No English class tomorrow!

Hi English 11, I will really try to get your in-class essays marked by Thursday. Make sure you read Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and pay attention to foreshadowing, symbols and irony. If you are not sure what any of those are (you need to listen in class!), you can look them up. You can even find sites that explore "The Lottery and Irony", but if you look on those sites, you still need to read the story and understand how the irony works. You can do this reading and thinking during PLT which is a very sensible use of your time!

English 11 update

Make sure you are familiar with the First Peoples' Principles of Learning (easily googled) and the short story, "Charlie", by Lee Maracle. You want to be sure you understand both and can write confidently about them. I am looking forward to reading your paragraphs ending with the phrase "It isn't fair! It isn't right!" Mrs. Smith screamed.

Our First Friday

Here are your journal topics for our first Friday of this brand new school year! Drama 8: What should Ms. Kosar know about you? You can tell me about whether you have ever done Drama before, about what you expect from the class, about whether or not you have stage fright. If you have done Drama before, tell me about what you did (it might be in your elementary school, or at an extracurricular activity or even just in your backyard!). Do you do any other sort of performing? (sports, music, dance, something else) Do you like to perform? Drama 9: Our first project is called "heritage drama". This sort of project focuses on our diverse heritages. If we are not a member of a First Nation of Canada, then our families have immigrated here from somewhere else (it might have been long ago, or you might have come to Canada yourself). My family came from Ukraine -- my grandfather took a ship and then a train from Kiev to Saskatchewan and settled in a place called Tiny with his wife and four children. Find out when your family came and where they came from. How did they get here? Will their immigration to Canada make a dramatic story? If you have indigenous heritage, was your nation located here in BC? I encourage you to share a story from your family history, since you have been on this land since time immemorial. Senior Drama: We are going to develop an interactive performance for Hallowe'en. In our opening scenes which you performed yesterday, there were some interesting scenes that could be the source of some starting off points for our presentation. At the end of one of the scenes, an actor said, "I am the coolest kid in the school". How could that line form the end of a scary scene? Describe your idea in at least five sentences. I will give you ten minutes in class to write your journals and then I will collect your journals on Tuesday of next week. Please try to keep up with the journals. English 11: Make sure you familiarize yourself with the First People's Principles of Learning (you can look them up online). The story we just read, "Charlie" by Lee Maracle, really resonanates with the ideas that are embedded in these learning principles. Think of how Charlie's life would have been different if his school had honoured these principles of learning. Think of how Charlie's dad might have used these principles if Charlie had been able to stay home.

Back in the saddle

Great to be back at school. I am always glad after the first day because I feel like we have passed the hardest part of the year -- having to get up early for the first time in a long time to get ready for school and then getting through the anxiety of meeting new people and figuring out where everything is and imagining what the rest of the semester is going to be like. I feel like we had a good start and I was happy to see everyone back in the theatre and learn most of your names and discuss the forthcoming year. Now that we've had our first day, I feel confident that it will be a good school year and that we'll all learn new things and have good experiences and do our best. English students: Please read "Charlie" from A Corner in Each Life. It is on page 68. Make sure you know the meaning of the following words: stoic, machinations, pedagogues, Seagram's, furtive, listless, Wendigo. Pay attention to how the author uses imagery, especially with regard to the natural world.

A Walk Through Woodhaven Swamp

If you liked my video of Rocky Point, you'll love "A Walk Through Woodhaven Swamp". I am really improving with the camera. Woodhaven Swamp is in Belcarra Regional Park and it is a lovely spot -- very quiet and peaceful. One of the encouraging things about it is that it was completely logged about 100 years ago. Many of the stumps show evidence of logging -- if you have ever heard of how loggers use springboards, you will see evidence of the notches they made for the springboards all over Woodhaven Swamp. Many of the stumps are nursemaids for new trees and it is a very natural feeling forest. Nature is very resilient if we make room for her. Here is the link: https://youtu.be/SnlB60IsS6c

Rocky Point at the End of Summer

Here is a link to a video I made of the scene at Rocky Point this morning -- https://youtu.be/zskri57xlMA. I am practicing using the camera and I know the video is a bit shaky, but I hope that practice makes perfect. I had a nice conversation with a Portugese woman about the seals and the jobs she had and what it is like in Portugal. I have heard that random conversations are good for community building. Be open to listening to people and being friendly, especially now that school is about to start!

The Following

 Here is the story I wrote based on the photographs.  Enjoy!  A week from now, we will be living through our last day before the school year.  It is sad to say goodbye to these long summer days with all the unstructured time, but we would also be sad if we had nothing to do in our lives!  So let's try to enjoy whatever life brings us -- work and play!

The Following

I knew they were following me.  They were in a white car and I couldn’t see their faces.  Not clearly, because there was a bit of rain on the windshield, just enough to make it hard to see.  They didn’t even try to hide or to seem like they were on a road trip or a Sunday drive.  They parked right behind me!  I didn’t know whether to get out of the car or not.  I just sat there gripping the steering wheel, wondering what the hell to do.  Part of me wanted to confront them.  Just throw open the door and walk over and say, “what the HELL are you doing?”

“I can SEE you.  Don’t think I don’t KNOW what you’re doing.”

But I was scared, too, you know?  They were so obvious about it.  It was clear to me that they weren’t afraid of being discovered.  Not at all.  They felt like they had a right to stalk me.  And when people think they have rights, they’re dangerous.

They didn’t get out of their car.  They didn’t saunter over and lean up on the hood of my car and do that circle gesture that means “roll down your window”.  While I sat there, gripping the wheel, they just sat there, too.  Probably talking about how the numbers on my back licence plate are peeling away or how few people were in the park, scared away by a few rain drops.  

They didn’t drive away either.  I had pulled up and parked and ten seconds later, there they were, pulling in and parking, too.  The NERVE.  It made me so angry that they didn’t even feel like they had to disguise themselves or pretend that they were in the neighbourhood to visit a sick friend.

I felt the bile rising in my throat and I looked at my hands on the steering wheel and they were shaking.  My face was wet with perspiration.  I wanted to cry.  I did.  But I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

I took the keys out of the ignition and grabbed my backpack.  Water, ID, a book, sunglasses, in the case of a change in the weather.  Not likely.   I put the keyring around my finger.  I had read in some trashy mystery novel or seen in some trashy police procedural tv show, that you could defend yourself with your keys.  You put the keyring around your finger and made sure all the keys were sticking out and when they grabbed you, you would punch them hard in the face and the keys would gouge their eyes out.  I couldn’t imagine myself doing that, but I would have to.  I’d had some fights.  When I was a kid, of course, not recently.  My best friend and I had had a fight in the street.  Kicking and punching and I finished it off by hitting her with a rock.  I wasn’t carrying the rock.  It wasn’t a plan.  The rock was just there.

I couldn’t get control of my breath.  I was panting and I wasn’t even going anywhere yet.  I got out of the car and looked around, very casual, like I was just going for a walk in the rain in the park.  Nothing strange about that, right?  Lots of people say that in their personal profiles on line.  They like to walk in the rain.  It’s supposed to be romantic.  It never mentions an umbrella.  An umbrella isn’t romantic, I guess.

I took the path through the trees.  It wasn’t raining hard, but the ground under the trees was dry anyway, because the trees protected the path.  The wind and the raindrops made little sounds in the branches, or maybe it was animals.  Not big threatening animals, of course, although I saw a bobcat once.  They aren’t as big as you would think.  But it’s a city park.  They would kill any large animal if it tried to live there.

I didn’t want to look behind me, but I knew that they were following.  I heard their voices talking and one of them laughed.  LAUGHED?  Like it was nothing.  Following me to the park and scaring me out of my wits.  But I still had my wits because I had my backpack and my keys sticking out between my fingers.  They wouldn’t get me without a fight. 

My lips were so dry, but I didn’t want to stop to have a sip of water.  I didn’t want them to catch up to me.  I had no idea what they would do, but even with my keys I was vulnerable.  There were two of them and only one of me.  I looked around to see if there was somewhere I could stop.  Somewhere safe, just so I could have a goddam sip of water.  Was that too much to ask?  Just a small sip of water, when my lips were so dry?  It wasn’t fair that I couldn’t even have that.  But then, life’s not fair, is it?  That’s what they say.  Young people die of horrible diseases and ugly old people live on and on.  Some of them don’t even know where they are.  Is that any life for someone to have?  I’m not judging, just asking.

The path through the trees turned into a stone walkway.  The stone walkway was cracked all over.  Step on a crack – break your mother’s back.  But my mother died, so it doesn’t matter anymore whether her back is broken or not.  She didn’t die of a broken back, of course.  I don’t think you die of that, do you?  Maybe she died of a broken heart.

I didn’t need to worry about stepping on cracks anyway, because the path was broken into large slabs and there was even a little stone bridge over a non-existent creek.  Maybe when it isn’t a drought, the creek has water flowing through it, but not this year.  The entire earth is burning up, it seems.  That’s thanks to us, of course.  We’re a scourge.  You know who I mean.  You know it’s true.

I stepped onto the little bridge and acted like I was looking around the park, just taking a nice scan of the view.  I took a deep breath.  What I wanted was to open my backpack and get my water, but I didn’t do that.  I wanted to look as if I was enjoying the day, enjoying being on the little bridge and the view from the bridge.  Not that the little bridge gave you a better view than the stone path.  It wasn’t even a foot high.  But that was my act.  I even forced myself to smile, as if I felt free and relaxed.

I didn’t see them.  I admit that scared me considerably.  I know they were there.  Where were they?  Were they on to me?  Were they hiding in the trees?  I listened with every fibre of my body.  Even my hair was listening.  I only heard the little sounds in the branches, but I realized that those sounds were probably not small animals.  It was them.  They had climbed into the trees, I suppose.  They could do that.  They could do anything.

I decided then, to open my backpack and take out my water and drink it.  Drink it all down.  Feel the cool water going down my throat.  I was at the high point of the bridge.  I could see most of the park.  The trees, the sculptures, some people far away in the playground with their children.  It was probably their children.  You wouldn’t take a strange child to the park.  That would not be acceptable behavior, would it?

I took out the water and unscrewed the cap.  I was about to drink, but the water smelled strange.  Like disinfectant.  Not like fresh water from a creek flowing through the park when there was no drought.  I poured the water in the stream bed, but it didn’t flow.  It made the rocks shiny but that wouldn’t last.  I know that.  The water will evaporate into the air.  Perhaps later, when the drought is over, it will fall as rain.

I heard a distant laugh.  Them.  Ahead of me there was a cave.  The entrance to the cave was a reversed triangle.  Don’t ask me to describe it in more detail.  Close your eyes and picture a reverse triangle.  Made of stone.  That is what I saw.

I knew I was doomed.  I had poured out my water.  It had probably been fine.  It was probably my imagination that it smelled wrong.  I have been told I have a vivid imagination.  It wasn’t said as a compliment. 

I stepped into the cave.  It was dark in the cave and I couldn’t hear the laughter or the sound of the wind or the raindrops in the branches.  I sat down on the floor in the cave.  It was only then I realized that I was still gripping my keys.  I relaxed my grip, but my fingers remained in the clenched shape and the imprint of the keys remained on my skin.  I touched my face and it was hot.  It felt like I might have a fever.

I decided I would stay in the cave.  It was cool there and there was only one entrance and I could watch it.  Perhaps I could even see a shadow before they tried to come in.  I had my backpack.  I could throw it at them.  I could scream.  My scream would echo in the cave.  I took a deep breath.  I was ready to stay as long as I needed to.  They wouldn’t want to stay in the trees for very long. They wouldn’t stay in the park after dark.  I was very thirsty.  I didn’t feel well at all.

I put my face against the cool rock in the cave and that made me feel better.  Rock is very old.  Perhaps the oldest thing on earth.  I wondered where this rock had come from and how it had formed and I asked myself, “why is rock always so cool?”  I was thinking about that and thinking about how rock forms in sedimentary layers.   It must be peaceful to build up like that over eons of time.

I heard a small noise.  Not inside the cave.  Outside.  It couldn’t be them.  They would make a loud noise.  I listened again with every cell in my body.  Every part of me was listening and still, even my heart.  A small shadow flickered across the cave wall.  I looked up.  There was a small hole opening to the sky.  I focused on the hole.  My life depended on that hole opening to the sky.  I almost felt my spirit leaving my body, leaving the cave through the hole.  Like a small tendril of smoke.

Then something filled the hole.  It was a face.