The School Elder

Hey! It's Sully and right now i am writing this on Jackson's (one of our cousins) iPad! I am using it because Max is using his iPad and mine is charging! Also Jay is away at The Pioneer bike race with Brent (our cousin's friends Dad) and Uncle Brendan and he is their support crew! We are still FaceTiming though because we had our first day of school today!! It was AWESOMENESS!!! We attended our cousin's school called Elmwood Normal School ( Charlie said "you guys shouldn't be going to Elmwood because you're not NORMAL!!" to which I replied; "Yup, We're EXTRAORDINARY!!") and I STILL don't know why it has the word 'Normal' in it!!?? ANYWAYS… I had a blast seeing as how I'm the OLDEST KID IN THE SCHOOL!!!! It's because they call Grades Years and so I'm in Year 6 here ( like I should be in Grade 6 in Canada!!) but I'm SUPPOSED to be in Year 7 here because we start school a year before they do!! So I'm the ONLY eleven year old in the SCHOOL!! It's my one and only chance to be the oldest kid as back at JE I think Gwen or Phaedra will be the oldest in Grade 8??? Or is it someone from Sir Adam Beck?? Well whoever it is… ITS NOT GONNA BE ME!! So I DO feel pretty lucky!!  

Welllllllll… the only problem was that we had to wear UNIFORMS to school! AS WELL AS HATS!! Guess what?? The WHOLE THING was BLUE!! It was so different how everyone at school wore everything the same!! The one day that the NZ kids look forward to the most ISN'T Costume/Black and Orange day OR Crazy Hair Day but it's 'Mufti' Day!! Mufti Day is when you get to wear anything you want to school! So EXACTLY like everyday at our schools! I also like how they have slang words for everyday things like erasers are called 'rubbers' and Workbooks are called 'Stationery' which sounds like a fancy name for a TISSUE COMPANY!!

At break time ('Morning Tea' and 'Luncheon') I played soccer with all of the 'Year' 6 boys at our own PRIVATE playground!! The downside of travelling to 11 countries is that everyone assumes that you're AMAZING at soccer because you've been to the USA and Australia and Costa Rica even when you ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY suck! If you are interested in how long ENS (Elmwood Normal School) has been around for upon question Charlie replied that it had been around BEFORE WWI and WWII so it must be OLD. Although it's not like JE (and not as good so don't worry guys!) and it has a 1-1 ratio of computers!! That is because bi-annually parents 'donate' $200 per child up to two children! That's like a Chromebook and a half per year per person! So the only reason I could go to ENS is because Aunt Jo-Jo pays her dues! If she didn't Max couldn't go to school for two weeks and I couldn't have gone AT ALL!! 

Also, I have some favourite things to share about Elmwood Normal School (ENS). 

For example: they do their sports team trials on the first Friday of the school year! So I got lucky because this meant that I could try out for 'Volleyball' which is actually Deach Ball (for those of you who go to Kitchi with me!) but for those of you who have never set foot upon Beausoleil Island it's a different type of Volleyball where you hold the ball and then you throw it back over the net in an arc and if it lands on the ground next to a player then they are out and you are trying to get everyone on the opposing team out! So anyways I am pretty good at it because I play it at Kitchi so I would have been on the B Team (the A Team was made up solely of past-year players!) and another thing that I WOULD'VE been able to do (had I been going to ENS for a whole year would've been class councillor which is one girl and one boy who each go to a councillor meeting and present class ideas to the rest of the councillors there. Then if the vote passes it goes to the principal who has vetoing power over whatever happens... For example last year the school uncovered a chess ground (literally painted black and white blacktop) and the councillors voted to restore it! The principal agreed and so ever since they have been fixing it up!

Another one of my favourite things about ENS was that during breaks, Year 6's and Year 5's were able to go sit in the library and checkout and check in books and read if they wanted to! Also Year 6's could sign up to be a Librarian (which Charlie is doing and I would've done!) which meant that during breaks they checked books in and out! That's something I wish JE would add... The Librarian duties AND the in-break reading allowed! Some books I read were Gregor The Overlander (By: SUSANNE COLLINS!!!) who is the author of the Hunger Games!! I also read some of the How To Train Your Dragon books (the movie was based off of them!) which I recommend as well! To be fair Charlie got me the book by Susanne Collins just because she judged the book by its cover when Aunt Jo-Jo and her went to the Public Library!

One last thing I absolutely LOVED was that I got to show the Blog to my teacher Mrs.Searell (everyone called her by her first name Caro) and the rest of my class Room 18 because Caro had a 'Summer Sharing' thing where everyone put together a product of what they did over the summer! Another project we did was the Treaty Of Waitangi where 43 Northland Chiefs and Crown Representatives signed a Treaty of peace between the Maori (aboriginals of NZ) and the English. ENS was TOTALLY AWESOME!!!!
Now you know we've been doing some schooling!

Well, I gotta start making my lunch for tomorrow,


Sullivan