———————-

I, Leora, daughter of friendly fish-farming fabricator of films,
heredity of world philosophers, war-heroes and kings.
World-wanderer of over ten nations,
countless cultures and countries explored.
Master of keys and strings,
rehearser and composer, alike.

Academic achiever and educational whizz,
reader, writer and mathematician extraordinaire!
Expert creator of warm tea-concoctions,
finding the perfect balance of sweet and bitter.

Caring friend, loving sister,
helping all in need.
Expert performer of many arts,
moving with any music.

Life-saver, swimming for hours without tiring.
Snowman-builder like no other,
skiier, sledder and tuber too.
Sound-sire, word-weaver, movement-maker.
I am Beowulf

Metonymy, Kenning, Alliteration

———————–

I am Eliza, daughter of kilts, leprechauns, Vikings and free speech.
Though my ancestors hail from many lands,
The land of ice hockey, cold, beavers and maple syrup is my only home.
Braving the torrential Pacific ocean,
I venture to the meeting of sea and sky.

For half a decade, I studied the language of music,
Making it flow from my fingertips.
I became renowned for my dedication to my artistic work.
My writing, though not published, is renowned.
Known throughout my peers to have a large vocabulary,
I am a walking-talking dictionary.
Working for near three-quarters of a year,
I am crafting a masterpiece paper,
Sacrificing my social life to this worthy cause.

Using only my camera, I can go back in time,
Freezing moments and saving them for days to come.
I traverse the western hemisphere,
Searching for faces to acquaint myself with.
Each storing-card holds a paltry two thousand five hundred images,
And I have filled a myriad until they work no longer.

My two dog-beasts are ferocious beyond measure,
However they are also gentle and kind to those who are amiable.
I have tamed them and taught them many tricks.

For a whole decade, I have been the master of snow-skating.
No cliff is too steep for me to descend,
No mogul too large.
Poofy powder presents pleasure,
While icy, impractical slopes merely draw away from it.

While not always an excessively charming individual to be around,
I attempt to aid those in emotional need,
And have saved many souls from despair.

I inspire awe.

———————–

I, Noah, descendant of the linguine and spaghetti alike
Master of the ivory and ink
Creator of ancient legends that stand the test of time
Jester and humour-bellower
Pop-culture-declarer and wide-vocabularian

I have journeyed to the far reaches of Europe
A silver-tongued story-teller
A viewer of strange movie-film
A Bi-lingual comic genius
And a useless facts machine

An established algebraic-computer man
I have recently journeyed to the land French people
And learned the ancient dialect most commonly called French
Survivor of frigid climates in the Capital of Canada
I have persisted through strange genetic-mishaps

I am a creator of crazily-comedic conundrums
Composer of magnificent melodies
I have studied the ancient works
Of influential literary geniuses

I am a visionary and a philanthropist
Taking from the rich and giving to the poor
I plan to journey to space in the near future
And discover life on Jupiter

I shall now slay the beast of the headlands and save the village from certain doom…

On the 27th of April 2011 my dad and I went to Coimbriga one of the largest roman ruins in Portugal. Conimbriga is near the town of Condeixa. I woke up at 7:00 I packed my bags and got ready, To get to Coimbra we had to catch a train. When my dad and I where at the train station we had realized that we had missed the bus we planned to catch so when we arrived in Coimbra we had 3 hours to wait. We went to look in book shops and craft shops, in one shop we saw a artist painting an amazing ceramic tile, he was painting a church. In Coimbra many people paint ceramic tiles they all paint them in a style used in the 17th century. After that we started to walk to the bus station once we got there we where told that we would have to buy are tickets on the bus, the bus ride was 45 minutes long. I really enjoyed it because I got to see a lot of the exquisite Portuguese country side. Once we got to Conimbriga we went to a restaurant above the ruins to eat. After we had ate we bought a bottle of water and headed down to the ruins. When we went into Conimbriga the first thing we saw was a great mosaic. There where two ruined aristocratic houses, these houses where very large and belonged to very rich families. All these aristocratic households had rooms arranged around a peristyle. The peristyle is an architectural structure that consists of a patio with razed flower beds surrounded by water, the patio was surrounded by columns supporting a roof that protected it from the sun. After we had gone and seen these aristocratic houses we went to see the house of Cantaber. Cantaber was a great imperial aristocrat his house 30,000 square feet, it is the largest house in Conimbriga, considered a fine example of Roman architecture from the 2nd century. His house had 30 rooms which included Baths,gardens and triclinium’s (Roman dining room) and many more. After we had been to the house of cantaber we went to the south baths, most of the south baths had been partially reconstructed with concrete to get a look at what it would look like in the Roman era. In the south baths there was a path where you could see below the area, we saw some buildings from the iron age(pre-Roman occupation) . After we had seen the baths we went to see the forum, similar to the baths the forum also was partially reconstructed with concrete. The Roman forum was a building used by senators and other people of political importance, although it was an area where politicians worked it was also a public building, traders would set up market stalls in the courtyard. Forums contained basilica’s, public buildings used as law courts church’s and for public gatherings. We had almost finished exploring the archeological site, outside Conimbriga there where two huge walls the wall of the Early Empire and the wall of the Late Empire. The wall of the Early Empire surrounded the wall of the Late Empire. The walls are 6 meters in height and effective defense against invaders. Finally we headed to the House of Fountains, this building is considered an iconic building of Conimbriga. The House of Fountains is a large aristocratic house, In the middle of the house there is a huge peristyle, it is the only full restored peristyle in Conimbriga. Around the peristyle there where many rooms all had very beautiful mosaics.

After we had explored the archeological site we went to the Conimbriga museum. In the museum they had many statues recovered from Conimbriga, they also had milestones and certain Roman tools. Some of these Roman tools included knifes, scythe, saw and many other agricultural tools. My favorite thing the museum had was a model of the Conimbriga forum it was an extremely detailed copy of what the forum looked like in the Roman era. Another interesting thing that the museum had was a interactive map of the roman empire, there where five buttons on a board each of them ranging from different dates. If you pressed one of these buttons it would lite up the cities found in that time. After we had gone to the museum it was time to leave we got everything ready and waited for are bus when the bus arrived we got on and the bus driver gave me an ice cream. This time the bus took a little bit longer. Once we got to Coimbra me and my dad went to the Anthropology Department (where he works) and had an ice tea overlooking the botanical gardens. to see his friend Dr. Nuno Porto (professor of anthropology) after we had seen Nuno we went back to the train station and caught the train right back to Curia.

Marcel Shelton grade 7

Humor is infectious. The sound of roaring laughter is far more contagious than any cough, sniffle, or sneeze. When laughter is shared, it binds people together and increases happiness and intimacy. In addition to the domino effect of joy and amusement, laughter also triggers healthy physical changes in the body. Humor and laughter strengthen your immune system, boost your energy, diminish pain, and protect you from the damaging effects of stress. Best of all, this priceless medicine is fun, free, and easy to use.

Laughter is a powerful antidote to stress, pain, and conflict. Nothing works faster or more dependably to bring your mind and body back into balance than a good laugh. Humor lightens your burdens, inspires hopes, connects you to others, and keeps you grounded, focused, and alert.Laughter makes you feel good. And the good feeling that you get when you laugh remains with you even after the laughter subsides. Humor helps you keep a positive, optimistic outlook through difficult situations, disappointments, and loss.

More than just a respite from sadness and pain, laughter gives you the courage and strength to find new sources of meaning and hope. Even in the most difficult of times, a laugh–or even simply a smile–can go a long way toward making you feel better. And laughter really is contagious—just hearing laughter primes your brain and readies you to smile and join in on the fun.

- http://www.helpguide.org/life/humor_laughter_health.htm

“Your sense of humor is one of the most powerful tools you have to make certain that your daily mood and emotional state support good health.”
~ Paul E. McGhee, Ph.D.

Researched by Birch Nesbitt-Jerman, Grade 9

Lisa Schut, Grade 8

Today at school we had an assembly. The theme was around the world. Each of the grade nines dressed up as someone from a country around the world. It was pretty insane.

Robyn was MC. All of the grade nines went up to talk about something. Nicole talked about the seven wonders of the world, Christian showed a video about Peru, and Nel performed Hallelujah on guitar. All the performances were amazing.

At the end, Tania read a blurb from a book called Hamlets Blackberry. It talked about how our world was advancing in technology and how we were losing some old cultures due to technology.

We got out early and then had a half an hour break. It was very fun.

By Emmett Sparling

The first stop on the tour was seeing how the neck of the guitar was made. It turns out that the way it is done, is that there is a piece of wood which is in the basic shape of a guitar neck, and it is put into a machine that somebody programs to cut it into the desired shape for the specific guitar that it goes too. Then we saw people working in the factory cutting other pieces of wood for different parts of the guitar. On the second story of the building, there was the place where the cut wood is bent into the specific shape for the side wall of the guitar using a super hot cylinder. The next stop was the one which I thought was the most interesting. It was where the top and the bottom of the guitar were cut out of two flat pieces of wood. The way it is done, is a large thin piece of wood is put into a machine that uses a laser to cut it to the desired shape. This is the same machine that they use to put details onto the headstock. The next place that we went, was where they attached and glued all of the cut out pieces of the guitar together. Then we got too see a machine that uses UV rays of light to bake the finish on the guitar so that it hardens leaving the guitar shiny. The last step which we got to see was the finished guitar being strung and put onto a rack and ready to be sold or shipped too a store.

• Some interesting things about the creation of the guitars was that it takes about a month for a guitar to go from a block of wood to an instrument.
• The UV rays used to bake the guitar speed the drying process from two weeks, to two minutes.
• The lower end guitars made at this factory are sold at around $1,000 while the higher end ones are sold for over $4,000.
• You can get custom designed guitars.
• This guitar factory also make ukuleles. It turns out that it takes about the same amount of work to make a guitar as it does to make a ukulele. The most expensive ukuleles are sold for around $1,200.

This morning, the grade 9s presented a fascinating assembly showcasing different countries, cultures, religions and wonders of the world. The 9s were all dressed in different ethnic outfits, and students from every grade presented information about their own global education projects, such as Elliot’s project on Russia and Leora’s comparative religion project on Catharism. Nel performed “Hallelujah” by Leonard Coehen on her guitar, which was beautiful and, naturally, brought tears to my eyes. The 9s asked me to contribute “something about the world”, so I decided to talk about how the world is getting smaller, that although all this connectivity is a wonderful thing, there are many significant implications (for children, adults and educators alike).

Just as a side note: the “iGeneration” (children of the generation x-ers that were born between ’65 and ’79) are defined by their technology and media use, their love of electronic communication, and their need to multitask. They send and receive an average of 3,339 texts every month, and spend an average of 7 hours per day with digital media and some sort of screen. This generation’s WWW isn’t “world wide web”, it’s “whatever, whenever, wherever”. This has challenging implications for educators who need to get plugged in if they (we) want any hope of engaging our children successfully.

This morning I read an excerpt from William Power’s Hamlet’s Blackberry in which he states that the most profound sacrifice we’ve made to the ever expanding landscape of technology is DEPTH.  The following is an amalgamated excerpt from his book:

We live in a world where everyone is connected to everyone else all of the time. We’re not literally in a room that’s floated away from the earth, but we’re definitely in a new place, and it’s technology that has brought us here. Our room is the digital space, and we tap each other through our connected screens. Today we’re just a few taps away from millions of other people, from endless information and stimulation. Family and friends, work and play, news and ideas – sometimes it seems like everything we care about has moved to the digital room. So we spend our days there living in this new ultra-connected way. We’ve been at it for a decade now and its been thrilling and rewarding in many ways. When the whole world is within easy reach, there’s no end of things to see and do. Sometimes it feels like a kind of paradise.

However, there is a big asterix to life in this amazing place. We’ve been doing our best to ignore it but it won’t go away. It comes down to this: we’re much busier. Much, much busier. It’s a lot of work managing all this connectedness. The emails, texts and voicemails; the pokes, prods and tweets; the alerts and comments; the links, tags and posts; the photos and videos; the blogs and vlogs; the searches, uploads, downloads, files, and folders; feeds and filters; walls and widgets; tags and clouds; the usernames, passcodes and access fees; pop ups and banners; ringtones and vibrations; that’s just a small sample of what we have to navigate each day in the room. By the time you’ve listened to this there will be all new ways of connecting that are all the rage.

We’re losing something of great value, a way of thinking and moving through time that can be summed up in a single word: depth. Depth of thought and feeling, depth in our relationships, our work, and everything we do. Since depth is what makes life fulfilling and meaningful, it’s astounding that we’re allowing this to happen.

But can we leave? It’s nice to imagine that there’s a door somewhere and all you have to do is step through it to be in a different place. A connected place where time isn’t so fugitive and the mind can slow down and be itself again. If someone knew that place existed, and he knew the way there, would you follow him?

Tania Krumpak
Interim Head of School