Blog #7 - Toboggan

About when I was around seven years old, one day, I was at one of my really close friends’ house. It was a nice, winter day... And when I say it was ‘nice’, I mean it was quite warm for having so much snow outside. So, we decided to go tobogganing. I’ve always heard that the tobogganing hill by her house was really steep, and there was never younger people like us that usually went on it because people felt it was too dangerous. I sort of understood considering there was a busy highway near the bottom only separated from a couple trees and bushes. We both felt daring, and decided to go for it. At first, I felt extremely intimidated right when I hopped onto my toboggan, looking down the very steep hill... But I ended up forcing myself to go because I convinced myself that I would feel regretful afterwords if I hadn’t gone down. The two of us climbed onto the same toboggan and with just one push, we were instantly catching speed. We went faster and faster until we both felt the toboggan starting to turn on us, literally. The wooden platform started to twist so we were facing backwards and it suddenly got really bumpy going down the hill. We started to scream, both realizing that the toboggan will flip on us at any second so we decided to bail. Without hesitation, I slid off, followed by my friend who repeated my actions seconds later in front of me. As we helplessly slid down the hill, I could tell she was as petrified as I was (keep in mind, we were only seven). There was a moment of silence until we both started to laugh together. We got up to our feet, grabbed the toboggan and decided to have another go.

Blog #6

I remember when Kelsie and I first met Dylan and Jacob in grade six. We quickly became best friends, inseparable like the three musketeers... but with one extra member. Grade six was probably the most fun year ever in all my six years in Calgary Academy. Kelsie and I have always been best friends even back in our old school, but when I moved to C.A., Kelsie came, as well, two weeks into the new school year. I was so glad to have her with me. It is one of those memories that are stuck in your head, the day Kelsie and I first met Dylan. We both walked into the lunchroom and saw Dylan, eating his new bought lunch from the cafeteria, sitting alone. We decided to go join him, trying to be friendly. But the little, naive girls we were, we decided to take some of Dylan’s french fries without asking. It got so out of hand, Dylan got a big frustrated that started to tear up and Kelsie and I got in trouble. Only in the first week of school we got in trouble with Ms. Giles and had to apologize to Dylan. Weirdly enough, the very next day, we all became best friends. Anyways, another strange memory from grade six that is always going to be stuck in my head, is when the time our class started to beat up Cole. Let me clear things up, we didn’t actually beat up Cole, but the whole class toppled on top of Cole, pretending to beat him up because of some odd reason even though the whole scene was supervised by our teachers who weren’t really doing anything about it. I think it was because our class was playing a game where we all had to work together to win some candy and Cole messed everything up on purpose for fun. Anyways, in the end, he got a massive bleeding nose and everyone felt bad. Thankfully, it wasn’t too serious because Cole even had a laugh about it right after, and so did the class. Even just the tiniest memories we still remember always make us laugh once in awhile.

Blog 5 - Christmas

Christmas is my favourite time of the year because it means hanging out with your family, Christmas music, decorations, joy, food, movies... and presents! My routine of Christmas morning is to wake up really early and wait until my parents are up to open presents together. When I feel like when it finally starts to feel like the Christmas holiday is when you’re putting up your tree and decorating it because that one tree is the symbol of Christmas; Making it look pretty from top to bottom! Another part of the holiday season that I think is awesome is the family dinner at the end of the day when all your family members gather around the table and spend time together. Even though my family is not very large on both sides of my parents, my family usually has multiple Christmas dinners to attend on either side. I love to buy gifts for my friends and family, because feeling generous and seeing the expression on their face when they open the gift just makes me feel good on the inside. I love Christmas, and I believe that everyone should deserve to celebrate it with family.

Blog 4 - Laughing

Have you ever laughed until you cried? Have you ever laughed so hard nothing comes out and you just sit there clapping like a seal? I have multiple times. In fact, it’s pretty much part of my daily routine. Even if I laugh a little bit, my eyes would water, just like when you yawn (if you’re like me). The way I see it, laughing is like a medicine. When you’re down, angry, frustrated, sad, I believe it is a natural, healthy cure. Even in awkward situations and embarrassing moments: laugh your way out of it. It’s like the ultimate way out of those kind of situations. One day, I was in school during a science class. To my surprise, the teacher announced a science test! Yay. I took my seat and was handed the test. ‘What the heck am I doing?’ I thought to myself, staring at the gibberish on the page. As I was looking around, seeing if anyone else got a clue as to what they were doing, my best friend and I had caught each other’s eye. I attempted to communicate to her by silently mouthing words but she hadn’t understand anything. Later during the test, she caught my eye again and was making silly faces at me, clearly showing she had no idea what she was doing either and had nothing better else to do. I tried to hold in my laughter, but she knew me better than anyone else and definitely knew how to make me laugh even when I didn’t want to. Darn it. A couple minutes in, I couldn’t hold in my laughter any longer and just spat out crying in the middle of the room with everyone staring at me. I was laughing so hard to the point that nothing came out. I quickly cupped my hand over my mouth and sat straight in my desk, pretending nothing happened with tears of laughter still bundled up in my eyes. I then got sent away by the teacher into a separate room, isolated from all my classmates, to finish the test. 

(half fiction, half not)

Blog 3 - Picture

Imagine this place. You are in a beautiful paradise. Looking straight ahead, all you see is blue. The shiny, blue lake reflecting the clear sky, and the mountains caressing the edges of the big pool. As you dig your toes into the rough sand beneath you, you feel the warmth of the tiny rocks hugging your feet. The cool breeze brushes your hair off your shoulder as you lift your head up to the sky. Quiet and tranquility overcomes you as you start to drift off into a light slumber. Once every year, this is my escape. Just as you are about to take a nap on the warm sand, you are suddenly overwhelmed and shaken by a loud revving sound. You sit up, and notice a water skier passing by. It is a small girl, looking fully concentrated on her balance as she is being pulled behind the boat. Also you notice a speed boat in the distance, a big blown up floatation device kids are jumping on, and a couple of sea-doo’s rushing by as well. The lake is occupied and shared by so many people because there are so many residential lake houses around here. Sometimes I feel that it could get too crowded if everyone had their boat out for the day. As you get lost in your own thoughts, you get distracted by how stunning the view is. Admiring and taking in the beautiful scene, you close your eyes and ask yourself one thing: “Why don’t I live here?”

Blog 2 - Finding Money

Finding money in the most unintentional places feels great. When I was really young, money was just an antique that I would stash in my glass piggy bank and never take out. But now, and I’m sure I speak for a lot of people, it‘s even hard to keep it in your wallet before buying clothes, bags and shoes because of how marketed today’s society is. Don’t get me wrong, I manage my money really well and make sure I don’t spend it all at once. But as sad as this sounds, whenever I get a twenty dollar bill, I feel like I’m the richest person in the world sometimes. One casual day at school, I was in science class where we were doing some sort of project that I can’t remember with different colored liquids in flasks. Just in the midst of doing the experiment, my lab partner accidentally tipped over one of the flasks and our desk was soaked with some sort of mystery fluid. So, I had to go get some wet paper towel from the bathroom to wipe it up. While in the bathroom, I grabbed the handle to the paper towel dispenser and a little folded up piece of paper fell down onto the counter. At first glance, it was a colorful and shiny piece of paper but as I unfolded it with curiosity as to what it was, it was a twenty dollar bill. ‘Who would even think to leave a perfect twenty dollar bill in the bathroom?’ Someone had obviously left it there on purpose because of how it was folded and perfectly placed in the crease of the handle of the paper towel machine. Finding money that you unknowingly had feels great.

Blog 1 - Me

Hi, I'm Brianna and some of my interests and hobbies are playing the piano, guitar, playing soccer, singing, photography, music, biking, and traveling. The farthest I've every traveled was to China to visit some friends and family. Some places, out of the many that I love to visit are Hawaii, Greece, and Bahamas. My family of five is very musical so I’ve had an early introduction to music. I've played the piano since basically when I was born but have been taking lessons since I was about six years old and have taken three piano exams, and done a little bit of singing too. Right now I’m currently attempting to play the guitar. Soccer has always been the one and only sport I've played for a team. I play for Springbank U18 girls and throughout the years, we've gotten to provincials 3 times but unfortunately, had barely placed anything. I find that photography is really fun and you can be really creative with it. I’ve been asked by friends or family to do group photo shoots, single portraits, and videos. My best friend is definitely not Moira Anderson because I dislike her a lot. There is literally no possible way that I could express how much I don’t like her. J Anyways, I like all different kinds of music from country, to acoustic, to rap. Some bands/artists that I like right now are Coldplay, One Direction (deal with it), Ed Sheeran, and Taylor Swift. My favourite subject in school is English… Not just because my English teacher is reading this. Okay there’s nothing really else to talk about so… bye.