Rain Rain...go away...come again another day........I'm listening to Diana Krall's The Girl in the Other Room. Listening to Diana Krall brings up a flood of memories and reminders of Nanaimo life. Like the fact that she is from Nanaimo. And she went to NDSS and had Mr. Stovell as her band teacher (I had Mr. Stovell too...he is the BEST band teacher). And the last name Krall...well it's pretty big in Nanaimo. But aside from these facts...listening to her reminds me of my highschool days at NDSS. I went there for 3 years...from Grade 8 to the end of Grade 1o. I remember starting that huge school (which had like over 1200 kids in it) and feeling so small and young and kind of lonely. I remember being scared that some "girl" would want to beat me up after seeing a "catfight" in one of the stairwells (that image will forever remain imprinted in my memory). I remember waiting for the bus in the mornings and taking the long ride to and from school. I remember a girl named Jane who took the bus who was so mean and would kick people out of their seats at will.....

But I also remember meeting Erin Irwin and Kam Sajan in my social studies class. They were best friends and laughed about all sorts of things. I wanted to be their friend so badly because they looked like fun. Well we became friends and Grade 8 was fun! Grade 9 not so much. Erin stopped going to school and moved to Cedar and Kam became friends with other people....I found it hard to fit in somewhere. Grade 10 too. I was glad to be going to Dover Bay for Grade 11...if even that it was MUCH closer to my home. NDSS was so big that it was easy to get lost and overlooked or mistaken for someone else. Like, for example, when I was in Grade 9 my guidance counsellor called me and told me that some results of a test showed that I had a reading problem. I was surprised because I had never had a reading problem before but apparently the test results were not good and they wanted me to go and get extra help at lunch time. Well, I dutifully went for a few weeks and found the exercises that they gave me sooo easy and painfully boring but still did them because they insisted. After a few weeks my guidance counsellor called me into his office again and announced that I didn't have a reading problem after all - that I was just fine. They had made a mistake and mixed up my test results with some elses. Anyway....those are the kind of things that happen in a huge school with so many kids.

But I am off track. I like Diana Krall because she reminds me of the good parts of home - Nanaimo, Lantzville. Like Swy-a-lana Lagoon where I went for many a walk with many friends.....and Piper's Lagoon and good times spent there.....and Newcastle island....and Malaspina...good old Malaspina where I spent so much time learning to be a teacher and writing so many history and English essays and listening to some boring lecturers and researching in the library........I love Nanaimo and Lantzville and sometimes I miss the simplicity of life there (though at the time it didn't seem simple). I miss having everything close by and not having to drive a lot. I miss my family. Nanaimo....Lantzville....Vancouver Island....I love you!!!!