GISHWHES: Day One

One of the rules of GISHWHES is that you can't post any of your pictures on social media until after the event is over, so that means I can't share our items thus far in this blog post.  Never fret, though; in six days I'll be posting them to my heart's content.  Our team meeting was today at lunch, and we have a pretty good tentative plan of who is doing what.  Everybody was really enthusiastic, and I'm pretty optimistic that we'll be able to get a bunch of items over the next few days.  My contributions so far are completing task 37 (A screen cap of a chat thread on Misha Collins' IMDB page. The thread must be started by a user with your team's name and must pose an unusual question about Misha's personal life, such as, "Is it true that Misha Collins eats nothing but the hearts of human babies?" Or "Why doesn't Misha have any fingers?").  It was actually more difficult than expected; on IMDB you can't just pick a username; it's automatically your email address.  So I had to make a new email, and I had to confirm the account by getting a texted pin, although I don't own a cell phone so I had to find one to borrow.  This was all at seven this morning while I was supposed to be getting ready for school, so I'm pretty proud that I managed to get it done all through trial and error.  In the morning I also sent a message to a friend of mine who's involved with a lot of music related things to see if he could help us with item 126 (Get an orchestra in a symphony hall with at least 25 instruments to play "Carry On My Wayward Son").  It most likely won't work out, but I promised him cookies and Halloween candy, so we'll see.  After school I also wrote a letter to the local newspaper in an attempt to fulfill task 13 (An op-ed piece published in a local paper about how "petty, vindictive birds are stealing from the elderly!"), and Adrian submitted it for me.  It's actually fairly strongly written and I managed to make it seem hardly absurd at all, so I have my fingers crossed that it'll get published.  Patrick, Jessica, Sarah, and Aaron all completed tasks as well:  task 54 (Elmo Gone Wrong. What would a Tickle-Me-Elmo look like if it had a serious crystal meth problem?), task 51 (How long was Miss Jean Louis's "kale binge"? One might find the answer on one of our social media platforms), task 98 (A dog taking a human for a walk. Human must be on all fours and have a collar around their neck and the dog must have the leash in his mouth), and task 22 (We've all heard of a "flea circus". What do "flea strip clubs" look like?) respectively.  I was very busy tonight studying for my physics exam and chemistry test that are both tomorrow, so I hope that later this week I'll be able to get more things done for GISHWHES.  A personal goal of mine is task 140 (A stop-motion film depicting the two by two loading of Noah's arc and the ensuing flood), but there are so many other cool options that I'm dying to do!

And another thing...

Woah, two posts in one day?!  Slow down, hotshot.  I considered leaving this until tomorrow, but it's already a few days old, and tomorrow I'll likely be reporting on day one of GISHWHES.  I had my final tryout for provincial ringette on Saturday, and I made the team!  I also took about two whole minutes to get the ring in the net during a shooting competition, but that's beside the point.  In any case, I've managed to make the first hurdle, and I can't wait to meet the next few challenges that I'll face in the coming weeks and over the coming season.  Our first provincial outing will likely be the Miramichi tournament late next month, although I will have a house league tournament prior to that.  Speaking of house, teams have also been picked in that division.  My team is fair; not stacked or anything, but solid enough and hopefully it'll be a good year.  I'll be playing center (joy of joys), which is going to be an immense challenge due to my firm status as a member of the endurance-impaired.  Skating from one end of the ice to the next and back again for an entire shift has never really been my forte, especially when you throw scoring, checking, and thinking into the mix.  The higher you set the bar, the more you get to grow, so I guess that'll be my mantra this season while I'm dying of asphyxia.

It's not easy being in charge

There's only approximately five hours remaining until the start of GISHWHES, and might I say I can't wait.  Nonetheless, it's been a lot of work so far for something that hasn't even begun, especially since we aren't the event's organizers; as the de facto team leader, I've found that organizing a group can be just as daunting a task as organizing an event itself.  I'm not exactly sure how all the problems and speed bumps became my responsibility, but I guess if you want an idea to come to fruition, you've got the put the effort in yourself.  First of all, getting a team together wasn't as easy a task as it first appeared.  Fifteen kids in the class, fifteen spots on the team seemed like mathematics at its most basic, but of course things weren't that easy.  When I asked the class who wanted to join the team, everyone said yes except for Kathleen, and everyone was supposed to register over the long weekend a few weeks ago.  By the Monday, only three people had registered:  Jessica, Adrian, and myself.  In addition, Ferdie decided he didn't want to participate after all, although Kathleen decided she did want to be involved so we still had a net membership of fourteen.  Little by little I managed to goad more people into remembering to register (likely annoying everyone in the process), and Mr. Broderick agreed to both be our teacher supervisor, and also register for our team to fill the remaining position.  However, things still weren't kosher.  A few days later Sue and Sarah followed Ferdie's lead in deciding that GISHWHES wasn't the thing for them, and our team was once again short, this time by two members (and to make matters worse, only six of us were registered by this point).  So with the help of Jessica I turned to the grade 12 class for help, and Aaron and my brother Michael immediately volunteered.  I was hesitant to allow my brother to join the team, as it felt like he just wanted to ride along for some easy CAS instead of actually participating, but I was pressured into letting him join lest looking like a complete jerk.  Sarah (a different one this time) was also interested, so I told her to put her name down and we could probably find her a spot.  Afterwards I went to talk to Mr. Broderick, who hadn't yet registered, and told him that he didn't have to, since we found another student (Sarah) to take the final position.  By the next day we had in theory a full team of fifteen and eleven people registered, so all the chaos seemed to be over.  As you can probably guess, it wasn't.  Michael bailed, even after he had assured me he'd be committed, and our team was once again left one member short.  I went back to the grade twelve class since there seemed to have been quite a bit of interest the first time and I believed I'd be able to find someone who wanted to participate.  I was right on both counts:  the class was full of people who wanted to be a part of GISHWHES.  So much so that they had decided to make their own team.  If Michael hadn't hogged that spot I would have gotten one of them on our team the first time I was there, but I'm not bitter.  Not at all.  Anyway, we went back to Mr. Broderick and asked him sheepishly if he would in fact register (it was especially awkward since we had originally told him not to register, then we told him to, then we told him not to, and here we were telling him to again), but he agreed, and over the course of the next few days our final team members registered and our team was full, just a mere 48 hours shy of the registration deadline.  Since then things have gone a bit smoother, although I've had to organize a meeting for tomorrow and talk to teachers to make sure the date was clear of other IB activities (our IB coordinator was planning a working lunch), and I've had to field everyone's questions, comments, and concerns, although I don't mind doing that at all.  Anything that fosters excitement for GISHWHES is fine by me, and hopefully everyone will be motivated over the event and I won't have to poke and prod people to participate.  I'm so excited for the hunt, and I hope everyone else is too!

Happy new yearbook

When I entered high school last year, I quickly became quite disillusioned about the yearbook committee.  Yearbook was one of my favourite extracurriculars throughout junior high, and for good reason.  It was a giant part of the school -- pretty much every student bought one.  The yearbook was fun and amazing and made by the students, creative and memorable and representative of our student identity.  After three years of such an amazing system, I wasn't prepared for the underwhelming flatness of our high school yearbook.  Its only theme is red and white -- our school colours, and every page has pretty much a cookie cutter layout.  A few of my friends and I went to the information meeting for the committee last year, and we were essentially told that the yearbook was not a place for creative thought.  If you're on the committee, you take the pictures you're told to take and you stick them in the place you're told to put them.  That's it, that's all.  We decided to not join the committee after that; it was obviously not the thing for us, but those weren't the only quibbles we had with the yearbook.  You see, unlike with our previous experiences, the yearbook covers up until the very end of the year, saturated heavily with end of year activities such as prom and graduation.  This, while fine in itself, has one unfortunate implication:  you don't get to sign yearbooks.  Throughout junior high, this was the source of so much excitement for students.  Flipping through the crisp new yearbooks when they arrive in June, finding the pictures of yourself and your friends, and most importantly, writing messages in the yearbooks of everyone you know.  That's where the appeal of a yearbook lies, through my experience.  Those are the memories: your and your friends' haphazard scrawls, not just the pictures and text on glossy paper (although those are important too).  As I said, in Intermediate the majority of students bought their yearbook.  Here, in high school, where yearbooks should really matter, only about a hundred are sold out of a student population of 1100.  Yes, the yearbook might miss out on pictures of prom and names of award winners, but those people have their own pictures and their own certificates and plaques to remember these events.  But signing yearbooks; those memories are totally unique.  This is a pretty long preamble for something in which very little has happened as of yet.  In any case, this year the previous yearbook coordinator retired, and no teacher has been willing to fill the position.  Jessica and I saw this as our chance.  We emailed the principal our proposal outlining our plan to create a new yearbook committee and begin a whole new epoch in our school's yearbook history.  The book would be made by the students, for the students, fueled by student input and student creativity.  The principal approved our proposal, except for one thing.  For the past forty years the yearbook has been released in the September of the following year, not in June when they can be signed, and to change that we'd have to get proof that this is what the students want; she is trepidatious in believing that swapping prom and awards pages for the ability to sign yearbooks is a fair trade.  We'll have to get the student body to vote, but I sincerely hope that we'll be able to make this work.  Signing yearbooks are so quintessential; I can't imagine graduating from high school without it.  But I'm getting away from the CAS activity at hand.  Long story short, Jess and I are attempting to conquer the organizational commitment so many teachers and staff have shied away from:  running the school yearbook.  With the help of our trusty teacher supervisor Mr. Toms and a committee of students that we have yet to interview, we shall succeed in making the school yearbook a product heralded from every corner of our school, something purchased, treasured, and signed by every student, and with input from the same.  We shall... stay after school tomorrow to take pictures of the field hockey championship, since nobody has taken any pictures of any school sports or activities throughout any of September or October.  Running the yearbook will be a daunting, time-consuming task, but I know we can do it!

Ringette adventures: continued

On Saturday I had my second provincial ringette tryout, and things are getting better already.  Endurance has never been my strong suit -- I've always been more of a strategist going in for quick spurts than someone who's able to keep at top pace for an extending period of time -- but this season is already proving to be the first step in changing that.  I am proud to announce that I experienced no lightheadness or dizziness, and I was no more exhausted than everyone else as the practice wore on.  Although I suppose that isn't saying much; it was another tough practice, and everyone was breathless by its end.  Still, compared to how horribly out of shape I was last week, I feel good about my progress thus far.  I did end up running some hills after my last post, although I only did one loop, so I'll try to do two next time and so on to work my stamina up.  I also had my first house league practice last week, which wasn't a big exertion compared to provincial tryouts, but every little bit of ice time helps.  I'm still unsure about whether or not I'm going to make the team; there were quite a few older, first-year-university girls at this tryout that hadn't been at the first one.  I wouldn't say I'm the poorest player there; there are at least two girls who I would say I'd rank above, and there's another few people with whom I'd probably be in the same skill bracket, but even if I do make the team, it'll be a challenge to keep up.  I'm kind of used to being one of the best, so that's a bit of hubris I'm going to have to get over if I want to improve and meet the challenge this season will pose.

GISHWHES, you say?

Around this time last year I saw a girl online talking about a worldwide scavenger hunt in which she was participating, and while at the time it piqued my interest, I never really looked into it.  I saw some more people talking about it this year, and I didn't make the mistake of ignoring it twice.  It's called GISHWHES, which stands for the quirky, a propos name "the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen".  The more I read about it the more enamoured I grew with the idea; as a team of fifteen, one scavenges items off a giant list, a feat that involves such things as doing good deeds dressed as superheroes, making a portrait of Shakira out of coffee beans, lifting a fully decorated Christmas tree into the air with balloons, and recording all of these creative and wonderful feats via video or photography.  Last year GISHWHES even achieved Guinness World Record fame as the world's largest scavenger hunt!  Everything I read pointed to one conclusion:  GISHWHES would be the ultimate CAS project for Creativity.  And, coincidentally, a fifteen person per team requirement is perfect if one's IB class totals fifteen people.  It didn't take much to sell everyone on the idea; well, except Kathleen, but I think even she is coming around.  We even managed to convince our history teacher, Mr. Broderick, to be our supervisor and help us out.  Anyway, when I got home from school today I registered and payed the fee, which is partially to pay for the grand prize (an amazing trip to Scotland that we have no illusions of in any universe actually winning) and partially goes to charitable organizations, which is a nice touch.  Everyone else is supposedly registering before Monday, which I hope they will, although the registration deadline isn't until next Saturday so there is still a bit of leeway.  I am just so excited for this project; it'll be tough, especially for someone lacking artistic ability such as myself, but I have a feeling that it'll be a truly amazing experience.

Confessions of a seriously out of shape teenager

I had my first provincial try-out for ringette out in Montague yesterday.  The second I stepped onto the ice I felt great; it's hard to believe how rejuvenating the taste of cold rink air is, the feel of gliding across ice.  So for the first few minutes before practice started, I was just skating around in circles, shooting some rings in the net, and lost in the nostalgia of how much I'd missed this over the summer.  Well, those happy-go-lucky feelings don't last for long when one hasn't done any real physical activity since soccer season ended and everyone else is apparently in the midst of training for half-marathons, playing field hockey for their school teams, and practicing for national soccer; listening to the new MatchBox 20 CD, reading HG Wells's The Time Machine in French and studying for chemistry tests don't really keep a young athlete in peak physical condition.  Suffice to say, once the real practice started I felt like I was dying on the ice.  After around twenty minutes my head started doing that thing where the edges of my vision go black, I get dizzy, and all voices sound far-away and tinny.  Thankfully, I didn't end up fainting, and after that things got marginally better.  Despite my extreme out-of-shapeness, I did manage to impress the coach with some good dekes and being one of the fastest to skate around the ice after a drill, even though I did miss some very easy passes and it likely looked like I was about to pass out for the majority of the time.  There wasn't too many people there, which was reassuring, but it is Thanksgiving weekend, and players are allowed to miss one try-out and still be eligible for the team.  I know there were quite a few girls who weren't able to make it, so it's still hard for me to gauge my chances.  It'll be tough; this year I'm playing in the Belle division, and while all other age categories are composed of only two years, Belle is three, and making a team whilst competing against first-year university students will definitely be an uphill challenge.  Speaking of uphill, the next try-out is on the 13th, and I'm going to try to jog some hills before that to get in a bit better shape and hopefully prevent an ill-timed collapse.

So it begins...

I wrote my two articles for the school paper today!  By some rarity all I had for homework was a sole math problem, so I had lots of time to work on the two 300-word pieces.  I'm glad I had this luxury of time, because they took so much longer than I'd expected.  One was on the subject of teen books to be released in the near future, and it was considerably time consuming to research, since writing solely on the books I knew are coming out soon would probably give the article an extreme slant towards the realms of dystopian fiction and fantasy (with just a dash of pop physics).  The research was actually quite a plus, all things considered, as I've found quite a few books that I hadn't heard of prior to this point that seem right up my alley.  Still, it was a massive time sink for a measly 300 words (well, 303 to be precise), especially since I had already written the first half of the article last night.  The other was on the fall lineup of comedy shows, with short reviews on the premieres of How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory, and then a few lines on other upcoming sitcom dates.  To review those of course necessitated rewatching the episodes, and then finding upcoming shows required still more research, as again I didn't want to have the shows mentioned completely slanted towards the ones I prefer.  Suffice to say, writing a total of 602 words (as the TV article ended up totaling 299) consumed pretty much my entire evening.  Nevertheless, it did feel rather satisfying to complete the small projects, and hopefully with a bit more practice and proficiency these articles will start to come more naturally.