Students were given a set number of words with which to create a poem about the holidays.
My holidays were full of tasty stuff. Result: me being
stuffed as well. With sugar and joy came inspiration too,
so I could draw pretty much anything I wanted to.
But, as every holiday before, this was too short.
Ask others – it is not so difficult to tell.
Jakob Zemljič, 4. a
Students were exploring the word ‘wanderlust’ and asked to imagine where they would like to roam and discover. They were then asked to describe arriving at that place.
Do you know where I would like to go? Anywhere; I would go anywhere with him.
But he is not here any more, so instead, I would go to Cuba by myself. It’s a poor country with coconut trees and the sounds of old cars. In Cuba, I would see lots of people smoking different cigars and the smell would make me want to smoke as well. The wind and big waves would draw me to the water. I want to feel fear, joy, and freedom at the same time.
Funny isn’t it? Almost impossible to imagine, but it’s so real in my mind. To be there all by myself, making new friends, enjoying, and forming new memories would be amazing. It would be great to not think about anything or anyone, to relive that long-lost feeling we all had before we grew up.
Melani Koprek, 4. b
Students were given three images which showed different environments (one natural, one man-made, and one very superficial). They were then given three minutes to describe them.
Image 1:
The river flows as it has flown since the beginning of time: without mercy or stopping, over rocks aged with moss and erosion from the constant beating it gets. Even with it being something that clears all in its path, it also helps give life. Trees and bushes, the most vibrant green, show their life. Moss clings to them desperately as the sun shines down upon all. A quiet corner in the loud, loud world.
Image 2:
Typing on the keyboard, the distant chatter of a woman trying to close a deal. People just live with the grind. The sun shining in through windows beckons, begs to be enjoyed, but this place leaves no time to enjoy the sun. The sterile office needs workers to do what they must if they wish to see another day. And so goes the clicking of the keyboard, the squeaking of chairs, and the distant chatter fading into the background as the Earth continues to spin.
Image 3:
A fake representation of the melding of natural and unnatural. Walls try to resemble the forests and luscious greenery it replaced, but it can not capture the life of it. They say a picture says a million words. But these only say fake. The animal tries to live its life, never seeing the unmerciful forest which would probably kill it, being raised by those odd hairless monkeys. A mercy in the fakeness that surrounds it, for it does not know of the horrors of the world it never saw.
Ana Dreo, 4. f
After looking at environments, students were then shown a short movie about a futuristic planet without water. They were asked to carry on a story starting with the phrase, ‘All we can do is adapt to our environment…‘
All we can do is adapt to our environment. That’s what we had to write an assignment on. In hindsight, it was almost prophetic. I was a middle class brat, without a single skill to help in the real world. That was before the real world hit us. The earthquake destroyed so much. Anything within the 10km radius of the epicenter was considered dead by all governments sending help. They all thought it had to be China. It had to be China of course.
The millions that died and the destroyed factories spilled into the oceans. From what I heard, most of Asia is living in a Mad Max inspired world, just with less leather and motorcycles. Europe was lucky. Russia took the brunt of the damage with apartment buildings demolished, and parliaments and museums turned to dust.
We are lucky. We have satellites and the internet is run under water. But who has time for that when you are scavenging through the remains of your old reality. Dad is at home listening to the radio for any information. He wants to see if any of the fat cats will do something. For some reason I still hope to find survivors in town. But all I ever find is food and corpses. When I first went, anybody who I saw ran away in fear. I didn’t blame them. If you see a woman with a giant dog and a metal pipe, you aren’t gonna stay around and see if they are friendly. I looked over the destroyed library, and we saved as many books as we could. Karmen was using them to help grandma farm and to learn to fix our busted laptop. If we could get it working, maybe we could make contact with something other than the government controlled radio. It is only a matter of time until something happens. And the best we can do is adapt. After all, the only constant in the world is change.
Ana Dreo, 4. f
All we can do is adapt to our environment. We can not control it, nay, we shouldn’t. We should do everything in our power to preserve the environment. And, of course, for us to survive in those environments we have to adapt. Whether they are dusty, rocky deserts where you have to get ready for heat and cold, where you need to find shelter and water, whether you are in a thick lush jungle where you have to be careful of poisonous creatures and get comfortable with the constantly moist atmosphere, we have to adapt. And we shouldn’t control it. Deserts rise and deserts fall, whether it is because of a change of weather or their change in geographical location. And so do the jungles. Heck, even the almost lifeless mountains eventually have to disappear. That is the natural order of things: the law of nature. And all we have to do, everything that we are supposed to do, is adapt.
Andraž Kovačič Pohorec, 4. d
