Tonight we were at Westlake Boys High School for the Equinox Concert.
Ten music groups performed, including the Westlake Symphony Orchestra. Here they are, playing Franz von Suppé's Light Cavalry Overture:
There's a very good reason why the cameraperson focused mostly on the cellos. I was the cameraperson, and Mulan is playing her cello -- she's the one with the blue mask.
It was in the school newsletter here.
Back in January I wrote that Mulan was in the Auckland team for the Under 16/Under18 athletics Interprovincial competition.
Covid meant it was done as a virtual competition rather than the usual weekend away together as a team.
It's all finished for the season, and the results are coming out.
Delightfully, Mulan was part of the Auckland "relay" team that won gold together:
(Mulan's triple jump performance was at the Auckland Senior Champs, where she jumped 9.80m.)
Mulan and I spent most of the weekend at Mt Smart Stadium, doing multi-events athletics.
It was the Auckland Combined Events Champs -- I did a pentathlon on Saturday, while Mulan did a heptathlon over both days.
Predictably, my muscles are still sore today, while surprisingly Mulan is also a little sore this morning.
One of the fun things about multi-events is getting to try out events that we wouldn't normally do. Both of us did javelin (Mulan's first time ever, and my fourth time ever), Mulan did high jump, and we both did longer runs on rubber (hence the soreness).
I earned a gold medal in my age group (45-49) for my efforts. Though full disclosure, I was the only man of my age silly enough to endure the pain of competing in five events.
Mulan came sixth in her age group (Under 16).
The results are here.
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Meanwhile, on Sunday Miya did the North Harbour Gymnastics Gymfest.
Unfortunately I missed it because I can't be in two places at once. But Mama went along and videoed it for us.
Athletes who are masochists run the 400 metres.
It's a sprint. Only the body is not supposed to sprint full speed for that distance.
So by the last 50 metres the legs are wobbling, the throat is burning, and you're just pumping the arms to keep the legs moving. And then once you're over the finish line the sick feeling starts, and builds.
It's even worse when the wind is strong.
I did a 400m yesterday. With a head wind on the final straight gusting up to 6 m/s.
I signed up on Wednesday, so I had a few days of anticipating the pain.
Why did I do it?
Basically, out of curiosity.
It's been over 25 years since I last ran a 400m race on a rubber track. Over the past few years, since getting back into athletics with the children, I've done several on grass. But I hadn't done a best-as-I-can effort on rubber.
So I did. And I'm kinda proud of myself. Yeah it hurt, yeah I was beaten on the line by a 12-year-old, and yeah I vomited afterwards, but I made it.
My time was 60.38 seconds, which was a surprise. I would've been satisfied with anything under 65 seconds. Mulan videoed it:
I was never a 400m runner; I'm not enough of a masochist to do the training. But I did do it occasionally. My best ever time was 29 years ago when I was 17 years old, when I finished in 52.27 seconds.
I'm not sure if I'll do it again. If I consistently did one or two running sessions a week over winter I may drop under 60 seconds, but I'm not sure if the achy joints can handle that sort of regular training. Anyway, we'll see what happens.
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Meanwhile, Mulan did a few runs yesterday, too.
She signed up for the 80m hurdles, 60m and 100m. She was also curious about her times, as she'd never done 100m on rubber and she hadn't done 60m in five years.
Unfortunately the huge head wind made things tough. It also didn't help that she arrived at the track after having done two and a half hours of ballet, so her legs were already pretty fatigued.
But it was a good experience, and a very useful learning opportunity to know how to handle hurdles into a strong head wind. (And at least she bettered her 60m PB she got when she was nine years old.)
The results are here.
I last wrote about Miya's maths nine months ago.
Since then Miya has been steadily working on Khan Academy US 6th Grade maths.
Miya has now completed 6th Grade, and yesterday started on 7th Grade (if she was living in the US she'd be starting as a very young 7th Grade in half a year).
One of the sticking points for Miya is her accuracy. Khan is a mastery-style course, and so it requires students to get everything correct before moving on. That's great in many ways, as it means that students have a solid foundation before attempting the next level. Mastery-style reasons that if a student is still not quite sure about one thing, then it is going to get even less clear if they move on before getting that sorted.
However, a downside of mastery-style is that some students may make occasional mistakes because they jump into it and try to do it speedily all at once and forget to carefully think through each step. They mostly know it, and could probably get it all correct with the occasional suggestion. But it may be hard for them to get 100% entirely independently, and so it will be hard for them to move on to the next level.
I think Miya has been a bit like this, and this is why she has taken longer to get through 6th Grade (she started 6th Grade one year and 10 months ago). Miya also strongly prefers to do it entirely on her own, and doesn't like me to teach/correct her. She doesn't even like me giving her hints/pointers to remind her how to start a problem.
We'll see how 7th Grade progresses, but if it is as slow as 6th Grade we may need to change the way we are doing things.
Our tentative thought for now is that Miya will start school (Westlake Girls) at the beginning of Year 9 in two years. It would be great if Miya could complete (or near complete) US 8th Grade before she starts.
