jwinkler12

In grade 12 I am hoping to go to a school in Switzerland for half of the year (one semester). This is an Ontario school based in Switzerland that is only for grade 12 students. My sister went there when she was in grade 12 and after hearing her stories, there was no way I could not go. However, since it is not a cheap school, my parents are making me work hard if I want to go. This includes working as a snowboard instructor this winter, and getting at least an 85% average by the middle of grade 11. My parents and I both believe that this average will be achievable if I work my hardest, and out my best effort forward.

Although this will be somewhat of a struggle, I think the knowing reward of finally going to Neuchatel, will push me to get the marks I need.

As the applications for the school India trip are beginning, it has got me thinking about my plans for next years march break. I am planning on going on a two week march through the holocaust concentration camp, and spending the final two days of the trip in Israel, celebrating its anniversary. This is a trip that I have been very interested in going on since I was in grade 2 and my family friends went. The trip is led a holocaust survivor, who gives tours, and shares their story. I think this will be the part of the trip that has the most impact on me. I usually find that hearing personal stories and experience, hits me harder than being told by someone who just studied it in text books.

Although I will miss a lot of school to go on this trip, I think I will learn a lot more about myself, and my religions history, than I ever could in a classroom.

This past week I went on challenge week which was organized by my school. I went to Niagra Falls to go to the Strewn Cooking school. This school was also a winery so we got learn how to cook, make wine and much more. While we were there we stayed in the Niagra College residences. This was my first time sleeping in a university dorm and my first opinion of them is that they are extremely gross and small.

When we got to the dorms the first day we assumed that we would settle down in out rooms, go to the cooking school and dinner would be all ready for us to eat. This was not what it was it was like at all. We went to the cooking school, ready to eat, and immediately we were handed aprons and recipes. This was a not so pleasant surprise for all of us.

It turned out that cooking was much more fun that we expected it to be. We also noticed that all food tastes much better when you slave over cooking it yourself.

We spent the rest of the trip cooking all day, eating what we cooked, and then by the time we got back to the dorms we were all ready to go to sleep. I turned out this trip was an amazing experience and we learned a lot about food preparation and where it comes from.

When I got home, for mothers day, I decided that I would cook brunch for my mom and my family. I made my favourite dishes which were mushroom filled beggars purses, salmon in a dill cream sauce and chocolate orange soufflé. All of the dishes were big hits in my family, and they can’t wait for me to cook more for them.

It seems like just yesterday when I got on the plane, travelled just over 30 hours and finally got to South Africa. I was finally on excahnge. All I knew was that I was going to live in someone else’s home, in their country, and go to their school. I knew my exchange’s name was Alex, but that was about it. When I finally arrived in South Africa I met the family I was going to be staying with and they took me back to their house. This is when I experienced the first diference. They drive on the left side of the road. Originally I got very nervous anytime I went into a car but then I got used to it.

The next day I went to school. The name of the school is Bridge House College. My first day was a little bit scary, but very exciting at the same time. I met so many new people who were so different from me. On my second day of school I went to my first Afrikaans class. Afrikaans is the second most common language in South Africa, after English. When I was in this class I did not understand anything they were saying. Everyone in the class would start laughing and I would sit there looking confused. School went on and I made tons of new friends.

The place in South Africa that I was staying in is called Franschoeuk. It is around 40 minutes from the Cape Town, which is one of the main City’s in South Africa. After the first couple of days I have realized that South Africa is nothing like I expected.

I assume it would be dangerous, and I would be scared to walk around by myself. This is totally the opposite. Everyone here is so friendly and warm.

That is all for now!

Since school started in September, I was ready for this winter break. Every year my family usually spends the whole break in Collingwood at our chalet. This year we decided that since all of our friends were going away, we would take a trip to Florida. Just the thought of going somewhere warm got me extremely excited. Then my brother and dad decided that they didn’t want to go to Florida and would stay in Collingwood. This then turned into a girls trip. Then when starting to think about what we were going to do in Florida, the first thing I thought about was my friend from camp, Marcelle. Marcelle lives in Florida, which means during the year, I barely get to see her. She was one of my best friends this summer so I knew I had to spend at least 2 days. I then talked to all of the other kids from my camp who were also going to Florida and we decided that we would all go to her house on the same day.

The next thing we decided we needed to do was shop. Anytime that we go on a girls trip we spend a lot of time in the mall. This is usually because in the states they have different (in my opinion better) stores than we do in Canada. The final thing that we decided we were going to do was sit on the beach and tan! To me and my sister, this will be the most important part of our trip.

I am really looking foroward to this trip and hopefully it will turn out as well as I am expecting!

*** just found a draft!

This part of the year might just be my favourite time of year. All of the holiday spirit going around. As I sit here writing this blog I smell freshly baked Latkas from my kitchen. To me, the food is one of the best parts of the holiday. Every year, my family spends Christmas with our old family friends who now live in Sinsinatti. Even though my family is not Christian, we cut down a Christmas tree, decorate the tree, eat Christmas cookies and exchange presents.

The next thing I love about holidays is all of the decorations. As you walk in the doors of the York School, the first thing you see is a huge christmas tree (fake of course) and a table with a hannukia and dreidels. Also, as you go up on the higher floors, you see snow flakes hanging from all of the walls and ceilings. Sure it might be a little bit tacky, but it gives you the sense of winter, and holiday and joy.

Near the end of grade 9 (last year) we were introduced to the personal project. It is a project where you can do whatever you want. When I first heard about this I though it  would be so easy to be able to do anything I wanted. After trying to think of my idea I  realized that when you have no guidelines, coming up with an idea would not be easy. My  first idea was photography. That idea failed quickly for many reasons. The main one was  the expense of a new camera and what I would photograph. I decided on selling sweaters  for charity. I decided I would give the money to a charity called Save A Child’s Heart. It  is a non profit organization that provides life saving surgery to kids who otherwise would  not have been able to afford it. I designed my sweater using an online designing site. The slogan I used was “Live, Love, Give”. The sweaters are grey with red, blue and orange writing on the back. I ended up selling 32 sweaters therefore making 300 dollars for the charity. This is the same charity I gave money to for my Bat Mitzva. The main thing that keeps me giving to this charity is the fact that after you donate they give you the profile of the child you helped. She was a 7 year old girl from Israel the needed balloon dilation surgery.

When I was nine years old at camp, my friend took out her Ouija board. A Ouija board is a piece of cardboard with the letters of the alphabet written on it, the numbers one to ten and the words “yes”, “no”, and “goodbye”. The point of the Ouija board is to communicate with the spirits of people who have passed. All you have to do to use it is put your hands on a triangular piece of plastic and ask questions. You can ask to talk to a specific person but in this instance we didn’t specify. One of the most important things to remember about an Ouija board is that before putting it away, you must always say goodbye.

When we started talking to our spirit we learned that her name Sydney. We asked questions about our lives and our futures. Later that one of the head staff came into our cabin and told us to put it away. Since we were so scared of this staff we put our Ouija board back on a shelf. She was scary especially since she had so much power at camp. About five minutes later we realized that we forgot to say goodbye. We decided that it was too late and we would just leave it. That night, one of the bunks in our cabin fell. No one was hurt but it sure was scary. From then on, we promised ourselves that we would never forget to say goodbye to the Ouija board.

To this day there are countless things that have happened that the Ouija board predicted. A perfect example of this was that summer we were in cabin G-26. This cabin was somewhat old inside. It would make a creaking noise when you walked in or out and during a thunder storm the cabin would shake as if an earthquake hit the camp. All of these aspect things together made it our home. It was a place where if someone wanted to come in they had to ask our permission. The Ouija board told us that this cabin that was our home for the summer was going to collapse. This got us all thinking that it was going to collapse one night while we were sleeping. We then asked her if this collapse was going to kill us. It told us that by the time that it collapsed we would be out of the cabin. The next week we were told that we were moving to a new cabin. This cabin was newly furnished and smelled somewhat like a new car. To work in this cabin we drew all over the walls and hung all of our posters. This made it feel like home again. A couple days later our old cabin G-26 collapsed and was put under construction. This made us really believe in Sydney. Later, everything else she had said came true.

Since that day Sydney has been with me and all of my friends. The lasting impact that Sydney has had on me is the last thing we asked her was how we were all going to die. She told me I was going to die because of a rollercoaster. This either meant that I was going to be on that roller coaster or it was going to fall on me. From that day on I refuse to go to any place where there are rollercoaster’s.

Last weekend I went to Winnipeg with my school to play Ultimate Frisbee. The tournament was called “Hold Back The Snow”. This was my first time ever playing a game of Ultimate Frisbee. It was a completely new experience and I had no idea what to expect. We got an early start to trip, getting to the airport at 6 a.m on a Friday morning.  We got on the plane together and the journey begun. We got off the plane, got onto our bus and immediately started our team song. We made it to the song Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus. The song went like this.

Hopped off the plane in Winnipeg with Frisbees in our hands

Welcome to the land of ulti pros, are we gonna fit in?

Hopped on the field and pulled for the first time

Looked to the right, see our fans on the side line

This is all so crazy, (team were playing) is the greatest

So we put our hand up to stop the huck but we let it get away

Setting the cup the yeah

Scoring some points like yeah

So we put our hand up to stop the huck but we let it get away

yeeeaaahhhh there’s a tournie in the Winnipeg

We then arrived at our practice field and practice for around 2 hours. We then drove to SJR school to meet the billets we would be staying with. Again, this was also a new experience for me. We met the boy we were staying with and then we were told we would be taking the school bus home. This was very frightening because we had never been on a school bus before. We then got on the crammed, stuffy bus and sat for 30 minutes until we arrived at the house. The house was nice but not too big. We then went to the basement and unpacked. When we came upstairs we got to know the family better and we learned that they were very nice and that we were going to have a good time. The next morning we got to Assiniboine park for the tournament. We played all of out games and we won 2 out of 4 games. I quickly learned that it was a sport that required a lot of energy and effort. That night we went bowling as a team. We had a competition where we were divided by our Frisbee lines. We got home and went straight to bed. The next day we only had 3 games to play. We lost 2 and won 1. We finished in 13th place out of 24. This was the second best our school had ever done! I would now consider myself a true Ultimate Frisbee player.

Camp Manitou

For the past 9 years sleep over camp has been a major part of my life. I started going after grade 1, which would have been when I was around 6 or 7. From the second I stepped of the bus, smelled the fresh camp air, saw the beautiful lake and all of the spirited councilors, I fell in love. I started at Camp Tamakwa for 5 years and then on my 5th year there, I decided that i would also try going to camp Manitou. I decided on Manitou because my family friend owned it. The second i went to Manitou I fell in love all over again. I have been going there, 2 month in the summer ever since. Every year, as the buses roll away I wipe away my tears surrounded by my best friends, still huming world games cheers. World games is one of the best parts of camp for me. It is a competition between the entire camp. It happens in the last three days of camp and we are divided into two countries. You are put with your cabin, so at night, we always stay up late making cheers. I have been there for many years and have experienced many world games teams. Some of my memorable teams were Tanzania, Ukraine, Tonga, France, India and so many more. Last year was my last year of being a camper. At my camp, affter you finish as a camper, you have to apply to be a c.i.t.  A councellor in training is someone who helps out at different activities and in a certain cabin. For my age group there are 56 girls and only 24 spots. This makes it very competetive between all of us. We have to write an application letter that is supposed to be about a page long. Most people have already finished theirs already and I havent. I am going to write that now instead of writing this blog.