student essay Excerpts

As your family welcomes each new bundle of joy into your life, the amount of frustrations and questions you ask yourself build up. Why do I get blamed for everything they do? Why do I have to share my stuff with them? Why can't you get a babysitter instead of making me stay home all the time? Why is there always so much pressure on me? When you muster enough courage to voice these complaints, your family looks at you, as if you have just asked one of the most ridiculous questions possible and they simply say, "Because you're the oldest."

-- from The View From the Oldest by Henrika Luong

Being the youngest has brought me many laughs, many pointers, many frustrations, and many wardrobe options.

-- from The Trials and Tribulations of Being the Youngest Child by Lauren Feick

Slurping, sucking, chewing, crunching -- these are just some of the sounds I wake up to every single morning. [...] The sound echoes off the walls like a crowd at an NHL game.

-- from Noises I Can't Stand by Keegan Standring

Think about it. Only yesterday you were this nerdy kid hanging out in the library where books are your only friends. Suddenly you remove your thick rimmed glasses and pocket protector and ugly black soled shoes and -- wow -- you're the hot topic at school. It's like you're Superman, only without the tights.

-- from If Life Was a TV Show by Katherine Hill

A visor is a small, clear shield that covers the top half of a player's face, and that could save a player's eye sight. Today in leagues such as the Canadian Hockey League and the American Hockey League, players are forced to wear visors as a safety precaution. Why should it be different in the NHL? They are hockey players, they have eyes, and they are susceptible to the same injuries as any other player in the sport.

-- from NHL Safety by Cody McNaughton

Oh the people I work with! Sometimes we get the type of people at work that always have something to say... the little mosquito that buzzes in your ear, with their loud, grotesque voice. There is also the type of person that we, at Swiss Chalet, call the sketch bag. A sketch bag is a person that freaks out over the smallest things. Let's say it's a Saturday night, it's starting to get busy. The sketch bag starts to panic when things are running out. "There is no more butter, there is no more chicken, there is no more dressing! AAAH!

-- from The People That I Work With at Swiss Chalet by Pawel Rzeznik

I was power walking, no, jogging, no, I was definitely sprinting to my first period class in an attempt to make the bell. No obstacles had yet crossed my path until, in the far distance, I say two figures squirming about in the doorway. It wasn't until I got closer that my worst thoughts were confirmed. Public Displays of Affection, also known as P.D.A. is the big elephant in the room that everyone can see, though no one can stand to point out the obvious, that we are all thinking the same thing, "Get a room."

-- from P.D.A.? No Way? by Rachel Meihm

I was nearly fifteen before I could even qualify to ride a thrilling ride. I always hated those carousels, those long, cheesy music playing carousels. I'm eighteen years old, and I still frequently hear, "you're so cute!" or "she's so adorable." Is it really necessary?

-- from Being 5"2" by Samm Rudden

...you hear the bookshelf reinforcing the door fall over, there must be a tonne of them. Window, you see a window, the white, dusty, beautiful window. You struggle to get it open from your tense and shaking fingers. A head smashes through the door, its teeth biting thin air in a vicious storm of spit and blood. The others catch up and slam the door, almost knocking it off the hinges. The window opens. You grab the eavesthrough and shimmy out of reach, hoping to God it doesn't break. Zombies.

I watched as he clenched his fists, groaned and grunted as he attempted to lift the weight that was obviously too heavy for him to manouvre. He lifted it again and again; his veins popped out of his arms like a balloon with too much air. Finally he slammed the weight to the ground. As the sweat poured down from his face he panted and went over to the mirror and flexed. He looked satisfied, fascinated, exhilarated. I watched from the background annoyed that my workout had been disrupted yet again by another Arnold Schwarzenegger want to be.

-- from The Annoyances of the Gym by Spencer Silvestro

Imagine sitting beside a pack of gruesome, fearless soldiers on a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, travelling through a scorching hot desert in the middle of the day. [...] As you stare aimlessly into the peaceful, blue sky, your mind becomes detached from the world only to be suddenly awakened by the shouts and screams of soldiers warning you of an attack. Three, two, one... BOOM! Your world suddenly comes crashing down like a fiery meteorite from space. [...] You let out a war cry, a blood-lusting, painful, screeching war cry that strikes fear into the heart of your enemy. As you are about to unleash waves of merciless bullets from the tip of your rifle, the Xbox 360 gaming system crashes, and the television monitor falls into an eternal sleep. Moments later you are cussing and fussing like a spoiled child without a toy. This is the life of a gamer.

-- from The Gamer by David Ogungbemi

My little brother is a candy fiend. He is the only kid I know that will wake up on a Saturday at 6:30 in the morning and disassemble the entire house looking for spare change to run to the corner store before my parents get up. It is almost as though he wakes up as Willy Wonka...

-- from 3's a Charm + 1 by Colin Mooney

... public bathrooms are horribly filthy or extremely awkward because of the vandalism. My personal favourite is when you come upon your chosen facility, walk in, and it appears that Niagara Falls is right above the bathroom. It was like a giant wet dog shook himself dry...-- from The Public Bathroom by Ben Reeds

The problem with public washrooms is that maintenance is rarely done. The doors hang by one hinge, the walls are wet, the ceiling is wet, the counters are wet, everything tends to be wet.

-- from Washrooms by Mathieu Amyot

ESSAY is a simple five letter word, but this word can make even the bravest of souls cringe with fear, cringe with anxiety, and cringe at the thought of the mountains of words, phrases and terms that lie ahead of them. Who invented the monstrosity we know today as the essay?

-- from an untitled essay by Neil Abraham

Imagine having nine subjects in a week throughout a year. That means eighteen final exams for two semesters and at least eight tests for one subject during a semester. The thought of it makes me tremble and it has potential to become my worst nightmare. I do not even want to mention what my friends are experiencing in senior year.

-- from Canada vs. Vietnam by Yen Truong

Looking at the stars is like watching a light show put on by the night sky. You can see millions of stars twinkling and shooting and racing across the sky. We sit around a camp fire and pick out stars that are grouped together in funny shapes. We even see Uncle Roger's ear, houses, snakes, bears, pizzas and donuts.-- from Why We Should Live Life at the Cottage by Emily Case

A typical day at the cottage with the family involves a heck of a lot of burning. The barbeque becomes smoky when my father begins his pattern of burning the night's dinner, my cousin and I apply tanning lotion in our desperate attempts to avoid burning, and my brother serves his role as King of the Fire as he pokes with the burning coals and reassembles the logs.

-- from Cottage Life: Can't Be Beat by Carly Rolph

... Now you have another problem on your hands, the packers. They must pick the most incompetent kids for that job! First of all they don't say a word. You try to have a conversation with them and they just stare at you like you have two heads! Not to mention they can't do anything without being told. If you don't tell these kids what to do they will stand there like mindless zombies and just stare into space. When they are doing something, they never seem to be able to do it right, For example, who packs soup cans on a loaf of bread?! It should be common sense to separate them, but no, a squished loaf of bread is the now "in" thing to have.

-- from an untitled essay by Shannon Hanlon

In my opinion, being able to apply science is an art. Like anything else, scientific theory can be taught in a classroom or from a textbook. However, no matter how much chemistry you know, or physics you know, or calculus you know, none of it counts unless you can apply it to a problem. Knowledge is useful, but turning knowledge into something real is difficult. Just as an artist must learn to blend compatible colours effectively, an engineer must learn to use the right physical properties in unison.

-- from The Art of Science by Christopher Gobbi