A Survivor�s Testimonial of her Interaction With the Rare �Kaktis�

I remember it like it was yesterday. There was a cool autumn breeze blowing through the air, and a heavy backpack full of grade nine course materials on my back. It was the end of September 2000, and I was thrilled to finally be a high school student. No more being picked on by the same jerks at M.S.B.! I will turn over a new leaf and meet new friends... be much more outgoing... less... shy?

The school bells rang and the busy halls became a lot more hectic with a flurry of rushing students. You know, it�s difficult getting from where you were sitting, to you locker, opening your locker, forcing the binders and textbooks out of the small space you have allotted for them, slamming your locker shut before all your crap topples on your head, shoving your books in your bag, remembering to lock your locker (that�s the key), and scurrying off to your first period class. Lots to do, lots to remember, little sleep to do it all with.

My first two periods came and went, the same old stuff was said, �do your homework, it�s due tomorrow...�. Yeah, yeah, yeah... Third period was lunch! I had just met a group of people I knew from the M.S.B. concert band; Cassie, Synnoeve and Mason (who was not in the band, but was there anyways). I had been eating lunch with them for the past couple of weeks and was becoming better acquainted with them. Today was different though; today somebody new came and asked to eat with us. Being the friendly group that we were, we said, �sure!� It took me a while to find out what the new kid�s name was... I thought it started with a K... maybe a P. Could it have been Elizabeth? A couple lunches spent with this new character allowed me to figure out her actual name... It was Kayleigh! (It only took me three days to remember... Okay... I�m no good with names... Shut up!)

Our little group sat up in the green locker bay, as grade nines usually find odd places to plant themselves. We talked, laughed, kicked Mason, played Uno, and kicked Mason some more... This was our little hangout every lunch; it soon was known as �the spot�. Our little group would refer to it as this and knew what we were talking about; no one else would though. :)

One day, within a week of meeting Kayleigh, Mason and I thought it would be fun to kick this stick of deodorant we found around the locker bay. We were right, it was fun! Until we heard a small voice say �Hey! That�s my deodorant!� only after it was broken and smeared across the lockers... Sorry Kayleigh, we had only just met, but, we decided it would be fun to bust open your deodorant, regardless of whether you needed it for gym or not!

Then, we found out that Kayleigh was an artist... We found the ominous skbook! Ooh... she could actually draw! Mostly fantasy stuff, and it was really good.
�What should I name him?�
�Who?�
�Him!� she said pointing to a sketch of a lanky looking creature with large teeth, horns and a mane.
�... What is he?�
�...A creature...�
�Oh... Qwert!�
�Umm... Okay!�
�Cool! And his last name can be Yuiop!�
�Mmkay.�
�...QWERT YUIOP IS MY HERO!� I bellowed. And so it began... Soon, the spot stripped Kayleigh of her innocent mind. She would never admit it but, her mind was joining ours; right in the gutter. Weeks progressed and we all became very comfortable with one another. Uno everyday created inside jokes such as, �chaaaaaaaaaaange the waaaaaaay!�, �zee vicious circle haz begun...� and me losing badly, and finishing the game with myself. Shut up, all of you!

By the end of January, the semester was pretty much over and we were all good friends. We also all knew that we didn�t have the same lunch together next semester, and it was saddening. We knew we would all see each other in classes and in the halls, but, it wasn�t the spot.

I noticed within a couple of weeks of second semester, that, hey?! You�re in my tech class?! Kayleigh and I talked about things, I found out that she had a short relationship with an older guy (Gasp! Grade 10!) named Sean. Things didn�t work out, and she protests (even to this day) that they shouldn�t even be considered a �relationship�... yeah, yeah, yeah...

Kayleigh was becoming a fine musician by the end of first semester and right into the second. Not only was she involved with band, but she would also join the other (older) music classes when she had the period off, impressing Mr. Wilcox with her �advanced� grade 9 French horn abilities.

The summer came and went and we were back to semester one, but of our grade 10 year. The spot was back, with the same ol� group. We were all really excited to see that we all had the same lunch again first semester. It meant more Uno, more fun, and more kicking Mason!! We still reminisced about the summer that passed. Kayleigh spent her summer with her clique; Greg, Sarah and Amanda as well as traveling with her family into the bowels of Quebec.

This year in the spot, there was much more doodling� Or, at least helping Kayleigh doodle in her skbook.
�I want to draw... What should I draw?�
�...ummm... Whee! Draw a whole note bird!�
�... Whole note bird? ... Okay!�
�And... an eighth-note moth!�
�... Eighth-note moth?�
�Yeah! The whole note bird will chase the eighth-note moth around trying to eat it!�
�...The hills are alive with the sound of muuuusiiic! That�s it!�
�What, is the hill licking the castle? Aww! The poor horse! Is the hill going to throw him?!�
�How would you feel if you had a horse stepping in your eye?�
�Good point...�

This year in the spot we had two new people join us. Well, not really new, we knew them from our grade 9 year and for some of us, even before that. We had Jen Haslem and Sarah Lewis.

They soon found out how much fun playing Uno in the green locker bay really was. Not only did Jen help kick Mason, Sarah was the almost-mother of our clique; �Don�t do that to poor Mason!�

One fine day at some point mid-first-semester, Kayleigh came up to the spot with this really pretty drawing of a white unicorn, with an arrow jutting out of it�s neck covered in blood,
�I need a background... What should I do for the background?�
�Ohh, make it all darkish, to match what the unicorn is feeling.�
�Wait!! Why not make it have a really pretty background with flowers and butterflies and a nice blue sky?!�
�Hehe! Yeah! That would be funny!�
�You people are sick!�
�Okay, it�s getting a pretty background...�

Around Christmas, Kayleigh and Cassie entranced our little group with a musical group they were in love with. They were called, �The Arrogant Worms�. What fun! They were like a joke group, who sang funny songs about everything. Ahh yes... gotta love joke groups! Our group fell in love with The Arrogant Worms, and began to listen to them on a regular basis.

The end of first semester came before we could realize it had passed us by. We would see each other in the halls, in class and at band, but, it just wasn�t the spot.

About mid-way through second semester, strange things began to occur. We had both met this odd character in our grade 9 year named Kaz. He moved to Acton from near Niagara Falls. He was in Kayleigh�s English class, and Kayleigh spoke to him on a regular basis, and he would always act appropriately and respond. One day, Kayleigh seemed upset, because Kaz had told her that she was irritating. She thought he was at least a good acquaintance. Being pissed off at this, because I figure that I am equally or more irritating than Kayleigh, I thought I would do something. As Kayleigh walked by where Kaz and I were standing in the orange locker bay to go to class or something, I yelled �you�re an asshole!� at him which seemed to make Kayleigh feel slightly better. She shrugged it off and didn�t really talk to him for the next year. (Unless she had to, that is...)

Around the spring concert, Kayleigh got involved in a small ensemble that was known as the Flubari Froons. The ensemble consisted of Cassie, Christina, Synnoeve, Kelly, and Kayleigh. They caught the crowd�s attention, considering they were a group of mere grade 10's, and impressed them! They preformed very well (considering the flautist, Kelly, didn�t show and they were making threats of gouging her eyes out with a hot spoon before the concert began). After that performance, the Froons no longer existed. It was sad, but they had impressed Mr. Wilcox, and obviously, that�s all that matters... :P

At the start of second semester, the same group of us had the same lunch, it was sort of the spot again, except there were way more people than before. We still played Uno, and kicked Mason, but we discovered another game. In some odd way for some unknown reason, we decided to create another group name for us. We were knights and ladies of the Round-Square-Floorspace. Since Kayleigh and I created this new title for our old group, we were the rulers of the Round-Square-Floor-Space. I was Goddess Larissa, the highest in command and Kayleigh was my right hand person, Demi-Goddess Mooch. There was a whole cult of us, who were ruled by Kayleigh and I. Many people participated in this, and had a blast doing so, even though we really didn�t do anything as a group. The Round-Square-Floorspace was created on the wondrous 15th of May, 2002 (and the website still works!! www.geocities.com/roundsquarefloorspace).

Once again, before we knew it, another school year had passed us by, rather quickly too. The summer was going by swiftly as well until Kayleigh invited Cassie and I to work in a factory with her in the last weeks of August to keep her company. Being the good people that we are, we said yes. And, besides, it was a chocolate bar factory!! What could be better than that?! We were about to find out how wrong we were...

Kayleigh worked there for one week before dragging Cassie and I into it. We were pumped! Duh... it�s a CHOCOLATE bar factory! Maybe, we would meet Willy Wonka if we found the golden ticket in one of the bars... Wait, wrong story. We met Kayleigh in front of this homely looking building. It sort of looked like death. Yes!! Our new boss showed us what to do... Not too difficult or strenuous work, just place these stickers on the ends of the chocolate bars, make sure they were straight and neat... nope, not too hard at all� Until we had to do about one million of them. We quickly began to understand why Kayleigh wanted company. Within about 3 hours, we were starting to hurt, and to HATE this job. The other kids were jerks and irritating, listening to the same Green Day CD repeatedly. Needless to say, we could sing it in our sleep by the end. So, we decided, since we were there for a while, to make a game of it. We began making up songs, like our French Jim song, and we made a parody of a song we heard on the radio and entitled it, �Natural Gas Mutations�. The rest of the workers shunned us to a little corner, and we had to sit on the hard concrete floor. It wasn�t that bad though... we were positioned beside the broken chocolate bar box... the ones we could eat! During our break, we would go out to the grassy part in front of the building and walk on each other�s backs, trying to get all the knots and kinks out from sitting on that hard floor. We would also just lie on the grass, not realizing we were lying on top of a red ant hill until Kayleigh and Cassie both got bitten, (many times,) by the tiny little bastards! By the time the week in the slave labour chocolate factory was up, we had blisters on our thumbs, and back pains... but, Kayleigh�s little brother, Kyle, was now a box wench.

Suddenly, grade 11 began... The spot was no longer, as we all had different lunches. It was a tragic fact of life, but we dealt with it. Not only were we all in the same music class, (with the exception of the musically inadequate Mason,) we also had various other classes together. In music, Kayleigh was the master theorist. After Mr. Wilcox explained the lesson in great detail and it was time to work on exercises, Kayleigh quickly became the most popular person in the class... Not only could she play well, she could teach the rest of us unintelligent saps how to do theory... in the simplest layman�s terms imaginable. Mr. Wilcox gave us some credit. Kayleigh did not.

During lunch, a large group of us jammed ourselves in this little vestibule at the end of the arts hallway. It was known as the oven. (Primarily because it would get so unbearably hot when the heater was on.) It was �cool� eating lunch in the oven, so cool, that sometimes, I would find Kayleigh just sitting there before school as well. I always knew where to find her when I wanted to... unless, she decided to go for a walk in the backwoods, then I had no idea where to find her... she was either in a practice room, in the oven, in class, or secluded in a stairwell. (Usually.)

Midway through grade 11, things began to swiftly go downhill for Kayleigh. Tight friendships began to unravel, causing great amounts of stress. She never really slept, being an insomniac, but she began to sleep even less. Four hours was the greatest amount of sleep she would get in a night. She had been like this for a while; it was just beginning to become apparent to the general public. Several months passed, and it was time for a much needed break from all these stresses. The band was going to Quebec City this year for a six day period; it was a good time to take a vacation away from the turmoil of high school.

On the twelve hour bus ride, she sat right beside her very, very good friend, Greg. She had been well acquainted with Greg for the duration of high school. They got to be very close friends and knew pretty much everything there was to know about each other.

There was no separating these two, for any reason on the face of the earth! They were bound to be together forever. (�Or so Cassie and I thought, with a bet with Kayleigh that if they were to be married, she would owe us some cars... Ha-ha. Greglings.) I tried to get a picture of them snoozing on each other, (it was really cute,) and successfully did, it just cost me a punch in the face from her beloved Greg... (That really hurt!! Bastard!) But, the picture did turn out, and it did, indeed, turn out to be very cute, but, Greg decided that it would be much safer in his possession... Needless to say, he snatched the picture, and even to this day, it has not been returned to its rightful owner... me!

When we got into Quebec City, we went to our hotel rooms. (We had just been on a twelve hour bus ride; of course we got there late.) Our room consisted of Kayleigh, Devon, Synnoeve and I. We partied like there was no tomorrow with our lack of drugs and alcohol! We were the biggest party room on the whole trip, even more so than Jeremy and Corman�s room... naturally.

Jokes came out of that trip like there was no tomorrow! There was an inside joke for everything. On the first night, I decided to give Kayleigh the bed all to her self and sleep in the bathtub... at around 6:00 AM, Kayleigh found me right in the bed beside her after I dragged myself across the floor. Kayleigh was almost going to spend the night in the bathtub on the second night, but decided not to after I explained the amount of pain I was in. The room one night stayed up really late enjoying quality French television on a sugar binge, and created a song where we belted out �NUNNERY, NUNNERAH, NUNNERY, NUNNERAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!� You know... to the Valderee Valderah song... Yeah, we are always full of parodies... That was a good night. At around 3:00 AM, the sugar wore off. The day after our terribly late night, Kayleigh really needed coffee, and being the only one in our room that drank it, the amount of sugar/whitener they gave our room was clearly inadequate for her. So, we walked and knocked on every door (that our band was in), to get more sugar/whitener for Kayleigh. Once we got the perfect amount, Kayleigh decided that not only did she not want to, she was too lazy to pour the coffee in a cup, she walked around our hallway drinking out of a full pot of coffee. Early one morning, before any of us were even actually up, Kayleigh and I had a bit of a war while sleeping. What happened was, I kneed her in the ass, she kicked me, I punched her in the gut and she kicked my shins, not just scraping the skin off, but also leaving scars!! I think at the point where she kicked the skin off my shins was when we woke up, but still actively threw punches and kicked. On the bus traveling back to the hotel one night, we had a huge sugar high... so, I screamed �SUGAR HIGH!� and in unison, Kayleigh and I screamed �HI SUGAR!� It sort of weirded us out, but it was awesome!! (Ooooh, our first psychic connection!)

After this trip and being forced to be in such close proximity to each other, Kayleigh and I began to be better friends. It was good, because it possibly helped her take some of the stress off of her transition from her group and helped me deal with my transition from my group. In some way, we were experiencing something very similar at that time.

You never really know how much you are going to miss someone, until they are gone. Greg was going onto university next year, so Kayleigh tried to spend a lot of her summer with him, like best friends would. After that summer, her little group pretty much split up. Greg went to University, Sarah went to College and Amanda and her had a falling out.

And finally, grade 12... We were the seniors of the school, the macho kids, on top of the world, you know... THE INFINITIVE RULERS... Basically, we owned the place.

Hmm... 8:00 AM classes sort of suck... Kayleigh and I had a peer tutoring class during period zero, before school began, with Kyle (Pink). All of us also had period one off together as well. So, we hung out in the music room, after making a mad dash for it to begin with, to ask Mr. Wilcox if we could be peer tutors in his music classes. Kayleigh and Pink were the new peer tutors for the grade 9 music class, and I was the new peer tutor for the grade 10's.

Every morning, we hung out in the music room during 1st period. I am certain that we probably sent Mr. Wilcox into a mad rage every time he walked into his classroom and saw that we were there doing nothing. We became a very odd trio. The Peer Tutor Trio, in fact. Kayleigh and I decided that we would show off our strange talents with a piece we played in the music class. I played my fabulous recorder up my nose, and Kayleigh played her hands with the famed �loon call�. We decided that it would be fun to try and play other pieces as well, so we got out a grade nine music book and played several duets. We came upon a round called, �The Bell Ringer� and added Pink with a very challenging triangle part. (Every other beat.) The Peer Tutor Trio had an act! Now all we needed was a venue to perform at... Ooh, the Christmas concert is coming! I wonder if Mr. Wilcox would be alright if we performed our mystifying and interesting work. As a matter of fact, he was fine with it. All we had to do was prepare it so we wouldn�t burst out laughing every time we attempted to play it in front of an audience�

In the October, some very upsetting news had hit Kayleigh and her family. Everyone felt for her family, but, unfortunately, had no idea what to say or do to console feelings. The only thing we could do was just be there for her, which is what we did.

At the beginning of November, Kayleigh decided, along with the rest of the LeBlanc clan, to shave her head. I have to admit, I had no idea how it would turn out, but it was most definitely a noble idea, and it would be FUZZY! One morning, I came into the peer tutoring class to a Kayleigh sitting in her desk with her jacket hood on. She threw off her hood and sat there grinning, completely bald� Cool!! It looked really neat, and felt soooo cool. Mid-way through the semester, the grade 12 music class began a project based on a theory lesson that we had just had beaten into our skulls. Ah, transposition. What could be more fun? We got to choose Christmas carols to transpose from piano and vocal parts to enough parts for the instruments in our class. Kayleigh chose Carol of the Bells, whereas I chose the really irritating, Twelve Days of Christmas, which was supposed to pose a challenge, but quickly just became very redundant. One day, while working on our assignment, I decided that Kayleigh needed a better nickname than O.H.O. (That was what Mason called her from the spot in grade 9� It stands for, �Oh Hyper One�. She was really hyper once we got to know her.) We had discussed earlier that morning in the music room (on our period off, of course) that she felt like a cactus.
�Teehee!! You feel like a cactus!! Wait!! That is what I am going to call you from now on, cactus!�
�Umm, okay.�
�Pink, call her cactus from now on!�
�Yeah, whatever...�

There were only two requirements for this if it were to be her new nickname: 1) it had to be spelled with a K as the first letter so her initials would not be changed, and, 2) it will be spelt entirely differently than cactus. After much deliberation, and Mr. Wilcox wondering over to our table, where we were discussing this checking up on our work, (we were so far ahead of the class it didn�t matter what we were doing) the final decision was Kaktis. �Your new name is Kaktis. I hope you like it, because you are going to have it for as long as I know you.� and, she felt completely indifferent about it. Wicked! Soon, all of our friends, as well as everyone in the class knew that she was no longer a Kayleigh, but now, officially, a Kaktis, and the nickname caught on very quickly.

Ahh Commencement� What an exciting time, full of free money, diplomas, rekindling old friendships, and, of course, strutting your stuff across the small stage in front of hundreds of people. Yup, Kaktis� clique (for the most part) was graduating and it made her very, very sad. They walked across the stage, proud of their accomplishments, and Kaktis sat and played in the band. She wasn�t done high school yet, it�s not like it was her fault that she wasn�t graduating. But, I guess it�s sort of a bag of mixed feelings (as I know from personal experience), she was happy to see them walk across the stage, but sad to see them leave at the same time. It sort of feels like you are being left behind, and not a very pleasant feeling at all. Times, they were a-changin� and there was nothing anyone could do about it. At least, she didn�t screw up a jazz band solo that left for months of ridicule from a graduate� I am certain she would have had a significantly worse time if that were the case�

Later in November, Kaktis and I were browsing in Chapters and found this bright pink gift bag with fuzzy pink boas as the handles. Since we were getting to know Mr. Wilcox on a more personal level, we thought that this was absolutely PERFECT for him. Now all we needed to do was find something to put in the bag� we couldn�t just give him the bag itself. We traveled over to the comedy section of the store in search of the perfect joke book for him, (as everyone is always painfully aware of the corny jokes that man produces,) and we found one that fit him to a tee! All we had to do was look in it, and read one of the jokes. We instantly knew that this was the perfect book for him. The jokes were so bad, how could he not appreciate it?! We decided that a ransom letter was to go with it, and it was to be completely and entirely anonymous. Kaktis went home and cut out letters for a perfect ransom note. It said, �We thought you could use some new material. Merry Christmas!� The next morning, we rushed to school bright and early to put it neatly in his mailbox in the staff room. Even if you just walked by the staff room door, you could see some fuzzy, vibrant pink object sticking out of one of the slots. Kaktis and I were quick to run away so we would not be linked to it at all.

A couple days later, we wrote on the blackboard (we wrote every other letter) �We hope you enjoyed the pink fuzziness - Black & Red.� Suspicions arose of what this pink fuzziness could be. People asked Mr. Wilcox all day about what the ominous message on the blackboard meant, until finally, he brought out this pink, fuzzy gift bag with a large book and piece of paper in it. He gave this huge speech about how when he walked into the staff room to check his mailbox this pink fuzzy thing was sticking out. To his surprise a large book containing 3,650 jokes was in it along with a ransom note. The class was entirely confused, but I sat there trying as hard as humanly possibly not to explode into a fit of laughter. Unfortunately, Kaktis was in the bathroom when this happened, so missed the ENTIRE thing. But, fortunately for us, Mr. Wilcox didn�t entirely catch on that it was us� despite my exploding.

So, he decided to come and ask Kaktis if she knew anything about the strange pink gift bag that was left in his mailbox one morning. It took her a lot of will power, but she didn�t even smile. She kept a straight face explained that she had no idea where it came from. With that, he left it for a little while, still curious as to who it could have been, but more thinking that it was Jeanette or Mrs. O�Brien making fun of him, again.

The Christmas concert came quickly as everyone geared for this event. The Peer Tutor Trio were performing and nobody knew of what they were doing (or the surprise that Kaktis and I had gone and got done prior to the concert), except for the people that had to (with the exception of the surprise). The bands performed well and soon, it was time. Mr. Wilcox was giving a speech about something when Pink came in dressed in our traditional Peer Tutor Trio attire (the old 70�s band sweaters) and shooed him off the stage. Kaktis and I casually walked down, not only revealing Kaktis� bald head, but also my own lack of hair for the first time. Kaktis and I were twins(ish). We went up without saying a word, Pink started us off with a couple triangle beats to count us in. Kaktis came in with her (what we called) Handophone played in the key of Q major, on the bass clef. She played two bars, and then it was my turn with my lovely recorder. People just assumed I would be playing the recorder in the traditional manner, were they ever wrong. I jammed that thing up my nose and began to play. We made it through the round twice and ended with Pink�s beauteous triangle chime. It was the first time we had ever performed it without laughing, and it was the one that mattered! Also saying nothing, we gracefully walked off the stage to a roaring applause. Little did the audience know, that was not the last that they would see of the Peer Tutor Trio, oh no! Not only was it the entire audience out there, but also the entire band. They didn�t know what we were doing and wanted to see, they loved it as well! We had made our� interesting� mark on the people that night.

This concert also marked the debut of the new band presidents, Kaktis and Pink. They showed their all-mighty band president power as they read the winners of the raffle. Oh, you even won fair and square, we voted you in! Wicked!

After all the transposition projects were completed and music class was pretty much over, Kaktis and I decided that it would be awesome to make some sort of concert band medley of The Nightmare Before Christmas songs. But, how would we do that? Obviously, we would have to get our hands on some sort of Nightmare Before Christmas piano score or something� Do they even make those? Kaktis checked online at amazon.com, and, they had one, even better yet, she bought it! We were well on our way of making our medley reality. When she received the book, we were jumping with excitement. Yippee! We can begin the tedious task of making the medley! First thing we did was have a sleep over to decide what songs, parts of songs we would use where and what would fit best with what song. Once all the mapping was drawn out, next we had to get a music write program. Well, since Kaktis had noteworthy, we had might as well just use that. It took us a couple days of orchestrating and making sure accidentals and keys were correct, but we had our first 35 seconds! Huzzah! And, we did what we did best with those 35 seconds of music; we emailed it to Mr. Wilcox. He had NO idea what was in store for him... no idea. He thought that it was really good, for 35 seconds... he also didn�t really think much of it. �Oh, they�ll get bored and it won�t be completed...�...ha ha ha... showed you!!

Finally, directly after the 35 second mark, we ran into a problem that put the entire project on hold until we got another type of music write program. There was a key change, but it was hidden, with accidentals on the notes... Danny Elfman, what the hell were you doing?! Trying to screw us over?! So, our project got put on hiatus, we didn�t quite know what to do, until... One of the guys that work with Kaktis� daddy pirated software; he was going to get us Sibelius 2! One of the best music writing programs around. (And also one of the most expensive.) We were ecstatic! Our project can continue! Sibelius was the coolest program I had ever seen... full of different buttons that did different things, and musical symbols I had never seen before. We figured out what we had to do on this program to fix the problem that we had run into... We just had to transpose everything this awkward interval and it was as perfect as it was going to be. Huzzah!! It was up to like a minute in length... so guess who got another email... That�s right! Mr. Wilcox! (He loves to hear from us!) We are, obviously, his favourite students... ha... ha... ha...

Some inside jokes which came from working on nightmare in the depths of the morning were; mpmf... that�s pretty much it, and quadre-puh... once again, I don�t really have much to say about those to make them more clear for you. Kaktis and I understand, and that�s about the only people who ever will.

When we were at least half way through the medley, we would describe the orchestration in the most bizarre ways to Mr. Wilcox, the only one who would get the humour out of it.

�Well, the bsn goes like this, and then the b-clar is in there too. The tbn is doing something completely different with the euph, as well as the trpts and the clars. The t-sax is resting with the a-sax and the perc is jumping around. And the fhrns, well, they just sound so pretty!�
See, do you get it? I thought as much...

Poor Mr. Wilcox. Quite honestly, he was stuck with the updates of this project whether he wanted to be or not. We would email him at every given opportunity, whether we tacked on another two bars, or another 10, he was always being updated. I am certain that because of our constant emails to him saying, �Look!!� he began to enjoy email less, and less, and less...

Over the course of the year we had been making a grand impression on all of the teachers in the school. We were the two who were peddling the irresistible band cheese around the staff. We had many customers from the school and gained nicknames from various teachers such as the Cheese Fairies, Cheese Ladies, Music Girls, and, of course from the ominous Mr. Leblanc, (no relation,) the Cheese Nazis. (Because our heads were shaved, ya know?) All of the staff knew who they were to get cheese from, Kaktis and Lara. We sold so much cheese, that we made over $200 each in commissions pretty much just from the A.H.S. staff alone.

Lucky for Kaktis, she finally got a job in the spring of grade 12 at everyone�s favourite restaurant, McDonald�s. She hated it from the beginning. She also wasn�t trained particularly well either, I had to go back and fix the mistakes before I was even promoted to crew trainer. She and I worked together often, as often as possible. I would switch shifts to work with her because it was fun. We are still the best DT team in the store! Woo, go team Kaktipi!

Songs for Hope is a little fundraiser for the Sick Kids Hospital Cancer Research done by Cassie�s family. Every year, they get volunteers to help with set up, dishing food, and to make sure everything goes as smoothly as it possibly can. This year, Cassie asked Kaktis and me if we wanted to put something together to perform for the concert. We said �Sure!� So, we got together and began learning a song called Cows with Guns. It was really funny! Cassie and Kaktis sang it, since they were the ones who could sing, and I dressed up in a cow uniform and danced around doing the actions to what they were singing. We were the best act ever! Once everyone had left and it was time to clean up we realized that the dessert (sex in a pan, to be exact) that we had all been obsessing over all night was still sitting there staring at us, teasing us... as Kaktis was bringing boxes out to the car, something happened, and she stepped in the sex in the pan that was sitting quietly on the floor! There was sex everywhere! On the ceiling, on the floor, on Kaktis leg, on her back, and, we were surprised by this, on her neck! It was a lovely mess of sex smeared everywhere... but, once we got back to Cassie�s, we still ate what was left in the pan, until we had had just enough sex to keep us from getting sick... okay, enough sex jokes... it was an overall fun night that raised several thousands of dollars worth of money. It was an awesome night, filled with lots of sex in a pan and lack of sleeping. Good times...

Spring this year marked a significant purchase for Kaktis, she bought herself her very first trombone. It was really pretty and sounded really nice as well. She named it Oliver, basically because she would often find herself beating it off of stuff (I paid for it to get fixed for one of her birthday presents) and she would starve it to death. She was a cruel owner, but sometimes you must be cruel to be kind.

Before the medley was complete, the band embarked on our final concert of the year... Yes, they embarked on it... The peer tutor trio played yet again, but this time, we entranced the audience with an old Leroy Anderson classic; The Typewriter. We had asked another one of our good friends, Kenzie, to join us in making this a success. He played the typewriter, Kaktis played the Euphonium, Pink played the office bell and I played the alto sax. Well, Kaktis and I did alright, we didn�t do as well as we had originally anticipated. But, Kenzie and Pink kicked ass! Unfortunately, the lid of the typewriter would not come off fully, so the viewing of the typewriter was hindered by most audience members. We were lucky that the lid opened though. About 30 minutes before the concert was about to start the key for the typewriter case was lost! We tried and tried to open it, leaving Kaktis and I in a big mess, until Marissa came along and saved the day! She picked the lock successfully, (something none of us could do apparently) and our act was saved!! Kaktis and I could calm down and get back into the swing of things, being warming up. The concert was a success! The band played well, and it was also the last time that Kaktis and Pink would stand up in front of the audience as co-presidents. Their reign was a good one though, lots was accomplished and they were enjoyed as co-prezes.

Looking back on their reign as leaders of the band; the autumn band hike was introduced, as well as band skating in late January/early February, and the band ski/snowboard trip in March. They did a lot of stuff, and pumped the spirit of the band to new levels it had not yet seen from previous years. What a good year! Way to go!

The next thing on the agenda was the band trip to Montreal. We left at an ungodly hour... around 7:00 AM... But, once everyone woke up and began to enjoy each other�s company, we had a good trip down. Cassie came as well, which was exciting!! Our room consisted of Kaktis, Cassie, Synnoeve and I. Once again, we were the party room of the hotel. Kaktis and I had to endure each other�s violent kicking again over night. I was not about to sleep in the bathtub again, I also don�t think Kaktis was up for it either. Oh well, we didn�t break each other too much.

On one of the first days that we got let loose in Old Montreal, the group of us wandered and found this quaint little ice cream parlour that made all their own ice cream by hand, as well as maple treats. We got to take taste tester samples of the ice cream. It was SOOOOOO good. We had all never tasted ice cream that good in our lives. It needed a special name, since it was by far the best we had ever had. Thinking back on a time not too long ago, where there was a cow costume and sex in a pan everywhere, we decided this ice cream that was too good for words, would be called sex on a spoon. It was lovely! And, decided. Almost two years later, the spoon still exists in my possession.

For dinner that night, we decided to go and try out some cuisine in Old Montreal at one of the fancy restaurants. �Hmm, this menu looks good�, and so we went... into an older type of restaurant in the heart of Old Montreal. Ah, classical music was playing over the radio, how relaxing... or was it? Kaktis, classical music is your favourite type, why are you so tense? Well, we were all very tense, the music made this place seem a lot ritzier than what it actually was. We all asked Cassie questions on proper table etiquette. Cassie helped us slobs through our meal quite effectively. Poor Kelly, she was cold, and had to give Cassie her sweater back because Cassie felt that her �behind Mount Rushmore� shirt was inappropriate for the restaurant that we ventured into. The food was good though... and one of us got the treat of having the waiter spill the glass of water on top of their lap... I was cold.

This year, everything was planned out ahead of time for my tradition... I knew where the piercing parlour was, and how to get there. I had a large following this year, and Kaktis was right there beside me. When we got there, Kaktis and I both laughed at the fact that the teachers looked so out of place. Mr. Wilcox walked in and just stopped and looked around with this disturbed look on his face. Jeanette on the other hand, was right at home. When we found out that this place did not do what I wanted done, Kaktis was right there to remind me of how we traveled on the metro and that I have to get something done. But, what?! I couldn�t get anything that could be shown because of work... or could I? Kaktis demanded that I get my septum pierced... So, what did I do? I got my septum pierced. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life, but, I can honestly say, it is entirely Kaktis� fault. She is my piercing and tattoo buddy, accompanying me with nearly all of my tattoos... ahhh Kaktis, way to go!

We had the pleasure of going to a Jazz club on this trip. It was awesome! The music was wicked and the food was pretty good too. The singer asked the audience for a backup singer, and we knew who we wanted up there. I started chanting, �Kayleigh, Kayleigh, Kayleigh� and once the crowd was chanting Kayleigh�s name I realized that it was all wrong. I had to correct the crowd, so I screamed �Kaktis! Kaktis! Kaktis!� a hell of a lot louder than most of them, converting some over to her appropriate name, Kaktis. With a look of sheer hatred that could cut through glass, Kaktis stared at me as the singer called her up to the stage. I clapped and cheered and she sent me telepathic death threats. She went up, did quite the job accompanying the singer and the band and got a huge round of applause at the end... See, wasn�t that fun?! Yes, you�re right, it was! :)

After we returned back to our hotel from the jazz club, a few (being me) of us were hungry and wanted to walk down the street to the McDonald�s or a pizza joint near by. Because, Laval is such a sketchy area, Mr. Wilcox and the chaperones did not want us wandering around by ourselves. The group consisted of Kaktis, Cassie, Synnoeve and I. Although, they did discuss it, and wouldn�t have minded terribly (because we are the good kids)... Waa!! I was so hungry... Mr. Wilcox, being the kind and generous person that he is, offered to give us money to order a pizza with... Aww, Mr. Wilcox, I can�t accept that, I will deal with my hunger... and Kaktis so gracefully said to me (as she always does), �Don�t be dumb, just take his money and pay him back later!� being the I-hate-to-borrow-money type of person that I am, said, �NO!�... Later on that night, I finally accepted his generous offer and we ordered pizza! Around this time, Heather decided that it would be delightfully fun to call up the hotel we were at from Acton and yell at Cassie about the entertainment portion of Relay for Life not working. Well, you see, Relay was in like 4 days. Cassie had a bit of a heart attack, as well as an emotional breakdown and had a mandatory meeting with all who were on the Relay executive that were on the trip. The pizza arrived just in time as Synnoeve and I dragged both the sobbing Cassie and the frustrated Kaktis away from the meeting. And we ate... Yum yum, pizza sure hit the spot.

Since our room consisted of the biggest band losers the world has most definitely ever seen, we took our pizza into the teacher�s room and partied with them for a good long time. We all munched on pizza (those who wanted it, but not Jeanette, because she�s a vegetabletarian and Hawaiian pizza has meat on it). It was a grand ol� time of talking, laughing, and discussing Relay for Life snow fences, and how no one really knew Heather�s elaborate plans because she refused to share them with the relay exec. Lovely.

Well, the next day we boarded the bus and traveled all the way back to Actonia... Home of the band geeks... Grr! It was a delightfully long bus ride (only because we were all terribly, terribly tired.) Kaktis and I were really weird... and decided that it would be really fun to swallow an entire piece of shoestring liquorice whole and then bring in back up again... We each had separate pieces if you were questioning, which I entirely hope you weren�t. Anyone who is reading this should know Kaktis and me a lot better than that!!! Dumb...

The summer began with a bang! The band party was held at the LeBlanc�s household. Huzzah! Kaktis, you throw wicked parties! Everyone had a grand old time of reminiscing around the table with the teachers, (you know Kaktis, we are truly losers) playing disc, running out and tackling Cassie while she was playing football, watching the slide show as well as a random list of random events that occurred. (Randomly.) Prior to the party, a lot of work happened to make their house ready for all these random strangers. We cleaned the house from top to bottom! Not saying that their house is in desperate need of cleaning before having visitors like someone I know�s house... But, seriously, we spent a good six hours of straight cleaning that day. It was fun though; we cleaned together and got a lot of work accomplished. We are obviously the master cleaners when together! Ha!

The next wild function that Kaktis was involved with (well, not really) was formal. She wasn�t on the formal committee but helped out with decorating and the administrative issues at the door. It was quite a successful night, I must say. Dinner was pretty good, and Kaktis and I wandered around the hall without any shoes on the majority of the night. Kaktis also hooked up with her invisible boyfriend, Rodger there. He was a good guy, but a year later ran off with me to some foreign restaurant in Tahiti. I don�t think Kaktis much cared at that point. They had been having some marital disputes and I think it was pretty much over. He was really jealous anyways, that�s always a downer. Kaktis and I had random bar fights during the slow songs. We would �fake� beat the crap out of each other by swinging fake punches that would miss, and fly backwards as if we were hit really hard. It was awesome! We got many a stare... hahaha! Our first formal (haha) was awesome; it was the last time we would all be together. (The old friends and such... you know, everyone.) It was a night we will all remember...

The summer was... an interesting one to say the least. Kaktis and I were now the new duo. We hung out pretty much every day/every other day, unless we had to work. We worked on our beloved arrangement of �The Nightmare Before Christmas� whenever we could. We soon came to realize, that we could only work on that in the early morning... We tried working on it during the day a couple times... let�s just say, we ended up playing dress up. Kaktis was a pirate and I was a blue haired Indian. We waged war on each other. She had a sword, and I had a rather large bone. It was a battle to the death I say... Obviously, it was a tie. The other time we tried to work on nightmare during the day, Kyle got us very distracted.
�I�ll give you a dollar if you snort this mint I am going to grind up...�
�Okay!�
�Really? You�ll actually do that? Are you dumb?�
�It�s for a dollar!�

And, so Kyle snorted the mint that I ground up with the edge of a coffee cup. We rolled up a small piece of paper and made it into a line for him to do it properly... crack head... and then, when his eyes welled up with tears, being the intelligent people that we are; decided we wanted to do it too. Let me tell you that hurt a lot... and left a strange minty sensation in our nasal cavity... We teared, and bitched about how much it hurt, and then did it again... Damn it, Kyle! We were trying to work!! Needless to say, Nghtmare didn�t really get anywhere when we tried to work on it during the day.

The majority of the summer consisted of sleepovers, and the strange events that happened during the sleepovers. A lot of them were to work on Nghtmare though, but we did do a lot of random �kaktipi� stuff... ahh, the uses of cheese... mmmm... And, Kaktis, where did your blind fish go? They seemed to have disappeared since you put your Oscars in... umm... Ohh... well, that�s sort of sad... And those fish got friggin� huge. Kaktis loves her fishies. She tells me so... sometimes I think she values her fish more than she values my friendship, and I am probably correct.

Kaktis and I established this really odd relationship, full of hate, and calling each other names... Everyone thinks that we are horrible to each other, but we know... we just truly hate each other. People don�t understand. She�s a real jerk.

It was really sad. In mid-August, Kaktis� grandmother died. She was really upset (obviously), so Cassie and I pitched in and bought her a present that might have cheered her up slightly. We bought her a cactus garden. She isn�t really good at taking care of it though, one of them exploded and leaked everywhere, and another one just sort of keeled over and died. Kaktis!? Those are your BRETHEREN!! You aren�t supposed to murder them! And then, just over a week after that unfortunate and depressing event happened, the same thing happened to me... See Kaktis, we are strangely connected.

After I came back from my two-week hiatus, we started to hang out a bunch again. But, I was starting to get somewhat sad, Kaktis graduated from high school and was not coming back, whereas, I am too dumb to graduate on the first try through grade 12 and had to go back for an extra credit. I was only missing one... But decided to just suck it up and go back for the entire year. I must say, the first week back without Kaktis was really weird. Especially in music, she wasn�t there to make retarded jokes with. I was really sad all the time, the other half of the Kaktipi duo was missing... After Kaktis� mommy went through Kaktis� academic history, she noticed that Kaktis did not have enough university credits to apply for university. She made a very important decision; Kaktis was going to go back to high school for one semester. AND WE REJOICED! Yay!! She joined the music class as well as my history class. The Kaktipi were back in full force! I missed ya for a bit, you jerk.

Almost a month after she enrolled back in high school, she went to get tested for her G2 and got it! She came late for band one day after the driving test and announced that she got her G2! I pissed her off every time I would drive with her. Ever since Kaz�s accident, I have been a paranoid passenger. I screamed A LOT. Kaktis was not happy when I screamed and trembled in my seat� I�m sorry, but you have to understand� I am so scared all the time!

We finally got the entire medley completed at the end of September 2004. It took us a while to think of an ending for it though. We were very stuck on it... we brain stormed on how to get it to work and fit until we had to go and ask Mr. Wilcox for his input. He gave us some very worthwhile ideas, but we didn�t really know how to do them all that well. One day, out of the blue, an ending hit one of us as hard as a one-ton rock plummeting from space would. It sort of hurt, but it was just the trick. It worked, holding the piece together until it hit the real ending we got from the book. Hurray! It was complete! All the percussion was done entirely by ear as we went, and all we needed to do now was fix up the sheet music for it, making it much more pretty and legible. It took a lot of time to make it pretty. We worked on every individual part making it perfect. After a long time of doing the tedious work of checking it all over, it was done. Now, it was time to test it and play it. Hurray!! Ten months of work was finally about to pay off! Our senior music class played it first. Kaktis and I were in hysterics. It went well, there were a few things that needed to be fixed (as in a couple bars that were not aligned with the rest of the piece), like trumpet 1... Stupid trumpets. It�s always their fault.

Halloween is always an exciting time for everyone. Last year Kaktis and I successfully dressed up as one another, and did it so well that our own siblings couldn�t tell that we weren�t ourselves. It was awesome, and this year we decided to do something entirely different. This year, we were going to be Cheese Fairies! We got our costumes all set and designed. We made skirts out of cheese bags, as well as a shirt that would go underneath of our retro 70's band sweaters. We had pretty tiaras that had golden sequins on them, rainbow eye lashes, baby blue and powder pink (he he) wings, pants and ballet slippers. Kaktis was the pink fairy and I was the blue one. We obviously had the best costumes in the entire school. Our Halloween�s surely rock when we are team Kaktipi.

Within a month, the band began to play Nightmare to get it ready for the Christmas concert. It started out sort of rough... Again, the trumpets are at fault for EVERYTHING... Marcy was playing third, and was the ONLY one in the entire trumpet section who could successfully pull off the first part. But, being really stubborn, the �seniors� decided that, because they had seniority, they were instantly better. (Which, to be honest with you, is usually not the case.) Kaktis and I noticed this, and went straight to the authorities (i.e. Wilcox), and we also told the �firsts� that Marcy was the new first trumpet player because he could successfully pull it off. And he did. We could tell the difference in the trumpet section... suddenly, it was 10 times better! And, suddenly, Kaktis began to secretly realize that she might actually have feelings towards someone... *GASP!* No one really knew, but we did at the same time...

In November, it was time for Kaktis to formally graduate, not just say she was graduating. Cassie came back and we were all together again, with one exception, one person from our group wasn�t joining them in walking across the stage. I saw Kaktis and everyone all dressed so nicely in their gowns and fancy clothes while I was dressed in my band uniform. I saw Kaz and began to cry all over him, then he got Kaktis who came and consoled me along with a large group of people. As I was crying in the hall, the band was warming up for the big night. But, this isn�t my bio, this is Kaktis� bio... Kaktis walked across the stage several times. Once to pick up her top mark award in music, another time to get the Patterson Music Award she won, and another time to receive the actual diploma. Ahh, good work Kaktis! I wish I could have been up there with you. After graduating, everyone headed over to Cassie�s for an after commencement party! (Even I went, I was the only one who was there who didn�t graduate... I�m such a failure). It was a wicked party though. We sat around and sang for a lot of it... good times. Kaktis was pleased by the singing, considering she ALWAYS wants to sing... always... and threatens death to those who won�t join her.

After commencement, the band was starting to get busy with fund-raising ideas. We decided that we were going to have a huge fruit drive and hit up every house in all of Acton. Unfortunately, because Kaktis is a jerk, her birthday was right around that time and she was going to see a performance of Jesus Christ Superstar the day we were fruit driving. Man, you have to set your priorities... She fell in love with the man who played Chaiaphas. Apparently, he was a SUPER bass and could sing very low. She loved him, and he was definitely the highlight of her time. So, while her counterparts slaved away, selling fruit to unsuspecting strangers in Acton, she was sitting back, having a grand old time watching people perform for her... jerk.

At the very beginning of December, a plot that Kaktis and I had been planning was about to be executed. We began plotting this way back in the days of October while �helping� with the craft sale. Hmm, Wilcox�s birthday was coming, we had to think of a WONDERFUL surprise for him... what are we going to do? Ohh!! Let�s fill his office entirely with balloons from top to bottom! YES!! And so we began the mathematical calculations. But, we needed help. Once school was back on the Monday after the craft sale weekend, we asked for help. We asked Mr. Wilcox how to figure out the area of a sphere that had a diameter of 30cm. He helped us alright; he looked up the equation up for us on the internet. While I was talking to him face to face, Kaktis was pretending to stretch while holding a metre stick, reaching it to the ceiling measuring how high the room was, as well as how wide... it was so funny, I couldn�t help but laugh when I was talking to poor Wilcox, who had no idea what was going on. When he asked me what I was laughing at, I said Kaktis looked funny... he only expected something dumb to be said in response. Ahh Kaktis, that was by far the funniest thing ever! Poor unknowing Wilcox...

We did in fact get over 1,000 balloons for his office. 1,088 to be exact. (I counted them... all of them.) Our calculations required almost 2,800 to fill the entire room from floor to ceiling... We cleaned out all the stores in the area of their balloons, and harassed Mrs. Lebert, this was the total amount of balloons he was getting. We called upon the help of Marissa, Kenzie and Marcy! We were the super balloon team! December 2nd was the feeder school tour, as well as the Thursday before Wilcox�s birthday. (Which was luckily a P.D. day.) Kaktis, Marissa, Kenzie and I stayed until 8:00 PM. (Well, Kaktis had to skip out early.) We blew up a total of 400 balloons manually. Luckily, a couple days before, we asked Mr. Roesch if we could use the air compressors for them. He gave us his keys. As did Jeanette and Mrs. O�Brien. Everyone was in on this. On the Friday, pretty much all of the teachers in the school knew about it, while Mr. Wilcox was completely oblivious to it, as he was apparently stressed out terribly. Everyone helped make sure that he did not leave the areas where he was positioned, or made sure that if he left the meetings, someone would come out and tell us that he was wandering around. Usually Mrs. O�Brien was the spy. Jeanette was nice and offered to get him lunch so he wouldn�t have to get up (aww, generous Jeanette) while Mr. Roesch guarded the door making sure that he wasn�t about to come out. Mr. Stark also watched him closely (as Mr. Wilcox was currently working in lab 211). While all the teachers were helping us, we were busy blowing up balloons. Kaktis was scheduled to work that day, someone said that they would take her shift but decided not to show. When I came back into the wood shop, Kaktis was in tears saying, �I have to go to work, they didn�t show!� I was like, �Um, no!� So, we drove to my house, picked up William, whom I trained to work breakfast on the seven minute drive to McD�s. He was set, now all we had to do was explain to Steve why Kaktis couldn�t work, and William could. He appreciated that we got someone to take the shift (even though he technically didn�t know breakfast) and didn�t mind that she couldn�t work. He let her leave because we explained the entire thing, the birthday surprise and everything. What a stroke of luck! Kaktis, you�re so lucky I�m a crew trainer and have a brother who knows the front... :) We went back to the school to an anxious Marcy, he was happy to see me return with Kaktis, and so was I.

Anyways, after all of the balloons were blown up, now was the tricky part... transporting them all to the office. People were stationed like so: Kaktis, Kenzie and Marcy were the people with the bed sheets running from where I was loading the balloons from the floor to the sheets, to where Marissa was in his office unloading all of the balloons. It took about an hour and a half or two hours to get all the balloons from points A and B to point C. By the end of all the massive craziness of loading these balloons in the sheets, my back really hurt and Marissa�s hair was standing on end. But, the office was packed! Not from floor to ceiling, but half way! It was really difficult to manoeuvre in there. Once everything was all good, we gathered Mr. Roesch, Mrs. O�Brien and Jeanette over to Mr. Wilcox�s office. We put Kaktis and my signature item (a fuzzy bag) on the door handle with Canadian Tire money inside as well as one balloon on the ground (the only clear balloon we had, out of all 1,088) with one 5 cent bill in it. The windows were covered in paper saying �Happy Birthday� and �44'. It was an awesome feat. After we were all in his office, (crammed right in the back underneath the chaos,) Mrs. O�Brien paged the office to page Mr. Wilcox to his office. After we heard that, we were silent... sort of. He came in, opened the door, and said �oh my god� as we began to sing a beautiful 5 part harmony of Happy Birthday and stood up from the mess. He was really happy and laughed a lot. I think that he really enjoyed it, as did we. What a good day! We even got to pop the balloons! After we were finished swimming in them of course... We took safety pins and went around popping all of them with the exception of the red, green and white ones that we were going to use for decorations at the upcoming Christmas concert. That was an awesome good time! Hours and hours of blowing up balloons disappeared in a good 10 minutes. Before we destroyed them all, all the teachers came to see what we did. There were balloons everywhere at this point!! All down the halls and such... but, we quickly took care of that... hehehe. All of the teachers were really impressed with what we had accomplished. Ahh, to be a band geek... After we cleaned everything up, the office looked just like it did prior to the whole excursion, but poor Mr. Wilcox would continue to find little rubber pieces of balloons for many months to come... It�s just the gift that keeps on giving.

The Christmas concert came without a hitch, and it was Kaktis and my big night. Not only was our masterpiece, Nightmare, going to be performed, but Mario was going to be played by the Jazz band, which is entirely our fault as well. The Peer Tutor Trio would also entertain the audience with its crazy antics again. Kenzie became a permanent member, so, the trio is actually technically a quartet, but no one needs to know, and besides, he was never a peer tutor... Well, we were a trombone quartet this time, playing Carol of the Bells. Prior to this, Kenzie and I had never played a trombone before. We took them home the weekend before the concert and perfected our technique. We did awesome, for never having touched the instrument before! Yay! We went out in the traditional PTT attire; the old 70's band sweaters, and crazy hats. Woohoo! The audience loved us yet again. (Or had horrible amounts of pity for us because we are obviously starving for attention.) We went back into the Jazz band, because, we had originally interrupted their song by standing up before Mr. Wilcox got to the downbeat. Haha! We rocked the casbah though!

And, of course, without further ado, the Jazz band performed. Right before Mario, Mr. Wilcox gave a huge speech on how it was Kaktis and my fault that our band was playing this, and he was entirely right, it was entirely our fault. More Kaktis� fault than mine though, she was the one who actually found it and printed it. I just pushed us to play it. We played it, and successfully got through it. It was awesome; Kaktis and I both enjoyed playing that piece to bits! What fun! And, of course, the concert band performed, what a lovely time. We got to Nightmare and once again, Mr. Wilcox gave a huge introduction to our accomplishment. He told the story of how he didn�t really think we would get it done, and how we emailed him every time we had another three seconds of work done, and, how here we are, going to play it for a concert. The band played the monster of a piece very well, considering it was probably one of the most difficult pieces in the repertoire all year. We got a huge round of applause at the end of the song, and Mr. Wilcox asked us to stand. It was an awesome feeling, after ten months of work on that huge project, we actually got to play it for an audience and it went well. Kaktis, we did it! We are obviously the champions! Kaktis got to play the tuba for that song, because it was either she played the tuba, or Wilcox played the tuba and I conducted. That would have ended badly. But, we needed me on percussion, so that wouldn�t have worked. Kaktis, we rock! The concert finished without a hitch, and both Kaktis and I knew that this was the last Christmas concert we would be playing in the Acton High School Band, and it was sad.

Afterwards, Kaktis and I both went to say thank you to Mr. Wilcox for his kind words about us this evening. Him being the nice guy that he is, gave us hugs and said that we deserved it.

The next thing on the agenda was my birthday bash. I had a ton of people over to my party, and it was wicked! Kaktis and I busted out this wicked party for my 18th birthday! Rock on! We watched the band concert (because, the party mostly consisted of the band members). Some people even spent the night, such as Kaktis, Jimberly, Crissy, Cassie and I. What a good time. Poor Kaktis slept on the little two-person couch I have. She fell asleep before any of the rest of us did, so I got up and put a blanket over her because well, it was the winter and I am a NICE PERSON regardless of what certain people have to say... Kaktis... The very next morning... at around 9:00 AM, Kaktis and I had to meet the band members at Sobey�s, to do yet another fund-raiser. We were playing Christmas carols and carrying bags because we are nice people, and for donations... Who doesn�t do anything for money these days? The first group of people to play carols for the general public consisted of Kaktis, Jimberly, Synnoeve, Mr. Wilcox (bustin� out some wicked tuba) and I. We went through the entire book, and were quite pleased! Woo! We are the most rockin� ensemble ever! After that, Jimberly�s mother came to pick him up, Kaktis had to go to work and I had to Christmas shop, sorry that we couldn�t be there for longer Mr. Wilcox!!

Kaktis and I saw a bunch of each other over the Christmas break, but we really needed a new project to work on. We had nothing to do now! What were we going to start? Another arrangement? Nah, not for a while anyways...

Like every year, (except for the one where she went to Hayley�s party instead) Kaktis stayed at home on New Year�s with her family. They always have a nice fondue, which they did yet again this year. Ah, what a nice way to count in the New Year. With a fondue!!

January came, and then it was time for exams. Kaktis played her new and difficult trombone piece for her music exam. Mr. Wilcox was very impressed with her playing ability. Good work Kaktis, it�s a hard piece, we are all glad you can play it well! When it came to physics, Kaktis was not very good. It didn�t mean she didn�t try, she just wasn�t good at math... She did pass the class, but with a 50% exactly. She told Mr. Braun that if her mother saw a 50% on her report card that she would think that poor Kaktis was bumped up, so, Mr. Braun bumped her up to a 51%, just so her mommy would not beat her into a fine paste. The history exam was hilarious! We walked into the room and were welcomed by not only the smiling face of Madelle, but cookies and juice boxes on our desks as well!! Wicked! Madelle, you are the greatest teacher! It was a very informal exam, the class sort of talked through it, discussing it. It was the most laid back exam either Kaktis or I had ever been in. Wicked! Kaktis did well in that class, way to go!

It was sad, after exams were done; Kaktis knew she wasn�t going to be returning to Acton High for classes. She was still in the band though and came out every Tuesday to play the tuba. She began to job hunt because, if she wasn�t going to school, she was obviously going to work her ass off instead. We still hung out very often, and she still showed up at the school whenever she could, but it just wasn�t the same. At least she got to come back for one semester.

Around March, she finally got a full time job. Unfortunately, it was not the one at the veterinary office that she wanted. It was at Tim Horton�s in Georgetown. Ew. Another fast-food job. Although she learned quickly, and began to appreciate the fact that it wasn�t McDonald�s, she still hated it. She also went out in search of a trombone instructor as well as private piano lessons, to get her ready for university. She found the right people for the job and quickly began to improve drastically.

Also in March, the band embarked on another ski/snowboard trip to Glen Eden, just like we had done the year before. Kaktis and I skied/snowboarded together for the night. On the ride home we were really tired, and just out of the blue I blurted out Feliz Navidad, and began to sing it. She sat up in her bus seat and said, �What?! Where did you hear that? Who was singing that?� I said, �No one, I just sort of said it...� She then got really weirded out by this, she went on to explain that she had just been singing that in her head a second before I spewed it out without thinking. Another psychic link! We so rock! It was really frightening and really cool at the same time. She went back to lie down for the rest of the trip home.

Even though she wasn�t in school, she was a very busy person, as anyone would be with two jobs, two sets of private instrumental lessons, band, time for herself and then finally time for her friends. She also wanted to begin a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. The people involved originally were Kenzie, Pink and Marcy. Kyle played one game but was unfortunately mauled to death by Marcy�s bear... Huzzah, a newfound passion!

D&D soon became Kaktis� new goal in life. (Other than music of course.) She began writing a detailed campaign for her little group to play. She was the dungeon master, all bowed down to her mighty DM-ness. Eventually, (because I didn�t understand the game at all) it was explained to me a third time, (by Guy, who I was dating at the time who turned out to be a real geek at times, which was awesome,) and decided I wanted to join. Kaktis was not impressed with the fact that her definition of the game was inadequate for me, and that I needed Guy to tell me about it for me to be interested. Well, sorry to say, he explained it better than you did. :P

The campaign got off to a flying start! Kaktis bought us all dice! Aw, that was so nice of you. She made fun of me by buying midget dice, (because I�m a Halfling, you see,) but they were purple! Kaktis, you�re so thoughtful... Our characters were set and ready to play. Marcy�s name is Tam�rien, or Tammy for short, Pink�s is Alexander, Kenzie�s is Tr�and, and mine is Fabian. We started out sitting on my porch with a big four-litre bottle of Our Compliments Iced Tea, liquorice, a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and some popsicles. After that, O/C Iced Tea became the official �Nerd it Up� drink. We can usually down one of those gigantic bottles of sugar water in a night. Mm mmm good. We also always had liquorice present. There hasn�t been a nerd it up session that did not have our O/C iced tea yet, but if there was, it would be a sin.

Even though Kaktis was really busy, she continued to insist that she wanted to be much busier than she really needed to be. She then created a small ensemble called, �The Acton Brass�. This ensemble consisted of, Synnoeve, Hayley, Desta, Marcy, Kyle, Pink, Kenzie (percussion, because since when can percussionist play anything else? [Except for you-know-who of course.] But, we definitely needed percussion to keep us in time, you see, we are all idiots,) Kaktis and myself. (I played the baritone, not only in The Acton Brass, but in band as well... geeze...) The pieces that we played were all arranged by Kaktis, because she obviously didn�t have the time to do so. She would get really, really, really pissed off with this ensemble. People did try to show up for practices, but couldn�t make it some of the time. Our practice time was limited, so she was always very angry with the group. I was always there Kaktis, don�t get mad at me. But, she did, because as the spring concert was fast approaching, (much like everything else in the world,) we had to quickly decide something, whether we were going to perform with The Acton Brass, or the PTT. I leaned toward the PTT, Kaktis did not. We would argue over this, a lot. But, in the end, The Acton Brass performed at the spring concert, because it really wasn�t a big deal. The entire PTT was in this ensemble as well anyways. We played pieces like �The Raider�s March� and �Imperial March�. It was fun, and we didn�t even sound all that bad. We sounded good, considering, the number of practices we all had as an entire group.

The spring concert went extremely well considering the complexity of the pieces we were playing. (Well, some of them. Phantom... it was a good time.) Kaktis got her �I was in the band for 5 years� flash. (Which is the same as the �I�ve been in the band for one year� flash.) Go team Kaktis!

Relay for Life was the weekend before the spring concert and Kaktis and I had collaborated an entire team together. We were called �Team Kaktipi� and we obviously rocked. Unfortunately, not many people from our team could stay the entire night. It was a sad fact of life, but Kaktis indeed stayed. She wasn�t even caught giving Kenzie her pants this year, as she had been in past years. We watched the live entertainment, and once again, screamed for Wilcox�s band to the point that it was painful for us. (As we have been known to do every year.) This year there was a new band playing too. They were from Georgetown, and VERY good. Kaktis instantly fell in love with the bassist. She would not stop staring at him the entire show, until I told her to look at the ground. Silly Kaktis, he doesn�t even know who you are. The night went very well though. Kaktis spent a lot of time on the track throughout the night. Good Kaktis, you were probably the only one from our team who remained on the track throughout the night.

After Relay and the concert, the band was heading for New Orleans on this year�s band trip. Unfortunately, because Kaktis had two jobs, she could not come with. That made me very sad! But, despite everything I tried, she still could not come. This was the second time that the Kaktipi had been split up... It was really sad. When I was on the trip, there were so many things that I saw that made me think, �hey, Kaktis would like this, or, man, I wish she could have seen this� So, Synnoeve and I made a video to show everyone who couldn�t attend what we did and what we saw. I bet the trip would have been 50 times better if Kaktis was there.

After the band trip was over, there was suddenly nothing. No one was really stressed anymore because of being overworked; there was no band, no jazz band, and no little ensembles, no anything. So Kaktis and I tried to make a little rock group with Marcy and Kenzie. We obviously rocked and got terribly distracted, not once going through an entire song. Kaktis rarely showed up, so a lot of the time it was just Kenzie, Marcy and I playing Iron Man... We told Kaktis that she had to sing it for us, and she laughed, really hard. Well, the point was we tried. Soon, school was over, and Kaktis laughed at us for writing our exams, although, I bet she would have rather have had exams than 10 hours of work everyday.

During the last month of school, Kaktis was not a very happy person for some reason, or so it seemed to me, and possibly only me. She was a lot more irritable (by me), and just much more angry. I still don�t know the reason for that extended mood swing, but I am thinking that it was probably the fact that she was being overworked.

On June 10th, Kaktis and I had planned this really nice evening to thank Mr. Wilcox and Jeanette for all that they had done for us. We had them over to my house for a BBQ. It was nice, we served shish kabobs as well as many sides. Yummy, yummy. After the dinner and sitting around and talking for a while, we had another surprise we hadn�t told them about. The night was only going to get better from here on in! We met them at the Trafalgar Road 401 car pool parking lot. Unfortunately for us, we were like 10 minutes late because we underestimated the amount of time it would take us to get there. We basically sped the entire way. So, they all got into Kaktis� van and we were off. I told Jeanette that we were taking them for ice cream at McDonald�s. Once we got to our destination, luck would have it, we pulled in to the entrance right next to the McDonald�s, Jeanette then screamed. And then she noticed where we were really going. Demetre�s! I had told her so much about my trips there. They were happy that we were taking them somewhere special like that. So, we got into the restaurant and decided to sit out on the patio. Jeanette and I sat on one side and Mr. Wilcox and Kaktis sat on the other. Jeanette and my side was the stupid side as we were loud and really rather dumb. We all ordered desserts! Well, why else would you go to Demetre�s!? When they saw the size of the desserts they got really excited! Yum! Once everything was said and done, they really appreciated us taking them out on this joy ride and had a wonderful evening. We were very pleased with the fact that we pulled it off so well! Yay!

After exams and school was officially over, formal was the next event. I had collaborated a rather large group of band type people together to go. It took a TON of persuading... It�s so difficult to get a group of people to go! �I don�t want to go if she doesn�t go...� �Well, I don�t want to go if she doesn�t go...� How about this, one of you agrees to go, because then you both will go!? Kaktis came along too! There was a purpose for this large group of band geeks to go, even though you really wouldn�t have seen most of them at this type of function. It was not to support the formal committee at all, although that�s what they thought... It was purely because of their prejudice towards the band folk I got the band folk to go. The formal committee had to realize that at one of the biggest events of the school year, you COULD NOT exclude a certain group of students purely because of what they are involved in. They didn�t understand that at all. But, lucky for them, the band group was the largest group of friends to attend their function, and without us, they wouldn�t have broken even on their expenses. Kaktis was 100% behind me on my protest, and was very angry about it. Even a little vocal as well. But, we all went, and had an awesome time. Politics had nothing to do with our good time, we didn�t care about the stupid prejudice committee members at all, we were there to have a good time, and that�s what we did. Kaktis and I hung out all night. We met �Screamo the Donkey� which was actually a parrot, and went and played on a kiddy swing set... yes, we were in our formal attire, and no, we weren�t wearing our shoes again.

At one point during the night, Marcy was having an issue, that he would not tell either of us. Kaktis and him sat alone out in the garden for a long time talking. I left them in peace for a while and then came back later. Kaktis didn�t get what was upsetting him out of him, despite all the discussion, but I got a hint that she sort of had an interest in him... hehe. I wasn�t sure though, so I didn�t ask.

After formal, we all headed back to my place. Kaktis car-pooled Marcy and I (both there and back). Unfortunately, Kaktis could not spend the night at my after-formal party, but she still hung out and was really tired... She basically sat around eating licorice, slouched on my couch in her pretty dress. Aww... She didn�t stay very long, she went home within 45 minutes of being there so she could go home and sleep. She had to work the next day, which was unfortunate because she would miss some of the band party. The morning after the party, the group of people who spent the night at my place woke up (or just got out of our grass bed) and went to visit her at work in Georgetown to get doughnuts. (Since we accidentally spilled our pancake batter all over the floor at 6:00 AM.) We were all very tired, and very incoherent, and we also scared and confused the crap out of Kaktis when she saw us there. Teehee... it was nice to see you too!

The band party was held at the Ward�s place this year. Right in the middle of the boonies. It was an awesome party too. There was much food, slide shows, as well as Synnoeve and my video. (That I had slaved away at for the past 5 days [almost 40 hours on this video.]) Kaktis mingled a lot with everyone and even went out and watched the �duck, duck, goose� game that was happening outside for some time. She made a pretty headband of flowers, which I said that she looked like the Queen of Denmark. Which, honestly, makes no sense at all, but I was running off of 2 hours of sleep. After the band party at the Ward�s everyone headed over to Hoey�s for her bonfire. Except for me, I was falling over because of exhaustion... Kaktis went though, and apparently some very interesting things occurred between her and Marcy. She fell asleep on him, and he allowed it. Aww, cute! Everyone there was suddenly reminded of Pink and Kyle running after Marcy because he was �hitting on� Kyle�s sister. Hahaha, and look what happened.

Now school was officially over for Kaktis, there was no more band, there was no more anything. It was finally the summer, although she still maintained two jobs. Our sleepovers during the summer were very seldom, when she wasn�t working in the morning on the weekends, I was. It was hard to schedule a sleepover when we worked all the time. We still hung out when we could though. We went to the Canada Day celebration at the Legion with Marcy. A whole bunch of our friends were there because they were playing with the citizen�s band... Oops, that�s where we were supposed to be... We had brought blankets though! We went and got a spot to sit, and everyone from the band found us later on. Our group was together. I must say, Kaktis and Marcy got very close and flirted excessively. I got uncomfortable by their obsessive touching under the same sleeping bag I was under so I went to visit Rena and her group of people. When I came back, they were still at it, only closer. So, I tried taking the sleeping bag away from them. Didn�t work, never tried again. After that night, I knew for sure that Kaktis and Marcy were interested in each other...

The next day, Kaktis and I went to the council party at Kelso beach in Milton. Right out of the blue I asked her a very odd question, �So, do you like Marcy?�
�Uhh� What?�
�Do you like Marcy?�
�What would give you that idea?�
�You haven�t answered the question...�
�Huh... Duly noted.�

So, I was right. As I always am when it comes to things like that (hahaha). We discussed it the entire way to Kelso, and I swore to a pact of secrecy. I didn�t tell a soul. We went for many drives within the next two days. She wanted me to ask Marcy if he liked her because of what I noticed on Canada Day. Because, he�s a jerk, he said no. I knew he was lying. I told that to Kaktis, and it got her upset. I told her, that I think that he is lying and she has two choices; 1) she can both forget about him and get over him, or, 2) she can still go for it because I know he likes her. It was a difficult conversation for her, because I could tell that she really did like him. I told her to go for it; there was nothing to lose and everything to gain. She said that every time she went for something like that she would always get crushed. I told her to not worry, there is nothing that she could lose in these types of scenarios and to just go for it! It took a lot of persuading, but I finally got her to the point where she was going to talk to him about it! Yay! The next night when Marcy was online, Kaktis and I both were online, but I didn�t know Kaktis was. I was talking to Marcy when he said, �I have a problem� and I asked him what it was, he said, �I kinda like Kaktis...�. I jumped for joy in my seat, and asked if he wanted to go for a walk and talk about it. He then said that he was talking to her online, and I was like, YAY! So I decided that since she was online, I would talk to her too. They decided to try it and began dating on July 4th. Now, Kaktis, WHO WAS RIGHT!? Okay, I�ve already done this to you a lot, I will drop it now.

Kaktis was really happy, and it made me happy that I had some influence on this. Hurray! Her and Marcy made a good couple. We hung out with him a lot. He quickly became one of the group. Kaktis and I would wait for him to get off work at 5:00, right in front of the ostrich farm. We would pick him up, bike and all, and drive him home and then go to a movie or something. On Kenzie�s birthday coincidentally, we were going to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on it�s opening night. Kaktis and I went to pick up Marcy so we could go, right when we were leaving the ostrich farm, something happened. Kaktis didn�t see the oncoming vehicle heading straight for us as we were turning out of the driveway. It saw us though, slammed on the brakes, and we collided with it. The woman was NOT happy. She screamed excessively, it was an accident, even though it was Kaktis� fault, it was NOT intentional. I was very shaken up and sat in the back for a while. I knew I had to call someone, so I was going to call mother. I tried to use Kaktis� cell phone, but, there was no reception. So I walked to the ostrich farm, I had to take Marcy with me because I wasn�t just going to walk in there and use the phone without an attendant. I really should have left Marcy with Kaktis though, because when we returned she was in tears with a neighbour consoling her. Mother was on her way though, and as far as she knew, it was a small accident with little damage. I didn�t get a chance to look at the damage prior to calling her, when I finally walked around the car, I realized that it was a lot worse than I had originally anticipated. I was pretty certain that the care was totalled. Kaktis thought differently though. Mother got there before the police did. Luckily, it was right after 5, so she could leave right away. Poor Kaktis... She was so upset, and understandably too. I would have been sobbing like her if I was the driver as well. I kept telling her that everything would be alright in a week, not just to make her feel slightly better, but because I honestly felt that it would. That�s what I continued to say the duration of the night. The cops came, interviewed each other drivers, mother was there with her car and we played the radio to calm Kaktis� nerves. After the tow-trucks came and picked up the cars, we headed back to Kaktis� house. She was deathly afraid of her parents (even though they both knew because she had to call her mother from someone�s cell phone), I kept saying, everything would be alright in a week and Marcy rubbed her back trying to get her to calm down. Once we got to her house, her dad was waiting for us. We all sat down and had some tea to calm our nerves. It was a frightening experience. We got all of the stuff that was in her car out of mine and helped her carry it inside. Her father and her then went to the wrecking yard. I have no recollection of what happened afterwards, I wasn�t there and have no idea. They did take lovely pictures of the wreck though, it made me happy... But, disturbed at the same time... hehe...

During the next week, things began to look up for Kaktis. We did, indeed, get to go see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the day after the accident thanks to buddy Kashmere. He knows how it feels to get into car accidents... I should know, I was there for his first one. The LeBlanc�s got a rental car because you cannot have three people working at full time jobs without three vehicles. They sorted everything out with insurance, and Kaktis was very lucky to say the least... They also began looking for a new car and found one. It was just going to take a bit for the mechanic to get everything ready for the final sale. So, as I had been telling Kaktis, everything was indeed okay in a week. Kaktis was back to her cheery self, and had learned a valuable lesson from all this, well, we hope at least. She wasn�t allowed to drive with passengers in her car without explicit permission though. Which wasn�t entirely bad, I think that we were all getting a little too comfortable with Kaktis� ability to drive us places, even though I would often walk.

Over the course of the summer, our nerding up clan met relatively often. With a 4L jug of O/C Iced Tea and snacks in tow, we all met up at Kaktis� to nerd it up. Marcy and I often get VERY distracted while nerding it up leaving Kaktis and Kenzie frustrated, but it�s still fun. We would go out back before officially opening the iced tea and play a bit of catch with it. It was so wickedly fun, and retarded... We�re special! Kenzie and I would end up spending the night at Kaktis� where as Marcy would have to go home because those were his parent�s wishes. It probably had something to do with the fact that Kaktis and him were dating... Ahh, the sleepovers were fun. We are odd, odd little people.

Kaktis loves the Sims. She plays that game quite regularly, and she likes making fools of the Trio family. That family consists of Kenzie, Pink, Kaktis and me. Now, this is one messed up household. Kenzie and Pink fell in love, then Kenzie cheated on Pink with me, and Pink started to hate him, then Pink fell for Kaktis, they had a baby, then I fell in love with Kaktis, but Kenzie and I had the most hideous child I have ever seen, and now Kaktis is pregnant again. Kenzie is an unemployed fat guy who hits on the maid and sucks the money out of us hard-working Sims. Jerk!

Kaktis rediscovered something she had done long ago with her old friend Amanda�s family, it�s called geocaching. It�s a really neat idea. You basically look for hidden treasure with a GPS system. Well, Kaktis and I were going to save our money over the summer to get a GPS system, when we found out that Kenzie had one. So, Kaktis, Kenzie and I went out geocaching! It was so fun! We did it on several different occasions. We found us some hidden treasure, yarr... The first time we went, we went on the Bruce Trail. We gathered all of the clues, because we needed to get these numbers off of a plaque and some structure to figure out the last remaining coordinate. Well, we found the plaque no problem, but when it came to the structure, Kenzie and Kaktis were somewhat lost. We came to this small wooden bridge in the middle of the path, I swore that this was the mysterious �structure� but Kaktis and Kenzie denied any thought that this was the structure. Once they sat down on it, I came and stood in front of them and realized that, hey, there�s a number on this bridge! This was definitely the structure we were looking for! Hurrah! After a short sit, we continued on our merry way. We traveled along the path, gazing over the escarpment. Ooh� pretty. Then suddenly, the point on the GPS went abruptly off the trail. We figure that since the trail we were on looked like it went down a hill, it could curve that way and head back up towards the cache, so we followed the trail and not the GPS... big mistake... We found ourselves quite far away from where we wanted to be and the trail most definitely did not curve back to where we wanted. There was a really thick brush that we decided to walk through. It was really rather difficult. But, we did escape onto this fancy golf course. We looked like shit. Our clothes were completely covered in dirt and burrs and such. Our hands were muddy and we were sweating a lot. It was a humid day. Kenzie had found a golf ball, and put in my backpack. Some golfers in a cart drove by us and asked if we had found any balls, we said, �umm, just one...� they said, �better luck next time!� and drove away. I guess that they were thinking that our hidden treasure was golf balls, boy were they ever wrong... So, after a quick liquorice break, we trudged through some more thick brush, this time making it up the escarpment. We made our way through some really sharp what looked like fake raspberry bushes to some nice cliffs. Being the skilled rock climbers that we are, we decided that it would be fun to scale the cliffs looking for our treasure. Hey, the terrain on this cache was marked at a 4.5, and this would definitely be a 4.5. And, we climbed... I was the pack mule with my backpack with everyone�s garbage in it. I climbed that cliff like a pro� A pro who was pregnant or just very heavy. So, we made it to the top, no cache anywhere! We decided that since we were not completely on top of the point on the GPS, we weren�t there yet. Good logic I must say. We jumped the crevasse to the side where the trail was on and scaled around the rocks and such for this blue Tupperware container that was our cache. Kaktis found it! It was under a rock in this little cave-ish thing! Hurrah! It was our first find! We read through the log and realized that we are morons. It took families with four little children like an hour and a half to find this, whereas it took three 18 year olds close to 3.5 hours to find it... Hmm, there�s a problem there... Next time, let�s listen to the GPS and not us!! Ha, smart kids...

The next time we went geocaching we were much more successful, it didn�t take us a horrible amount of time to find the cache. We went to a quarry in Milton. We thought the GPS was leading us in the wrong direction again, but it was correct! Huzzah! We pushed Kenzie through the thick underbrush first... Kaktis and I didn�t want to get us lost... hehe. We took the really long way to the cache, even though it did take us a significantly shorter period of time to find it, we are still really special kids. Kenzie made a beautiful puzzle for people to put together. He made instructions for this flower made of pennies, (something like 6 pennies and one with a reinforcer on it for the middle). That was very funny! What I put into every cache is a Designated Driver pin. I have a ton of them from the craft sale that one year... And, Kaktis always puts in, well, wanted to always put in a key chain, she put in one of her McD�s nametags this time. We obviously rock much more and suck much less than we used to. Hurrah! We�re learn-ding! Also, because Kaktis and I are more or less in love with Starbucks, we drove there with Kenzie after the cache experience in the quarry and saved it�s location on the GPS� Now we can always find the Milton Starbucks!

Kaktis and her family did what they do every year, they go on a big week-long road trip to Quebec to see family and such. Lots and lots of driving, and apparently a lot of boredom. I talked to Kaktis and her brother throughout the duration of their trip. It was actually really funny. We text each other over the internet and their cell phones. Good times. It kept us less bored, so it was good. Over the course of the trip Kaktis made people friendship bracelets. Marcy�s was pretty with pink and purple hearts, Kyle�s was green and mine is black and red with holes. It is significant like that though. Black and red because we are black and red, and it�s holy, much like myself! Huzzah! Kaktis� family�s final destination was at her uncle�s cottage somewhere near Huntsville. Well, isn�t that exciting, Marcy was going up to his cottage that weekend which is coincidentally in the same town as Kaktis� uncle�s cottage. Kaktis saw him in a store and they spent the weekend together tubing and such. That was by far the highlight of Kaktis� week, which is sort of sad, because she travelled all over the place!

At some point, Kaktis had finally saved up the money to get the trombone of her dreams. A Bach Stradivarius Trombone. Those trombones are beautiful instruments and professional quality. She got one with an F attachment so she would be able to reach the low notes that she couldn�t reach with just a regular tenor trombone. Hurray Kaktis! She had to trade in poor Oliver to help assist her in paying for this wonderful instrument though... aww. The Oliver we all had grown to love was gone, and the new one was here to stay. I was the first one that Kaktis showed this to, I felt really privileged! Yay! Pretty tbone! Now you will sound like a pro, Kaktis!

In addition to the brand new trombone, Kaktis had also auditioned for the Mississauga Youth Orchestra back in May. She was so worried about how she had done; she thought that she had failed because she messed up an F major scale. I told her that the jury takes it into account that you are nervous, and looks at the difficulty of the piece you are performing. She went on saying that she failed miserably. Then, finally, she got a wonderful letter from the Orchestra saying that the made it in! Hurray Kaktis, I told you, you were going to make it! I knew you would! Practices were going to be held every Monday night starting in September and her first Symphony performance is going to be November 27th! I will so be there, Kaktis! What an exciting time!

Now the summer was nearing a close, it was coming to the end of August, and we didn�t get to do our big geocaching excursion up in cottage country. How tragic! Next year, okay Kaktis? Anyways, the end of August means my big, huge goodbye party was coming up quickly. I had been telling everyone about it for MONTHS before the actual date. Kaktis was one of the first people to show up with her brother. And so it began! Everyone started showing then. People came from all directions, and even on leashes. Of course! There was a ton of food! Liquorice and, our personal favourite nerd it up drink, O/C Iced Tea. Wonderful!! Kaktis and that group hung out in front of my house. We played catch the iced tea, and gave Marcy the makeshift card that Kaktis and I created one day at work... It was a napkin and we smeared food and coffee into it. We also smeared lipstick all over it. We thought it was absolutely hilarious! I still don�t know whether Marcy thought it was funny or not... he says he did, I just hope he wasn�t offended by it... Kaktis munched on liquorice the entire night, and this time, she was spending the night after the party with the select group of people who could. YAY! It was another sleep under the stars type deal. After the masses left, the only people who remained were Kenzie, Marissa, Synnoeve, Hjordis, Hoey, Kaktis and I. There was a watermelon left from my party, so we decided that it would be fun to hollow it out and carve it... but, what to carve? Ohh!! A pumpkin!! Marissa did the honours, and we all just sat there and giggled. Then we decided to have an early Halloween with each other. I went and got us a bunch of crazy hats to put on and we went out and sat on my porch. Mother then took pictures of us, because like I have said on several different occasions, we are special kids... We did look pretty cool. We even confused the hell out of some really stoned kids who shook the bush and scared Marissa into oblivion. They came around and wanted to wake up my brother, I told them I wasn�t going to and they asked why, I said that we were all too stoned. They were all really confused, as we laughed. They asked us what was so funny, I said, �we�ve just smoked half a pound, like, how can this not be funny? We�re all really ripped...� they then turned to Kenzie and said, �hey �hey, you smoke pot?� Kenzie, at which point turned to Hoey and we all just laughed even harder. The kid kept asking Kenzie and then he finally said �Uhh, sure.� Ahh Kenzie, way to blow these poor kids� minds... er� what�s left of them... They eventually stumbled off and we were left alone again.

We made our bed on the grassiness of my pool. (I had just mowed it earlier that day). Our bed being a bunch of blankets on top of my pool with sleeping bags and more blankets on top and underneath of us, ensuring the moisture would not soak through and moisten us thoroughly. The night was interesting, the famed insomniac, Kaktis, was the first one to pass out. She has lost her touch entirely. I poked and prodded her, but I failed miserably at waking her up. The rest of us talked a bit, and then I fell asleep and had some really strange conversations in my sleep. I apparently screamed out Citizen Cain in the middle of the night (that was the movie I was trying to remember the name of earlier during the party). I also told Marissa how I was hungry for rice and how I couldn�t eat my sleeping bag because it tasted like lemons... I don�t recall this conversation; I think you are just insane. Kaktis was just a lump. In the morning, I made sure that the first thing that she saw was my camera as it got her waking up... several times. Marissa on the other hand demanded that Kenzie shut off the light, (which was the sun). I know Marissa, the sun is really bright, but there really isn�t much we can do about it when it is already in the sky.

After everyone woke up, mother decided to make us pancakes this time, to try and avoid pancake batter on the fridge and the floor again... hehehe... Everyone ate them up rather quickly, then the parents started to come, but we would see each other again very shortly Kaktis and Marcy�s parents were planning a big surprise party for him for his birthday...

A couple hours later, we all began to arrive at Marcy�s house and decorated it up for the unsuspecting Marcy. It was awesome� his mother was so excited. When she went to go pick him up from work, we had to finish decorating, and watch after little, little Marcy who was seriously full of crazy amounts of energy. We kept him in Marcy�s mother�s room thing, you know, the one with the chair. When Marcy came home and went into the shower, we all came out and waited for him to finish. His mother wanted him to come down in his boxers to go to the basement to look for some clothes. I do admit that it would be hilarious, but not very pleasant at the same time... I mean, Kaktis would have liked it a lot, and I would have enjoyed seeing him embarrassed, but, nothing else. Once he was finished his shower, his mom was yelling at him to come down stairs quickly if he wanted to go over to Kaktis�... she started yelling at him and he got really frustrated and yelled right back, �SETTLE THE CRAP DOWN!� as he walked into the kitchen and saw all of us sitting there and the flash of my camera. Yay! Happy Birthday Marcy! The party was so much fun! We got pizza, cake and got to play some wicked games such as pin the tail on the beautiful donkey Hayley made. We also played charades. We played with real things first, and then played with a bunch of inside jokes for the second game. That was sooo funny! Oh my! We pretty much played charades for the duration of the night... Good times. Kaktis, you did a wicked job organizing Marcy�s surprise party with his mommy, I am glad you arranged it so I could be there too! :) Wicked!

The end of summer was full of fun parties. Well� those two. The next thing to look forward to was the last nerd it up session before Kenzie and I moved away to school.

Now, this nerd it up session was sad, but sooo much fun. We did a lot of fun stuff, like, buffed Kenzie up on the treadmill, played catch with our beloved O/C Iced Tea, made grass people/frogs, did cartwheels in the grass, played D&D (sort of, we didn�t get very far), ate pickles, busted out some tunes on Kyle�s guitars (but he doesn�t have to know) as well as Kenzie�s percussive chest. Mmmm, reeses puffs are yummy... We had to take Marcy back to his house for like 12am, but Kenzie and I once again spent the night. We played the sick and twisted world of Kaktis� Sims. Sick! And then went to bed. I went to sleep with Kaktis� digital camera and got some pretty crazy pictures, one of Kaktis hiding and one of Kenzie flashing me?! What was that for Kenzie!? I think I saw a nipple! Okay, you will get your beads, just once they rebuild New Orleans. Unfortunately, that night ended way too quickly. It was so much fun and the last one we would have for a while. Poor Kaktis, we weren�t leaving you intentionally, we really weren�t, I didn�t want to leave to tell you the honest truth. Now, the next big thing was moving... *shudders*

I had invited Kaktis to help me move into residence because I knew that if someone saw my room before she did, she would yell at me, and because I wanted her to be there for it. So, she came over to my house for like 6:30 bearing hot drinks, like she usually does, she bought me an apple cider! Aww, yay! She woke us all up... Well, William was late for work at this point and mother was angry that she slept through 6:15... We were taking Kaktis� van because mother�s car was not big enough to fit all of my junk. We began to pack, and pack, and pack... Man, I have a lot of shit... And then we were on the road, before we even got out of sight of my house, Mason�s parents came outside to wish me luck on my new endeavours. Then, we were on our way to St. Catharine�s. I knew Kaktis was really sad, but so was I. My voice was really wavy so I didn�t really speak much until we were further down the road. We laughed and had a grand old time in the back of the van. When we were on the Q.E.W. Niagara, we made a small little sign that said, �Going to Brock?� on it that I didn�t want to hold up and Kaktis made me. We passed a truck that sped up to read the sign, the mother pointed at her daughter who nodded her head and gave us the thumbs up. Cool! We were having fun now! After about an hour and a half of driving, we made it to the campus and stopped at Timmy�s. Alright, so there were signs everywhere, there is like no way that we could get severely lost. Once we got into this big line, Kaktis and I wondered to get my house keys. She got to see first hand where I was going to be living. So, we met back with mother and the van and drove to where my residence was. We pulled over and started to get all my junk out of the van, helpful students began to carry it over to my house, as did Kaktis and I. Once it was all in front of the house, Kaktis and I began to move it all up into my room. My roommate hadn�t arrived yet, so it was just us trying to sort everything out. I get top bunk!

After a little bit, my roommate came, we both were somewhat shy and didn�t really say much, and then Kaktis said, �Well, since Lara obviously can�t do it herself, this is Lara.� I then greeted her, and we found that we were going to get along well; she didn�t want the top bunk at all. Woo. Kaktis helped me figure out my internet and helped get my room in order with me. Then we went for a walk around the campus. I toured her around the music department, and she called it a dungeon. Well, it sort of is, but so is every other music dept. that I have seen. Windsor�s was really ugly, Laurier�s reminded me of an office building, and Mac�s was like a doctors office. The practice rooms were the dungeony part... way down in the basement. I don�t think she was really impressed. We went for a walk on the Bruce Trail on the escarpment, wandered around the confusing maze of buildings and sat in the food court in the Walker Complex for some lunch. When it was time for her and mother to leave, I was really sad. I didn�t want Kaktis to leave, and I am pretty sure that she was sad as well. We said our goodbyes and gave each other a big hug with promises of emails and phone calls often. But, as they drove away, it made me so sad. I walked back to my residence and wrote her an email. Huzzah! She slept the entire car ride pretty much, mother thinks it was because she didn�t want to talk to her, which I can sort of understand. I wouldn�t really want to talk if I were in her position either.

The first week with people away was really hard for Kaktis. She was really upset and mopey. I talked to her everyday and emailed her as well, but it just was not the same. She had really no one to do anything with now, other than Marcy, who was always busy with soccer and work.

This was the third separation the Kaktipi had to face, and it was by far the biggest. One of us was living an hour and a half away from the other one. It was really sad for both of us. I was not scheduled to come back until fall fair weekend which was September 16th-18th. But, Kaktis was just so upset, I had to come back and surprise her the first weekend. Mother said I could, but I didn�t tell Kaktis. I collaborated with Marcy and told him what I was doing to ensure everything would work out well. I came home Thursday after my sax lesson. I stopped at Kaktis� house, and apparently she was babysitting with Marcy in town. So, I ran to the nearest pay phone from my house (you know, she has that ringer thing set to people�s phone number�s so it had to be a phone number that had never called her cell) to call her cell phone so she thought I was still at school. And she did. I talked to Marcy, and they were wandering around town. I told him to get them to head downtown and I would walk up behind them to surprise her or something like that. I then told him to start to rubbing it in that he knew what her surprise is (I had been telling her I had a surprise for her that was going to come in a red package [mother�s car]). He began to rub it in her face, and she was concerned with this prospect. I hung up the phone, and started to walk downtown to meet them. I was wearing a shirt that I knew that she hadn�t seen me wear before. It had a hood that was absolutely perfect. She watched me cross the street and had to look twice because she thought it was me, then had to convince herself that it wasn�t, because I was in St. Catharine�s. Well, she was half right. I turned around after they turned a corner and snuck up behind them. Right when I was like 3 feet behind them, she turned around because she heard me walking, I gave her a little wave, she turned back around and screamed, �WHAT!?�. That was the single greatest moment ever. She was very happy that I was home. It had made her week, which was good, because I did it so that she would cheer up a bit. We hung out a bunch that weekend, which was wicked. It made the transition from home to school a lot easier.

I began to come home every weekend for the first month to hang out with Kaktis and friends. Kaktis was happy that I was home, but also wanted for me to stay at school some too.

She and Marcy began to get very close in my absence, probably because I wasn�t there to make it awkward. They started to do everything together. Every time I called Kaktis, she was out with Marcy. Good, I am glad that Marcy is there still, what would you do without him, Kaktis?!

One of our excursions with me being home was Kaktis and I wandering into the quarry behind her house. We went over to a pond that she would always go to when she was a kid with her dad. We climbed up this rock face as well and sat and threw rocks. It was fun, it was just like being a kid again, which is always nice to have some of. We then walked around, through tunnels into the big dirt silos and over to this really cool looking hole of mud. Kaktis decided that she was going to walk on it barefoot. She explained how cool it felt so I went in too! We walked around on this big sheet of mud over water. It was quicksand! It felt so cool, then we gradually began to sink quicker and quicker until it started to scare us. We ran to an edge and got out. Then, after about 10 minutes, I decided that I wanted to go back on it, and I did. It was completely solidified again! Awesome stuff, that mud was. Kaktis and I were now completely covered in mud... hmm... we went back to her house and hosed ourselves off in the backyard. What a fun time! Kaktis accidentally sat down on her leg and it made it look like she had shat herself. Ah, poor Kaktis. After we were all hosed off, we went inside the house and sat around suggesting that we needed another project like nightmare that will take us a really long time to complete. We hung out that day, it was wicked. The Kaktipi duo doesn�t really get the chance to hang out as much anymore, so it was nice.

Kaktis, Marcy and I went to see the new Tim Burton movie; Corpse Bride the day that it came out because I really wanted to see it with them and came home that weekend just for that. Good times! It was a good movie, but I think we expected way too much from it, as it wasn�t as good as we had anticipated. Fun fun! Gotta love movie nights with the buds!

After a while of me being gone, Kaktis was fine with it. Her and Marcy got really, really close so everything was fine again, not back to normal, it will never be back to normal, but fine. I began spending weekends in St. Catharine�s after Thanksgiving weekend, and Kaktis started to work at Screamfest for the last few weeks that it was open. So, she had three jobs for a while! Crazy.

This year she will be turning 19, and I know exactly what I am going to do for her birthday, sort of... hehe. I am sure that she will not remember her 19th birthday because she will be way too intoxicated and spend all of her money at the strippers... without me!! Thank God...

~*~

I believe that by far, this is going to be the longest bio that she will receive for her site. If anyone makes anything longer, not only will I be very upset, I will beat you into oblivion. So, after 30 pages of size 12 Times New Roman font explaining all of the events of Kayleigh/Kaktis since I have known her at the very beginning of High School in grade nine, what have you learned? Probably a lot, but probably not who Kaktis really is. I believe, that I will finally give you an explanation of who Kaktis really is.

Kaktis is Kayleigh Nicole LeBlanc. She is turning 19 years old on November 24th, 2005, it�s a Thursday. She is a trombone (gun) toting band geek of the highest ranks of band geekiness and plans on expanding her knowledge of music by going to university for it. She would like to go to either McMaster or U of T. She may not seem like it most of the time, but she is actually a really sensitive person. She worries a lot about many, many, many things and is paranoid on occasion as well. If you ever want to get anything that is troubling her out in the open, don�t ask during the day, the best time to ask is when you are driving with her at night, when she at the point where she is asleep but still coherent and just at night in general. She is also very intelligent, with all of the nerd jokes that she understands and just the vast amounts of useless information that she knows in general. She loves fantasy stuff, and dragons... She seems to be a hopeless romantic, too. You would never normally picture Kaktis to be anything romantic, but I believe that she really is. She isn�t sad any more either. She has grown a lot since grade nine, from shy-ish to outspoken and opinionated, but not in the negative way, only that way on occasion (when we are arguing)... Her musicality has also expanded a lot as well, obviously since grade nine, but in the past year that she has been taking lessons and been out of school. Kaktis is a crazy person, very funny all the time, and understands me better than anyone else I know. She is unique, as in, there is no one else like her in the world. She is finally happy with herself, or the majority of herself, because, I mean, come on, everyone would change something about themselves. She and Marcy make the perfect couple, they are very right for each other, more so than anyone else I have known. Kaktis doesn�t really care what people think of her usually. She cries during certain movies and almost through really emotional music. Her favourite instrument is the double bass. Kaktis is also Botany the kitty. For, if she died, all of the books of botany would be erased and the world would have one less science. She is also Red, Tank, Tinfoil the Galloping Gazelle, O.H.O., Hgeliyak, Koyligeh, Eskimo Joe and a variety of other names. She is quite ticklish, especially on the back of her legs above her knees. She really enjoys roses, and her old favourite colour is red. Her favourite style of music is classical. She, like a lot of us, also misses high school a lot. She enjoys helping people out with things. Never try and tell her you�re fine when you really aren�t, she knows, and doesn�t care what you say, she will bother you until you tell her what�s wrong. She thinks negatively on herself often, even when she knows she is wrong. She is VERY stubborn. She should also be very proud of her accomplishments. Kaktis is also a really big jerk, and I hate her.

It is really difficult to say who a person is, rather than what. I hope that I have made the real Kaktis much more apparent to all those who read this. Because, this is who Kaktis is; my bestest buddy... HA HA HA!

Just in case you were wondering...
The finished Kaktis bio is 31 pages long with 21,612 words!
Yippy!