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Gwen's Diary

This is a diary created by me, Gwen. I am 18 and am now in college. Last year I graduated from Grade 12 (honours with distinction). Wow. This diary started long ago when I was in Grade 11.

You can e-mail me directly if you want to ask any questions?

Dirt Biking

A couple of weekends ago ‘the guys’ were going up for a camping, fishing, and dirtbiking trip. Seeing as my boyfriend Will was still away on a commercial fishing boat and had conveniently left his dirtbike behind, Myles suggested I bring it up and learn how to ride it.

I’d already enjoyed the whole dirtbiking experience from sitting behind the driver (aka the ass candy), so I thought it was about time to sit in the driver’s seat. With Will’s permission I strapped his dirtbike onto the back of Shane’s truck and left for Squamish.

Me driving a truckWe arrived late morning, delayed a little by the construction on the sea to sky, and met up with the other guys who were already ripping along the dirt track road. Once we reached the campsite, about 14k along a dirt track road, and set up the tents, I was ready to learn. The busyness of these trails surprised me, because I didn’t expect dozens of joggers to go this far into the trails, but apparently it is a well used camping spot and hiking trail.

Myles poses with dirtbikeI began a quick lesson from Myles on the dirtbike, figuring out gears, clutches, and brakes, and before long I could ride just fine. So with my parent’s safety advice ringing in my ears, I put on my protective pants, long sleeved jacket, helmet, and safety goggles.

Dirtbikers do it in...I was very nervous at first, weaving my way around pot holes and puddles, but as I became more accustomed to the bike, my confidence grew, and the whole experience became quite exhilarating. Soon I was splashing through puddles, and enjoying the wind whip against my face, and eventually I caught up with the other who were taking a break by the side of the road enjoying the view. The road winds slowly up the side of the mountain, and just off to the side you can peer down into ravines, and thick forest, leaving you more breathless than the dirtbiking!

From there we headed back to the campsite, as the guys wanted to prepare themselves for the Indian Arm trail. After the terrain of the trail had been described to me, I thought it best to stay at the campsite with the other guys that didn’t own dirtbikes and do some sun tanning (I needed to feel girly again, after such a testosterone fuelled experience).

Some other events to note during the trip:

• Myles and Dustin fishing in the evening and catching dinner for everyone – 4 trout fried up and sautéed in mushrooms, carrots, pear juice, and beer, which was surprisingly tasty!
• The polar bear dip the next morning! Freezing glacial run off into pools of water, only to be withstood by jumping in, screaming and swearing, and then scrambling out as fast as possible.
• Meeting some other teens along one of the trails also enjoying Squamish with their off-roading trucks, quad bikes, and dirtbikes.
• Stopping for freezies at Wendy’s before heading back into West Vancouver.

Overall I really enjoyed my weekend up in Squamish. Because of its diversity, everyone was pleased by the hot sunny sandy patches, the fresh water fishing and swimming, the cool forest, or the sheer cliffs.

Commuting

Half way through summer, when every single one of my friends had found themselves a job, I decided to stop doing “odd jobs” for my parents and actually find myself a real job.

After my mum’s advice, I signed myself up with a temp agency and threw myself into a world of faxing, photocopying, filing, typing, ringing phones, and coffee runs. I was expecting to be taking on different jobs every week, locating new office buildings, and gaining a broader knowledge of the back roads that run through the downtown core. However I was lucky enough to gain a job that is lasting me till the end of summer, and at $12 an hour with the luxury of sitting down most of the day, I was finding this office job to be a lot more comfortable than my old Blenz job.

Yet there were some drawbacks… Apart from being stuck inside an office with no windows on the hot days of summer (not that you’d know because of the extreme air conditioning), there was the downfall of a long commute. No longer was there the 4km drive down Marine, this office is located near Granville Island. My first day on the job, wanting to make a good impression by arriving early, I left myself over an hour to get there (being unsure of how heavy the traffic would be at 7am). To my surprise I arrived after only 25 minutes and spent the remaining 45 minutes napping in my car.

The journey home however took me roughly an hour, as I was unaccustomed to the quick routes, and thrown off by the “no left hand turns between 3pm-6pm”. By the end of the week though, I had found an easy route back and cut my journey home down to 45 minutes. Not bad when you think I have to cross the Lions Gate bridge - which can be a bottleneck.

I am definitely paying the price of commuting in gas costs. I am avoiding working out how much I’ve spent on gas, and deducting that from my pay cheque because it’s so nice to finally get a pay cheque that I wouldn’t want to spoil it by making the numbers any smaller!

Road Tripping

The summer of grade 12, the big graduation, freedom from high school, so naturally everyone was making plans for road trips this summer. I even had some myself. They started out huge, like 15 of us driving down to Mexico for a couple of months, or traveling around Europe all summer. However, as the summer began my friends and I became a little more realistic about the cost of these extravagant endeavors.

We seriously considered California for a couple of weeks, until even that seemed too far and the price of gas would be too high. The number of people coming on the road trips also slowly decreased as people got jobs, went on holiday, or their parents found out of their plans.

In the end myself, Jodi, Kelly, and Jessica, four best friends, decided on a trip to Edmonton. This was far enough away that we could say we left the province, and felt really independent and grown up, but close enough that when we ran out of money we could hopefully get home quite quickly. The drive to Edmonton also appealed to us, driving through the Rockies, stopping by the interior, and of course once we reached Alberta we could legally go into bars, which was extremely exciting for all of us!

July passed and we still hadn’t organized any leaving dates, as we entered August the likelihood of this road trip becoming a reality was slipping away. We all had summer jobs now, and trying to get time off was difficult, some of us were going on holidays at different times, and it seemed in the end that this would never happen.

For now we have agreed on a weekend in Whistler, it may not be that far away, or incredibly exciting if you compare it to west Edmonton mall, California, or Mexico. But really, as long as we are all together and the weather is nice, it doesn’t matter where we go, we’re sure to have a great time.

Funnily enough, I was talking to my friend Robert on msn when he told me that he was in Las Vegas on a road trip with his friends. Apparently they called him up and asked him to come, and the next day he was off. Ironically maybe it’s the laid back nature of Canadians, or just of Robert and his friends, that made the spontaneous trip happen!

Graduation

So the time has finally come for me to graduate. I was very pleased to have passed my English 12 exam with 92% (I took advanced placement to take the exam early, and now I'm working on first year of university English).

Grad girls in their dressesBut really the important part of graduating is a girl’s graduation dress. I went shopping with my mum the other weekend and just loved all the attention I received from the store attendants. Every dress I tried on was met with floods of compliments; I knew they were just trying to make a sale, but still it’s always nice to hear “is there a dress that doesn’t look good on you?”

The Grads pose in front of the LimoAfter a full day of trying on dresses and several shots of caffeine, I decided on a dress. Now all that’s left is working out shoes, jewelry, bag, aftergrad outfit, hairstyles, makeup, limo... [That’s a sigh I can hear from my Dad!]

Back to school

It's definitely a relief to finally be top of the school. I moved from England when I was in year 10, so I was senior but not top dog. And then at Rockridge I fell down the scale to grade 10, two years away from the top.

It's also nice to be "the older kids", without even asking you get kids jumping out your way and showing you to the front of the cafeteria line. Don't get me wrong, we don't get these priorities because we're this huge bullying grade. It's just an unspoken rule that you make way for the grade 12's so that when you're in grade 12 you get that luxury. It's a nice sort of respect your elders idea which makes the hard courses a little bit more bearable.

Hockey time

The other day I went to my friend Dustin's Hockey game (and yes Hockey is always capitalized as it's such an important thing here). Now this was my first Hockey game so I was very excited. Dustin is 6'4" tall and on ice
skates he's 7' tall. I could see the look of terror on his opponents faces as he came skating towards them. I was scared for them! But having said that, about 10minutes into the game I was shouting and cheering like a lunatic and secretly hoping for Dustin to body check some guy into the
glass right in front of me.

Now with the NHL back it really is Hockey fever at school, and you better not be wearing any other Hockey jersey except the Canucks one, or there will be BIG trouble!

Blenz

So I finally managed to attain a job in Canada. I now work as a coffee barista at Blenz, which is a Canadian coffee bar (like it’s rival Starbucks but better!) . Blenz is located in Horseshoe Bay so it is lucky enough to get all the rushes from the ferry traffic.

I started off with 4 days of rigorous training, learning the differences between lattes and cappuccinos, the health benefits of matcha green tea, and how to get the perfect crème on an americano.

I really enjoy working at Blenz because you always get to meet an array of interesting people. There are the strict vegans who order their soy lattes and a veggie roll (which can’t be heated up in the microwave!), or the typical West Vancouver soccer mums who order their supremo, half sweet, extra hot, non fat, vanilla decaf latte. Oh it’s a challenge trying to perfect those complicated coffee orders, whatever happened to the regular cup of coffee?

Boats

Once my friend Myles gained the trust of his father to take their $100,000 boat out alone or with friends, the summer really started to get a lot more interesting. Perhaps once a week this summer I’ve been out on the boat with Myles and others, sometimes for fishing, sometimes for jumping off the side of the boat, and sometimes for just cruising.

Now this boat has an amazing stereo system so you can imagine how cool it is to race along into the sunset with some AC/DC cranked up full blast!

The fishing side of things is very relaxing though, well for me anyways. While the boys figure out hooks, lines and sinkers, I sunbath and take lots of pictures. Although it’s fun to go out on other people’s boats, I think if I had my own it’d be a lot of hard work and maintenance. Plus I don’t really have $100,000 lying around anywhere.

Surf Trip

I went on the summer surf trip for the second year in a row to Tofino on Vancouver Island. The group of about 25 of us, mostly grade 11’s, stayed around the Long Beach area for 4 days and 3 nights and we managed to fit in as much surfing as possible in the short amount of time given to us.

The instructors were your typical surf bums, surfing by day and sitting round playing guitar by the campfire at night. I could definitely see myself getting used to this lifestyle. The actual surfing I found easy to pick up, and there wasn’t a single person who didn’t manage to get up on their board by the end of the 4 days.

The waves in Tofino are known for their great surfability and on one day they were nice and calm, perfect for beginners and then another day they were more suitable for the professionals, so I tried my best for a good 3 hours, and then tanned (burnt) for the rest of the afternoon.

We rented all the wet suits, boards and booties from the surf company Inner Rhythm. They also run summer camps for kids or adults wanting to learn, and rent out their equipment throughout the year. I really want to head back to Tofino sometime this summer for more surfing.

I am Canadian because...

OK well for english assignment we looked at an excerpt from "Life of Pi" and had to imitate this one 100 word sentence that started with "I am Hindu because..." and we had to make up our own. This is my sentence. I thought it might be interesting.

I am truly Canadian at heart because I feel the salty ocean spray blowing through my hair, because I am intoxicated by the earthy pine-tree smell, because of the amazed look on my face when I see an eagle circling in the heavens, because the fresh air energizes my lust for life, because of maple syrup, because of the acoustic guitars melody gently drifting across the sandy beach, because of sturdy leg muscles from the walk to school, because of the black mountains dusted off with icing sugar, because of surfing in stingingly cold yet powerful waves that toss me about like a cat toying with a mouse, because of smiling at strangers, because of the relaxed attitude to life, because of the relative innocence of teenagers, because of comfort and practicality over high fashion, because of high school, because of prom, because of driving at sixteen, because of camping in the wilderness, because of the warmth from a fire when the wind picks up, because of gliding across the icy mountain on a snowboard while looking out at the city lights, because of all this I am no longer an immigrant, but truly Canadian.

I pull

On saturday I woke up early (well 8am) to get my way to Lighthouse Park and help out with an ivy pull. The ivy in Lighthouse Park has spread everywhere, and as it is an invasive species it is choking off all the other plants. The group of 30 or more people worked solidly for 3 hours and we barely made a dent in the amount of ivy that was in this one section of the park. 3 truck loads of pulled ivy were taken out from the park. Now this ivy was not the creepers I was used to, it seemed more like a tree, and had full, thick branches and a trunk. I couldn't believe how far it had spread and that there was actually rock underneath these huge bushes of ivy. After the 3 hours were up, I was completely shattered but at least my arm muscles are now a lot stronger, plus I've helped give some plants some breathing room.

Protesting

I went to a protest a little while ago, and it was protesting against the government building a four-lane highway through an endangered area in preparation for the 2010 olympics. Now the destruction of this eco system could be completely avoided if the government would only build a four-lane tunnel instead. It would be a little bit more expensive but it would be safer, as not open to harsh weather conditions, it would be faster for commuters, it wouldn't bring a build up of traffic to Horseshoe Bay which is already pretty crowded, and it wouldn't be destroying animals natural habitats. This protest marched down the streets of downtown Vancouver and stopped outside the hyatt where we tried to get the attention of Gordon Campbell (the BC premier). The protest got a lot of media attention, which is always good, and really I just don't want to see this part of West Vancouver go away. It's a really beautiful area, I've had fun up there in the woods, fishing in the lake and finding a christmas tree.

24 hour famine

On Friday morning I woke up at 6am, which believe me was a feat in itself, and got up to make my breakfast. Now this breakfast had to be huge because at 8am my 24 hour famine started.

The day before we got “tips for famining”, tip number one was “have a light breakfast before”. HAHA well screw that, I had to eat enough to last me 24 hours, so my breakfast consisted of hash browns, two fried eggs, two slices of toast, a bowl of cereal and two glasses of milk. It’s safe to say that by 8am I couldn’t even move, let alone move to break my fast. Though that of course didn’t last long because at lunch our anti discrimination response training teacher handed out cookies. Now that is pure torture. Actually having to carry the cookies to your locker, to save them for tomorrow, without eating them, well it was a hard task I tell you.

Finally school was over and then two of my other famining friends came over to pass the time. We got home and suddenly got very bored, we realized how much of our entertainment came from eating! The rest of the famine was spent sleeping over at the school, there were about 120 kids in total. We had a speech from a red cross volunteer and a workshop afterwards, then the entertainment started with yoga, games, a live band, a movie/xbox games, and then lights out at 3am.

We were woken up at 6am and welcomed to eat rice! mmm yummy! I couldn’t bring myself to have any so instead I bought an aero from the vending machine and enjoyed a free starbucks hot chocolate. The saturday was spent sleeping and eating all day! I went to white spot (this really great restaurant, does the best burgers, though I've only tried the veggie ones) and ate and ate and ate. Then being fit to burst fell asleep at a friends until my sister came to take me home.

Puck bunnies

On one of these freezing cold days that we’ve been so lucky to have, I went over to my friend Kellen’s house on Bowen Island. Now Kellen has this huge pond in her garden, which with temperatures below freezing had completely frozen over. She had even hosed to pond again to create another layer of ice. Even with all this reassurance, it took a lot of guts for me to step out onto the ice for the first time.

I borrowed a pair of skates because everyone here seems to own at least three pairs, so it was quite surprising to me when I found out I wasn’t the worst ice-skater there.

Our guy friends skated around us with a puck and set up hockey nets preparing for the big game. Daniel plays ice hockey twice a week and is in some really impressive league of some sorts, so naturally he had to show off a little, especially when one of us fell over on the ice.

During the game I attempted some shots but really I was too slow of an ice-skater to actually get the puck and shoot it anywhere. Mostly I just followed to puck everywhere and generally got in the good players way, even if they were on my team! Still I had a lot of fun doing that, and that was the last day of the cold weather so I’m glad I got to have a chance out on the ice before it melted.

BTW a puck bunny is a term for a girl ice hockey fan. Go Canucks go!

Volunteering

Part of the grade 11 curriculum at Rockridge you have to acquire thirty volunteer hours. I have so far received 8 hours from helping out at a soup kitchen in the downtown eastside.

I distinctly remember, when I first got out the car, my friend’s mum telling us to stick together and not look anyone directly in the eye. Now having grown up in London, I was pretty used to not drawing attention to myself in these sorts of situations and keeping a low profile. But really, I shouldn’t have worried at all, because the “slums” of Vancouver are really not that scary.

Working at the soup kitchen was fun though, we ran through the drill of picking up a plate, serving it, and then getting ready with the next plate. You certainly meet some interesting people there, and some of them have great stories. Of course there are always the few memorable people, like Mike who raved on and on about joining the marijuana party or George who passed out in his food.

I found helping out at the soup kitchen much more rewarding than helping out at the Vancouver Family Ball, which is where I received some of my other volunteer hours. I am also doing a twenty-four hour famine through the school to raise money for world vision. The day of the famine we get to sleepover at the school and then in the morning they’ll serve us brown rice, I really think it’ll be a challenge for me to not eat for twenty-four hours but we shall see how well I fare.

Lunch Time

During our lunch break at Rockridge the grade 10’s, 11’s and 12’s are allowed off the school grounds. A few of the lucky grade 11’s who have their N’s and the grade 12’s usually drive to the local mall during this time. I don’t have my N yet, so my friends and I often go to the little village of shops, which is opposite our school. The main attractions at this village are: Safeway (doughnuts only 54 cents), Subway, Pastemelis (a pizza place) and of course Starbucks. I recently discovered that if you ask nicely you could get a cup of whipped cream for free! It’s a tasty treat for when mum forgets to put a chocolate bar in your lunch. One of my friends, in the last week, spent roughly $35 in Starbucks during all our lunch breaks. Though in her defense it was her Christmas Starbucks card’s money that she spent. I occasionally buy myself something but really I need a job first, and that’s a completely different blog!

January 6th

So our family have now successfully completed two Christmas’s in Vancouver. The whole lead up to Christmas at school is very exciting, especially the last day. There were people dressing up as elves and santas, carolling during the first block, watching Christmas videos created by the broadcasting students and of course secret santa gift giving during English class.

Once the break started my friends and I went up to Grouse Mountain and went ice-skating, it was so nice seeing all the snow again. We were lucky that last year we had a snow day because we had so much snow, but this year I'm still waiting for the snow to come...

I also went to this “semi-formal attire” Christmas party, hosted by one of my friends. It was fun and we did a big secret santa, though I have to say that people varied a lot in the amount of money they spent, some people got really cool new cds, T-shirts etc while others ended up with a $3 trucker hat saying “Mrs Affleck” on the front! Oh well it looks pretty cool... I guess...

Actual Christmas day and everything was really fun as usual, I was very happy with my new digital camera I’d been begging for and have already used it at the new years party I went to. I also hit the boxing week sales and managed to buy a pair of billabong jeans for $25 and some new speakers and sub woofer for $40 at half price. But as usual when you go back to school it seems like your just coming back after a weekend, damn it’s hard to wake up in the mornings now.

Christmas shopping

Well Christmas is coming so time to start the dreaded Christmas shop. Every year I think to myself “right I'll start shopping early to get ahead” but it’s December 1st and I haven’t really started. Tomorrow I’m going shopping to the local mall to buy a mass of Christmas presents for friends, we are doing a secret santa but still the present load seems to build up.

If ever I feel guilty about buying something because it is too expensive, I simply convert the Canadian dollar back to Sterling and voila no guilt. I should probably stop doing this as it is the main cause for my low bank account, and I’ve been living here over a year now. But it’s so convenient if I need an excuse to buy something. I mean you see a sweater and it’s like $65 so you think “ah well if i hadn’t bought that new makeup then I guess I could, oh well I'll wait till next month” but then it’s like “Wait $65 is roughly £30 and that's like nothing!”.

Christmas time is the only time when I don't find shopping as great as I usually do, I think the added stress makes it so much less enjoyable. Anyways must get brain storming for present ideas.

Winter Formal Dance

On December 9th it is the winter formal dance, this is for grades 11 and 12 only. The formal dances are quite a big deal here but what it all comes down to is the dress. I spent all day trekking from shop to shop to find the perfect semi-formal dress. See you can't have a floor length dress because that's too formal and when it comes to the colour of the dress, anything too bright is too summer like. In the end I decided upon a black, strapy dress that comes just above the knee and just the cutest pair of shoes you ever did see.

My outfit really is perfect and I am really excited for the dance. My boyfriend, William, has already got his suit lined up for it. I think my parents are more excited about us going as a couple than we are. The camera will be going off like crazy on that night. Oh god!

My halloween

Halloween is a really awesome time round here. Leading up to Halloween, all the guys can think about is how they are going to blow things up, fireworks are really big, and half the fun is running from the cops right? So that was how I spent Halloween, and after all that excitement there’s nothing better than crashing at a friends house watching a truly terrifying movie, or the classic Tremors. The Saturday before Halloween my good friend had a party with about thirty of us there. Again the main focus was the fireworks although trick or treating was a big deal too. I now have so much candy that I will be on a permanent sugar high till Christmas. Costume wise people go all out, the host of the party was a very racy strip tease and then a couple of my guy friends were Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street. My best friend and I went as the twins from Austin Powers, Fook Mi and Fook Yu and I have to say we looked really great. Now that Halloweens over people are planning to finish off the rest of their fireworks at the weekend and sell their candy to their friends and then on to planning a decent Christmas party!

Gwen

My thoughts on going to a Canadian school

The obvious difference between my school in England and my school in Canada was that I was now at a mixed school. And let me tell you, this took some getting used to!

Another difference is that there are no school uniforms here (YES!) and schooling seems a lot more relaxed. But don't assume that relaxed means easy, I found the school work just as challenging as I had done in England but without the pressures of GCSE's school seemed more of a place you'd enjoy going to.

I remember worrying about how the kids at school would act but I was pleasantly surprised, people were very curious about where I'd come from and they liked to ask a lot of questions so there were never any awkward silences.

It isn't just a stereotype that Canadians are friendly, they really are!