By Emily Wei, Columnist
The time has come for grade 10s to finally not be the “newbies”, grade 11s to become seniors, and grade 12s to go out into the world by ourselves. Us students used to do nothing but dream of growing up and being an adult. Well, now that this time has come, it is honestly not all that we imagined it to be. Students at Halifax West this year have cried, laughed, gone through a pandemic, and lived through prime teenage years together. We counted down the days until our time filled with tests and studying would finally be over and we have taken it for granted. I mean it was nothing like the movies we watched in middle school. There was no burn book or musical flash mobs but it has been quite a production. Halifax West High School is not just a school, it is a second home and the site of where countless memories and lifelong friends have been made.
To begin the “closing ceremonies”, at the end of May, Halifax West organized an Extracurricular Awards night to recognize students who have gone above and beyond in a club or group at school. Parents, friends, and guardians were invited to see the recipients receive their awards at the banquet. Not only this but, the long awaited Mascot Showdown finally made a comeback after going into hibernation due to COVID-19 for two years! The Mascot Showdown is an extremely lively event where all the schools in Halifax Regional Center for Education compete with each other to see who has the best “mascot” and school spirit! With the last winner being Dartmouth High School, this year’s contest was hosted by them and the winner turned out to be Bayview High School!
With the last week of June being exam week, the West made sure to fit in as many things as possible in the remaining three weeks. Starting off with the “Last Blast/Pride Week”, students and staff participated in lots of great themes such as; rainbow colours, jerseys, and twin day. Not to mention events such as a potato sack race, water balloon tossing, and button making! In addition to this, the International Baccalaureate program is a program offered at Halifax West for students wanting to receive an education that is globally recognized and on June. 6th, our grade 12 IB students celebrated the end of a long three years with a special graduation ceremony. A few days after this, the athletic banque was hosted to congratulate all of the talented student athletes that will no doubt go down in Halifax West history. On the same day, a barbecue along with games were organized. Like I mentioned previously, we had a busy few weeks and, as if this was not already evident, our Best Buddies committee hosted a prom for all the learning centre students!
By now, Halifax West has its full Student Government for the 2022- 2023 school year and as Vice-President of Student Government this year, or I guess former Vice-President now, it is bittersweet to see next year’s student government being chosen. It feels like just yesterday that this school year’s government was being selected. However, it looks like next year is in good hands and Halifax West has lots of great new government members!
To conclude this column I would like to acknowledge that, for the past two years, I have been writing these columns for this paper and with every passing month and new column, I hope you learned a little something about your local high school. Having said this, the time has come for me to graduate and pass on the torch to a new columnist. But first, I would like to thank all of you for taking the time out of your day to read these columns and without you, I would never have had this amazing opportunity. So, to end my final column the same way as I started my first; good morning, afternoon, or evening to whoever decided to pick up this newspaper today and I thank you for reading.
