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Alice's Diary

This is a diary created by me, Alice. I was 14 and in my second year at high school (Grade 9) when I started this. I am now, just, in Grade 11.

You can e-mail me directly if you want to ask any questions?

The Gelato Shop

One thing I cannot recall about Britain is the existence of gelato. Maybe it was never there or maybe I never noticed it but over the course of this summer I have steadily been noticing more and more gelato shops.

I first noticed the reoccurrence of the gelato whilst I was on Granville Island with some friends. I suggested a gelato shop that I knew by the water and another friend said that she preferred the one down the street from it. When we were all huddled around the showcase of flavours no one could really say what differentiates gelato from regular ice cream, apart from the fact that it is from Italy and that it inexplicably has less calories.

A few day’s later two friends and I were dining in an Italian restaurant on Robson Street downtown. When the cheque came the waiter suggested that we go Mondo Gelato a block away from the restaurant and also recommended the coconut flavour. We were all impressed that a place would serve flavours other than the obligatory chocolate, vanilla and strawberry, so we decided to check it out.

I often go shopping on Robson Street but I had never noticed Mondo Gelato before. However when we arrived there was a line up outside the door and this was at 10:00pm. I soon realized why the place was so popular it had three separate showcases of flavours and they gave out free samples. My friend chose a nectarine flavour, whilst I went for the ferrero rocher flavour. Overall I was amazed at the sudden increase in gelato popularity. I have a feeling that gelato is making a wave in Vancouver but is not widely accepted in other parts of Canada, I find it hard to believe that there would be a large franchise of gelato shops sweeping its way through Saskatchewan and the other interior provinces. If you have not tried gelato I urge you to -- its lighter than ice cream and has a very distinct west-coast feel.

Learning to Drive

At the beginning of February I (finally) reached the age of 16. To me that only meant one thing: getting my licence. On the day of my birthday I went down to ICBC and took my knowledge test. Lucky for me I had been studying for 6 months occasionally taking the online practice test. But the unfortunate part for me was that they insisted on taking my picture before I took the test, and the people working at the DMV succeeded in making me look like a convicted killer. But I did pass the test and I now have my learners, which basically means I can drive with a fully licensed adult and up to one passenger, however, I have to suffer through the humiliation of have a big loser sign displayed on the back of the car.

I am the second out of my group of friends to have gotten my licence, and in less than a year I will be able to drive with one friend and without an adult. One of the options for learning to drive is taking lessons, with these lessons you are forced to do theory work but it has a huge advantage of preparing you for the road test and knocking three months off the wait to get your novice licence. With the novice licence you are also allowed to drive with as many family members as possible and with as many passengers as you want, providing a fully licensed adult is in the car. But for now I am taking night lessons with my parents and counting down the months until I can get my N.

[Find out more about learning to drive on our driving page]

Vancouver Art Gallery

When I first moved to Vancouver I never thought that I would ever be interested in going to an art gallery but since getting a membership in August I have found that I actually enjoy a peaceful Sunday afternoon wandering around the Vancouver Art Gallery admiring the art.

The art gallery attracts some very well known artists and varies its exhibits to keep the public interested. Not only do I like ambling around the gallery but also the gift shop is excellent. They have the traditional art lover’s postcards and books but they also have unique and interesting gifts, clothing and jewellery.

If you and your friends share an interest in art you can arrange an outing to the art gallery topped off with a great meal at the café, where you will then sit on the patio outside with a great view of downtown Vancouver. It is a great way to spend the afternoon and it is easy to get to as it is located on Georgia street which is on the route of most buses. I can get there from West Vancouver really easily.

PJ Day

One of the major differences between British and Canadian schools is the uniform or lack there of. In England I remember a few days a year where we could pay some money in order to be able to wear no uniform for a day. So naturally it is a big change when you suddenly can wear what you want when you want.

Another advantage of having no uniform is the themed day. They come up a few days a year. For example today was the day when everybody was asked to dress up in there pyjamas. You weren’t forced to and it was free it was really just for fun more than to make money.

Other such themes include western day and Hawaiian day, where they serve Hawaiian food in the cafeteria. But getting back to pyjamas, one of the first shocks I got when I started grade 8 was that girls wore their pyjamas on regular days, I suppose that it is part of the relaxed Canadian attitude, girls also seem to wear sweatpants to school and the pants also had their preferred sport written across the back of the pants such as “swimming” or “dancer” this isn’t everybody’s style it was just something interesting that I had observed.

Wildlife in West Vancouver

West Vancouver has a vast variety of wildlife the animals are slightly different to England. First of all the squirrels are black and slightly friendlier than the timid brown squirrels in England. Also you don’t get the dainty robins that you get in England these are slightly heftier in fact they are bigger than some dogs you get in West Van.

There is always a threat when your friends live higher up the mountainside, like Lions bay or similar areas. I have never seen a black bear myself but almost all of my friends have. My best friend had one climbing her grape vine. There was one in our school dumpster. The bears are not very ferocious, but the authorities came and shot the bear.

The one animal, which is more likely to eat your Chihuahua, is the coyote. There aren’t many of them, but they are quite dangerous. The cute animal which you don’t find in England is the racoon which are harmless but can be a nuisance if they can get into your trash, but the design of the dustbins in Canada are bear proof.

The interesting wildlife in West Vancouver is nothing to fear it is actually quite an appealing feature of Canada from its birds, racoons, bears and moose’s.

Gym

My grade ten-gym class is not a regular occurrence that I look forward to. In fact I have never particularly enjoyed gym even in England. However upon arriving in Canada I found my high school annoyingly enthusiastic about sports. This year in gym I have been thrust into new and strange sports that I have never tried before and I had only heard about these sports from American T.V. shows.

In September my gym class started off with the basic volleyball classes with the teacher encouraging us to try out for the school team. Next up was basketball not really a British sport, but then again Canada doesn’t have a very good b-ball reputation either.

At the beginning of this year my class experienced soccer and kickball. Kickball is basically just kicking a ball and then running around the bases. Then I was amazed to discover that Kickball is very much like softball the only difference being the use of a bat and smaller ball. Now I am moving on to a modern Canadian activity with my next gym unit being yoga.

Business day for grade 9’s

Today I spent three classes learning about how to manage my money. I started off the day by taking a career aptitude test where I ticked boxes to show the statement that applies to my life such as, “I am concerned about the environment,” or “I enjoy using my imagination to write stories.”

I found out that I am influence-oriented and arts-oriented so my ideal career would be something along the lines of advertising sales representative so I could use my skills.

We had a workbook where there were a lot of activities to do such as planning your future and how you plan to achieve these goals. We then explored the different methods of payment and the advantages and disadvantages of each, such as cheques you can mail but people also get fees. We also learned how to write cheques and keep track of our income and expenses.

We learned a lot of useful words such as diversification, liquidity and rate of return. The most useful part of the day, I thought, was the investment facts, it told us about the advantages and disadvantages of different investments.

To end the day we played an investment board game, where I started off with $10,000 and finished with $14,196 overall it was a very useful day, I have started a new financial plan.

Vacations

Living in West Vancouver it can leave you envious when all of your rich friends are going to the country club or around this time going on their expensive vacations. Because it is spring break soon, everyone is talking about their vacations. Four of my friends are going somewhere one is going to Paris and England, another friend is going to Disney Land, the other two are going to different parts of Hawaii.

My family are just going to Point Roberts, which is only an hours drive and is technically American but I just say that I am going to America.

Another friend of mine is going to her cabin on one of the islands off the coast some people like that sort of outdoorsy no electricity, running water, washrooms and an abundance in bugs sort of lifestyle, but it doesn’t suit me or my best friends manicure and fashionable clothes lifestyle at all so when we were invited we politely refused. There are many different ways to spend the holidays the most popular spot is Hawaii.

Band (banned?) competition

Yesterday I went to a band festival in Burnaby. It was quite fun, we got to miss three lessons and it was held in a big church. The music went very well; apparently it was the best we had ever played it. What I found the most baffling was how, when I asked “who won?”, they said it wasn’t a competition. They just judge us, then, once they tell us the results, we go home.

I don’t know if its just music but why aren’t they competitive? I know that we have a very competitive rugby team and even skiing and snowboarding teams that enter some tough competitions. Why not music as well? But after the judging we had a man from Calgary take us into a separate room and give us some friendly advice on how to improve. Maybe Canadians are too nice, did they not make it a competition because they didn’t want anyone’s feelings to get hurt?

Film and TV

After the Tsunami disaster in Asia the school had many charities to collect for and for about a month my social class did a unit on the Tsunami, for part of the project everyone had to go up and present making themselves an “expert” on one part of the event. Because I love making movies so I did a music video for the Tsunami it was very moving, the teacher loved the music video so much he got it to play on the morning announcements, which are televisions all around the school that give notices, so I won the honour of getting my video played on the morning announcements. At the moment my group are working on a short drama that we hope to enter in a film festival. Making the films couldn’t be simpler if you want to film something over the weekend you can sign out a camera from the teacher and once you’ve finished filming you can edit on one of the schools computers.

School course selection

Well it’s that time of year again - the time when during socials class one of the counselors comes in and talks to the class about our choices. They now have a new system where you can start collecting credits in grade ten and you take a Career and Personal Planning (or CAPP) course as a whole block of your day.

Well I think it is quite stressful that you have to decide what to do with your life so early on. They actually told us that if you want to go into a business career such as Psychology you would have to take an advanced math course now. Also they warn us that if we do not take a language in grade 12 then we will not be considered for any universities.

There are a lot of courses to choose from and advanced courses like English, Math and Science enriched which lead to AP (Advanced Placement) courses. Though I like having so many choices, it can be very confusing. Especially because now that we have CAPP as a block we only get one elective. And with the new rules I need to earn 80 credits in 3 years.

The courses you can take at my school are really exciting such as Foods, Textiles, I.T., Band, Film and Television, Woodworking and Art. Of course this is only for my school other schools may differ with their courses. So I have until February 7th to decide what to do with my life!

January Snow

Our drive, just waiting for a tobogganWow! It has been snowing here for about 5 days. The snow is still in my yard but the roads are clear and the sun is shining. But when the snow was fresh on the ground the whole of my school was in a state of hysteria.

On the day that the snow was heaviest, this was my school day: first block was gym, so we took a walk around the neighbourhood then played in the snow. Then second block we had a substitute for French, so we went out in the snow and then got a coffee from Starbucks. Third block was math and our teacher is really nice so we went outside in the snow again. Last block was Band and my friend went home but I stayed in class and just stared wistfully outside.

The next day I went tobogganing at the golf course where they have two really big hills to toboggan down. A lot of people had the plastic sleds but my friend had a very big wooden toboggan that could fit 6 people on it. But when you want to go down the slope on your own an ordinary garbage bag works very well. The best part about it is that it’s free, and if you have a good enough driveway you can toboggan down it.

January 6th

Happy New Year! My Dad has been on at me to write this, so here goes.

Christmas is over and that means SALES! I don’t remember this many sales in England sure there were a couple of furniture store sales but here everything is on sale, giant boxing day sales, limited time unbelievable offers etc, etc. There were people lining up outside Future Shop (the computer store) at 6:00 on Boxing Day morning. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t we just spend a truckload of money on Christmas presents? I don’t mind a few sales but everything is having a sale from cars to clothes to computers.

December 5th

This weekend we have a 3-day’s off, because they lengthened the school day by 10 minutes so we get a lot more time off school. Anyway Monday is my friend Annie’s birthday so Saturday was her party. It was a dinner and sleepover party, because the events of the sleepover are not really relevant, I believe I will skip that and focus on the restaurant. We went to Milestones which is quite a nice restaurant on the edge of Park Royal we only had to wait 15 minutes at 6:30 on a Saturday night and there were only 6 of us, now I’m not sure if that is because Canadians eat so early the “big” rush had past or the restaurant is just pathetically unpopular. But not to say it’s not a good quality restaurant, it’s a very good restaurant, but it doesn’t really have a first-rate vegetarian menu. I don’t think that Milestones is really a “friend” restaurant it was mainly filled with families and some couples.

Presents

Why is it that I can never find the perfect gift? Whatever I get I have to think through and your never sure weather they like it or not because whatever you get them they are going to pretend that they like it. And you will only find out that they hated it years later when they bitterly bring it up in an argument. My friend is notoriously the worst gift buyer out of all of us. At Annie’s birthday party this girl Angelica bought Annie a pair of socks and a reindeer that dispenses candy out of its rear. Annie is a very big Tomboy and the socks were Christmassy and didn’t fit her and the reindeer was broken so all of the candy came out at the same time. These sound like terrible cheap gifts but Angelica also got Annie “the butterfly effect” on DVD. Annie and I went to see the butterfly effect when it came out at the movie theatre. I loved the movie but Annie didn’t, because she doesn’t like scary or confusing movies. Well Annie was pretty disappointed by Angelica’s gifts but at least the rest of made up for it by putting our money together and getting a popcorn machine for her. So is there really a perfect gift?

Christmas shopping

I have been desperately trying to do my Christmas shopping but so far I haven’t had much luck. It’s pretty stressful especially because I have so many people to buy for and most of them are very vague when I ask them what they want. I know it might seem a little early, but my friend Terry has already finished all of her shopping and she has a bigger family then mine!

The mall looks great and they have Santa at both sides of the mall, which might be a bit suspicious to any youngsters in the mall. But I actually went to speak with Santa and I even sat on his knee and so did Terry. He asked us what we want for Christmas and we settled on a surprise. He was very nice and not too young to be playing the part of Santa.

The Rec Centre

I’ve been spending a lot of time with my new best friend Terry she is so much better than my friends in England, we share so many interests it’s actually freaky. Anyway on Friday Terry and I went to the rec-centre. It’s a new building in West Vancouver it has a full swimming pool, a slide, wave pool, sauna and steam room. But the reason we were there, because of the gym we both want to get in shape, and the gym is very convenient.

We took the school bus after school to the rec-centre and went to work out. It only costs $4.50 to go in the gym and pool for as long as you want. First we hit the gym and went on the cross trainers and the treadmills and the bikes, after that we were tired so we went to get changed. The pool was perfect we did some laps, went in the wave pool, then the hot tub and then the sauna.

The sauna was pretty disgusting it was filled with sweaty, old, hairy men it was gross. Overall it was a great way to spend time with a friend after school.

November 5/6

This weekend i spent nearly all of it with my friends. On Friday after school I went shopping with my two closest friends terry and Christine we went around all the clothes stores but we didn't find anything very inspiring. So we headed to the arts and crafts store. Its not as bad as it sounds it's a huge super store that has loads of art supplies called Michaels. I am terrible at drawing but there are loads of other things to do, my favorite is knitting i have already knitted scarves for terry and Christine and I am now working on one for myself. We also bought scrap-booking supplies, my friends and i are making a scrapbook to remember this school year. It's a good way to be more creative.

So after we finished shopping there we went back to terry's house, for a sleepover. We did a bit of our scrapbooks, baked shortbread whilst watching Xmas movies. Something you should know about Terry, Christine and I, is that we are crazy about Xmas. We've already planned lots of festive activities. So we watched a Muppets Christmas carol and Santa Clause 2. By then it was around two o'clock so we went to Terry's room and talked until 4 in the morning. When we awoke at 12 we had pancakes and then went home. For the rest of Saturday I did homework and knitted.

November 2nd

Today I found out that the girl who sits behind me in my math class was actually in England the same week that I left I know because she was complaining about the heat wave in England, and I remember being there during the heat wave. Today I was meant to do editing for my film and television public service announcement but I forgot my tape. Film and television is such an awesome subject and is so much fun. It's a slightly laid back subject between projects and the school is very well equipped.

Alice

The Country Club

A few weeks ago I went with a group of friends to the local “country club” - it is a very exclusive and expensive club. It is very big with a big pool, dining areas, two hockey rinks, a curling area, a billiard room, squash court, teen lounge, badminton courts and about 10 tennis courts.

We snuck in because Terry wanted to meet up with a guy she has a crush on, he wasn’t at the door so we all ran in while the person at the front desk’s back was turned. There wasn’t too much that we could do without being caught so hung out in the teen lounge and played pool. We met some guys from school so even though it wasn’t too much fun we found out who from school was rich.

Summer Sailing Camp

This summer I took a camp, lots of people go to camps there a way for rich people to get rid of there kids for a week or two. I did not go to a religious or body building camp instead I went to a sailing camp at the yacht club, which is a 2-minute walk from my house.

I love looking at the ferries at Horseshoe BayIt was a great camp but very exhausting. I originally took it with Terry but she is quite flaky and gets bored easily so she dropped out after two days it was a ten-day course.

We were sailing on these very small boats that can fit about three people in it. We learned a lot of useful things like tying knots and rigging the boats.

On the last day of the course we sailed to Bowen Island a hippy sort of Island where it is said that the “stoner” kids live. But we ate lunch on a beach just off the golf course. It was very windy and we almost capsized a bunch of times but it was all fun. After we finished I got a t-shirt and I successfully passed white-sail 1.