Last weekend, my mum and I went hiking with our dog when we spotted a wolf. It was quite close, about 15 metres away from us, and it was just watching us and slowly walked around shrubs and trees, minding its own business. Even though it was pretty close, it would disappear about of sight easily, and camouflage into the forest that at times we would not see it. Then all of a sudden, we would spot it again just standing there. As we walked further up the trail, away from the wolf, to the top where we were above it, because we were on a hill, I noticed it went onto our path we had just walked up and was sniffing around. It was probably sniffing at my dog’s scent. It kept slowly walking up the trail, so we decided to keep walking on to get out of its way to continue the hike. It was a very cool experience, and I am excited to know that I have now seen Canada’s top three largest predators (not including the Polar Bear): Black Bear, Cougar, Grey Wolf. There are hundred of wolves on Vancouver Island, but they do not like being around people so most of the population is away from the cities, meaning that people rarely get to encounter them on the island. In the Autumn, my mum volunteers at Rocky Point Bird Observatory to band owls (mainly Northern Saw-whet Owls) for bird monitoring purposes and I will sometimes go with her to help retrieve them from the nets. At a particular bird banding station sight, you can often hear wolves howling down by the beaches at night. It is an incredible feeling listening to them which is one of the many reasons why they are one of my favourite animals.
Author: Amelia
PR to “Romeo and Juliet”
I have always heard of the famous Romeo and Juliet and knew the basic plot before ever reading or watching the play. This was the first time seeing the film of it and I found the storyline easy to follow. Two families (Montague’s and Capulet’s) hate each other but Romeo and Juliet love each other but they cannot be together, so they end up killing themselves. During scene one in the first act, I found it engaging when they opened with a fighting scene which helped me understand the family situation and the personalities of each character. As it moved into the second act, I thought it odd that as soon as Romeo meets Juliet they decide to get married as soon as possible. I thought it quite impulsive because they were not thinking it through. Especially since they are both so young, but I guess the time and culture is different from today. Most of the time I could follow along and understand what is happening even since the English is quite different than I am used to. I think watching the play made it easier to understand because I could see what was happening. It is harder to imagine the scenes when reading them when the vocabulary is not what I am used to reading. Closer to the end when Juliet follows the friars plan to fake her death to avoid marrying Paris, and hopefully see Romeo when she awakes, I found it predictable when the friar wrote an important letter to Romeo that was crucial for him to receive as soon as possible, only to have it not delivered by the messenger in time. Many fictional stories do this for the suspense so when I watched this happen, I knew it would never arrive. At the end of the story, I found it a bit dramatic that they both killed themselves because they could not cope with being apart. But then again, they were forced not to see each other. It made me feel sorry for Juliet especially because no one, not even her nurse who had always been there for her, was going to change their perspectives and listen to what Juliet had to say, and she was being forced to marry someone else unwillingly.
IRJE #6 – A Killer in King’s Cove by Iona Whishaw
A Killer in King’s Cove is part of a series of books by Iona Whishaw called, A Lane Winslow Mystery. The story takes place just outside Nelson, BC which is where the author is from. It is set in 1946 in a very small community of about 20 people who have come to settle here for peace and escape the effects of the war they have just come through. The protagonist of this story – Lane Winslow – has just emigrated to Canada in search of a simple and quiet life away from her job as a spy in Britain during World War II. She enjoys writing and I came across this quotation which comes in form of a poem from the first piece of writing she did once she arrived in King’s Cove.
I can stretch my hand across the fields of time
to pull a child from where she grew alone
and with a breath that might be mine
exhale a garden of her very own. (p. 39)
This quotation is meaningful for the beginning of the story because it gives the readers the knowledge that she found a place where she can finally relax…for now. It also tells us that she grew up alone. Which is true. Lane had always felt alone growing up even if there were people around her. When she was a child, her mother was dying her father was forbidding. Since she enjoys writing, I thought it would be a good quotation to include as it is also her first piece of writing since moving to Canada.
PW #6 – Cold Days with the Hummingbirds
Every day in February so far, it has snowed, and temperatures have been below zero. Some people, especially international students at Brookes I’ve noticed, seem to love this weather, while others don’t. A particular little bird that we get at our hummingbird feeder at home is one who (I think) does not like the cold temperatures. The Anna’s Hummingbird. The only hummingbird on Vancouver Island that stays put all winter (mainly in Victoria). Hummingbirds, like all living organisms, need food. They mainly feed on the nectar from flowers but in order for those flowers to be accessible, it needs to be semi-warm. Most hummingbird species are found in Central and South America. When I went to Ecuador two years ago, I must have seen about 25 different species of hummers. Back to my point, the Anna’s Hummingbird has become reliant on humans and the feeders they put out for them. So many people have started putting hummingbird feeders (a mixture of sugar and water, usually in a red circular feeder because the colour red attracts them) out for them in Victoria that they have mostly stopped their migration patterns to a warmer climate in search of food, because there are now food sources here for them. The most important thing you can do if you put a feeder out, is to keep putting it out with food throughout the winter because their life can become dependent on it. Since it has been below freezing point, the food we put out for them quickly freezes. It is important to keep thawing it out and refilling it. When it was snowing, we had to put a cone over the feeder because the snow kept covering it up. When we had a snow day, I stood outside for about 10 minutes, watching them, as well as other birds, come and go at our feeders as a tried to take photos of them. I noticed than, that the Anna’s Hummingbird had stayed in our tree all day and whenever we brought the feeder in to change the food, it would wait patiently then come buzzing down for a drink.
IRJE #5 – Beyond the Trees by Adam Shoalts
Beyond the Trees is a nonfiction story Adam Shoalts tells of his journey alone across Canada’s arctic. He wrote it after the documentary that was made which tells the same story which I watched before reading the book. I discovered that he had written books about his adventures after watching the documentary, so I decided to get his most famous book and give it a read. After finishing it, I have concluded that it is one of my favourite books I have read. I found it very captivating, interesting, and full of adventure. Some parts even made me chuckle. The story goes through his mission of travelling on foot and canoe across Canada’s arctic. He starts in Whitehorse, Yukon, and finishes at Baker Lake, Nunavut. It took him nearly 4 months to complete. He weaved through ice floes, faced bears and muskox, and portaged across rough terrain. As the title suggests, he is above treeline, in the arctic tundra. Parts of his journey actually crosses north of the arctic circle line. With little human interaction throughout his journey, he keeps himself company by talking to his canoe and the amazing wildlife. Some of which had never seen a human being. There were many hard times such as inclement winds, treacherous terrain, and ice blocks. I came across the following quotation in the book which is an example of how he overcomes difficult times.
My pants and socks were drenched, but there wasn’t time to dry things out. I just wrung out the socks, put them back on, and kept going. Discouraging as having your waders flood with frigid waters can be, I always found that there was some little thing to cheer me up: the sight of robins hopping along the banks, or a lone wolf wandering the shoreline, or an eagle soaring overhead. Sometimes it’s the little things that make all the difference. (p. 201 – p. 202)
I agree. Sometimes it is “the little things that make all the difference.” I found this passage meaningful because it highlights his perseverance and ability to enjoy the little things, that are often overlooked, by changing his point of view. Instead of focusing on the negative, like his soaked clothes, he chooses to focus on the positives by finding joy in the small things and natural world around him. This shows great mental strength, and I think everyone should try more to find things to be grateful about, even if they’re small. It’s our outlook on life and the situation that shapes our experience more than the circumstance itself.
PW #5 – My Crazy Dog
I have a dog called Bobo who is very energetic but sometimes annoying. She has brought stress and fun into our lives since the day we got her which was a few years ago. She was a street dog who was rescued from the streets of Mexico. She is a pure black, slender, medium sized dog with pointy ears. She looks a lot like a Formosan Mountain Dog, but we decided to do a DNA test on her since we were curious, and the results were mainly a mix of Doberman, German Shepard, and Pitbull. Anyhow, I am going to write about one of her many adventures. My mum and I were finishing a camping trip a couple summers ago and we decided to spend the last couple hours at the top of a mountain somewhere in BC (on the mainland) to have late breakfast and a hike. Later that day we were catching the ferry back to Victoria. We were preparing breakfast and had tied Bobo to a nearby tree a couple metres away. I was surprised she was so well behaved and went over to give her a carrot (which she loves). She was gone. I picked up the end of the lead and dangling from it was her harness. But no dog. She had obviously managed to get out and was now somewhere in the wilderness in this deserted place with nothing on her with bears and squirrels around. You may be wondering how we will get her back. We know she will come back because she does this sometimes when we let her off the lead, but we had a ferry to catch which was a few hours drive away. She’s a pretty smart and independent dog but her recall is horrendous when she is on the hunt. It’s as if her listening skills switch off as soon as she’s unclipped. Plus, she has the attention span of a fly. We spent the next 2 hours looking for her and pacing about. We couldn’t go far because we knew she would come back to the last spot her saw us. Eventually, I saw her racing towards me (she was not paying any interest to me though) and my mum was nowhere to be seen. Her eyes fixed on another ground squirrel. This was my only chance of getting her as my patience was wearing off. Just as she was sprinting past me, I leaped forwards landing on her and we both fell to the ground. Don’t worry, she’s a strong dog and was completely fine. After that we leashed her up and drove to the ferry. Something over-the-top like this (not always an off-lead scenario) seems to happen almost every week but this was the most memorable one for me I think.
PR to Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, 1932
I thought the book Brave New World by Aldous Huxley was an interesting book and I had never read a utopia/dystopia before. It makes me think about whether the world Huxley describes will be our future and what the positives and negatives about that could be. I personally think that I would not want to be in a world where nothing bad ever happens and where people can not express their feelings how they should be expressed. Just like John, I would want real danger, and books, and other suppressed items. Brave New World is like the quintessence of perfect, but I do not agree with the system. Children in the book are taught to hate books and nature by hypnopaedia and infant conditioning meaning that they will never (not like get a choice though) learn about the past. I did not like that the females in the book were being treated as if they were objects which makes me think that their world is not advancing in that way, but degrading. The Savage, as John is called in the book, also holds some rudeness since he does things that the new society disapproves of, such as reading, which seems absurd. For being someone different, you are considered a weirdo or as Huxley puts it, a savage. I think the World State seems to be built upon lies but it is unclear what the lies and truths are. I think Huxley makes us sympathise with some character, such as John, but not with others. He writes about John in an empathetic way in a way we can understand because John is most like us which allows readers to understand him better than the other characters. The last few chapters in the book were focused on John living by himself and trying to become a better person again, but unfortunately people from the World State find him and bother and tease John to the extent that he lynched himself. These last couple chapters built more empathy towards John for the readers because we got to know him better, even though he was committing self-harm during the process.
Overall, Brave New World was an interesting book about a future society that I do not agree with, and I found parts of the book that I was not comfortable reading about which I think should not be mandatory to read in school.
PW #4 – 124th Christmas Bird Count
Every year around Christmas time, there is a Christmas Bird Count (CBC) across different places in Canada. It’s one day (which is different for different cities) where thousands of people come together to find as many birds as they can within their circle. You can do this as a small group or independently. People all over the country count birds on the chosen day for conservation purposes. It started in 1900 and has become an annual birding day for the country ever since. British Columbia usually gets the most birds in Canada for this day, especially the south coastal areas (Victoria, Vancouver etc.) because they are one of the few places in Canada not covered in snow, or a lot of snow. And temperatures are milder meaning there is more bird activity. I took part in the Duncan Christmas Bird Count on 29 December. It was a rainy day, but I still managed to get over 50 species (personally). Across Canada, 293 species were reported for the 124th CBC which was more than last year. This is mainly because of the effects of the El Niño year which is making this winter milder than it usually is. The warmer weather is keeping some species who have usually moved further south by now in search of a warmer climate, to stay up in Canada longer because their food it still available for them. 218 out of 293 of the species were reported in BC.
IRJE #4 – The Magicians Nephew by C. S. Lewis, 1955
The Magicians Nephew is one of the seven books in the Chronicles of Narnia. Including The Magicians Nephew, which I have just read, I have read five of the seven books. I really enjoy these fantasy adventure books and I like how the author writes. I can always picture in my head what’s happening whilst reading. In this book, The Magicians Nephew, Digory (the nephew) and Polly become friends in London when Digory’s uncle (the magician which he does not realise yet) gives them magic rings which sends them into the ‘Wood between the Worlds’. In this wood, they can use the rings to travel to different world by jumping into one of the many ponds. When they enter one, they find themselves in a new world. They come across an old room in an abandoned stone courtyard with broken walls and pillars, and thought there were lots of people in the room at first, but they were portraits hung on the walls. The furthest left portraits looked like nice and friendly people, but the further they moved down the wall, the nastier the people were. At the very end, there was an image of a woman. She looked beautiful, but fierce. Digory and Polly determined that she was the queen. And beyond her, there were empty chairs as if there were meant to be more people. In the middle of the room, there was a table which they went over to inspect. Some foreign language was engraved on the stone which they could not understand at first. This is when I came across this passage of the book.
If only Digory had remembered what he himself had said a few minutes ago, that this was an enchanted room, he might have guessed that the enchantment was beginning to work. But he was too wild with curiosity to think about that. He was longer more and more to know what was written on the pillar. And very soon they both knew. What it said was something like this – at least this is the sense of it through the poetry, when you read it there, was better:
Make your choice adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had (p. 35)
After reading this, they got into a quarrel because Polly did not with to continue but Digory did. At last, Digory hit the bell with the hammer, which was the choice they had to make to find out what would happen, and it were like a mini earthquake had happened. The room was filled with such loud noise and rumbling. Once it had stopped, at the end of the room where the image of the cruel woman had been, had come alive.
I chose this passage because I find it an important part of the story to learn how the queen came to be which will start Narnia and give readers a better understanding of how the story starts. Because of what happened here, they entered (unknowingly) into the land of Narnia by entering the wrong pond and then they got to watch it be created by Aslan which will be the start of the real adventures for anyone who comes across Narnia by mistake, which will be in the other books.
IRJE #3 – Specials by Scott Westerfeld
Tally and Shay are now officially specials. Dr. Cable had them do the operation at the end of the book, Pretties. In this book, Specials, so far it follows Tally as a special, who is trying to find the source of where the pills are coming from which apparently turn people back to thinking for themselves again. She and Shay find their friend who they haven’t seen since their new operations, and he looks completely different to them now in a bad way, even though he has not changed, they have. After he leaves, I came across this paragraph which is a private conversation between Shay and Tally.
“What did Dr. Cable do to us, Shay? Do we have some kind of special lesions in our brains? Something that makes everything else look pathetic? Like we’re better than them?” “We are better than them, Tally-wa!” Shay’s eyes shone like coins, reflecting the lights of New Pretty Town. “The operation gives us the clarity to see that. That’s why everyone else looks confused and pitiful, because that’s how most people are.” (p. 92-93)
(…) “But you and I can smell an unwashed human from a kilometre away, a burnt-out campfire from ten. We can see in the dark and hear better than bats.” Her sneak suit flickered to night black. “We can make ourselves invisible and move without a sound. Think about it, Tally-wa.” (p. 98)
Tally seems to be the only one who thinks something happened during the operation that changed how special’s view people, which I think is true as well. Whereas Shay believes that specials are better than everyone. She backs this up with evidence when acknowledging how much better their senses are now. I chose this because I find it an important part for the readers to understand how different specials are from everyone else.
PW #3 – Taiwan
Last week, I was away in Taiwan with my dad. We went for nine days (seven full days) as an attempt to see all 31 endemic bird species. We left for the ferry on Thursday evening and flew from Vancouver at 15 minutes past midnight to Taipei, Taiwan. It was a 12.5-hour flight, and we arrived early morning. Once we landed, got out of the airport, and got our rental car, we immediately hopped in and started birding. It was a warm, humid day as we travelled from park to park. The following day we got our first endemic, Taiwan Liocichla. As the days were going by, we saw some amazing scenery, stayed at some weird hotels, and ate and saw some peculiar food. I remember one of the menus advertising snails, large intestines, and pig snouts. A few times you must cook your food. You have a bowl of boiling water on a flame, and a bowl of raw mystery meat, lots of different kinds of mushrooms and veggies. We threw them in and hoped for the best. On one of our days, we had a long drive to chase an endemic, Styan’s Bulbul. In order to get it, we had to drive to the east coast along a dangerous, narrow, wet, one-lane road on the side of a mountain. There were avalanches everywhere, holes in the road, places where half the road was down the cliff. Lots of tunnels as well. While we were waiting for the next road opening in a part, we had an hour to waste where we saw the bulbul on a telephone pull. When we walked back to the car, there was a monkey (Formosan Rock Macaque) who was climbing up the car towards my open window I forgot to close. If they get in the car, they will ruin and take everything. We tried to scare it off and it climbed on top of the car and stood its ground, showing its teeth the finally climbing down. We saw lots of monkeys and street dogs as far as the mammals go. A few squirrels and a serow as well. Unfortunately, on the last couple days, the park where we had planned to get the last tricky endemics was closed due to a Typhoon coming so we were unable to get all the endemics. The last endemic we got a few hours before heading to the airport was a Black-necklaced Scimitar Babbler. A skulker but we managed to see it thanks to a group of photographers in a huddle desperate to get a glimpse at this hard bird. This made the final count of endemics, 26/31. The flight home left at midnight and landed in Vancouver at 6:30pm. We got the 9pm ferry and got home at 11:45pm.
IRJE #2 – Specials by Scott Westerfeld 2006
The book Specials by Scott Westerfeld is the third book in a series of four. IRJE #1 was about the second book, and now I have moved onto reading the third book. I have just started reading this book and haven’t even finished the first chapter but so far, the key event that I clued into was that Tally is now a Special, or Special Circumstance. Specials are a modified ‘superhuman’ version of a pretty who can resist the effects of the lesions. Most Pretties who were very tricky in their ugly life became specials. Tally is feeling better, and her memories are sharp and can be remembered now. Tally isn’t a regular special though, she is part of a group of 16 with her best friend Shay, called the Cutters. They are separated from the rest of the specials and prefer to do missions alone. The Cutters went to an uglies party to try and find a Smokie (city Uglies who escaped the operation). This is when I found this paragraph.
The crowd parted easily, everyone sliding out of her way. However zitty and uneven their faces, the uglies’ eyes were sharp, full of nervous stabs of awareness. They were smart enough to sense that the three Cutters were different. No one stared for too long at Tally or realized what she was behind her smart-plastic mask, but bodies moved aside at her lightest touch, shivers playing across their shoulders as she passed, as if the uglies sensed something dangerous in the air.
It was easy seeing the thoughts ripple across their faces. Tally could watch the jealousies and hatreds, rivalry and attraction, all of it written on their expressions and in the way they moved. Now that she was a special, everything was laid out clearly, like looking down on a forest path from above. (p. 9)
This quotation shows that now Tally is a Special, she can think much clearer than ever before. She seems to enjoy being part of the Special Circumstances now, even though she didn’t want to become one in the first place. It probably helps that Shay is there as well and that they formed their own tight group of 16 called the Cutters. When I read this section, it seems to me that Tally, as well as the other Specials, have very keen and sharp senses now. They are starting to see their life around them in a different way. Before when they were Pretties, they found it hard to remember and think for themselves because they couldn’t. The lesions that the operation puts in their brains stopped them from doing what makes you human. But when Tally managed to brake away from that state of mind and think for herself all by herself, the Special Circumstances noticed and knew that Tally should become one of them. Because no one should be able to resist the effects of the lesions, which made Tally special.
Reflection on two essays about war
In the essay “Can real men live in a peaceful society”, I thought that it was true after reading both essays when he said ‘bourgeois men were too soft to make good soldiers’ (p. 1) even though the war just ended. It’s interesting that people changed so much in such a short amount of time. It was like the war never happened. It was ‘a thing of the past’ (p. 1) and a new way of life was developed. I wasn’t that surprised that the essay stated that ‘it is better to die than to live in defeat’ (p. 5) only because of the time it was written, in the 19th century. If that was said today, I think I would be more surprised. This is because people back then seemed to be more noble than in today’s world. I think it’s a form of courage. They believe in what they are fighting for, therefore they are saying they will fight to the end for what they believe in. At the end where is wonders of war and violence will always remain with us as long as there are humans. I believe that this statement is true because it is in our nature to control and want more than we have. The constant battle for control over people or especially land will always remain with us because that’s just who humans are. In “The Moral Equivalent of War” essay by William James, he also believes that peace will not be permanent on earth (p. 3) and states that if war stopped, we would have to re-invent it. He believes that people are getting too soft and that ‘war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community’. I agree with James because after all the readings we’ve done in English class, the harsh reality of war shows that it disciplines people and there is no way of hiding from it.
PW#2 Migration
It’s coming to an end for bird migration this season. A few weeks ago, was the biggest movement for species so, my parents and I went to East Sooke Park and hiked to the hawk watch spot. We arrived at the lookout around 8:00am and began scanning for songbirds and seabirds with our binoculars and scope. There were hundreds of California Gulls on the rocks and flying around the fishing boats, and hundreds Common Murres on the water. After a few hours, it had warmed a bit up, so we redirected our focus to the treeline. And fair enough, the raptors started appearing over the ridge. It was a calm day, and they showed beautifully against the white clouds. In the first hour we managed to see 63 Red-tailed Hawks, 44 Turkey Vultures, 16 Sharp-shinned Hawks, 14 Cooper’s Hawk, and the odd Osprey and Bald Eagles. All these raptors are trying to migrate south for the winter, but they must wait for the perfect weather to cross the strait (piece of ocean between Canada and USA). Especially the Turkey Vultures because they will not flap until they have crossed. They must get high enough and wait for the wind to blow in the right direction because attempting to cross as a group. They also travel the furthest. Some flying to southern USA, whilst others go as far as South America where they will spend the next five months before heading back north. As the day carried on, the cloud crept away from us making it more challenging to see the hawks against the blue sky. Over 200 Vaux’s Swifts were also migrating through, as well as over 300 Band-tailed Pigeons. That day, we saw a total of 48 species at that hawk lookout spot.
IRJE #1 – Pretties by Scott Westerfeld – 2005
The book Pretties by Scott Westerfeld is the second book in the Uglies book series, which comprises of four books, Uglies, Pretties, Specials, and Extras. In this series, at age 16, you are turned from an ugly into a pretty with plastic surgery. After being turned into a pretty, late because she ran away to the New Smoke in the first book, Tally finds it hard to remember her old life back in Ugly Ville. Every pretty has this problem. During chapters 8 and 9, Tally and her friend find a note that was written to herself from her old ugly self, and two small white pills with it. She reads it to herself, and one section of the letter says this:
But anyways, here’s what I’m trying to tell you: They did something to your brain – our brain – and that’s why this letter may seem kind of weird to you. We (that’s “we” as in us out in the New Smoke, not “we” as in you and me) don’t know exactly how it works, but we’re pretty sure that something happens to everyone who has the operation. When they make you pretty, they also add these lesions (tiny scars, sort of) to your brain. It makes you different, and not in a good way. Look in the mirror, Tally. If you’re pretty, you’ve got them. (p. 84)
Of course, Tally does not remember writing this letter to herself, but they realise that they were right about the operation. As she continues to read, they discover that there is a cure, and taking the pills that were with the letter will fix her brain. I have only read that far so far, so I don’t know if she will take them. I thought this quotation was important in the book because it proves that the operation to make people pretty, messes with your brain and makes you forget your childhood life. It stood out to me because Tally couldn’t remember that she wrote that letter, and discovers she was right all along.
PR to ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ and WWI Readings
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque was published in 1929. The narrator of the story, Paul Bäumer, is a soldier for the German Army in WWI and it follows what life was like for the Germans during WWI. I enjoyed reading this book because I found it interesting and the way it was written kept me engaged. I had never read a war book where it’s written in the perspective of a solider, so it was a new experience for me. I found parts of it a bit disturbing or sad, but I liked that they narrator told the story how it really was, instead of making it sound great, like some other books do.
In the excerpts from Herbert, Chevailler, Barthas, and West from the WWI Readings, I found it harder to follow and understand compared to All Quiet on the Western Front. I found part 1 a more challenging read than part 2. Possibly their writing styles and the fact that it jumped back and forth between different times, but I couldn’t really wrap my head around it. Part 2 however, was easier for me to follow, which helped me understand much better. Especially the excerpts from Barthas. I liked the way he wrote his perspective.
Overall, I preferred the book, All Quiet on the Western Front, to the WWI readings because it was an interesting story that I could understand.
PW#1 – South Island Powwow
Monday was National Truth and Reconciliation Day, also known as Orange Shirt Day. After doing some migratory birding in the morning, my mum and I went to the South Island Powwow that afternoon downtown. A powwow is a social gathering with dances held by the First Nations to honour their culture and to remember the children who attended residential schools. I had never been to a powwow before, so it was a pretty cool experience. There were Indigenous Peoples of all ages dancing in a circle together to the beat of the drums. Each one of their outfits seemed to tell a story. Around the field there were small shops set up in tents which we visited, and many food trucks with very long lines. It was truly amazing to see so many people in orange shirts, supporting this holiday, and taking the time to attend and learn more about it.
My Introduction – Amelia
Hello, my name is Amelia. I am 14 years old and have been going to Brookes since grade 6. I was born here in Victoria, BC but my family was all born in England, UK. Despite being an only child, I have a very large family in England where I travel to often, and as you may have noticed, I have a bit of a British accent. I love the outdoors, hiking, and especially birding, which is mine – and my parents’ – biggest passion. I have seen almost 1,200 different species of birds in the world. I love travelling the world to see new birds and experience new things. I enjoy being active and playing sports. I’m looking forward to joining the school track and field team in the summer, and I am currently participating in the school’s cross-country team. Outside of school, I enjoy participating in martial arts, and playing my violin.