Daar was ‘n kat en ‘n muis,

(There was a cat and a mouse,)

En die muis het Kaas,

(And the mouse has cheese,)

In die huis!

(In the house!)

“Waar is my ma?”

(“Where is my mother?”)

Vra die kat.

(Asked the cat.)

“Hoekom wil jy my pla?”

(“Why do you want to bother me?”)

Muis het gevra.

(Mouse did ask.)

Die kat het die muis gejaag,

(The cat chased the mouse,)

Maar binnekort…

(But soon…)

Die muis het die kat gejaag!

(The mouse chased the cat!)

Vinnig kom die eienaar en sug.

(Quickly came the owner and sighed.)

Maar gou gelag.

(But soon laughed.)

Introduction

The very popular “Hobbit” movie was directed by the one and only, Sir Peter Jackson. This star was born on the 31st of October, 1961. Being born on Halloween was quite a coincidence, considering all of the horror movies he has directed. In total, Sir Peter Jackson has received a whopping three academy awards for his work!

Rock Bottom

28th of November, 2012. The release date of the Hobbit movie. Believe it or not, Peter Jackson received a lot of hats because of the Hobbit. People were saying The Lord of the Rings was better than The Hobbit, some actors and cast members even got sent death threats because of it. Did you know Peter Jackson didn’t even like his own movie? Despite the controversy, it was definitely a financial success! The Hobbit movie made over 1 billion dollars, which was completely unexpected.

Motivation

As a kid, Peter Jackson loved films. And that passion just stayed with him his whole entire life. That was the reason he got into directing, but he had no motivation for The Hobbit! Peter Jackson was forced to direct the movie as a last resort, and he was incredibly rushed. The outcome of that was worse than expected, considering the effort out in. Although, there was a bit of an overuse on the CGI.

Start of His Career

When Peter Jackson was 16 he actually dropped out of high school, surprising, right? He began his directing career in his early twenties! Making short movies/skits. He has no training at all, and didn’t even attend lessons! Peter Jackson was self taught and learnt his skills through mistakes. New Zealand used to be a place where there were very few opportunities to start a directing/acting career. This made it hard for Peter Jackson. But Ray HarryHousen inspired him to keep going.

Life Before Fame

Sir Peter Jackson has always loved films. He started out as a photo engraved, and lived a simple life I’m Pukerua Bay, New Zealand. Before Peter dropped out, he attended Kāpiti college. He always had dreams of being a director, but it was not always his plan A. When he dropped out he had no idea what he was going to do with himself.

6384 Hours of Work

The Hobbit movie took 6384 hours of work, or 266 days. That may seem like a lot, but compared to LOTR (The Lord of The Rings), which was 438 days, it was almost twice as much as The Hobbit. This shows how rushed The Hobbit movie really was. The people working the movie barely rested.

Conclusion

To sum everything up… Sir Peter Jackson was, and is a very famous Director. He’s directed a lot of movies that were hits! And has his fair share of hate. But also not to mention, his adoring fans.

Polyfest is a national festival that happens in Auckland, New Zealand. It first started out in 1976 as a gathering of students that had talked about, and celebrated their cultures, but it soon grew to be so much more to people.

Mata (Te Kii) Raela & Micheal Rollo, and along with a few teachers had come up with the idea of Polyfest, and soon realised the potential of how it can bring people closer together. They had invited 3 colleges to perform at the first ever Polyfest, and it was a big hit! 

The people loved the performances, and embraced how unique cultures can be, and soon people looked forward to the festival each year. More schools performed and more people came, ranging from Chinese, to Korean, Indian, Tongan, Niue, and so much more cultures!

Polyfest isn’t just a festival, it’s a way to show off how amazing your culture is, and so other people can have a better understanding of it. It’s a way to bring people closer together, and connect on a different level. 

It is mostly common knowledge that cats used to be worshipped in the ancient Egyptian times. But I wondered if anyone knew why they were worshipped? Have you?

Cats weren’t really “worshipped”, the idea that they were came from the Egyptian goddess Bastet. She was a goddess with a cat head! Of course she wasn’t the only one with a cat head, but she was definitely the most popular. Some people have said she’s the goddess of cats just by looking at her, but she’s actually the goddess of fertility.

The ancient Egyptians mostly kept cats for their good hunting skills, they would often kill pesky rodents like snakes and scorpions. Another reason is that apparently the ancient Egyptians thought cats were magical creatures and brought good luck to them, although the only information to back this statement up is the mummified cats. Yes, they were mummified.

Oftenly, rich and wealthy families would dress cats up in gold necklaces and even earrings! Those cats were fit for royalty, and quite spoiled. Somehow even more spoiled than me. Cats were known to be sacred animals and a cool thing is that they were actually mummified as offerings to Bastet! It’s sort of like offering to a god or something greater than yourself.

Sometimes mummified cats would even go into the same tomb as their owner. While we’re on the topic of.. Death. The penalty and or consequence for killing a cat, even by accident, was death. Seems fair enough judging by how high status cats were. But alas, those days are over. But will they come back?