I have recently been offered an amazing opportunity. And when you get an opportunity, you have to grasp it with both hands and tug and tug at it until it finally releases. Don’t listen to what people think and always be sure you can achieve what you are trying to do. The word impossible, even says: I’m Possible. Freshwater is a Primary Enrichment Course that involves people from schools from the Lower North Shore region arriving at a senior campus in Freshwater. I, alone with two boys and two other girls, have been selected to go!

We are around four weeks into the program and it is amazingly extraordinary. We visit every Wednesday and we have our own classroom and our own teachers too. Annabel (she is really sweet) helps us on the rare occasions and Ashley (he is super funny) and Mr. Permentil (he is really genuine) are our sports teachers in the afternoon. Lorna is our main teacher. She is pure awesome with a capitol A. She also said she might visit my blog, so “Hi Lorna!” We meet with the same students and have our own lunchtimes and recess breaks. Our class line: “The answer to everything in this classroom is always a yes!” – Lorna.

The best part though, is the activities. On the first week we studied the theory of popcorn. Our aim was to figure out the secrets behind popcorn and how it pops. We came up with hypotheses and put them in our scrapbook. My scrapbook is getting cooler and cooler every week and sometimes, when I have nothing on my mind that moment, I flick through what we have been doing. My hypothesis was: The heat inside the kernels expands in the heat and then explodes, turning into popcorn. We thought we had solved everything, but then we had to greet the problem of trying to figure out how much all of our popcorn weighed. We had placed the kernels into bags, and they had to weigh something too. We added up the amount of the bags and then subtracted them off the sum of all our fifty kernels. I was photographer, so I got to take all the photos! The best part though, we got to eat the warm popcorn! Afterwards, we played an intense game of European Handball with Mr. Permentil.

The second week we moved into a proper kitchen to solve the mysteries behind science. We filled out charts about the measurements and heat or the ingredients we will be requiring and then Lorna handed us some sheets with the recipes on them. We were going to make Chocolate Muffins and Bread Rolls. My partner was allergic to gluten, so we had to find a way to make these things without putting any of her reactions in danger. We watched Lorna make and bake the things first with a mirror tilted on an angle hovering on the bench above, so we could see clearly all the things we were doing. The kitchen was spotless, you could practically see your reflection in the benches, and all our requirements were supplied for us; I felt like I was a Masterchef contestant! After mixing up our dough for the rolls, we put them in the sun and by the time we came back from morning tea, they were all puffed up. But my partner’s was completely different! Hers had a special type of flour and it had hardly puffed at all! It was super fun in the kitchen, and cleaning up was actually much more fun than you would think and helped us with our teamwork skills! Two boys accidentally put one quarter of a cup of BiCarb Soda in their recipe instead of a quarter of a spoon! Their muffins did not taste that amazing. The best part though was taste testing. I gave Lorna and our cooking teacher some of mine and then had some myself. The chocolate chips were really nice and gooey after coming out of the oven, but I reckon my bread rolls were the best. I shared them with my Mum and my team friends on the way to hockey; they reckoned they were as good as I did. A great week once again at Freshwater.

I love Freshwater so much it is hard to express it, and I love writing! Everyone is amazing and awfully nice. The staff always greet politely and give us a smile. They take care of us and always update to see how we are going. Even people we have not met before pop their heads around the doorway to say “hello”. I hope that I will act like them one day. Our sports lessons are really fun. They are not like ordinary classes, we have to make up our own games as we go and that really gets our minds thinking as well as getting fitter and healthier. I am also proud to say that the classmates are also great to be around too. Lorna is the one to blame for all of this though. She treats us all individually and makes sure we are all happy and trying as hard as we can. Is is always a great feeling to please Lorna because she always congratulates us for our achievements, big or small. Wednesdays are now officially my favourite day of the week!

Emily 🙂

Please feel welcome to give any ideas, tips or even general comments in the text boxes below. Please also vote in my poll which is on the right hand side. Hope to hear from you all!