Week 29: 12th June 2002                                            Next edition: Wednesday 19th June
 

TRACK AND FIELD DAY

The annual school Inter-House Track and Field day was held Wednesday last. Thanks to bright sunshine and a perfect summer's day, spirits were high and competition quite keen. With points being awarded for participation as well as for top place finishes, numerous students responded willingly to the call. Some students went the extra mile, as, for example, Aidan Benson, who competed in a number of track events with a broken nose and broken collar bone sustained and earlier rugby match!

The overall House and individual results are given below

Charlotte Philippson

The javelin pin-cushion event

GRAD PLANS

For grade 12 students, the past twelve years are encapsulated and celebrated by a graduation ceremony at the end of June. Nevertheless, the end of their high school careers also marks the beginning of the rest of their lives, which will, for a majority of the graduates, begin with entry into university or college.

A fair portion of the graduating class will be attending universities on the eastern half of the continent, which raises the question as to why there should be, every year, a great migration to the east. Director of Academic Counselling Mr. Gerry Pennells exclaims, “McGill’s the flavour of the month!” In fact, approximately 51% of Brentwood’s grad class are Eastward bound and approximately 38% choosing to remain in the West. Tricia Persson, who expects to attend Dalhousie as a 2002 freshman, explains: “Everyone in Halifax is lively and outgoing. Everyone is really casual and it’s a nice atmosphere.” Of course, one of the highlights of the university life would be hard to ignore: “They party hard, but they work hard too.”
Then there are those students who have reasons similar to graduate Duncan Wilson. Born in Nova Scotia, Duncan plans to return east to attend Carlton and study journalism: “I know that Carlton’s one of the best universities in the country and they gave me a massive scholarship so I am going there!”

Several members of the graduating class will be going international, primarily to the United States. For some of these students, it is “going home”, while for others, including Katrina Wechselberger (who will be attending Princeton University in the fall), the United States will be an entirely new experience: “I know I will come back to the west coast eventually, but I would like some experience of the other side.”

Some students are going much further. Katrina Baker, whose genuine interest in Scotland (in addition to her excellent grades) ensured her a place at St. Andrew’s: “I’ve always loved Scotland and I’d rather live there than just be a tourist.”
As for those students who plan on residing locally, Rezwan Manji has plans to attend UBC in Vancouver (his hometown), in the fall. “I’ve been away from home for three years now," he says, "and I have friends there, I’ve been to the campus, and [Vancouver] is a lot warmer than most places in Canada!” Indeed, climate would be one perfectly legitimate reason to remain in the West – an aspect that the majority of the grads seem not to have considered!

Of course, the other option is to avoid university or college altogether! The remaining 11% of the grad class, although having the qualifications to proceed, will be taking a year off. For Stephanie Cebulka, Neuchatel College in Switzerland is the destination for the fall of 2003, while next year will be spent in classes to study the equivalent of grade 13 and improve her French speaking skills. For Stephanie, the experience is everything: “It’ll just be me – alone in Europe!”

Whether it be because they are keen to escape the West coast weather and its ways, or because they’ve been offered a hefty scholarship, a large portion of the graduating class of 2002 are spreading their wings and flying eastwards, but no matter where everyone lands, they will all have one thing in common — a new beginning with a multitude of different experiences.

Katie Lin (Grade 12)

LIFERS DINNER

For the tenth successive year, a thoroughly enjoyable evening was experienced by all participants in the annual Lifer's Dinner. The dinner, `held at the excellent facilities of the Quamichan Inn on Wednesday last, seeks — through reminiscences, gifts and convivial company — to honour those graduating students who have spent grades 8 through 12 at Brentwood. This year, 27 "lifers" joined with an equal number of staff to celebrate their survival (a term that could be applied to both parties!).

Numerous anecdotes — both amusing and emotional — were related, mainly focusing on the students initial memories of life in grade 8. Fears of the Alex House ghost were resurrected and tales of after-hours rugby scrums. Many thanks go to Charlie Dordevich who provided several interesting tales and proved to be the best after-dinner speaker.

Katrina Wechselberger, Katrina Baker, Winnie Chang, and Lindsey Lerch.

The 24 of the 27 survivors.

Chris Lee, Kevin Chou, Richard Yu

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CLASS FIELD TRIP

On Friday the IT 11 class took a field trip to Victoria to explore career opportunities and technology use in the real world.
We visited the Ministry of Attorney General, Information Technology Services and were treated to a tour of the computer facilities, complete with explanations of the latest clustering technologies, disk storage, backup, disaster avoidance and recovery and virtual processing.

The student received overviews of numerous job functions within a large IT department from a knowledgeable and professional staff. Special thanks to Robin Mitchell, Rob Tocher and Dave Eng for escorting the tour and answering the students' many questions.

The trip then made the trek to the IBM offices fro a tour by David Crossley, Technical Architect fro IBM in Victoria. The students were treated to an informative and rewarding talk on IT career progression, the history of IBM, and demonstrations of some of the new initiatives and examples of the latest IBM marketing ads.

Dewi Griffiths (Director of IT)

WORLD CUP

Inspired by the passion and patriotism displayed daily (or nightly, for this part of the globe) in soccer's World Cup games, Wednesday of last week was declared National Pride Day, where students were encouraged to dress in the colours of the country that the support for the World Cup. All varieties of color combinations were visible — even red and white worn by the patriotic few who could only dream of a future Canadian entry.

Macarena Irtubide (Ireland), and Harry Nielsen (supporting Turkey)

Katrina Baker (Scotland), Erika Schade (Germany), and Sarah McShane (Ireland)

UNEXPECTED GUESTS

The dining room acts as a Mecca not only for hordes of starving students but also for a good cross section of the local wildlife. Attracted by the smells and inevitable tidbits, squirrels, birds, and raccoons, but mainly cats, are regular visitors. One visitor that seemed to be unable to fend for itself was the kitten found by Lee McNamee (right). Lee has since found "Ash" a good home.

Other unexpected — but very welcome — visitors on campus last week were Old Brentonians Annie Mullins and Charlotte Manning (grads of 2000). Their delightful whirlwind visit left many staff exhausted, but up-to-date in respect of the girls' interesting current plans and academic careers.

GRADE 8 DRAMA CLASS

Murder, mystery, and marinated chicken with the order of the evening Tuesday last, as the Grade 8 drama class gave their end-of-year performance. To begin the evening, the cast and many specially invited guests enjoyed a banquet of tasty finger foods — an fitting aperitif to the subsequent drama. Based on a (loosely) medieval theme, the two-part play that followed was written and acted out by the class members. With several strong performances from the cast, the audience was in turn both amused and mystified as events unfolded, an experience that caused more than one observer to reassess their understanding of life in the Middle Ages.

Sports

Tennis

On May 29, the Brentwood tennis team journeyed to Burnaby for the 2002 AA Provincial Championships. Brentwood was the sixth seed in the tournament, and in their pool were Sal Hala School from Kelowna and King George from the lower mainland. With excellent all round play, Brentwood defeated King George 8-3 and prepared to face off against the number 4 seed Sal Hala later that day. Coming through with clutch winners, Brentwood prevailed over Sal Hala and finished first in their pool.

Due to an upset involving Shawnigan, the number two seed, falling narrowly to Collingwood, the number eight seed, Brentwood then had to face Shawnigan School. With terrific play from the girls doubles (Sonya Schapp, Laura Bungarten, Taren Phillips and Alice Chen) — who won three out of four matches — and Brentwood's B doubles, Shane Valliere and Morgan Holmes, Brentwood came close, but lost narrowly six matches to five.

Somewhat disappointed by this result, Brentwood had difficulty in focusing and fell short by seven matches to four against a strong Holy Cross School team. The team then had the night to recuperate for their final match the next day in playing for seventh or eighth place. Unfortunately, due to the absence of Jay Park and Bobby Pau (who were writing SAT examinations), the team could not squeeze out a win. However, everyone gained an exceptional amount of experience and all enjoyed their weekend away from school. Aside from losing 3 graduates, the team is well on their way to rebuilding their overall strength.

Congratulations are due to all players for an excellent performance.
Team: Laura Bungarten, Sonya Schapp, Alice Chen, Taren Phillips, Macarena Iturbide, and Laura Gibson; Shane Valliere, Morgan Holmes, Jay Park, Shinske Maeda, Johnson Wu, and Bobby Pau.

Bryan Baker (Captain)

Ultimate Frisbee

The final game in the ultimate Frisbee competition was also held last week. Ultimate Frisbee is a regular sport operating Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday afternoons on B field. In the final game of the playoffs, the Denmark team (seen at right) emerged as the winners, a surprising result given that the team finished fourth after regular season play. Coach Ian Henry was especially complimentary about the play of both Andre and Nancy Gallant in the final.

Mice v Senior Girls Field Hockey Team Annual Rugby Match

The annual challenge match between the boys Mice rugby team and the senior girls field hockey team took place this week. Bolstered by the lumbering presence of coach Marius Felix the girls put on a spirited performance but narrowly lost the match.