Meg's Blog

I made this cake today for some of my friends. I think they enjoyed it, I’m not really sure, but I hope so. It is sort of the first sponge I made so I think it was successful. I have made it before for lamingtons but I have never made it alone, just to eat.

Ingredients

95g self-raising flour

25g cornflour

4 eggs, separated

100g caster sugar, 2 tbsp extra for the egg whites

1 tsp of vanilla essence

1/4 tsp cream of tartar, I replaced with 4 tsp of lemon juice because I had no cream of tartar

Cream and strawberries to top

Method

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius. Grease and line a circle cake pan. Sift the flour and cornflour together, and set aside.

Using an electric mixer, whisk together egg yolks, the 100g of caster sugar and vanilla essence for 2-3 minutes, until thick and mouse like. Set aside.

Whisk egg whites until starting to froth, then add cream of tartar or lemon juice and continue to whisk until stiff but not dry. Whisk in the 2 tbsp of sugar gradually.

Fold a large scoop of whisked egg white into the beaten yolks, to slacken the mixture, then fold in the sifted flour and finally egg whites, until just combined.

Turn the mixture into the prepared tin, gently smoothing the top. Place in oven, reducing the temperature to 170 degrees Celcius, and bake for 30 minutes. Check if the cake is cooked before taking it out of the oven by very gently pressing with an index finger to check if the centre of the cake is firm. If so, remove from the oven and check the d’être with a very fine skewer – it should come out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack, to make sure the top is nicely set.

Once cooled, split the cake by cutting with a sharp knife into two even rounds. Top the base with whipped cream and strawberries, then place the second cake layer on top.

Note: Recipe is not my own – The Great Australian Cookbook- Margaret Fulton and Suzanne Gibbs

Last week on Thursday it was my 15th birthday. I had a pretty good day and got a few presents from my friends so I had to carry them around all day and they were actually kind of heavy. I didn’t enjoy English very much that day (sorry me being slightly passive aggressive) , though, because we had to do an essay on character study. Then I had GATE for 4 periods and I played piano and played a board game so that was good. I had netball training after school but my mum brought cake and it was really yummy.

I got some really cool presents like a Polaroid camera and a 1000 piece puzzle. I got a giant teddy from my best friend and when I say giant I mean giant, it is a metre tall! I got a block of chocolate and little husky toy, which is really cute and I love, a big pin up board that I can put photos on and few room decorations for my new room.

On Saturday I had a sleepover with my friends and we had a good time hanging out and doing my puzzle. My sister and dad were up for the weekend, too, so Adelle hung out with us.  We played a few games like never have I ever and truth or truth and I got my third cake in three days. Most of us had to go to the comedy Zest Festival in the morning but we were up until 3am so we were exhausted. When I got back from that I had a very chill afternoon and just tried to finish my puzzle. I did succeed, well sort of because THERE WAS ONE PIECE MISSING. I still think one of my friends took it to mess with me but they still have not admitted it or returned it. It is very possibly somewhere in my house but I couldn’t find it and I looked for a while. I’m still mad about that too. So to those who know please return my puzzle piece that is missing and the puzzle will sit at my house, almost finished, until it is returned.

In English we have to read a book. There was a choice of one of the following- Z for Zachariah, Tommorow When the War Began, Lord of the Flies, Destroying Avalon and On the jellicoe road. I have read Tommorow When the War Began outside of English and I enjoyed it heaps. I started with the second book because I was on camp and one of my friends had it and it was a very long bus ride so I decided to steal it and read it. The book didn’t make very much sense but I was told mostly about what happened in the first one and was still able to read it. I then read the first book and then continued the series. I read Z for Zachariah first and finished that quickly because it was a small book. I read Destroying Avalon next which took me a little bit longer because the book was longer but I enjoyed it so I read it faster. It was about the effects of cyber bullying but told in a story point of view. It was an intresting read.

We are required to read until the end of the term so I got out another book, On the jellicoe road. I don’t really like the book that much and it doesn’t make much sense at the moment but I haven’t read very much yet because I’m not enjoying it. It is about a year 12 girl, Taylor Markham, and other than that I don’t really know. I think she is trying to find her mum who abandoned her so now she lives at a boarding school. She is the school leader and has to negotiate with other people on where they are allowed to go on the grounds. *insert confusion here* She has really bad dreams/nightmares where a boy is trying to tell her something. I don’t understand the book at all it is very scattered and I’m already 100 pages in. I think I might stop reading it because I’m not enjoying it and no one else has read it so I can’t ask anyone.

This is kinda random but you can tell a lot of things abut a person by their eyes. They say the eyes are the window to the soul. There are so many different variations of eye colours with flecks or dots or lines or stripes. I wonder if you can find anyone with the sames eyes. Are they like finger prints? Unique for every person?

Okay I googled it. I don’t think they are unique but there are many different variations of colours. They are determined by genes. The basic eye colours are blue, green, brown, hazel, amber and grey. Not everyone fits under categories like this. My eyes for example are between a blue and green. Maybe they are even a greyish. They are kind of mix between the two but the colours I’m surrounded by affect the way people see them. They also have little yellowish or green sqiggly lines that surround my pupil. Some people have really dark eyes, almost black if you don’t look properly. Others have really light eyes. Some people have a darker ring around the iris which is called a limbal ring.

It’s possible to have your eye colour change. When babies are born their eyes are normally different to the colour they will have for the rest of their lives. Their final colour will become present at around 3 years of age. Eye trauma, puberty, pregnancy can affect melanin production which can cause the eye colour to change during these times. Melanin is the pigment cell which makes colour. Skin and hair colour is made by melanin.

It is also possible to have different coloured eyes. It is a condition called heterochromia and can be complete or partial. Complete heterochromia is when the two eyes are different colours. Partial heterochromia is when one eye has part of another colour. It is caused by a lack of pigment in a particular place or it can be inherited.

So I learnt a lot about eyes today because I looked at someone’s and wanted to see what cause eye colour and why some peoples had different flecks and lines and dots.

On Tuesday I got up 15 mins before breakfast and hurried to get ready. We all left a little bit late but breakfast wasn’t served yet so we were in the clear. The hot food we got was small pancakes but I only ate 2 because I was so nervous. Mrs Christensen gave everyone instructions on where they had to go, as today was Tuesday, the day of camp where we had to do heaps of work. My friends all went off to their respective groups and classes while I packed my bag. Mum and dad were a little bit late so I asked my friend’s mum to call them. Just as it finished ringing they pulled into the driveway.

We drove back to the freeway and drove north, heading towards the city. We got to the city and continued north. We found the orthodontist, following my dads iPad directions. We went inside and I thought it was pretty fancy. There were 4 tables along one wall and 3 play stations/ Xboxes and there were 15 nice comfy chairs spaced around, in groups of 3. That was just the waiting room. It was weird for an orthodontist. We only had to wait for about 10 mins and they called me up. We walked down a small hallway and into a large open room with 3 dentist chairs along one wall, all different colours, one orange, one blue, one yellow. Along the opposing wall there was a counter and behind that, a large wall of dentisty things in drawers and cabinets. There were different other things spaced around the room but they were the main ones.  I was told to go to the blue chair, the one in the middle.

I sat in the chair and a lady immediately got to work cleaning my teeth with this weird green paste, that tasted absolutely horrible. It was rinsed off and I was given a mouthwash to clean the taste out a little bit. The dentist chair had a small sink attached to the light post thingimebob. I spat into that and laid back down. Another lady came over and they explained to me that the brackets for my braces are in a mouth guard type thing and all they had to do was press it onto my teeth. They dried off my teeth, applied a dot of glue to them all and stuck the mouth guard on. It was held in place for a minute and pulled off. Then the process was repeated with my bottom teeth.

They gave me a small break in which I ducked off to the toilet because I really needed to go. There was a mirror in there and I checked out my new silver wear.

When I returned to the chair they gave me a little palette with about 25 different colours on it. This was the coloured band that would hold the archwire on my brackets. I picked teal after a quick scan. It was the best colour there, I thought. They ran me through what was going to happen then, attaching the archwire to my brackets and securing them in place. That was finished in 15 mins and then we had to wait for the dentist to come and check before I was to be let go. He decided to add two more brackets to my very back teeth on my bottom jaw. They ran me through foods I could and couldn’t eat and how and when to brush my teeth. Then I was freed. It only took about an hour for the whole thing.

We drove back to the camp and I was dropped off, just in time for lunch. We had pizza and everyone kept saying to me ‘smile’ every time they saw me. We did boring work after that until afternoon tea. Until them my braces hadn’t hurt at all. The only problem was that I wasn’t used to them and kept getting my lips caught on them whenever I opened my mouth. But when I bit into a cake of some description a throbbing pain went through my mouth and and didn’t stop until 5 days later. 😫😫

Tuesday night was uneventful but we did go into the games room and play ping pong. My friends all refused so I went with Sophie and we played with the boys in our class. Oh actually one funny thing happened. A GATE student had been in Kalbarri for the recent holidays and I had seen him a few times, coming into the bakery, where I work. I was versing him in ping pong and he stops and goes ‘when did you get your braces? I don’t remember you having them on in the holidays.’ I looked at him and laughed and replied today. I confused him so much and had to explain that no I missed the entire morning and I wasn’t there and I went and got them. He didn’t believe me so I had to get Sophie to back me up. It was funny.

The girls were all going to play never have I ever but we decided to get an early night as we were going to Perth Modern in the morning.

 

I ran out to where the car was parked and luckily mum and dad hadn’t left yet. I grabbed my poster and said another quick goodbye. As I got out there the bus from Perth Modern School, the real life school that is connected to GT, arrived. People who arrived in Perth without parents or whose parents needed to go home were brought to Perth Mod and then bussed to the camp. Two more of my friends, Anna and Chloe, were on that bus and they were yelling at me and waving. I ran over to them and hugged them. I showed them the way to our dorms and let them settle in. Chloe was in my room and Anna was in the adjoining room that was connected by a shared bathroom. Another girl arrived, Sophie, who was in the same room as Anna. Grace, in my class, arrived shortly after Sophie. We knew that the other girl in our room, Apryl, was on the bus from where she lived but it arrived later, at about 2 o’clock. Chloe and I went out for a little bit of an explore. The place we were staying at was quite large with a big oval and an adventure playground and a flying fox. The camp also had an after school care area and 4 areas of dorms. There was also a large dining room/kitchen/hall. My favourite thing there was the games room. It had two ping pong tables, four pool tables and two table football games. Sadly when we found it the door was locked and we weren’t allowed in. After a little bit all the other girls in our dorm came out to see and many of the other students from GT as well. We just hung out and found out fun and interesting things that happened since we had seen each other last. Then it was afternoon tea and we got cake. Then we had to do some introductory games while we waited for the bus that Apryl and some other people from her town to arrive.

They arrived and we were all very excited to see them. The coordinator of GT, Mrs Christensen, talked us for a little while and made us do a worksheet called Roadmap to success. It was very boring and we didn’t like it at all. She gave us an hour of free time before dinner at 6 and I was excited to go into the games room. It was open this time! I challenged Apryl to a game of ping pong and we had a lot of fun just hitting the ball back and forth. A boy called Sam, from year 8, was pretty good at ping pong and so was Jordy, another boy from year 10.

Dinner was lasagne and it was alright. We had a games night after dinner and I don’t think my team did very well. But we had fun and that’s the main thing right? The first day of camp was fun but all I could think about that night was getting braces the next day. Mum and Dad had planned to pick me up right after breakfast the next day, Tuesday, and I was already getting nervous.