My Christmas Traditions

 
Last year my family and I differed from our usual Christmas traditions because my dad and I volunteered at the World Junior Hockey Championship which was in Calgary. I had the pleasure of taking care of team Latvia and team Canada over the holidays (including Christmas day). This entailed filling water bottles, moving equipment and various other jobs.

Anyway, usually for Christmas, my family and I spend it at our cottage in Fairmont Hot Springs, BC. I call it a cottage but it’s actually bigger than our house in Calgary, so it’s more of a... "summer house." Thankfully Hockey Calgary gives us a two week lull in ice times over Christmas break, but I don't think much people would attend if there was.

We get to our cottage on about the 21st, which is coincidently my birthday, and my parents set up some Christmas decorations and a tree. While they are doing that, by brother and I are likely playing hockey on the lake with the other kids who come up for Christmas.

When Christmas Eve arrives, we go to midnight mass in Radium, which is about twenty minutes down the road, and wake up early Christmas day to open our presents.

After Christmas, we head to my grandpa's farm in Edmonton for New Year’s Eve, as my grandpa's birthday is on New Year’s Day. We watch New Year’s celebration shows on TV then at midnight, we bring him a cake and sing happy birthday.

It's Not Braille!

Up until this year, I have been with the same group of guys for the last few years of school; Noah, Simon, Raiden and Merrick. In the last two years both Merrick and Raiden have moved schools and Simon, Noah and I definitely do not have as much fun anymore. In grade nine, the five of us had Mr. Schugraf as our math, science and mentor teacher and he was awesome. Mr. Schugraf was always very fun and easy-going, however, for a few weeks he was not himself. He got mad quicker and he seemed stressed but we continued to goof around regardless.

Usually in mentor, we would just talk and occasionally do some overdue work, but one day Mr. Schugraf made us actually read. Unfortunately for him, we were in an exceptionally goofy mood that day and that fact that we were restricted to just sit there and read, made for a deadly combination. We were constantly laughing and joking to one another, and Mr. Schugraf told us to stop several times already. What made us laugh until we made no sound at all was what happened next.

I was sitting at the far right of the classroom and Merrick and Noah was near the middle. I heard them laughing so I turned to look. Merrick was running his index finger over the page line by line with his face facing the ceiling. His mouth was open and he was making grunting noises. Soon, most of our group of friends had noticed and were starting to laugh.

The next thing I heard was Mr. Schugraf yell, "Is there a problem Merrick?"
Merrick replied with "It's... not...Braille!"
Then in the most enraged voice I have every heard Mr. Schugraf yelled "Get out!"

He then proceeded to, one by one, force us out of the classroom into the dean's office all the while keeping a straight face while we were laughing historically. It was probably the funniest thing I have ever been a part of.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

This is a picture of me, not too long ago at the Stanford University campus. My dad attended Stanford for Business school 25 years ago and we went there for his twenty-fifth year reunion. We toured, of course, the business school, the engineering buildings and "The Quad." We also played on the Stanford golf course and went to a football game.

This school has been attended by some of the most famous people on earth including Tiger Woods, Herbert Hoover, John Elway, Anthony Kennedy, Andrew Luck and hundreds more. The business school had recently been rebuilt with all of the funds being donated by Phil Knight, who started a little company called Nike. The funding for two of the engineering buildings had been donated by David Packard and Richard Hewlett who started a computer company out of their garage there, called HP (Hewlett Packard). Another of the buildings had been donated by Mr. William Gates... not sure who he is.

The quad, which is in the distance, past the "S" shaped flower arrangement and the beautiful green grass, is the most famous area on the campus. The quad is an open area surrounded by four buildings, their exteriors made entirely of sandstone and filled with many, many stunning archways, statues and palm trees. It is one of the coolest places I have ever been to.

This is where I want to see myself in two years. Not just because of the exceptional teaching, the amazing facilities, the weather, the scenery or even the reputation. I want to go there because its my goal and I want to wake up every day knowing that I achieved it by working as hard as I could each and every day.

I Found Some Money...

Two years ago, I got very, very lucky. It started out with attaining higher grades in school, the highest I have ever achieved. Also, I started to thin-out, become stronger and leaner looking and I felt great all of the time. And since gifts such as these are given to you and not somehow “earned”, I had to attribute it entirely to luck like every successful person does.  It was at the start of grade nine that it began, but so quickly as it started, my streak of good luck has since ceased to exist.

Before it did however, I found something special. One day after school, something caught my eye; it was a bag of what looked like baking soda, nestled by the base of some bushes down the road from my school. This did not interest me at all, I don’t bake. About fifteen minutes later, I realized I had forgotten something, so I walked back to the school. When I passed the bush, I saw that the baking soda had been replaced by a generous wad of cash. I quickly picked it up and examined it. A note was attached to it saying, “Dear Captain Cook, here is this week’s payment.” This confused me a little, so I chose to ignor it. It ended up being around half a million dollars.

The first week with the money, I was flaunting it everywhere I could. I bought a beautiful sports car and hired a driver to take me to school, I ate at restaurants every time I could and most importantly my luck had changed with the ladies. They were all over me, every single one of them, and I found someone I thought was very special. She sort of got the short end of the stick when it came to brains but she was very attractive and very nice… well to me anyway. I took her out for dinner every night and our main pass-time was shopping, usually together, but sometimes not. I gave her my bank card some days and she would go to the nicest stores in the city to get whatever makes her happy, because when she’s happy, I’m happy.

One day, she and I were walking to the new section of Chinook centre to go clothes shopping. We went into a store and she quickly grabbed five shirts and three pairs of five hundred dollar jeans. She begged if she could have them, as she only had fifty shirts and twenty pairs of jeans. I told her I understood completely and we went up to the cashier. I handed him my card and he swiped it in the machine. He told me it had been denied and cut up my card! I was devastated. I turned around to look at my girlfriend but she was nowhere to be found.

I have lived the rest of my life until now, in complete poverty.

Something about me

My name is Robert Purcell and I was born in Toronto, Ontario on December 21st 1995 but I only lived there for a couple of months and have spent most of my life in Calgary. I enjoy playing most of the school sports as well as hockey which I play goalie, road cycling and running.

This summer, I travelled to California to play roller hockey in the US Junior Olympics for my team just from Calgary. We left with a gold and a silver medal and played teams from Hong Kong and Columbia as well as many teams from the US. Later, two of my friends and I cycled 825km over seven days from Revelstoke, down through Creston and back up to Calgary. This year I plan on running a half marathon. 

Last year I travelled to Cambodia with the school's ITS program and I am going to Nepal this year. Cambodia was a lot of fun and I brought back a bunch of cheap gifts for my family. I really enjoy travelling to other countries, other than the intense heat. 

In school, I love Math and the Science's but usually not English and Social quite as much. After high school I plan on going into engineering and then medicine. 

When I have free time (which is not often) I spend it playing guitar, watching tv and napping. I am a huge sports fan. I love watching Hockey, Football and anything in the Olympics. My favourite hockey teams are the Vancouver Canucks and the Flames.