#9. First Day of High School (Wednesday, September 1, 2004)

What was your best day…of realizing that so many exciting years lay ahead?

Right up until the eve of my ninth grade school year, perhaps influenced by the overly dramatic teen sitcoms and occasional tragic news report, I somehow had it in my mind that “high school” was this big, scary place: where at a moment’s notice, you could fall into some deadly drug addiction, or worse, get a switchblade pulled on you by some random guy in the hall.

I’d like to say my fear was mitigated somewhat by the fact that I’d be attending Lisgar Collegiate Institute – the Gifted-focused school which all of our parents had to line up overnight in the freezing cold in early February¹ to get us a spot in².

And if not that, just the fact that most of my middle school classmates were going as well. With one notable absence: my longtime frenemy³ Steven Fennessy (#16) – whose parents had been told directly by our eighth-grade teacher that he was not suited to continue in the Gifted program.⁴

Problem was, another guy had already taken over as my self-designated “worst enemy”: Todd Xing (#47). And I had spent much of the summer complaining to my nine-year-old neighbor Tam about how much of an idiot he was and how much I hated him, as the grudge kept building on itself. But I figured that so long as I avoid him (and be wary of the drugs and the switchblades), high school should be manageable.

Finally, that first day arrives.

And early in the morning, I get a call from none other than Todd, asking me if I want to make the trek with him to downtown together (we lived in the same neighborhood) – for the first time, for our first day of high school. And for that hour at least, all of that hatred inside me seems to dissolve away. After not seeing each other for two months⁵, our one-hour bus-ride chat is…genuinely friendly. As if we are back to being best friends (#28). We joke about the Olympic marathon that recently took place⁶ and all the cool things we could be expecting in high school.

We get to Lisgar and meet up with all our friends. I also see a couple of my old friends who I thought I’d never see again: like Riley (super-nerd and my best friend for sixth grade, before he left), most of my fourth-grade classmates from Mutchmor⁷, and a couple of guys I had made friends with over the years through Chinese school and piano (but I had no idea were coming here). That morning was like a full sensual blast, like all my past life coming together in one courtyard between the two high school buildings. I was in this new world where everyone from every theater of my life had gathered: these next four years would be the ultimate crossover episode of my life. So. Freaking. Excited.

The first day wasn’t a real day, of course. We had a welcome-to-school assembly⁸ and a barbecue (where I caught up with a lot of these old friends), and that was it. Time to go home.

But then Nora Gaudreau (#18) comes up to me and asks if I’m coming to her place for Happy Gilmore. I ask her if there’s some event happening, then she takes my hand and pulls me over to the big group of twenty or so of our other middle school (Broadview) classmates that have gathered, getting ready to go.

Before leaving, though, four of us – Derek Dunlop (#116 , #96), Damien Bei (#113, #47), Noah, and I – decide that we’re too cool to join the others in taking the obvious bus route; so, instead we head over to a different bus station in downtown. And once we’re there, Derek explodes in unbridled excitement: “I cannot fucking believe it. We’re in fucking high school now!”

Naturally, we end up getting lost on the way to Nora’s. We take something like three buses to get there. During which time, I save Derek and Noah’s lives (or at least I claim) by telling them to get up from sitting on the sidewalk as the bus quickly rolls in. And while we’re on the bus, Derek, still drugged up from this high school infusion, just stares out the window pointing to different girls on the street and losing his mind at how attractive they are⁹. That hour of the four of us just chatting with excitement about high school, while navigating hopelessly across the city, had to be one of the most strangely fun experiences of my life.

Eventually, we arrive at our old middle school to find the others all waiting for us at the swing set (Nora lived right next door). Now that the whole group is there, it’s time to go!

Well, not so fast. There’s also a high school literally next door to Broadview (Nepean High School, where a lot of our local classmates ended up going); and a big group of upper year students see us walking past. And I guess they think we’re new freshmen there, so they…start chucking eggs at us. Like volleys of raw, uncooked eggs just start raining down on our group.

I manage to dodge all of them (some of the others aren’t so lucky), and a few minutes later we’re safe at Nora’s. The twenty of us all crowd into the basement, Nora brings out the chips and pop, and Happy Gilmore starts.

Her older sister is there too¹⁰, as are her younger brother and a bunch of his friends, as well as some of our old Broadview classmates that went to other schools. And for the next two hours, we all hang out, watch the travails of Adam Sandler the hockey/golf player, and look excitedly ahead to the years that are coming up.

I remember this because it was the same day Janet Jackson had that wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl halftime show.
It got a lot worse two years later: it became something like a three-night camping trip, and it made the national news. The year after, the school must’ve decided that this wasn’t the best publicity, so they changed it to a random lottery.
Though, by the end of that year, it seemed that we had both finally grown up and come to a “permanent” truce (#47). (“Permanent”, because, that was one of the last times I ever saw him.)
He went to this random local school where he lived on the far East End…and ended up not going to college and moving to Edmonton to become a minister or something.
Besides the big group soccer game Steven organized the day before, since a lot of us were going our separate ways.
The one where a mentally-unstable defrocked Irish priest pushed the Brazilian runner (who had been in the far lead) into the crowd, stopping him for twenty seconds, hurting his hip, and breaking his rhythm – resulting in him finishing third.
I had left after that year to Broadview, where I spent grade five to grade eight.
Where Derek Dunlop lost his monthly bus pass on the first day.
The first time he does that, the girl is actually pretty attractive. The second time, the woman turns around to reveal this weird-looking hairstyle, to which he says: “Never mind”. I tell him, “Maybe you’re getting a bit too excited, Derek.” To which he gives me the finger for the next minute.
She’s a junior at Lisgar, and a person of great attraction to Damien a few months later. He claims he did not recognize her that day, nor know she was Nora’s sister until I told him.