Grace and I were enrolled in the early immersion program at our elementary school. This is an education stream in Ontario that enables students to learn 100% of their curriculum in French (except for English class, which was – you guessed it – taught in English) – and it slowly moved towards 50% French curriculum once we’re finished school. For those who do not know what immersion is, according to the Canadian film "French Immersion" written by Jefferson Lewis and Kevin Tierney – "French immersion is a form of bilingual education in which students, who do not speak French as first language will receive instruction in  most subjects such as history, music, geography, math, art, physical education and science in F rench. Most school boards in Ontario offer French Immersion starting in grade one and others start as early as senior kindergarten." Yup - sounds about right. We started learning French in kindergarten. Thank gawd the silent act of "sharing" is a ...

As Grace to eloquently put it, she feels I was some kind of kingpin of a goddam permission slip forgery ring at our H.S – and we’re going to call that accusation a sort of half-truth.  In grade 11, we were only a year away from being old enough to sign yourself out of class. That was an early taste of adulthood. When you turned 18 you were trusted that if you had somewhere to be at any given time during the day, you could just sign yourself out, and your parents weren’t notified. The ring sort of developed on its own, but word spread like wildfire once it was known. My grade, and the students in the grade ahead (who weren’t 18 yet) were my clientele. Here’s a little backgrounder for you – in my grade 11 year, I dislocated my shoulder playing basketball. You should have seen the long bomb I threw to our forward with less than 10 seconds on the clock to win the game, but in that short moment of glory I was hit from behind by this glamazonian hay bale hauling girl while my shoulder ...

By the end of high school I had mastered my Mum’s signature hands down. Dad’s not so much, too scribbly. The reason to perfect such a skill you ask? Actually, no one is probably asking that, we all did it and we all know why - the ever-coveted parent’s note to miss class. If you had a doctor’s appointment, family obligation, or say an orthodontic appointment with Dr. Greene aka the ONLY ORTHODONTIST in our suburban city - man that guy must have cleaned up and retired well – if you had braces in K-town in the 1990s, you got them c/o Dr. Greene. If you were to be absent for any such reason, protocol in the ‘90s was your parents would write you a note, you would then take said note to the school office and exchange it for an approved permission slip that you would then give to your teacher. E123. Little did I know, Patricia, the secret budding entrepreneur that she was, had a side permission slip forgery business -- I’ll let her expand on her inventory acquisition skills in our next post ...

Back in 1994 at the ripe age of 16, the "teenage dream” was about the come true. I was old enough to get my driver’s license… earn my freedom… and be a contributing member of my family taxi service. Now, Mom can have a couple too many glasses of wine, and you can go pick up your brother from softball practice… or go get milk... or pick up pizza. The options were endless in my mind. But I was a scaredy cat. I had visions of driving myself to school, borrowing the car to cart to around with my friends, taking road trips to other parts of town that I was dying to explore – like Mooney’s Bay, the Market, or to a friend who lived on the other side of the Queensway. I had years of rocking Mario Kart under my belt, so I thought driving would be easy peasy. Unfortunately, the simple journey that so many before me had – did not happen for me. I was full of procrastination to learn how to drive. I waited until my 17th birthday to start the process. Funny thing though - now I wasn't g...

Fewer things identify a decade more than the hairstyles of that given era: 1930s Finger Waves, 1940s Glam Pin Curls, 1950s Chignon, 1960s Beehive, 1970s Farrah Waves, 1980s Top Knot(which has made a roaring comeback!) and finally, the reason we’re all here… 1990s FEATHERED BANGS. Now we’re talkin… Ah, the sweet days of teasing bangs and perming locks. Hours of time! Gallons of hairspray! Curling irons and combing and teasing, oh my! As young teenagers trying to navigate our way to finding our identity and style, we did what most young people do – we looked to movie stars and magazines to tell us what was cool; Sarah Jessica Parker in Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, DJ Tanner on Full House, Ashley Banks on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Kelly Kapowski in Saved By The Bell, (this was slightly pre-“Rachel” era), Janet Jackson, Debbie Gibson, Tiffany and Whitney! The ‘90s also brought about perms, crimpers and banana clips. So much hair, so little time. Being a teenage girl is no joke. I look bac...

When we got to high school, yellow school busses seemed to be a thing of the past. As young adults now and have been told if we wanted to get to school, we had to take the “big girl” bus to get there… the OC Transpo. I completely understand now why Sheldon had his bus pants… public transportation is an efficient way to get around, and is a smaller carbon footprinted way to sit next to people who are clipping their toe nails and smell like urine….eeewwwww David!! Thank gawd for the 161 SPECIAL bus that was dedicated to us Duke of York students, so it was all our friends on the bus who lived in our neighbourhood. It drove the same route as the regular 161 but only picked up us kids – then instead of turning around, it would take us right to the front door of our school. And at the end of grade 9 we had the system mastered. I picked up the bus at the top of McMurray and Castlebrook. It was a 5 minute walk uphill to the stop since we lived at the bottom on Carsons Bridge. If I missed tha...

My birthday is Sept. 5th, so growing up as a kid my birthday was very often on FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!! Now, I don’t flatter myself to be in the same category as those born on say, Christmas Day, or New Year’s Eve, but as a six-, seven- or eight-year reciting first day of school introductions with, “My name is Grace and today is my birthday!” is like saying as an adult on the first day of your new job, “Hi, my name is Grace and today is my birthday!” Right?? Patricia’s birthday is ALSO on a holiday - now, if you have to have a birthday on a holiday this is the one to have it on because everyone always wants to go out and party - hello St. Patrick’s Day! And as kids it fell on March break – your birthday AND March break all in on week? Props Patricia, props. Also, full marks to my Mum who - being who she is - always remembered to put a birthday card in my lunch-box so I would have a nice surprise when I opened it. When I got to high school however, harder to do because we ate lunch out...