R

R is for Rowena. Rowena is one of my best friends in the entire world. I have known her since I was four years old. Because we ride the bus together every day, we get to spend quite a lot of time together and we really know each other well. She is always there when I want to talk, and she never lets me down. Sure she's pretty quiet, but when Rowena does talk, it's either HILARIOUS, or definitely worth listening to. She can make me laugh when I'm close to tears, and she can give me great advice when I'm confused.

Rowena loves horses just as much as I do. Sometimes we end up seeing each other at competitions. Rowena even has a barn right at her house (which to me seems like heaven), so she spends a lot of time with horses, and knows A LOT about them. She is a great person to talk to when you have questions about horses or when you want to talk to someone who will understand what you are dealing with. She has a pretty crazy horse named Max, who she loves to death. Honestly, I have no idea how she stays on Max! He is very energetic and faster than the wind! Max is a bay, which means he is brown, with a black mane and tail. He has a white star, right on the middle of his forehead. He is so cute! (Not as cute as Mister T, but a close second!) Max and Rowena are a pretty funny pair. She can be quiet, responsible and mature, while he can be cheeky, spunky and spirited. Perhaps what they say is true: opposites do attract!

Rowena and I aren't opposites though. We have a lot in common (not just horses). We share a lot of the same interests, ideas and opinions. We can work well together because we have similar styles. Rowena and I both find the same things funny and when we start to laugh~warning~it can be dangerous! Remembering to breath can be a challenge. I really enjoy the time I spend with Rowena.

Life Lesson: Good friends help you navigate the long journey of life. Good friends are always there for you. Good friends never let you down. Have a good friend. Be a good friend.

As Walter Winchell once said, "A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out."

T

For all of my life, I have always wanted a horse. I started taking riding lessons when I was four years old, and have loved horses ever since. I never in a million years ever thought that I would get a horse of my own, but on June 25, 2008, my dream came true.

Mister T is a Welsh mountain pony cross. He is chestnut, which means he has a reddish brown coloured coat, mane and tail. He has four white socks, which means the bottom of his legs are white, and a white stripe on his face. He is 12.1 and 1/2 hands tall (1 hand is equal to 10 cm). The boundary line between a small and medium pony is 12.2 so Mister T is a small pony by just 2.5 cm! Because he is so close the boundary line, we are often pulled aside at shows to have him remeasured.

Mister T and I compete a lot. Because he is quite small, the only hunter competitions that we can enter have pretty small jumps (2.3 - 2.6 feet). (Hunter is based on how pretty you and your horse look while working together. You need to have a good position, and a fancy horse to do well in hunter.) Because we like to jump bigger than that in competitions, we tried entering jumper contests. (Jumper contests are a race against the clock, with bigger jumps than hunter.) The jumps were 3 feet, which is pretty big for a pony like Mr. T, but we did really well, and I really enjoyed it. We decided to continue doing both hunter and jumper shows. I had a great, but busy summer last year, finishing in second overall in jumper.

My pony has a lot of nicknames. Everyone in my barn has a different name for my pony. I usually call him Mister T, or just T. But here are some of the other names that people call him: T-Pony, T-Boy, Tea Time, Mister, Ponykins, T-T, or Shrunk In The Wash. (Shrunk In The Wash is his show name, or his official name, whereas Mister T is his barn name.)

I tell everyone that T is my pony, but that doesn't say enough about what he is to me. He is always there for me. He is always so happy to see me. When I'm sad, he cheers me up. When I'm stressed, he calms me down. He accepts me no matter what. He is like a best friend, or a brother. As Winston Churchill once said, "There is something about the outside of a horse, that is good for the inside of a man."

Life Lesson: Animals are there for you when humans are not. They listen when the world won't. They give you advice when the world is silent.

L

L is for Lily. In the novel that I am working on writing, there is a sweet seven year old girl named Lily, who is the sister to the main character, Sophie. Lily has medium length blonde hair, and clear, blue eyes. She is kind, cute, and best friends with the world. She loves life, and everyone in it. As soon as you meet her, she becomes your best friend. She loves animals, and often brings strays into the house, feeds them, and then takes them to her neighbour, who is a retired vet. The vet checks them over and helps Lily find new homes for each of them. Lily has a cat named Simba, who she pampers and loves.

I was inspired to create the character Lily from the book, The Hunger Games. In that book, there is a character named Prim, short for Primrose, who is the sister of the main character, Katniss. Katniss is very attached to Prim and will do anything to spare her from the hardships of life, just like Sophie would for Lily in my novel. She tries to put herself before Lily, and tries to spare Lily from the grief and anguish caused by her father's death.

One thing that I have learned from writing about Lily, is that life is always easier with a friend to help you along the way. I have also learned that when you do good things to others, they are willing to help you out when you are in need. I think that we can all learn a lot from Lily, and I hope that once you read this, you will be inspired to do something nice for someone else.

My Novel

Right now I am working on writing a novel. It’s about a family whose dad is fighting in Afghanistan. Sadly, he dies from a roadside bomb, and the family is left with nothing but their memories. The mother is having trouble moving on with her life, and the little sister (Lily or Daisy) is falling apart. Can the main character (thinking about maybe calling her Sophie, Sophia, or Ashley) put her family back together?

I've spent a lot of time thinking about my main character and I have decided a few things about her. First of all, she loves to write, just like her dad did. She loves poetry, and likes to write it too. When he dies, she writes poems and stories for him. She is in Grade 8, and is 13. Her little sister is very delicate and fragile. Whenever I think of her, I think of Prim, from The Hunger Games, because they have a very similar attitude. Remember, these thoughts of mine are not final, so if you have any suggestions, feel free to just post them in a comment.

To do some further research on good ways to write novels, I interviewed a lady named Mrs. Mills, who is a published author. If the name sounds familiar to you, it's because she is a parent of two kids that go or went to this school. One, Elspeth Mills, has graduated and, is now in university, and the other one, Tristan Mills, is in grade 8. I learned a lot of things about the process of writing a novel from Mrs. Mills. Stay tuned for my next blog to learn about our talk!

In a Burka

Invisible. Trying to be invisible. Walking through the street, covered from head to toe with her burqa, trying not to make any noise. She is hot and can hardly breathe through the suffocating cloth wrapped around her face. Her feet are bleeding, and are covered with blisters. Her sandals are too small, and are cutting into her every step. She knows she's supposed to have a man with her, but her husband was killed in a bombing about a month ago, and she desperately needs food.

If I ever had to wear a burqa like the women in Afghanistan and live under the terrible and punishing laws that they have had to, I would definitely want to move, to escape. I would never be able to cope with not being allowed to walk around outside, in my own community, without being with a man, and wearing a burqa. I love to run, be active and independent, and just breathe in the fresh clean air. I love to spend time outside, enjoying nature. If I were in Afghanistan, I wouldn't even be able to walk into a store and buy something. I would always have to live under the rules of the Taliban, and would never be independent. I wouldn't even be allowed to go to school! Right now, the women in Afghanistan have no future. They have no right to an education or a job. I really admire the women that have fought against the Taliban and organized education for their daughters, stood up to the Taliban in the street, and worked together to have their future be a free one. They are so brave.

Having to wear a burqa would really change my life. It is very easy for those of us living in Canada to take our freedoms for granted. We have never had to live without them, but reading The Breadwinner has given me a chance to feel what it could be like. It has made me realize how very lucky I am to live in a free and democratic country. I will fight to keep Canada this way and I hope all of you will too.

Eva Olsson's Presentation

Hate. A word we use everyday, without really realizing its strong meaning, and its power. People say that they hate vegetables, or they hate a pair of shoes, or a T-shirt. We use the word hate too loosely. It's okay to dislike something. But never hate. Why? Because hate is what brought Eva Olsson to her near death experience. Hate is how six million completely innocent people were killed. Not one of them did anything wrong. They were hated because of their religion. Because they were Jewish.

This Monday at school, grades 7-12 attended a presentation by a remarkable lady named Eva Olsson, who is a Holocaust survivor. She told us all about the events that killed her family, and many other Jews. Her presentation was inspiring, and at the same time, heart-breaking. Many people were crying, and I can promise you that every single person in the chapel was listening.

Eva Olsson is said to be lucky. Lucky because she survived the Holocaust. But may I ask you, is she really lucky? She saw her mother, and the rest of her family killed right in front of her face. She suffered the horrible fate of being a Jew in that time. She was not only tortured by bullies, but also let down by the bystanders, who lined up like they were watching an interesting parade, when the Jewish people were marched to the box cars where they were shipped to their death.

I think that Eva had many good points, but I really liked this one: She told us that family is the most important thing in life, and that we should tell our family that we love them every day because tomorrow we might not have the chance. Even though Eva has lived through those horrible events, the thing that she is most traumatized by is losing her mom, and the rest of her family. It shows you that family is definitely important. You can never replace family.

When the Holocaust finally ended, Eva found a true friend. Her husband. But he was also taken away from her when he was only 38 years old by a drunk driver. That was the reason for her last lesson. Never drink and drive because it takes innocent lives, like Eva's husband's, just like the Holocaust did.

After 50 years of silence, Eva has found even more courage, and has spoken up and told her story to over one million people. Why? Eva wants everyone to know what happened to her, and to so many other innocent people, so that it will never, ever happen again. She taught everyone in the audience valuable life lessons that she learned from her experiences. I will definitely never forget her moving speech, and I hope that others won't either.

Middle School Team Building Day

This week the whole Middle School took a trip to a place called the Norval Outdoor School. This school is located in the village of Norval, near Georgetown. We were there on Monday October the 20th for the whole day. This trip was arranged so that the Middle School classes could work on team building activities.

When we first got there Monday morning, we separated into groups by grade, and played a few fun games to get moving after our long bus ride. In the first game we played, we all got three clothes pins to pin on the back of our shirt. The point of the game was to finish with the most clothes pins. Everyone was trying to take each other's clothes pins, and keep their own. The next game we played was where everyone had a partner, and one person would spin around three times, while the other person speed-walked away. Then the chase began, and the person who was spinning started to try and find/catch the other person--all while speed-walking. It was such a funny game to watch!

Then we headed off into groups, and did some activities in the forest area. This included low ropes and this other one where there was a really tall pole, with a tire around it that was resting on the ground. The point of the game was to get the tire up and over the top of the pole. This activity took a lot of teamwork and problem solving. In the end though, it all turned out well. The third activity that we did was called Wizard's Walk. There was a bunch of wires about half a metre off the ground. They all started at certain points in a circular shape. All of the wires were connected in the centre of the circle. The point of this activity was to choose a wire to start at, and then travel to a certain other wire. We all had to work together to get to our destination.

I think it is very effective to use outdoor games to work on team building. One activity that I'd say my group did really well was the Wizard's Walk. In this activity, my group really worked together well and talked to each other to figure out what to do. No one was trying to talk over top of anybody else, and we got this problem solved quickly and easily. We even did it twice because we did it so fast that we had extra time.

One activity that I would say that our group struggled on was the low ropes. Because we did this activity first, everyone was really excited, and wanted to go first. People were arguing, and no one would compromise. This activity was really one of the more challenging ones, and to complete it, we needed everyone's help and cooperation. After a long time, something started to happen. I think that people were realizing this fact, because when someone suggested an idea, people started to listen, and expand that idea. Before we knew it, the problem was solved, and people were walking across the ropes. Sometimes, I think that you learn more from an activity that is going badly than you do from one that went well.

Our time at Norval was very worthwhile. I think we returned to SJK better prepared to work together in the classroom than when we left. By spending some time out of the classroom, I think we will do a better job working together in the classroom!