Closing Time

Well, that's it. Never again will I come home with chocolate icing in my hair. Never again will I have to serve the bag lady, who comes into the bakery with millions of empty reusable bags and leaves with them full fifteen minutes later. Never again will I walk home with the natural perfume of baked goods emanating from me. Never again...

Okay, you get the point. Yesterday was my last day working as a bakery clerk, and I have to say it's left me feeling more nostalgic than relieved, as I would not have expected!

The other day, while watching the World Cup (of course), my mom made an interesting observation: the last time we were watching the World Cup, I had just graduated from middle school. The next time I will be watching the World Cup, I will probably be graduating from university. Not only was it strange to realize that the World Cup syncs perfectly with the timing of my graduations, it also gave me a little perspective. I can't remember any of the problems I was having in grade eight, though I'm sure they were numerous and probably seemed all-encompassing at the time. Having my life divided into chunks of four years just made some things seem so insignificant.

This past month, especially this past week, has evoked so many different emotions in me. This time, the end of grade 12, is a time of change. Most obvious, it is the end of high school - the end of my public education, which has been such a defining part of my life until now. It's the end of other, less significant things too, like my job at the bakery. It is also a time of beginnings. I often hear people talking about university as being the time when life really begins - that high school is just a time you have to get through, and once you're in university, BAM - life starts. I am also now officially an adult (though it doesn't really feel any different, in honesty) which means I should be taking control of my own life. For the first time I will be living alone, in a strange city, doing things when I want and because I want to.

When I think about my high school years, they have been a time of firsts and lasts, of beginnings and endings. A quote I've been thinking about recently links these two concepts together, from the song "Closing Time", by Semisonic: "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." Such a simple line, but oh so true.

Overall, I think high school has been a good experience. I have definitely learned a lot, not just academically, but about myself. I have been pushed to my limits academically and emotionally, and what I've discovered is that I am actually much stronger than I realized. I've made friends, grew apart from friends, and by doing so have discovered what kind of people I really want in my life. I've figured out what I'm interested in and what kind of things I hope to accomplish at some point in my life. There have definitely been good times and bad times, but the point remains that I have survived them.

Have you seen the movie Little Miss Sunshine? If not, you definitely should! There's a scene in it that really sums up the high school experience, in my opinion:

"Dwayne: I wish I could just sleep until I was eighteen and skip all this crap - high school and everything - just skip it.

Frank: Do you know who Marcel Proust is?

Dwayne: He's the guy you teach.

Frank: Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you're 18... Ah, think of the suffering you're gonna miss! I mean high school? High school - those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that."

With The Opera Tickets

About a week ago, while getting ready for school, I was hit with an unexpected and unwelcome obstacle. The black t-shirt I had been planning on wearing, one of my staples from H&M, had apparently not made its way back into my drawer from the washing machine. Still more unpleasant, after checking in the washing machine, the dryer, the laundry basket, all of my drawers, etc etc etc, I came to the unpleasant conclusion that my shirt had gone missing.

You know the timeless missing sock syndrome? How both socks go into the wash at the same time, and yet one of the socks always goes missing? As a kid, I used to wonder if there was some sort of secret world in the washing machine where all the socks used to go. I am no closer to reaching a conclusion now, so it still seems like a definite possibility!

Anyway, back to my shirt. I figured the shirt could not have gotten into the exclusive single-sock-club, so I really did not know where it could be. I asked my mom if she had it by mistake and she replied that no, she didn't, but maybe it was with the opera tickets. This was not at all reassuring - let me explain.

My dad has this habit of keeping important things "safe" - in other words, hiding them in some obscure, illogical place. I'm not talking about passports, SIN cards or anything really important - those have their own place in the safe. What I'm talking about are things such as, say, season tickets to the opera.

Many years ago, my parents bought season tickets to the opera. They were really excited about this, and at that time when you bought season tickets they physically gave you all the tickets to hold on to. My dad identified these as being important documents indeed, so they had to be kept safe until needed in the future. To this day, well over ten years later, we have never found the opera tickets. It's become something of a running joke in my family - whenever anything goes missing, we say "maybe it's with the opera tickets".

Thankfully, my t-shirt eventually turned up. I can't speak for the opera tickets, though!

Screw exams, I've got three games to watch!

It's that time again! And I'm not talking about Christmas, or Winter, or Leon's Ho Ho Hold The Payments Event.

It's the FIFA World Cup. Since I was a little girl, this has always been a major event in my house. My dad grew up in Lebanon, and though their team never makes it to the World Cup (do they even have a team? I don't actually know!) soccer is a big deal there. This is how I've come to watch most games of every World Cup. It's become a tradition in my family - my dad tapes the games during the day, drives home without listening to the radio, praying he won't see any flags or indicators of who won, and then we watch the games at night. My mom and my brother sometimes join in, but mostly it's my dad and I who love to watch.

My dad and I go for Brazil, Portugal and Spain depending on the game, but Brazil first and foremost. One of my dad's family friends is a die-heart English fan, and although they go for different teams they used to watch lots of games together. They've lost touch in the past few years, but still I remember last World Cup when England lost a major game and my dad bought him a sympathy card and stuck it in his mailbox. I don't think he took it as a joke, though - he was genuinely in need of sympathy to deal with this loss!

I remember one time in about grade four, I stayed home in the morning to watch the World Cup final. I didn't usually do this, but this game was between Brazil and England. My dad's friend was over and I really wanted to watch it with them, so they let me stay. I remember walking into class with a late slip and somebody asking me where I was. When I said I was watching the World Cup final, I remember the jaws dropping of all the boys in the class. "You stayed home for the World Cup?!" Yes, yes I did.

I have another memory of the world cup, but it's a sad one. I actually wrote it as an anecdote for my Writer's Craft class, so I'll post it up here!

"I was in about grade five. My mom and I were walking through the aisles in Fortinos when we saw a sign advertising a draw for a World Cup ball. My family is really into the World Cup, so naturally we were tempted by the possibility of winning a real FIFA World Cup ball! We entered the draw.

Some time later, we got a phone call from Fortinos with the exciting news: we had won the ball! A real FIFA World Cup ball. We were so excited – could I take it for show and tell, I wanted to know. Only if I was careful with it, I was told. We wondered which match it would come from, and would often point at the screen while watching a game and say "maybe that's our ball!" We were told to pick it up the next day, while I would be in school.

The next day, I came home from school very excited. Was it there? A FIFA ball in my house? I walked in and immediately asked, “Can I see it? Can I touch it?” My parents did not seem overly enthusiastic. They pointed to a plastic bag on the counter.

It was a dollar store ball with flags around the outside."

I can't say we've ever quite gotten over this disappointment - to this day, we still sometimes point to the ball on the screen and say "that could have been our ball..." Sadly, I'm not kidding.

Favourite Poem Project

In my Writer's Craft class, one of our projects was to choose our favourite poem and write about it - what it means to us, what personal connections we have to it, etc. When we were assigned this, I was faced with a dilemma: how can I choose just one poem as my favourite?

I knew the general selection I had to choose from, of course. There was no doubt in my mind that my poem would be from Shel Silverstein's collection of poems Where The Sidewalk Ends. That was the easy part. Choosing which poem was where it got difficult! Would it be "Smart", about a clever little boy who knows two is more than one and thus two quarters must be worth more than one dollar; "One Inch Tall", with one of my favourite lines "[You would] wear a thimble on your head/If you were one inch tall"; "Sick", about a girl with quite the collection of sicknesses preventing her from going to school (including an injured "pendix"); or the story about the stickiest peanut butter sandwich you will probably ever hear about, "Peanut Butter Sandwich"?

It was a tough choice. I finally decided on "Sick" - not only is it incredibly cute, I think it's a good example of why I love Silverstein's poems so much. It's impossible not to feel a smile forming when reading or hearing this poem. Just consider these lines: "My tonsils are as big as rocks,/I've counted sixteen chicken pox/And there's one more - that's seventeen,/And don't you think my face looks green?"

When I think of poetry, of course I can appreciate serious or emotional poems. I'm not going to lie - a lot of the poetry I write is, frankly, depressing. I guess Shel Silverstein's poetry stuck out in my mind for this project because of my personal connection to it. These were some of my favourite poems growing up, and I still chuckle looking at them now! They're funny, they're original, and they're also great examples of poetry - they may be about simple subjects, but they have great rhythm and rhyming. There's a place for serious, moving poetry, but I think there's also a place for light-hearted, happy poetry too. Poetry that makes you laugh! Sometimes, life can be overwhelming, and a smile can do so much. Keeping that in mind, I urge you now to take a breather from your busy life and smile - here's "Sick" to help you out:

SICK

"I cannot go to school today,"
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox.
And there's one more - that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut, my eyes are blue -
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke -
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb,
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is-what?
What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is...Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play!