The Thrill of Being Where You Aren't Supposed to Be

Today we visited the world famous Banff Springs Hotel, which is about the closest to Hogwarts you will get in Canada. Instead of doing what most people did, which was stay on the ground floor and get lost, we got lost in an entirely different way: we went to the 12th floor. Most people will say (if they know the hotel), “There is no 12th floor.” Wrong. You have to take these steep little stairways high up into the eaves of the attics. Apparently two other groups of students were kicked out by security on the 9th floor as the entire floor was under re-decoration and renovation. In all, it was fun exploring the lesser known parts of a historical hotel… Do it if you ever get the chance: Take the lift to the 9th floor, get off, go right and find the stairs. Go up. As far as you can. There you will find room 999 (On the 12th floor).

The End of High School

Tomorrow morning, I will wake up like usual at about 0600, but to leave on the last trip I will go on for high school, the Banff Rocky Mountain Music Festival. I attended for two years in 2010 and 2011, and I have never had a better time with my friends, nor have I experienced such immersion in music as then. This year is my last year in a choir, my last year doing a solo, my last year traveling at the expense of my parents. And tomorrow the end of that will begin.

It is strange knowing that next year I won’t be coming up to R. E. Mountain Secondary School with a backpack with a few binders and a crappy TI pocket calculator, that I will most likely be halfway across the province in University. It’s strange thinking that I will know no one, that I won’t be able to greet the teachers after the Summer and ask them how they are, but most of all I will miss the general feeling of the place.

Sure, I hate high school, and anyone who doesn’t should be checked out (I actually sincerely mean that), but where else do you make closer friends? Yes, I hope I make friends in university. But being stuck in the same building with the exact same small group of people for the entire day, every day, gives you a chance to truly find amazing people out of the sea of adolescence (literally and figuratively). Where else do you get more time in classes to learn alongside people you have gotten to know for possibly ten years - maybe only five, but that is still more that university will grant you.

Here ends government funded education, here end the bands and choirs that you can join on a whim. Here ends the guarantee that all your friends will be less that an hour away. Here ends the first day of school, where you give hugs to the friends who you missed because you only ever see them at school. Here ends the time that you will spend with the friends that are younger than you.

It feels strange to know that I will probably not be living with my parents next year, that I’ll actually have real seasons rather than Wet and Mild (the eternal season of Vancouver); that I’ll be cooking every single meal I eat.

Although I still have a good month and half left at Mountain, I think it really ends here.