Mulan driving

Mulan's now driving.

She's been preparing for the last few months, studying up on the driving theory here, so that as soon as she turned 16 she could sit the theory test and get her learner's licence.

Her birthday was a few weeks ago, but with a busy school life she decided to wait until the holidays.

Anyway, she sat the test on Tuesday, passing with 100% (35 out of 35).  (She said compared with school, the test is very easy.)

Each day this week we've headed out to a local car park and Mulan's driven around and around, stopping and starting and practicing turning into car parks.  She's not quite ready yet to be out on the road, but she's getting smoother.  The aim is to be ready to sit her restricted test at the end of the year after school exams.

Music

In yesterday's post I briefly mentioned about Mulan's music.  Here's a bit more.

Mulan:

Mulan's in three orchestras/bands this year.  She

• continues to play flute in the West City Youth Concert Band,
• continues to play cello in the Westlake Symphony Orchestra,
• and has newly joined the Westlake Chamber Orchestra, also playing cello.

A couple of weeks ago the Westlake music groups performed at their annual Equinox Concert.  The Westlake Girls magazine wrote about it here.

Here's my shaky video of the Chamber Orchestra:

And the Symphony Orchestra:

Last weekend the Westlake Symphony Orchestra and Concert Band went away together for a four-day camp.  (Unfortunately it clashed with Mulan's athletics North Island competition, which I mentioned here.)  From what I hear there were a lot of hours of music, and not so many of sleep.  A good time, though exhausting, and awful timing just before their NCEA internal assessments this week.  The Westlake Girls magazine wrote about it here (Mulan is in one of the photos -- holding up the picture).

As part of playing cello in the school orchestras, Mulan is continuing to have weekly private cello lessons at school.

Even though Mulan plays cello and flute in the orchestras/band, recorder continues to be her main instrument, and she is continuing to have weekly private lessons at home.

Mulan has been asked to play recorder in a concert next weekend, playing Handel's Athaliah (tickets for Saturday and Sunday).

Miya:

Miya continues to play her clarinet in the West City Youth Concert Band.

She is continuing to have fortnightly private lessons, and is working towards sitting the Trinity Grade 7 exam at the end of the year.  (Miya's teacher thought that after sitting Grade 5 last year she may as well skip Grade 6 and go directly to Grade 7.)

Athletics

The athletics season has now finished.

Lately I haven't been posting regularly about our competitions (or anything), but I thought it would be useful to record a quick summary of our main results this season.

(Competition results aren't everything, and equally important is personal growth, new PBs and skills development.  But it's nice to look at comp placings sometimes!)

A big reason for Mulan and Miya's recent successes (and huge gains) is that they have both been working hard with their training.  This season the reinvigorated Takapuna Athletics Club started a training squad for their age group, and the great atmosphere has really encouraged awesome results.

Miya:

(In Auckland colours competing at the scaled down Interprovincial competition)

Besides the North Island Colgate Games (which I wrote about here), Miya's three big competitions this season were the Auckland Senior Champs (competing as Under14), the Auckland Children's Champs (competing as Grade 12), and the Auckland Children's Pentathlon Champs (also Grade 12).

At the Senior Champs Miya got:

• 1st triple jump
• 2nd 80m hurdles
• 2nd shot put
• 3rd discus
• 3rd= high jump

While at the Children's Champs she got:

• 3rd high jump
• 4th 80m hurdles
• 7th shot put
• 9th discus

And at the Pentathlon Champs (discus, shot put, 800m, long jump, 200m) she came 4th.

Miya is on the Auckland ranking lists for the Under 14 high jump and triple jump (1st in high jump and 2nd in triple jump).

She got three Takapuna Club records: Grade 12 80m hurdles, and Under 14 80m hurdles and high jump.

Miya's best events seem to be high jump (1.45m twice) and triple jump (9.40m on grass), though with still being young and growing she needs to be careful with the various aches and pains to not push herself too hard (especially in triple jump).

Mulan:

(In Westlake Girls colours at the schools Auckland Champs)

Besides the Schools Nationals in December (which I wrote about here), Mulan's three big competitions this season were the Auckland Senior Champs (competing as Under 18), Auckland Multi-events Champs (Under 18 heptathlon), and Auckland Schools Champs (competing as Intermediate).  She didn't compete at the Schools North Island competition, as it clashed with a music orchestra event she was in.

At the Senior Champs Mulan got:

• 1st triple jump
• 3rd 100m hurdles
• 3rd long jump
• 6th shot put
• 6th discus

And at the Multi-events Champs (100m hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200m, long jump, javelin, 800m) she came 1st in Auckland.

At yesterday's Schools Champs (track and field results) she got:

• 3rd triple jump
• 7th 80m hurdles
• 10th long jump

Mulan is on the Auckland ranking lists for the Under 16 triple jump and long jump.

She got three Takapuna Club records: Under 16 80m hurdles and triple jump, and Under 18 100m hurdles.

Mulan's best event is the triple jump (9.70m), and while she's had solid performances all season with all her events we always feel that there are some big results yet to come.

Ever since the Schools Nationals in December, Mulan had been carrying niggling ankle injuries.  First it was her right ankle from the Nationals triple jump, then it has also been her left ankle since the Heptathlon high jump.  She's been taping these each time she competes and trains (and is rehabbing them with massage and wobble-board strengthening), but they were fairly painful at yesterday's competition.  It'll be good to rest and rehab over the off-season.

Me:

(Part one of the Auckland Champs Pentathlon)

I continued to compete this season, in the Masters Men 45-49 age group, though unfortunately catching Covid in late January slowed me down a bit.

At the Auckland Senior Champs I got 1st in my age for triple jump.  Then at the Auckland Multi-events Champs I got 1st in my age in Auckland for the Pentathlon (long jump, javelin, 200m, discus, 1500m), though getting a migraine partway through slowed down my later events.

I got three Takapuna Club records in the Masters Men 45-49 age: 100m, 200m and high jump.

While my triple jump significantly deteriorated, I was very happy to (a) get over 5 metres in the long jump, (b) get 27.07sec in the pentathlon 200m, bettering my time from last year, and (c) keep up with Miya and get 1.46m in the high jump!

West City Band Camp

Back in January, Mulan and Miya joined the West City Youth Concert Band Camp.  (Same as last year.)  This was four full days of music, ending in a performance on the Friday evening.  

Unfortunately I had Covid at the time, so I didn't get to be there, but the concert is now up on YouTube for us all to enjoy.

Athletics Auckland Champs -- hurdles

This year the athletics Auckland Champs are being held over a few weeks.

Yesterday the champs kicked off with the hurdles, which Mulan and Miya both competed in.

Miya came second in the Under 14 Women 80m hurdles:

While Mulan ran her first ever 100m hurdles race, coming third in the Under 18 Women's event:

The results are here.

Mulan's NCEA results

The NCEA school exam results came through a few days ago.  We looked eagerly at Mulan's numbers.

And well done her!

As always, as with any on-the-day performance, be it athletics, music, dance or academics, there were some bits where Mulan performed smoothly, while other bits were a little under what we know she can sometimes do.  It's a snapshot in time, not an overall judgement.  Important, interesting and useful, but only in its context.

Having said that, overall it was a very satisfying result and something to be proud of.  I think it appropriately reflects what Mulan put into it -- her time, effort, seriousness, diligence, and, most importantly, investment-balance with the various other life areas in which Mulan is involved.  She put time and effort into her academic studies, but it didn't take over from also equally putting time and effort into her dance, music and athletics, to also achieve well in those.

So, Mulan passed NCEA 1 with excellence endorsement.

She got excellence endorsements in Maths, Science and Music, while she got merit endorsements in English, Accounting and PE.

She passed all 121 credits she sat, with 79 at excellence level and 42 at merit level.

Along with doing NCEA level 1, in her extension English class she sat a level 2 unit.  We were delighted that she passed this with merit, as in some of her earlier practices she hadn't done quite so well.

On the other hand, she didn't do quite so well in one of her Accounting units, getting merit rather than excellence.  Even though the rest of her Accounting was all excellence, with the bad luck of the points calculation system this dropped her down to merit endorsement overall in Accounting.  A little sad after she did so well in her school Accounting results, but that's the idiosyncratic nature of on-the-day performances.

Well done Mulan.  Super proud of her!

Whanganui holiday

Our family holiday this summer was down in Whanganui (mostly).

It was just a short trip, leaving on Wednesday 4th and arriving back home on Thursday 12th.

It was Whanganui this year because once again we were at the North Island athletics Colgate Games (like we did last year in Wellington and the year before in Inglewood).  This year it was just Miya competing, as Mulan is too old (14 and unders only).

I'll write some more on this post but for now here's the important bits:

Here's Miya coming 4th in the final of the Grade 12 80m hurdles (15.24sec):

And here she is clearing 1.40m in the high jump to come 4th:

Both were new PBs for her.  She did the shot put and discus too, but didn't throw as well as she sometimes does.  She was also in the club's second relay team for her age, and they came 6th.  The results are here.