2007 Winning Entries
2007 Senior Category Winners
First Place
Butterfly Wings, by Halah Zumrawi from Richmond
Grade 12, Richmond Secondary School
"She is nameless, barely recognizable within the limits of my memory. I never spoke to her, and I know I most probably never will. That is optimistically assuming that she is still alive. For some reason, in the second that fate brought us within meters of each other, I could not help but be struck by the differences in our lives..."
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Second Place
She Inspires Me - This Girl I Hate, by Ryan Thom from Vancouver
Grade 11, Sir Winston Churchill Secondary
"The woman who inspires me most is a woman whom I have often professed to absolutely despise. Dear readers beware! This essay is no heart-warming tale about a valiant old grandmother or selfless missionary worker. This is a story of jealousy and competition, a twisted cycle of hatred, love, and inspiration that has been a part of my life since I was born. You see, I have the great privilege - and deep misfortune - of being the brother of a prodigy…"
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Third Place
She Inspires Me, by Eunice Hii from North Vancouver
Grade 12, Little Flower Academy
"Like a tent she sits, just a frame. The hospital sheet we call a gown makes no effort to hide her fragility. She can’t be more than eighty pounds. And yet, something within her stands sentinel, guarding her heart against the ever-constant companion, that is the cancer. “Not again,” she sighs out from the hospital bed. She’s not referring to the nurse who has submissively come with another needle and set of steroids to lessen the pain. She’s referring to the cancer that made its debut more than two years ago…"
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2007 Junior Category Winners
First Place
The Simple Things in Life by Catherine Wang from Vancouver
Grade 10, Crofton House School
"It’s positioned right in the centre of the kitchen table. An innocent little pot of creamy white yogurt, unblemished and untouched, basking in a pool of golden sunlight. It makes a quaint enough picture, but already I can feel myself radiating distrust and suspicion, and daddy only contributes to my unease with his air of carefully contained caution. Mother stands a little to the side, beaming with unabashed pride at her first attempt at making homemade yogurt…"
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Second Place
She Inspires Me, by Bala Subramanian from Vancouver
Grade 10, West Point Grey Academy
Third Place"She was the mother of a family of men, a strong woman and a good person. She was my best friend’s mother; the zenith of grace and beauty and the pinnacle of a strange power that had nothing to do with influence and intimidation. Ajinkya was the loud sort, (especially when he was losing to me in some game) but Sushma Auntie, as I called her, could always silence him with a single look when nobody else could..."
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She Inspires Me, by Krystal Norrish from Surrey
Grade 9, L.A. Matheson Secondary School
"If there was anyone out in the whole wide world that I could say, from the bottom of my heart, really inspires me it would most definitely be my foster mother. It all started when I was the age of six, times were getting harder and harder as each day went by, especially with the fact that I was growing up without a father..."
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