A Thursday of my life at school

 Heaving my school bag onto my bag hook, I tiredly sigh with the fact that the moment I enter my classroom, there's no way going back.

If only skipping school was an option. Not in my household.

But anyway, I greet Matt and Sheila a brief "good morning", but frown as I'm puzzled to why they're here in Pohutukawa (the name of my class). They both teach Manuka, not here.

I pay no mind to that though. 20 minutes till the bell rings, best thing to do is to wait it out. I do exactly so.

*

9:30am to 10:00am

After a painful session of WYB (wake your body) from 9:00am to 9:30am that nobody enjoyed going through, all of us are sitting at our tables, mentally groaning that we're gonna do the "least" boring school subject. 

Math.

Now, even though I'm pretty good at it, that doesn't necessarily mean that I enjoy the lessons. I'm just a regular girl that likes math class, except without the word "class".

"If a quarter of Ryan's expenses on his holiday was $1000, how much did he spend in total? Who can answer that?" Leo, the release teacher in Pohutukawa asks innocently, expecting an answer to be said.

But he doesn't get one. Only a cold, embarrassing silence. 

I try to hold my laughter from how awkward this is. I snap my head around. Surprisingly, I haven't got a stare or two from doing so. 

Saving Leo's butt from being embarrassed by no one willing to answer an easy question, I blurt out "$4000.".

I look around. Once again, nobody's staring at me from doing that? I'm on a roll without my social awkwardness today.

"Correct. Ryan spent $4000 on his holiday."

Phew. Glad I got that right, or else Leo wouldn't be the only one who got embarrassed. 

The awkward pauses continue throughout the lesson, and even the confident kids in my maths group answer a few times, but me, as a kid who doesn't really raise their hand, answers most of them. It kind of shocks me.

I check my watch, so far "enjoying" the lesson. 

10:00am. I'm FREE! Normally, morning tea usually begins 20 minutes earlier than it normally would, but because after morning tea, we need time to get on the bus and drive to Mt. Cook School to attend a session of a program called Technicraft. It's basically like home economics, but with more things involved like Design, Woodwork, Robotics and Sewing. Pohutukawa gets split into 5 groups to rotate areas of learning every 8 weeks to move on to the next area.

Previously a while ago when I was in Design, I had an opportunity to make your own customised lamps! You could choose the colour of your lights, and what you would put in the base of the lamp. It doesn't look like a normal lamp though. It has a base and a backboard, unlike the normal upright and standing lamp you would have on your night stand.

this is how it looks like with its light off...

and its lights on!

I'm in Cooking, and arguably I'm in one of the best areas of Technicraft, mostly because you get to make food which you can bring home and eat!

It's our second session this week, and last week we blended simple but yet satisfying fruit milkshakes with vanilla ice cream. And although it tasted like an average fruit milkshake you'd make at home, I consider "an average homemade fruit milkshake" to be marvelous. I certainly have high hopes for what we're gonna make this week. 

Simon is our cooking teacher, who even though doesn't work well under time pressure and easily gets stressed out, still has a great sense of humour. And anyway, who doesn't like actually funny guys after all? It's a good characteristic to have.

In a straight line but not in a calm manner, one by one we thank the bus driver for taking us to our destination. The people in front of me are going feral and racing to their group lines.

I stroll up to the Cooking line, and as usual, the people in front of me are chatting amongst themselves and theorising what food we're gonna make today.

Leo calls the Cooking group to march their way to stand in front of the cooking room, AKA in our society we call it a kitchen.

I'm getting real excited now.

*

Remember how this blog is titled "A Thursday of my life at school"? Well, my Thursday is regular, and so was our cooking session. 

The first half of the session went like this: a lot of straightforward instruction-giving from Simon. There was loads of moving in the kitchen, like racing to get the salt in our mixing bowls or chopped butter from Simon, but no one cut their finger off or did anything crazy like that. The second half of the session was the same, but with a bit more times when Simon was getting super stressed out from someone not rinsing the bowl properly.

That "someone" was me.

Sure, it was a tiny tinge of stressfulness involved, but it was all worth it in the end, because now we get to see what they look like baked!

Erica (my friend) and I are quietly waiting for our scones to bake. I check the oven, the goodies are seemed to have been speckled with flour on the surface. 

Simon pulls them out and I divide the batch of goodness into half for Erica. 

I sniff the goodness and practically melt to the floor.

Thank you for reading!!!