Lorde

Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor may be her real name, but the singer-songwriter is now more commonly referred to as Lorde, her stage name. 

Ella and Louis

Lorde was born in Takapuna, Auckland and raised in the nearby suburb of Devonport with a Croation mother, Sonja and an Irish father, she was raised alongside her older sister, Jerry, younger sister, India, and her younger brother Angelo. She first entered the music industry when she won the annual Belmont Intermediate talent show with her friend, Louis McDonald as a duo. From there the pair made an appearance on Jim Mora's Afternoons show on Radio New Zealand, where they performed covers of Pixie Lott's 'Mama Do' and King of Leon's 'Use Somebody'. Louis' father Ian soon after took his home recording of the pair doing a cover of Duffy's 'Warwick Avenue' and Pixie Lott's 'Mama Do' and sent them to Universal Music Group (UMG) A&R Scott Maclachlan. In the same year, Lorde was signed to UMG so she could develop her talent. All in the same year, Lorde was also part of the Belmont Intermediate band 'Extreme' who placed third in the North Shore Battle of the Bands finals.

In 2010 Ella and Louis started to perform their covers on a regular basis at small cafes and restaurants and they soon performed at the Vic Unplugged at Victoria Theatre and Devonstock in Devonport.

In 2011 UMG got her a vocal coach, Frances Dickinson who gave Lorde singing lessons twice a week for a year. During all of this she began to write all of her own songs and on the 16 November 2011, she performed her own original songs publicly at The Vic Unplugged II on the Devonport Victoria Theatre stage.  In December 2011, MacLachlan paired Lorde with Joel Little, a songwriter and record producer. The pair recorded five songs at Little's Golden Age Studios.

Lorde's official line of work is a singer and songwriter. Her impact is that she has inspired New Zealander's and shown them that we can go far as well and we can't be restricted just because of how same of a country we are. It has not just been New Zealander's she's inspired, Lorde is known to be a feminist and supports women strongly. "It's about all women, women who might not have the opportunities that I have or the privileges that I have. Trying to fight for better, better conditions, better treatment of all women. Whether that be trans women or women of colour or women in professions that don't typically get a lot of respect. That to me is what feminism is about."

• What is her most popular and famous song?

The most popular song is either Royals or Green Light.

• How old was she when she signed her first record deal?

Lorde was just thirteen years old when she signed her first record deal with University Music Studios.

• How many awards has she won?

Lorde has won two Grammys, two Billboard Music Awards, 4 New Zealand Music Awards, one MTV Music Award and probably many other awards as well that I couldn't find, there is thought to be around 32 which she has won and 85 she has been nominated for.

• Why did she choose Lorde?

The name was decided when she was sixteen and was obsessed with nobility and aristocracy, "It was a good spontaneous choice, I think. I’m quite proud of my 16-year-old self for not messing that one up, cause if I’d given myself a cool, weird, hip name I hated now, that would be super annoying. Again, it’s that nobility, aristocracy obsession that I had. I hit upon ‘Lord’ and loved the way it sounded, and then I was like, ‘It would be quite cool to add an ‘e’ to feminise it.’".

• What is Lorde's net worth?

Lorde's net worth is believed to be $12 million.

• What are some interesting facts?

She began to date a photographer named James Lowe, but broke it off with him and has been known to have written some of the songs in the album, Melodrama, about him.

In August 2013, Lorde became the first woman to top the Billboard Alternative Songs chart in the United States since Tracy Bonham back in 1996.


Lorde was only 15 when she wrote the song Royals.

Lorde turned down the opportunity to give the opening act on Katy Perry's own Prism tour after Katy Perry asked her when Lorde's song Royals topped the charts.

Bibliography -

• https://www.aceshowbiz.com/celebrity/lorde/biography.html
• https://www.biography.com/people/lorde
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorde
• https://www.celebsnetworthtoday.com/bio-wiki-2018-2019-2020-2021/singer/lorde-net-worth-3764/
• https://www.elle.com.au/celebrity/how-lorde-chose-her-stage-name-13553
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkhziRFfHec
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn48aBLF4wk
• https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=ella+and+louis+mcdonald&rlz=1CAACAJ_enNZ690NZ691&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjGgvfp_vzdAhXZUd4KHY_CAlgQ_AUIDigB&biw=1366&bih=618&safe=active&ssui=on#imgrc=HcbrsLuF-lq2qM:
• https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/01/lorde-grammys-dress-protest

Kate Sheppard

1. Describe your impressions of how the women dressed and were expected to behave in 1893.
2. Name the three groups with which voteless women were classed.
3. Discuss why Kate Sheppard often tops polls about influential females in New Zealand.
4. Imagine it is 1892. Prepare a speech of between half a page and a page about why women should get the vote.
5. Work out what year it will be when you turn 50. Predict how New Zealand will be organized then. For example, will it still have the parliament? If so, what will the minimum voting age be?
6. Web search: Find five cartoons from New Zealand about women’s suffrage.

Back in that time women who were not in the higher classes of society were expected to be housewives and do nothing but clean, cook and be there for her husband when he got home. The women were expected to be perfect and know nothing of politics unless they were of a higher class, even then, many women weren't too involved and known to be very unpolitical, focussing on other occupations and opportunities. They were expected to wear clothing that showed no skin and would go as high up her chin. The dresses they wore would reach their ankles and this would be the same no matter the season, their forced fashion was thought to be practical and even showing the slightest bit of skin was considered vulgar and inappropriate.

Voteless women were classed as lunatics, juveniles and criminals.

Kate Sheppard will often top the poll when it comes to influential females because she is the one who led the women and men who helped support the right of females voting in such polls and other forms of voting.

Women, we are the very root of men's lives, we are the mothers and sisters of these men who refuse to
let us have rights over what we and they do. Why should a mother not be able to vote and help decide
the fate of the place and people that help raise her child? Why should a sister not be able to vote when
her criminal brother can? In our youth, we would play with our brothers and feel no difference when it
came to beliefs and rights, but as the men grow, their minds become polluted with beliefs and
expectations that women are not to be trusted with the fate of the country and the people we want the
best for. They start to believe that we are insignificant compared to them because they have been
influenced by fathers, brothers and so many other men, who think of women as nothing but housewives.
The little boys we used to play with so happily have seen their own mothers and sister grow up to be
housewives and think ‘This is the fate of all women unless they are rich and they would only be rich
because of fathers.’. We, as women and men, must change our ways and the ways that these children
learn, a woman should not be forced into her future or have it known to her. For a man, he can be
anything, go anywhere, so, if men are capable of so much, why can’t a woman be? Why should a
woman’s life be condemned to a household and cleaning it? Because that's what men want, women do
what men want and we need to change that, we need to be able to challenge the future and help these
men advance technology. We need to vote to help men advance the future because women are the
future, women and men working together to achieve more than ever seen before is the true future for our
small country, our small place in the world.

It will be the year 2055 when I turn 50 and I think the world will have really changed by then, I think that
New Zealand will still have a form of Parliament that will be just a bit more organized and helpful by then.
The Parliament will have become more open and be led by a team of politicians rather than one. I think
that by this time the minimum voting age for New Zealand will be around thirteen to fifteen because I
believe that by then the world would have realized that teenagers should be able to decide their and their
countries future.

https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/womens-suffrage/brief-history
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/suffrage-petition-1893
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/womens-suffrage/petition
https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/a-leap-into-the-light/
https://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/s/suffrage.asp
https://nzsuffrage.weebly.com/main-campaign.html
https://suffragepostcards.wordpress.com/2015/01/02/young-new-zealand/

Marti Friedlander

1. Describe your attitude towards photos. For example, do you agree with the old saying that a picture speaks a thousand words?
2. Choose a photo of yourself that you have. Explain why it was taken and the importance of the event it shows.
3. Explain how photography, in her new country, helped Marti.
4. Explain how Marti Friedlander’s work helps the preservation of culture and helps us understand diversity in our culture.
5. Discuss the link between photographs and national identity.
6. Web search: Find pictures that Marti has taken and decide which is your favourite. Be ready to justify your choice.

A self-portrait by Marti Friedlander

Photos are a big part of our time, most people can just pull their phones and take a picture, preserving that moment in time. The moment, from there, can be shared with anyone or kept to yourself, or some people try to steal that moment away and share it with everyone. A single moment can tell a story of a thousand words or even more. Some can be ashamed of the stories that these moments captured in time tell. Others flaunt these moments, proud of the things they did and saw. A single album of photos can tell a million word story, they can tell a story of someone's life, someone's loss, someones love.

To the right is a photo that was taken of me and my friend Chloe, it was taken to help us remember the good time we had at Mega Zone. This photo will also help us remember what we were like back then when we look back at it in the future  

Photography, for Marti, would have been something she used to understand not just the country, but the countries culture and past. While taking photos of countries or places native people and land, you learn about them and how they live compared to how you’ve grown up in a completely different place and community, around such different people and traditions. I think it would have been incredibly important to Marti and her understanding of New Zealand’s culture and people.

Marti’s work helps New Zealand with the preservation of culture in so many different ways. Photos help us understand the diversity in our unique culture. You can’t just throw photos away because there is always going to the memory of taking the photo for the photographer and the subject. Photos are always going to be there, online or in albums, they are almost eternal. People can always look back and look at pictures, they can see what the meaning behind the photos are and what the story behind it is. Whether it be about war, love or mistakes, or even all of them! They help us understand our cultures and countries mistakes and gains.

Between photos and national identity, no one usually makes a link between the two and how they can help each other. When trying to understand a countries identity and what makes them a country that's different from others. We don't realize that the difference between countries is their landscape, people and how the people of that country act. Photos of those landscapes and people reveal how the people of that place and other places around the world identify that country compared to others.

Through a google search, I have found this photo which I believe Marti took. This is my favourite because of the story it could be telling, the boy could simply be on vacation, or he could be a stow-away on a rich yacht! There are so many different stories that this single photo could tell over and over again.

Know Your Rights

As a consumer it is very important for you to know your rights as one and here's why. Whether you are buying goods or services, you have rights and it is your job, as a consumer to know your own. There are many laws and acts that consumers do not but do need to know about when purchasing their product. The Fair Trading Act, for example, it protects consumers from buying faulty or falsely advertised products, it also protects consumers from other things when they have purchased a product or service, like say you wanted to get a refund or replacement on a buildable set of drawers that was missing an important piece. If the producer refuses to do this act you can legally report them and maybe even take it to court, unless it is in their policy that they don't allow returns, swaps or refunds. This is, of course, just an example and I have only used the information to my extent of understanding. You may have rights, but you also have limitations.

Bibliography:

https://comcom.govt.nz/consumers/your-rights-as-a-consumer
https://comcom.govt.nz/consumers
https://www.consumerprotection.govt.nz/general-help/laws-policies/fair-trading-act/

Rights of Consumers and Responsibilities of Producers

The Fair Trading Act is the act that asks of producers that they give correct product and service information before the selling of a product or service. The Commerce Commision is New Zealand's regulatory, competition and consumer agency. They play an important role in New Zealand's markets, making sure the markets are competitive and that consumers are well informed of their rights and are protected when it comes to those rights. Only the consumer is responsible for the buying of the product and only the consumer can report the producer/s and take legal action. The Fair Trading Act applies to every aspect of a trade and either end of the deal, the producers or the consumer/s.

http://pngimg.com/download/3547

The acts of compliance obligations apply to producers and consumers if they intend to deceive the other end of the trading chain. For example, a consumer using a product after purchase and conning the producer into getting a refund, or a brand new product, through the producer's compliance obligations. Compliance obligations do not only if you intend either side of the trading chain, it depends on the producer's policy, but, if you buy a product without realizing and attempt to return it, it is their obligation, depending on their policy, that they refund or give you a different model of the product you purchased. The business, when dealing with a consumer trying to return or swap a product must put themselves in the shoes of that consumer and think of what they would want and how would like it conveyed or delivered. The commerce commision is obliged to support a consumer in reporting or charging a producer shall they sell a faulty or falsely advertised product.



When reporting a business you can go to a range of different sites such as https://comcom.govt.nz and report a business through their complaint form or you could call them through this phone number, 0800 943 600 or email contact@comcom.govt.nz with your concerns about a certain producer. 

Bibliography
 - https://comcom.govt.nz/business/your-obligations-as-a-business
 - https://comcom.govt.nz/consumers/your-rights-as-a-consumer
 - https://comcom.govt.nz/consumers
 - https://comcom.govt.nz/consumers/your-rights-as-a-consumer/enforcing-your-rights-and-dispute-resolution
 - https://www.consumerprotection.govt.nz/general-help/laws-policies/fair-trading-act/

An average Māori Lunar Month

Through this work, I am learning all about my countries history and how the Māori people survived before the Europeans came and colonized the Māori peoples land. This teaches us how organized the people were and how they adapted to the land's way of working to make it work for them. 

Mao Zedong, A Communist (And Arguably A) Dictator

Chairman Mao Zedong

How did he die?

Mao Zedong died of a heart attack on the 9th of September, 1976, in Beijing, China.

What political party was he part of?

He was the Former Chairman of the Communist Party of China.

What were his beliefs?

He created his own form of beliefs known as Maoism, the followers known as Maoists.

When the Chinese communists took over in 1948, they bought a new form of Marxism, renamed after their leader. His thought was complicated, a Marxist type of analysis combined with the permanent foundations of the Chinese people's thought and culture.

What were his goals?

Created by Mao, the Chairman of the Communist Party of China, it is stated the goal was to preserve ‘true’ Communist ideology in the country.

When did his reign of Maoism end?

Although many of the people of China are capitalists and the country has adopted some capitalist laws, the country officially is still communist.

Where was he from and when was he born?

Mao was from Shaoshan, China and born on the 26th of December, 1893.

What were his original job-related goals?

Mao studied to become a teacher so he could have an income and then became a politician

after being inspired by his idols and writing countless documents and publishing them.

What kind of life did he live before becoming a politician?

He came from a peasant and attended a normal school while working in his families fields.

His mother was a Buddhist who was willing to support him, but he experienced frequent arguments with his very strict father. Mao went to Changsha, the capital of Hunan where he learned a great deal about politics. Attending Peking University with very little money, Mao had to work while he studied. After graduation, he returned to Hunan and served as a primary school principal. Outside of his work, he spent countless hours publishing political documents. In 1908 he married his cousin Luo Yigu due to an arranged marriage by their parents, although Mao never saw her as his wife and never had any children with her, she passed away in 1910. He then married Yang K'ai-hu in 1920 and had three children with her, but she was executed, ten years later, by Chinese Nationalists. He married a second time in 1930 to a woman named Ho Tzu-Chen and had six more children, but he later divorced her in 1937 and then married another woman, Chiang Ch'ing.

Did he have any close family?

Mao’s mother and father were named Mao Yichang and Wen Qimei. His siblings were named

Mao Zemin and Mao Zetan. Mao also had his three sons with his second wife, Mao Anying,

Mao Anlong and Mao Anqing. He had his children with Ho Tzu-Chen, his daughter Mao Jinhua

(or Yang Yueheu), his son Mao Anhong, his daughter Li Min (Mao Jiaojiao) and two more sons and another daughter, and finally his last and forever wife Chiang Ch’ing, who never had children with him.

Why do people argue about him being a dictator?

It was the ‘Great Leap Forward’ that caused people to argue about this. Mao’s Great Leap
Forward was designed to largely improve the countries production. What it truly ended up doing was costing

millions of lives. Famine and poor harvests wound up crippling the country. Zedong lost power for a short time. When he regained the power he leads the ‘Cultural Revolution’. This continued even after Mao’s death and caused many many more lives to be lost.


And here's the presentation so you don't have to read all of that without pictures.

When will move off of the subject of the government? NOBODY KNOWS

We have been learning about most of the thing to do with the government and more recently

SOCIALISM.

So we have to write a paragraph about whether we like it or not. I'm not particularly fussed on what the government does unless it affects me but, we have to do it anyway.

I feel like socialism is the best for countries. Others may argue it is communism but, communism is a controlling and limited community and can easily become predictable. Socialism taxes the people and others say that this is for no one but the government, while in reality, it provides for education, transportation and other things I have not mentioned. In New Zealand, we have a Socialist community, with communist groups within the country itself, and compared to other countries and communities, we are one of the most stable.

What are Dictators actually like?

They screwed up.

So we're doing a post about dictators and what they're like. So we basically write down what characteristics we think dictators have.

• Ambitious
• They're a liar
• Resourceful
• Insensitive
• Intelligent
• Self-absorbed
• Confident
• Corrupt
• Hateful
• Deep down, anxious
• Intimidating
• Rude
• Demanding
• Controlling
• Bold
• Sadistic
• Jealous
• Power-hungry
• Manipulative

Etc.

More things about the Government

New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of government. This means that our head of state is a sovereign, currently, the sovereign is Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen is represented in NZ by the Governor-General, Dame Patsy Reddy. Our Government is made up of a democratically elected House of Representatives. The Government advises our head of State. MMP is our current voting system to select our Parliament. In this system, each voter gets two votes, the first is for the party you prefer. This is the vote that mainly decides how many seats each party, out of the 120 seats in parliament, gets. The second vote is for which person you want to represent your electorate. New Zealand is currently divided into 71 electorates. Whoever gets the most votes will win and become your local Member of Parliament and they will have a seat in Parliament. To get any seats in Parliament a party must have at least 5% of the votes or have an electorate seat. Let's say a party got 40% of votes, these are first filled with the won electorate seats and then other members of the party. If a party got 4% percent of the votes they are not entitled to any seats, but if they won an electorate they would be entitled to 4 more seats in Parliament.

Sites I used for Information:
https://www.govt.nz/browse/engaging-with-government/government-in-new-zealand/
https://www.parliament.nz/en/visit-and-learn/how-parliament-works/our-system-of-government/
http://www.elections.org.nz/voting-system/mmp-voting-system

For social studies we are learning about government and monarchies and we had to write ten facts about what we learned from this video called 'Why Do We Still Have Monarchies?'