Tonight, I went back down to the campaign office to do a second night of calling through the voters list. I did a couple of hours on Monday night. Found it rather enlightening, and in some ways a little discouraging. Enlightening as to the priorities that people have and how many are showing support for Zach. Discouraging, when you hear a fair number of people that are so disillusioned with all politicians and the system in general, so much so that despite the extreme importance of having a strong candidate to represent us in Halifax, they'd rather sit back and have no voice at all, declining their right to vote altogether. It has been a rather fun experience and I should have a chance to do a few more nights next week after my holiday in Halifax for the weekend.
While I was making calls tonight, Zach's mother, Joanne came into the office. She was looking to see if one of the volunteer coordinators were there so they could give her a spot of two to help out over the next few days. Joanne was my grade 11 English teacher during high school. I really wish I had been able top take more than just that one course with her since she was by far one of my absolute favourite teachers. We had a wonderful relationship. She was easy to like though, and I think everyone adored to be in her class. One of my favourite memories happened near the end of the year. We had chatted about the possibility of having a "fake fight" in class. I guess you could call it an argument more so. I don't know who thought of the idea or how it ever came into existence but we made the plan, and we would not know when we would do it, but we'd improv our way through the fight during an English period sometime before the end of school. Joanne would take the lead, when she thought the timing was right and the situation worked. We thought it would be funny to see how the others in the class would react since I was a pretty strong, non-argumentative student, so it didn't seem like it would be predictable to them.
A few weeks later, another student came to the door to return a pile of dictionaries. At the time we were working on some sort of important assignment that was due at the end of the period. Joanne saw this as the perfect opportunity and gave a little wink at me as she walked to the doorway to accept the books. She then proceeded to ask me to move all the books and pile them on the counter on the other side of the classroom. I knew this was supposed to be the trigger, so I made some loud groan, and grudgingly said "Why me, why not someone else?". She continued with an "I asked YOU to do it, do you have a problem with that?", and we continued to escalate the conflict from there. The comments turned to very raised voices and I pushed past her at one point and called her a witch (as we had discussed in the planning stage). Finally when half the students were looking down in their books, not breathing or moving, and the others sat with their jaws dropped open, trying to tell me to calm down, she told me to go to the principal's office right away. I'll never forget the look on one of my fellow students' faces, Shelley. She denied after the fact that she believed it at all, but her face definitely told another story. Once out in the hallway, I dropped to the floor, quietly trying to hold back my laughter, when Mrs. Churchill came out into the hallway and closed the door, she too finally let out a giggle and we both whispered about the reactions we had witnessed. We gave them a couple minutes to talk and process it in the classroom and we eavesdropped from the hallway then we entered the room and let them in on our prank. You don't get to do those sort of things everyday with a teacher. She has always been such a warm, caring, kind, considerate, thoughtful, creative and open person. I try to make a point of seeing her every time I come home, and know that she played a very big role, even if she didn't realize it, with my desire to enter the teaching profession. She has since retired, but will always hold a very dear spot in many of her former students hearts!!
She very graciously allowed me to take a photo, despite her belief that she isn't photogenic. I seriously beg to differ on that one, but wouldn't want to start yet another argument with her!! :)
Theme song for today: Come to my window by Melissa Etheridge
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