On Being A Buddy: Senior Students Share Their Stories

VARIOUS

Too Cool For Me

            I pick up the phone to dial his number. I’m scared. No way around it. No, this isn’t a crush I’m calling, it’s my buddy. His dad had given me his cell number and I knew this was going to be awkward. The call rang through; the first thing I hear is “yeah?” and so begins my “Go NT!” spiel. He’s with his friends and for the next five minutes I can tell he isn’t paying any attention. After I finish, he hangs up on me. Oh man. First day of school: I meet him and my other buddies (the rest are the way they’re supposed to be: shy, awkward, nervous, like I was.) Well this story doesn’t have a climax or a real ending but here goes: he was too cool for the tour, ghetto-handshook his friends in the halls, and we never spoke for the rest of the year. Hah.

ANONYMOUS  

Buddies at Grade 9 Welcome Day.

“Huckle Buckle!”

            I was in shock after checking the Buddy List in June 2008. Somehow, I was not just a buddy but a buddy leader. Now this might not have surprised the average buddy applicant very much, but I had never been a buddy before! On Grade 9 Welcome Day, two friends and I were assigned to run the huckle-buckle station. We started each rotation with a demonstration. My friend and I set ourselves up about 7 seven meters away from each other, and the other yelled, “Huckle buckle, cheek to cheek!” We charged at each other ready to touch our cheeks together, only she ran at me with her tush and I ran at her with my face. We ended up in a mound on the ground with a bunch of niners laughing at us!

SHOSHANAH KUPER

 

My Buddy and I Still Talk        

            Lets admit it: most senior buddies in the buddy program speak to their grade nines on tour day, and that’s all. They barely remember their names and go back to the own things in their lives. As one of my friends once put it, “Buddies is fake.” I think that’s because she, and many people at NT, didn’t have the same experience I did as a grade nine. My buddy was in grade twelve, and I thought she was the coolest. She did tons of extra-curriculars, and went out of her way to make me feel welcome.

            She called me throughout the year, and I remember I wasn’t afraid asking her simple questions like “do people actually dress up for red and grey day?” or more urgently, “what do I wear to semi?”

            My buddy and I still talk, and she messages me every so often to find out what I’ve been up to, and how school is treating me.

            While being a buddy for grade nines these past few years, I always try to think of my own experience in the buddy program. Although some people think it’s ineffective, or fake, for me, it meant showing up for semi in the right outfit, and wearing a ridiculous Red and Grey Day costume when everyone else did.

ALEX MCROBERT