•Enough Canadian history to score 13 out of 15 on the recent Angus Reid quiz that most of my fellow citizens failed miserably. And that's History, not Social Studies, Geography, not Earth Studies, and English, not Language Arts.
•Girls mature faster than boys. How else to explain why most boys, in their separate high school across the street, clearly hadn't aged since kindergarten. During my rare trips to Cathedral Boys to deliver documents and such, I felt like Diane Fossey on her first day in the jungle. What my public school peers saw in these screeching hulks was beyond me.
We girls were constantly told (subtly or outright, even by male teachers) that girls were infinitely superior to boys, but we were stuck with them and would have to ignore them as best we could in order to get on with the business of running the world. So much for "patriarchy."
•Nuns, unlike priests, aren't easily frazzled or fooled. Their powers of nicotine detection, in particular, border on the supernatural. When I grew up and went to work at a Catholic newspaper, our editor was a sister and former principal who hadn't patrolled a playground in years.
One afternoon, a married staff member shared snapshots of her son's fiancée; in one picture, a tiny white triangle could be seen peeking out of the girl's back pocket. It was about half the size of a grain of rice.
When the photo made its way to our normally bubbly editor, she frowned, pointed at the white speck and snapped instinctively, "Is that a pack of cigarettes?"
•Carrying an egg around for a week and pretending it was a baby taught me that I never wanted to carry an egg around and pretend it was a baby again.
•God gave you a brain, so use it. It will last longer, and serve you better, than a pretty face and cute figure.
•We are all going to die one day. Everyone suffers and ages and loses. Some mysteries won't be solved in this life, and aren't meant to be. Life is difficult and unfair, but also delightful. Life is just the way life is.
•No matter how hungry you are, you're not-and probably never will be-"starving." You will be harshly corrected for describing yourself as such. However, millions of Guatemalan children ARE starving, and need your dented cans of kidney beans by this Friday!
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