Omg it’s almost Christmas. At Duke of York, this was the most “fav-ou-rite time of the year” for us kids. We had candy-grams to buy and send out to our friends to help raise money for grad (yes, you get four Glen Coco); we had a festive spirit week to participate in that included Jammie Day, Silly Slippers Day, Santa Hat Day, Tacky Christmas Sweater “before it was a thing” Day, homemade gift exchanges with friends, Secret Santa shenanigans and, to close off the festivities – the Grade 13 Christmas play. This was the most exciting holiday event for any graduate from Duke of York. It was an all-inclusive production where every single graduate had a role either writing scripts, acting, producing skits, choreographing the dance showcase, music, overall logistics, AV crew, or writing the class song. We were to entertain the entire school for an afternoon – and mostly at the faculty’s expense. Sorry Mr. Farooqui. Grace was on student council and with drama being her jam, she was knee deep i...

Everyone has been ghosted at some point in their modern-day life. Whether it be a friend who fell off the earth, that boy that’s “just not that into you”, or the guy that promised to buy your car online but never showed. But what about being ghosted by your parents? This was very common during our childhood summers. As soon as the sun rose, young people slowly started to surface. We were fed, then tenderly kicked out of the house with the complete expectation that we would be home in time for supper. In fact, if we came home before supper, we were asked if we were ok, or if someone bit us, or the infamous “what are you doing home? “We had no clip-on water bottles, no lunch box with cute heart shaped sandwiches or lunchables, no sweater, no snacks, no money, sometimes even no shoes – and definitely no cell phone. Parental ghosting looked a little different than today’s “ceasing all communication and contact with an individual without any apparent warning”. At a young age, it usually st...

FULL DISCLOSURE – this story involves skipping school. And skipping school – although exhilarating and rebellious – it is bad. Like grounding bad. Yes, I should have been grounded for what I’m about to tell you, but I wasn’t – but June was. It was a typical grey wintery day in Catana. The snow banks were piled so high that you could barely see the on-coming traffic. And on this randomly regular weekday, we were gifted with the freedom every teenager desires… to borrow the parental car to drive to school. June’s dad was away on business. His car was tucked safely in the garage awaiting his return. On this fine morning, she had the courage to ask her mom to take his car to school. June carefully presented an itinerary of how the day would unfold; outlining where she would go with the car and who would be with her. As added insurance, she kindly reminded her mom of her outstanding grades, obedient nature and a cross-your-heart-hope-to-die promise to come straight home after school. Her m...

To close our Remembrance week stories, I wanted to share why wearing a poppy is important to me. See, our Canadian Forces have been part of my family for generations. My grandfather had a motivational role in the war and played baseball and entertained as a musician for the troops. My dad – an F18 mechanic in the Air Force, ensuring our troops could be scrambled at a moment’s notice. And my husband – also in the Air Force, was a navigator for our fleet of CP-140 Aurora’s keeping our coastlines safe and oceanic threats at bay. Even though the three most influential men in my life rarely speak of their time in the military, I couldn’t be prouder of what they chose to do for our family and for all Canadians. Learning about Remembrance Day and its significance as a young lady growing up in our nation’s capital was monumental. It helped shape my views on selflessness, sacrifice, belief and pride. In elementary school we learned to recite and perform “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae, we m...

I remember being over at my grandparent’s house one day, and lined along the outside of the garage were – what looked to me as a ten-year old – antiques. My grandfather would go on to tell me those were his “tools” from when he fought on the front lines in Italy as a young eighteen-year-old in World War II; the one thing I remember most was how small his meal pan looked. My grandfathers never talked about the war and both of my grandmothers were war brides who came over from England. How courageous do you have to be to pack up and leave your family and the only home you have ever known to travel across the ocean and start a new life in a completely different country? Very. I was homesick leaving for university, and that was only two hours away! Much respect to my grandmothers, who I learned later in life were braver than I ever could have understood as a child. We learn about Remembrance Day at a young age in elementary school, but like many things you are taught in school, they ...

I was a good student – I showed up to class on time, I didn’t skip (that much), I did what I was told (most of the time) – except for when it came to homework. This is where I showed my remarkable talent for procrastination. I have never seen a more motivated teenager to clean their room, babysit their siblings, run errands, rake leaves, walk the dog, paint the garage, cook dinner, clean toilets, or do laundry, than a teenager who had homework. Like moi. But do you know what happens to procrastinators like me? Your journey to those credits doubles in length. Why? Because you have to do it twice. Hellooooooo night school. Now, I have no idea why I didn’t see that I would suffer twice if I didn’t excel in school. If you don’t enjoy it during the day, you’re certainly not going to enjoy it at night or during the summer on your own time.  The lesson here kids is, do it when you’re asked to, in actual school. You don’t need “extra” school to prove you don’t like reading Shakespeare. And...

It’s that time of year where we decorate our windows with spooky images and silhouettes, carve pumpkins for our front porch, get dressed up in costume, hand out candy and watch the young ghouls and goblins run the streets on all hallows eve. It’s a unique celebration where you can be someone or something you aspire to be without judgement. When we were young, we really looked forward to Halloween. From making spooky crafts in elementary school to watching scary-ish movies like the Goonies or the Addams Family by candlelight with your family. We hunted for weeks for the perfect costume, which in the 80s was usually made up of a cat, Zorro, a witch, a vampire, or your favourite He-Man type character – with a plastic mask where seeing was optional and the elastic tied a little too tight around your head. We could proudly carry plastic weapons and our suits were most-likely flammable – but we didn’t care. We just wanted to be out there, in the dark, past our bedtime. It felt so rebellious....

Some women today would not dare admit that they colour their hair or cover their greys. And as a blonde, I held out for decades until a hairdresser I frequented years ago told me my blonde was… uh… “mousie”. Might as well rip out a girl’s heart and hand it to her on a plate. The gawl. Mousie hair. How dare he? But he was right. My blonde used to be a beautiful, natural platinum colour highlighted with sunshine. I loved it. Over the years is had darkened a little – but let's just call it rounding out to a more full-bodied, natural mature blonde… which of course I highlight now if only to hold on to a little piece of my youth that still fit. But where did it all start? In Grace’s basement of course. Whenever we had sleepovers, someone always seemed to want to have their hair dyed. Before any night in together, a few of us would venture over to the local drug store to find the perfect colour in our price range. Funny how times had changed from our younger days when we used to steal le...

It’s difficult to ignore the current political climate of our neighbours to the south, two weeks today is election day for America and already over 29 million people have cast their votes. We often talk about firsts as teenagers in this blog – first kisses, first day of school, first friends –   and voting for the first time is right up there as one of those formative milestones. But before we were of age to vote, we experienced politics in a different way: student council. In my final year of high school, my dad would drop me off early every Monday morning to attend our student council meetings as head of publicity. We would all group together in the library conference room – head of arts, athletics, grad, social, student services, secretary/treasurer, vice president and  president with our faculty supervisor Mr. Kent – and brainstorm ways to better the student body experience. In our yearbook, a little poem was written to commemorate that time, so here it is, with 2020...