Femion

On The Staircase!

This is a picture that Pierre took on the Halifax band trip. I know it's not my picture and you probably don't know him, but Mark is just soooo cute (in the traditional sense)!

Oh, and this was published in the Casket last week. There's a mistake in it: the book I read was Rare Earth, not Real Earth.

Natl. Concours Oratoire

I'm back from Ottawa. I didn't win anything but I had a really fun time. I met so many really interesting people, and the speeches in my category were beyond amazing. We went to tour the parliment buildings and we got to see a really good french theatrical performance.

On the way home I met Peter McKay on the airplane back to Halifax. He sat in hospitality, not business class, just like me. I guess not even Canada's foreign minister can sit there.

PS: the run-off election was on Friday. Kelly Anne and Emily won! It should be interesting: there hasn't been a girl/girl pairing in charge for donkey's years.

Student Council Elections: May Issue

May 2006
I know my status as a journalist and editor should make me impartial, but had I been in Grade 11 I would have voted for Carolyn and Darcy. However, they failed to get the percentage they needed and will not be in the run-off. The run-off now is between Kelly-Ann/Emily, Sarah/Paul, and Steve/Amy. The principal obviously doesn't understand how run-off elections are supposed to work. Aren't you supposed to only have two candidates so that it's garanteed that at least one of the candidates will get over 50%?
It's going to be just like last year, when Jon won.
You see, there are two types of students at my high school. Let's call them the Straights and the Stoners (not referrencing their choice of drugs or alcohol usage, which is common amoung both groups although probably more common among the Stoners). Stoners hate school, and only come so that they can see their friends, or because they're forced to. They take the easy way out of high school: they don't participate in any extra curic, choose the bird classes over advanced or academic classes, and don't have much school spirit in general (not that the last thing is a bad thing). They don't care if someone responsable, kind, or intelligent gets elected for student council so that it will run better, they just want a Stoner like them, or someone with a funny gimmick (remember John taking off his pants last year? Yeah, you get it.). The Straights want a Straight like them. Usually there are five or six Straight pairings in the election, versus one or two Stoner pairings. Most of the Straight pairings get knocked off first, because there's so many of them to choose from. In the run-off, just like last year, there are two straight pairings: Sarah/Paul and Emily/Kelly-Ann, and one Stoner pairing Steve/Amy (I've heard that Steve's hobby is getting drunk and running over the neighborhood mailboxes/pets/trees with his truck. What a fine young man.). The majority of the voters are Stoners, since Stoner is a disease many people get cured of in their final year of high school, and the seniors aren't allowed to vote. If that weren't enough of a burden, the Straight vote will be split between the two Straight candidates (just like Nader sucked votes away from Kerry).
The good thing is that the Student Council members aren't voted this way. They're appointed. By the Prez and VP. And then they have to spend a half-hour each week listening to them.
Actually, John and Kate weren't that bad. John's pretty funny. Who cares about government efficiency when you're in high school?
I'm not out of this student government thing yet. There's another vote ahead for the Grade 12s: Valedictorian.
Don't get your hopes up. I wasn't nominated. :p

Mirror Lake

Today we took the tape off of our mural, which makes it done, officially. I suppose there are a lot of areas that could be improved, as you can probably tell from this photo.

We've been working on it on and off since November. There are a whole bunch of new murals being squared off everywhere in the school, but I really doubt that all of them will get finished by the time the artists graduate. We'll see.

Cats in a Tree

Cat 1: Please, please let me down. This branch is dead and the ground is at least seven feet down. What if that human in the giant glass box catches us?
Cat 2: Hey, you went out on that limb. Don't blame me, blame your curiosity. I'm not backing up until you tell me where you hid all those half eaten tins of baked beans. I know you've got them.

In more serious news, I got accepted to every university I applied to and they're all giving me some entrance scholarship of some sort. I'm still going to Dal, but I'm going to Ottawa on Friday.

In a Name for Real

Just like the fate of poor Brittanny in my story, I believe I have found my complete opposite, with the same name! Catherine M. Holloway, blond hair, dark tan, middle-aged psychic who runs her "Core Star Blessings" healing centre out of Augusta, Maine, calls her channel "Gleemzuts" and believes that she can see the sodium ions in our bodies, that all people with mental illnesses are merely mal-functioning psychics, and that all life is sustained by the tag team of the "Goddess Gaia" and the "White Magi", along with a whole load of new-age sewage pseudoscientific bullshit.
At least she's being upfront with everything she believes.
Catherine, if you happen to google your name and end up here, can I suggest the James Randi Educational Foundation?

Guess Who's Going to Ottawa

Provincial Concours Art Oratoire 2006.
I came, I spoke, I won.

I think I'm gesturing the way planets are made in answer to one of the judges questions.


I won first place in my category, Immersion precoce. I'm going to be representing Nova Scotia in Ottawa along with the five winners in the other categories on May 26th-28th. My plane ticket, accomodation and food are all going to be paid for thanks to CPF. It's going to be awesome.