 hours on rides so we didn't care! Through the day, the sun shone continually and I went on various rides and rollercoaster. Some of the best rides was the Menhir Express (X2 because it was sooooo good) where we literally got soaked to the bone and the La Trace Du Hourra which was simply exhilarating. 

Parc Asterix

Some of us went to the Seven Loops but I was way too scared to go on it and stayed with the bunch of other 'wimps'. At lunch we ate burgers and chips at one of the theme park restaurants. After all of that, we went to a French mall and tried out our French as we bought souvenirs, french specialties and our dinner for that day. We had planned a mini feast back at the hotel but as we were so tired fell fast asleep.

Day 3

Official building

The last day was of a more calm sightseeing type compared to before but it was a warm welcome after such an fun packed two days.
In the morning, we drove into the center of Paris viewing many sights and famous streets, including a talk by one of our teachers as we past each sight. We stopped straight in front of the Eiffel Tower. 

River Seine

But this was to see later as we firstly made our way to the River Seine to take a boat trip that gave me an opportunity to use my photography skills. I have to say I got some great shots! 

Eiffel Tower

As well as this, I enjoyed seeing the French culture and way of life.we sat under the great Eiffel Tower of France and marvelled at its beauty while we ate a small lunch just before we were to leave. We bid goodbye to France and headed back all the way home. It was a great trip that I would definitely do again but I did miss my family and home too. I reached home and snuggled into my warm bed, happy. Au Revoir, France!