Cool Cherry Cream

Zynga’s newest game is FrontierVille. Long ago (like, maybe a week ago, since the game’s only been out less than a month), I noticed one of the feed posts for FrontierVille had a link that said “get some wood” and I giggled to myself. Now I realize they all say things like “get hammered”, “get nailed”, “get goosed”. And one of the feed pictures is of a chick lying on a bed, which at first I thought was a sort of FrontierVillian post, but is actually real.

Should this bother me? I mean, I think little kids play this game, but I don’t think they’re going to “get” any of that. It’s just that I’m used to the Neopets kinda thing where they get rid of sexy looking faeries and slot machines and anything slightly risqué.

I never learned the shortcut for making an é on the numberpad. I’m mean the short shortcut. I still use Alt+0233. There is one that’s only three digits, but I forget. Oh, 130. Nevermind. But 0233 has a special place in my 8 year-old’s heart.

So yeah. FrontierVille. Shocking.

This has been bugging me a lot lately. Especially because it’s so simple to do correctly.

This is wrong: 1990’s
This is right: 1990s

This is wrong: 90’s
This is wrong: 90s (unless you are not referring to the decade)
This is right: ’90s

Easy. Only use an apostrophe when you are putting it in place of something else.

Bonus

An apostrophe used to replace something, at the beginning or end of a word, always looks like this (9-shaped, not 6-shaped).
’

Last week, I went to my brother’s high school graduation. ‘Twas not as boring as I remembered graduations to be; that’s not to say however that it was exciting.

The introduction

My only real complaint about the structure of the event is that there are far too many old people talking at the beginning. We have an introduction by a lady I don’t know but whose name sounds familiar so I assume she’s staff — but my brother doesn’t know her either, so clearly she isn’t that important. Why?

Then we have a welcome speech by the principal. Cool.

Then we have a school board trustee talk. Then the superintendent of education. Then the principal again. Not cool.

Here’s how it should go: Introduction by the principal. Done. Who is the trustee? The superintendent? What do they do? I have never interacted with them and I suspect neither have most other students. These boring old people have no business boring us. Period.

The awards

Next came the awards. For some reason, they give out awards, then the diplomas, then more awards. I don’t know why they don’t just give out all the awards at the same time, but that didn’t really bother me.

My brother won the French award, as he suspected he would. Hopefully people are not suspicious because I also won the French award when I graduated and umm… our last name is French. I kind of don’t like this because it makes it seem like we’re immersion kids and people see our name and go “well, that’s not fair”. Anyway, I went up to take my brother’s picture while he was getting the award and he goes and high fives all the kids in the front row. What a goof.

Then he wins the Creative Writing award, which he was totally surprised about. He once again went and high fived everyone and yelled “I’m doing this every time!”. Unfortunately, he did not win any more awards, so he didn’t get do it again. I’m a bit jealous that he got this award because *I* only got one award when I graduated and certainly not the Creative Writing one. Technically, I wasn’t actually in the running for the Creative Writing award because I hadn’t taken that course, but whatevs.

I was going to rant about this teacher here, but I won’t because I did that enough when I was in her class. But I’ll still show you the picture of what I would look like if she came to talk to me since I went through all the trouble of finding it:

Dear Ms. Ramson: My name is not Nicole.

The diplomas

Then they give out the diplomas. The kids have a little card that you write your name on and then give to a teacher backstage to announce your name and a little whatever-you-want-to-say when you walk out. Most people write things like “thanks to my mom and dad for always being there” or “shout-out to Brittany! See you this summer lol!” or “I just lost the game”. My brother wrote “I never wanted to graduate. I wanted to be… (pause)… (with enthusiasm) A LUMBERJACK!”.

It’s always sad when people are getting their diplomas and the crowd cheers loudest for the popular kids. If your name is near the beginning of the alphabet and you’re not popular, it’s still okay though, because people clap out of politeness. But by the time you get to the Ss, people are tired and don’t care anymore, so a couple kids walked out with just the teachers on stage and their family clapping for them.

More awards

Then they have some more awards, like the one for highest Grade 12 average and highest four year average. The kid who won for Grade 12 had a 92 point something percent average. We were told my brother had a 93 point something percent average this year, so I don’t know how that works out. Plus, when they were announcing earlier awards, like for the highest mark in English, we were pretty sure my brother had a higher mark in that too. Actually, I’m pretty sure *I* should’ve gotten the English award as well when I graduated, but whatevs. High school.

The valedictory speech

Next, we have the valedictorian speech. Full disclosure: My brother was in the running for valedictorian and didn’t win, so I might be a little biased, but I think my arguments are still valid.

Does not the valedictorian title traditionally go to the graduating student with the highest average? It clearly did not in this case, because the person who won that award was not valedictorian. Nor did it go to the next highest average, because the girl who won valedictorian received honours (80% or above) but is not an Ontario Scholar (80% or above in best six senior courses), which is presumably more prestigious.

So why did she receive this honour? She was in the musical.

I can understand picking a valedictorian who is a well-rounded good student: good grades, participates in clubs, sports, arts. Cool. My brother isn’t big on extra-curricular activities, so I can understand not picking him for that reason. But he tells me there was another student in the running for valedictorian who fit all the criteria. Why not pick him? If it’s a sexism, equal opportunity bullshit thing, why not have a guy and girl valedictorian, which I heard they were considering?

When I graduated, the girl who was valedictorian completely deserved it. There was one page of the program where all the awards went to her and one other girl. I doubt she ever received less than a 90% in her life. And she was on student council and all kinds of other clubs. I couldn’t believe in grade 9 gym class when we were doing a “dance” unit and I learned that she also took dance class! She’s gone on now to go to university and climb a famous mountain and help third-world countries and all other kinds of crazy stuff. She’s, to put it simply, awesome. She totally deserved it.

Anyway, let’s put all that aside. Let’s say that this year’s valedictorian is a total Lauren and she totally deserved it too. But…

Her speech sucked.

She tripped up a lot and handled it unprofessionally. She made shout-outs to all her friends (half the graduating class). Inappropriate.

You know how during stand-up comedy routines, the person says something like “I recently got married” or “I recently lost ten pounds” and then the crowd claps? Or if they don’t clap, the comedian waits a little bit for them to clap? This girl did the same thing after saying something about her family being loving and supporting and awesome.

Hello. We do not know your family. We are not going to clap for them.

Sources tell me she also ripped off the other valedictorian candidates’ speeches, which I can’t confirm, so I won’t dwell on it. However, when making shout-outs to teachers (which is cool, because everyone knows them), she certainly came close to ripping off my brother.

Anyway, whatevs. Totally unprofessional.

And while I’m at bashing my high school, I would like to mention that if you are a university-bound student, do not go to Hill Park Secondary School. You will get screwed over. They cancel upper year university courses. They schedule things like Grade 12 Communications and Grade 12 Computer Science (both computer courses) at the same time. They cater towards the workplace-headed students; this is why they have a Skateboard Building course.

There are good schools out there. I took summer school and had the pleasure of being taught by a teacher from Parkside named Mr. Baker; he was awesome. Please consider going to a more “scholastic” school.

(Apologies to Mrs. Kasik, Mrs. McEachren, and Mr. Stewart: you were cool. Thanks.)