Tiffany (14) is a reporter for the Toronto Star’s weekly “tween” paper, Brand New Planet. To date, she has written over a dozen articles ranging from opinion pieces, to product reviews to her latest trip to circus school! Carolyn (14) practices TaeKwonDo and is just getting her feet wet in stage combat –- medieval style! Her medieval weapon of choice: the quarterstaff!

THE SWAP: Carolyn leaves her identical twin sister behind as she travels to Toronto to get a first hand look at the reporter life. She takes on the tasks of successfully pitching a story to her new editor, learning the art of the newspaper article and profiling a Toronto sportscaster. Will she survive the interview?

Meanwhile, Tiffany, an only child from the city, visits the small town of Elmira for the annual “Robin in the Hood” festival. She attempts sword fighting, archery and becoming a medieval character. Will she be able to keep up with her new “twin” in their choreographed fight for the festival goers?

SWAPPER JOURNAL: TIFFANY

Some of the most significant things I learned were just the logistics of TV. It’s hard to appear normal when you have a guy with a furry microphone behind you, a cameraperson in front of you, two production assistants herding kids, and a frazzled director all over the place. I learned that schedules are made to be turned upside down and destroyed (“But it says lunch at 1:00!” “Too bad, we’re having it at 3:30,”) and that you need amazing people skills to get them to sign release forms, console them if you’re late and you need to do one last scene etc. Everything seems to take forever in the process. For example, what is actually a ten second “freeze frame” on TV can take ten minutes to shoot. Also, repetitions are needed for absolutely everything.

Altogether it was an amazing experience and I am glad to say I’ve since gotten better at archery though that doesn’t say very much. The most exciting part of my SWAP was doing the mirror fight with Hilary. Umm… getting strange looks from people who have never seen a camera before or felt that I was a stuck- up and unfriendly person felt really weird but oh well. Drinking warm delightfully super-sweet orange pop behind the castle was a fun highlight because I actually felt like I fit in with the crowd.

SWAPPER JOURNAL: CAROLYN

My SWAP was I swapped places with a girl who works at a newspaper in Toronto. It was a lot of fun. The coolest thing that happened to me during my SWAP was getting to meet and interview a TV. personality. The time I was most scared or nervous was when I was waiting to meet the girl I was going to interview. I was most proud of myself before I left the news station when they gave me a t-shirt and when I was given a picture of myself interviewing.