What A Scare!

In Grade Nine, I was in the IB Program at Monarch Park Collegiate Institute. On top of the academic perks, we were also going on a field trip in November to these woods for three nights of camping. On the bus ride there, our bus broke down several times, and our supervisors (the teachers) were making up scary stories to give us "Niners" a real spook, creating stories about a little girl named Sarah that drowned in the lake ten years ago and that she would come back every November to haunt the kids. Apparently, since this year marked fifty years since her death, she was going to capture and drown five of us lucky students. A while later, we arrive at the camp, get assigned to our cabins, five per room, and go to sleep. The next morning, everyone looked tired, and complained that they had heard knocking on their door the entire night. When they had stood up to investigate, no one was seen at the door. After doing the days planned activities, we each moved to our cabins, when we realized that each cabin was missing a person!

Altogether, all the cabinets were missing a total of five people. Since they were all friends, we had a feeling that they were simply hanging out somewhere in the late night hours. Not worrying any further, we decided to hit the hay and went to sleep. When they did not show up the next morning, some of the students started getting really scared. Everything continued as normal.

The same day, two of the camp counsellors went to investigate the possible lost location of the kids, so they climbed up this hill, shaped like a cave and as soon as they disappeared out of sight, we heard a terrifying scream... and that was the last we saw of two of our camp counsellors. That same night, with all of us being terrified, our teachers pretended that nothing was wrong and told us to all go to sleep. In the middle of the night, we awoke, to a very hard knock on our door. As weird as this may seem, all knocks, on each cabin, were simultaneous. As we each opened our doors (the times varied depending on how sleepy the members of each cabin were), we were greeted by our lost cabin member!

But this time, it was not the happy camper that we knew. This was a kid covered in blood, mud and torn clothes. He told us that he was here to take us to Sarah, the ghost of the girl that drowned in the river. As they said this, every member in the cabin started freaking out, screaming and crying. What really terrified us even more, was that the two camp counsellors came by, dressed in the same manner, and told us to use our indoor voices and to follow our cabin mates. At this point, we were all going insane and one kid almost had a heart attack!

Out of nowhere, the "dead" kids and counsellors exploded into an endless fit of humour. At first we were a bit puzzled, but we then realized that it was a trick played on every class that first decides to come to the camp. And this is why you should not believe in scary stories!

The Life of my BlackBerry - Day 1

It is approximately 7 A.M. and today Endi finally unboxed me! The fresh air really does a piece of beauty like me some good. Being in that stuffy box for so long really does mess up your integrated circuits. As soon as Endi opened me, I knew it was love at first sight. I found it quite amusing though at the fact that his sister stared in jealousy from the corner of her eyes! Regardless of his sister's evil-eye, Endi put me in his pocket and off to school we went. He was too excited to even remember eating breakfast.

With every passing minute in the school, I felt harassed because every few minutes I was being fondled by his endless amount of friends. It really did feel that this harass went on forever. Exchanging of phone numbers, BlackBerry Messenger PINs and the constant texting is quite a demanding job, but good thing I am built to handle that sort of resource-intensive work! I think I was Endi's first smartphone because he would look at me during equal intervals of about two minutes. With all the buzz surrounding my release, I was sort of expecting the attention so it wasn't anything new. What really amazed me was how much Endi texted, I mean... the guy is a machine! He easily sent over 500 messages within twelve hours of opening me! That's abnormal.

 Now it is getting close to night time, so he's going to sleep. He already figured out how to put an alarm on me and everything! All I know, is that I cannot wait until tomorrow because Endi really knows how to use a phone!

September 8, 2010 - Writer's Craft Opening Activity - Part B

One of the most successful writers of our times, Endi Beqiri has motivated our youth to try and make something with their lives. Born in Europe and raised in Canada, his various views on almost everything allow him to write books that can relate to many people of various cultures all at once. It could be said that this is the main cause of his massive success. With inspirational works such as “Between the Lockers”, which is a book of two teenagers of conflicting nationalities that fall in love with one another but are judged by their peers and… I will not ruin the ending for you here. “Between the Lockers” is no wonder that he is one of the most credited writers of our time. By the age of 18, Mr. Beqiri has been able to accumulate prestigious awards such as the “National Book Award” and the Nobel Prize, being the first man to ever do that. We asked him about his future books and all he had to say was:


“I myself am not sure of what I am going to write about next. All I know is that it will be something very meaningful to me.”

Mr. Beqiri will be going on a trip around the world, hoping to gain inspiration for his future books. Judging by his past work, this trip will be “mind-blowing” and it will probably bring a new perspective to novel-writing altogether. Until then, we will just have to wait until we obtain further updates from the mouth of the master-mind himself.

September 8, 2010 - Writer's Craft Opening Activity - Part A

My name is Michael Andrews. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina and I own a small antique photograph store. One day, as I was cleaning out the supply depot, I stumbled upon an old photograph album. As I opened the first few pages, I was immediately drawn to learn more about the fascinating past. There were pictures of little children playing on the beach, families going out for dinners, family pictures, pictures of the city life, and many more. Now this album was dated back to the early 19th century. As I started looking more thoroughly into more and more recent albums, I started realizing that that people in the past seemed to be happier with the simpler things in life. After the Second World War, I saw that the family portraits were getting bigger, the pictures were becoming clearer and more colourful ( thanks to coloring technology), but the people were not getting any happier. It seemed that as technology improved, people continued to work hard to keep up with it, and that resulted in them losing their family values, and focusing more Then, when I thought of the present, I realized how our society was becoming corrupt and how no one was focused on the family values anymore. Everything, from automobiles and houses, to people, is judged by the appearance and how expensive/wealthy they are. Parents are leaving their children so they can work nine to five to supply the needs of their children. They must have the newest phone, the newest shoes, the newest clothes, the newest everything! No one cares to look for something creative, to show their distinct personality, everyone is trying to look the same so they can fit in. In the past though, there was no “cool crew”. Everyone hung out with whoever they thought they were compatible. Through the years though, people have become more focused on hanging with people in their own category, in relation to wealth, which results in these small groups of kids who only hang with one another. As I look up from the album, I went around my city and tried to see if everything I had imagined was truly happening. I went to an Elementary School and I saw all the rich little boys and girls, with blonde hair, and snow-white skin, sitting together on the slide. As a brunette girl approached, and from her clothing, it was clear to tell that she was not as rich as the other blonde kids, they pointed at her clothing, and went into a state of hysteria in laughter. The little girl, who then looked down on her clothes, looked at the blonde girls’ clothing, and ran away with tears in her eyes. After seeing this, I knew I did not have to go any further, because if kids have this idea of class distinction engraved so hard in their head by this age, there was no point in continuing my search. I walk back into my store, in disgust at how our society has become so judgemental, and continue fixing up the albums, hoping that things might become better with time.