The Mike Haddad Show: This is relevant to my interests.

The very first Mike Haddad History Tour I officially gave was to Adam Steczkiewicz because we're losers like that. Or something. It took place as a walking tour around River Oaks; something like a walking tour in London. It was pieced together from bits of walks that I used to take during the summers I spent at Saugeen. It starts at Our Lady of Peace, winding down Shannon Creek Trail to Callahagn and Leacock; up Towne and along Saugeen to Munn's Creek at River Glen Blvd; down Munn's Creek before cutting off to Harman's Gate, along WestChester and Andover; along Sixth down past Holy Trinity to Munn's, then over to River Oaks Blvd via the River Oak's School side of Munn's Creek. It's all quite confusing, and I'm sure that somewhere in there I butchered the proper use of a semicolon (for which I appologize). It tends to deviate after that depending on my mood, and the weather. With Adam, we continued across Upper Middle down Elm and through Oakville Park So it basically consists of walking through my old "stompin grounds" if you will, with me talking about myself and what I used to do; people I used to be friends with; sports activities I stopped taking part in. So let's try to make this something more official.

I didn't always live in the lovely Oakville. No, I was a proud Torontonian; born and almost raised. I lived there until I was six. I went to one school in the East Beaches for Junior Kindergarden and one school in Parkdale for Senior Kindergarden. Oh Parkdale. I don't recall what the school was called. On no, I do: Alexander Muir. It was old. It also allowed me to form a great friendship with a Japanese girl that ended when she moved back to Japan. So old that my parents went there. It makes me wonder about what highschool would have been like at Parkdale Collegiate Institute. Think about it. The school was over 100 years old when my parents went there. My dad still holds the bench press record in the gym. Do you have any idea how scary that is for me to think about? It's scary.

Growing up in Toronto with parents who grew up in Toronto meant one thing: I wasn't allowed to go outside very much. The park down the street was extremely sketchy. I went back to the one in the beaches a few months ago; they had cleaned it up a lot. Unfortunatly it wasn't clean when I was living there. Not that it mattered much. In the beaches, there was no one my age, and when I stayed at my grandmothers for a year I got in fights with the neighbours. Luckily for my birthday my parents bought me an SNES. Needless to say I was in heaven. I'm sure that to this day they regret making that purchase. I was to be extremely addicted to Nintendo throughout most of my early life.

When we moved to Oakville, we were one of the first families on the street. I think for a while my parents were extremely antisocial. I blame the fact that they both worked like crazy. I started at St John's for grade 1, with no idea that I would be once again switching schools when then year was over. So, making friends was a challenge. Not an actual challenge, but a challenge in the sense that everyone in grade 1 is carefree and fickle. I was probably a big pussy too. We went through a number of nannies until I was in about grade 4. So up until that point I really didn't do much outside of the house; it was easier for both the nanny and my parents that way. I did have friends though. Two in particualar that I was close with: Rylan and Mario. That's not to say I didn't meet other people, because I definatly did: Andre, Adam, Amanda, and Kaitie; I was just close with them because they lived right near by (and when you're in grade 1, going from Towne and RiverGlen to Sixth Line and UpperMiddle took way too long). The amusing thing about that is I don't think any of us talk to each other anymore. Mario is extreme gino styles, and Rylan is a scene punk. So you can see how that might cause some conflict. We were good friends until around grade 7, when things like that started to matter (As if they really do matter). We did the regular things. Ball hockey, video games, board games and swimming in pools. Talked about girls, and teachers; what it would be like when we finally got into highschool. Whatever. It was fun while it lasted. Oh those crazy games of "Nicky Nicky Nine Doors".

By the time Rylan, Mario and I had our falling out I already had two close groups of friends. The first were the male friends, the other were the female friends. This of course being the case because in elementary school it was taboo for groups of friends to be co-ed. The male group consisted of the following people: Andrew and Matt the brothers, Chris M and Chris Q. It started with Andrew. I am no longer able to recall how we became friends. I know that, looking back, we always told stories of how we met in grade 1. I know this to be extremely and blatantly false. I was probably insecure, and suffering from a huge bout of Carrots and Celery Syndrome, when I said I had met him in grade 1 and we had been friends since. I'm sure he was going through the same thing. We both hated everyone in school. However, we weren't in the same grade 1 class and I hardly talked to many people in that class. They all knew each other from kindergraden. We weren't in the same grade 2 class; we weren't in the same grade 3 class. We didn't have a class together until grade 6. However, by that point I know we were almost inseperable. I remember us being excited that we were in the same class. So our friendship developed somewhere, it's just a question of where. I'll get back to you on that one. Matt was his older brother, and the two Chris' were his friends. We called Chris M Fly. For the record his fly was never actually undone, we had been having a conversation about the leather things they place on the front of school buses when he walked by. That was the male group of friends. Every morning we would meet at Andrew's house and we would play videos games. Goldeneye was the big one. Oh the memories. The other group of friends was the small female one. Kim, Danielle and Christina. They were pivotal in many things, I'm sure. The developement of certain tendencies.

Having the group of male friends was really good for my mental growth, if that makes any sense at all. I don't actually think that's a good way to describe it. It was a nice way to discover myself. Yes, that's right. Somewhere in between the ocarina and the farm life I started thinking about who I wanted to be. Before I got into grade 8 I had already decided that I was going to go to UWaterloo for CS. I'm still not sure how I knew that Waterloo had the best program at that age; it will forever be a mystery. I remember how torn I was after I started going to Mini-U over the summer. Andrew, Matt and Chris would go with me. Andrew had decided he wanted to go to Mac (last I heard he was taking computer science there). What was I going to do. One part of me had already been determined to go to Waterloo (since you know, in grade 6 I knew it was the best - I blame my father). That was tough on what little mental stability I had. I got over it.

End Pre-Highschool

(I hit enter by accident. So I'm taking this as a sign to take a break. I'll continue the rest in an edit later.)