FRONT PAGE NEWS:MISS MATILDA SCORES GOAL IN HOCKEY

Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for an update from above 60. There has been snow, an episode of shingles, a hockey tournament in Fort Rez, a carnival on the reserve, and more… (suspenseful dots).

First a school update. The second school paper has come out and was a success, although I had to scrap some confessions from the already (in)famous confessions page. Crushes on math teachers are not allowed, even though it is no secret that many a female student has a crush on one, lol. Even in grade six!! Kids these days.
I dyed my hair pink for an anti-bullying campaign and it is still pink, to the excitement of my students. One of them has become slightly possessive of me and whenever I help another student in the same grade he gets jealous and angry and won’t talk to me again that day. At the end of the day I get letters of apology. It’s become a funny routine but needless to say we’re trying to change this behaviour. The improv kids are doing great and have recently mastered the games Quote Notes and Dating Show. Improv Wednesdays are the best days of the week!

Last week on the reserve we had K’amba carnival. I had to miss the dog races and hand games because of a sudden hockey tournament (see below), but I was there to witness the opening day and the crowning of the Kamba queen. The Kamba Queen is the girl whose parents sell the most raffle tickets. This sounds, and is, unfair, but I guess that voting would be unfair too, as many people in this town are each other’s friends and cousins and friends of cousins and cousins of friends, and voting with a jury would cause feuds and riots. I have heard that in other towns they used to have not only a carnival Queen, but also a King and a Prince and a Princess. They have now stopped this practise and stuck with just the Queen, as traditionally the raffle money went missing. Not sure how true this story is, I’m guessing there is a fifty percent chance. Anyway, for the carnival Queen of Hay River’s reserve, five different girls (all from DJSS high school) competed. The mother of the girl who came second got angry and started crying. The chief did a speech, which was cool, and then it was time for the children’s talent show. As I have pink hair and am not from Hay River, I was asked, together with a friend, to be on the jury. “You don’t have any cousins competing” was the terminology used. Lol. We got free fries for our service and pop and I discovered the joy of cream soda!!! Sorry, not important. Anyway.
There were four judges in total and we witnessed many jigging sessions and toddlers not remembering their lyrics. Older children read the lyrics off of their iPhones as they sang. It was very fun to be part of the jury and I was honoured to do it, although at one point the mother whose daughter had become second in the Queen competition walked over to me and my friend and told us we were racist and evil judgemental non-natives or something. This was less pleasant, but the other jury members stuck up for us and told her off, and apologized to us. Life isn’t easy as the mother of a nearly carnival Queen, I guess. I met one of the jury ladies the next day, who then told me that the woman had made them recount the raffle tickets all over again that morning because she suspected that they could not count. So this carnival Queen business is a big deal here, almost like an American beauty pageant except luckily without toddlers, and only one tiara.

Last weekend it turned out that there WAS a Hay River Women’s Hockey home tournament after all, except not at home. You see, the people of the town have been on strike for five weeks on a row now, and thusly the rec centre, with the hockey rink and swimming pool in it, has been closed. We hadn’t had any hockey practise in a while and the hockey teams of several neighbouring towns had already decided that out hockey tournament was off, and made other plans. Our, how do I put this, hockey Queen, however would not give up and made arrangements with the small town (450 people) of Fort Resolution. We were told a few days in advance that out tournament would be held there. We’d go by bus on Saturday morning to compete against Fort Smith and High Level. The night before I was so nervous that I hardly slept. I got to see some fancy northern lights though, so not sleeping was not completely shit. Then I got a phone call in the morning asking where I was. I thought we’d leave at 8.30 but everybody else thought we would be leaving at 7.30. Oops. Also, my hockey stick happened to be stuck in our closed rec centre. Luckily, a nice man in Fort Rez had a stick he did not like and he sawed off part of it so that it would suit my height. I got to keep it too, because it is now my lucky stick, because *spoiler alert* I scored my very first goal!!!!!!!!!!!!! Applause please and thank you.
The first day of the tournament we lost all of our games. This was sad and one of the ladies on our team thought it was mainly my fault. She’d say things like: some of us do not know how to play our position, MATILDA!!! And when the coach gave us some advice she went: he means you, MATILDA. Children please close your eyes for these next two words: F*CKING B*TCH…
Nevertheless we went back to Hay River that Saturday night on the bus, to “celebrate” at the local sports pub. We had drinks on the bus and pizza, and free appetizers at the bar, and we got the other teams slightly drunk in the hope that they’d play shitty the next day.
On Sunday morning, Daylight Savings Time hit us all like a wrecking ball. We had an early bus ride back to Fort Rez for the finals. Needless to say, most of the ladies on board were horribly hungover. Me and another kind-of hockey newbie, who totally rocks and goes by the name Kim, decided that we’d better score a goal. And that it would be front page news, etc. Ignoring the nasty woman on my team and totally high on pain killers and chocolate and on my period and tired and slightly hungover, I gave it my all, realizing that they would melt down the rink in Hay River soon and that it would probably be my last time hockey in Canada. For some magical reason and also because of her remarkable awesomeness, my pal Kim scored a goal and our bench got crazy excited as the score was now 2-2 or 3-3 (not too sure, I was not completely present in spirit, but it woke me up for sure, lol). I then realized it was my time to score a bloody dang goal. Here comes the heroic part. We broke through a couple of times. My position is right wing by the way and I was totally on their defence and chasing the puck like a madwoman and also blocking their sticks and all that so I did know what my position was thank you very much. I can also skate quite fast for a person who’s never been into skating much, for the sole fact that I am a Dutchwoman. So bam bam bam there I and our centre player skated and of course she would not pass me the puck because admittedly I suck at accepting passes. So I got in front of the goal anyway as fast as I possibly could, and our centre player slammed the puck goaliewards, then the puck bounced off of the goalie but there I was all ready and set and BAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was in there!!!! Everybody except a certain sour woman was ecstatic. Needless to say I have felt like a superhero ever since.


Other things I’ve done include playing games of Werewolves with people whose favourite game is now Werewolves, crocheting, getting shingles on my forehead, attempting to write my sci fi weirdnovel, pubquiz, getting a weird headache (I wonder if I have a concussion, I have had this headache for over a week???) and taking a day off from school, seeing the doctor in Hay River, doing a murder mystery at the library, getting into Downton Abbey, and getting angry at Student Council for not wanting to organise a school dance. What teenager does not want a school dance?!?!?!

As for the weather, just two days ago it was a chilly -24, and yesterday it was +5 degrees, seriously, so my body is slightly weather lagged. Not to worry my dear Jeany and Mikael, it will get colder soon.