May was a rather calm and chill month. Although the weather had dramatically changed, with temperatures rising up to 30 for a whole week, I really enjoyed it because it was nothing like what I had experienced just a few months ago. However, it did feel like the end of the year was approaching, and was about the time to say goodbye to all of my new and amazing friends that I had met. 

During the three-day weekend from the 9th of May till the 11th, Strathmore high school held the 2025 Alberta Student Leadership Conference for the first time in the school. About 500 student leaders from all around Alberta gathered for the sunny weekend here, eager to make new friends and have a blast. I, as a spirit leader managing them during the weekend, had the task to organize them into groups, create group activities, and lead them through the schedule. Spirit leaders are students from Strathmore high who were interested in helping out on this massive event during their weekend. Anyone could have become a spirit leader in school, however, only the positive and proactive ones raised their hands to show that they were interested in participating. Us spirit leaders had to go through multiple training sessions during other weekends to be prepared for this major gathering, plan and organize thoughts and ideas as a group to plan out the 3 days, and cooperate even outside of the planning times with friends and teachers to make sure we were all on track. 

On the first day, on the 9th, the 30 spirit leaders gathered outside, in front of the school to set up our first activity of ASLC; the carnival games. This was the time when we greeted and cheered all of the students from other schools who drove hours on their school buses to get to Strathmore. Some came from Calgary and Lethbridge, while others came from Edmonton and Medicine Hat. We cheered them on and hyped them up for the Carnival games. My group prepared a shooting gallery made with wooden chopsticks and rubberbands as our game. Many people came to our booth and were all amazed and curious about how the shooting guns were made and how they function, as they were nothing like what typical shooting guns looked like. Other spirit groups had face painting booths, darts booths, cotton candy booths, and lots more. After we had 2 hours of welcoming them and the carnival games, we all had supper together in our spirit groups. Spirit groups were the groups of 20 people that we were divided into. It was a mix of Strathmore high school spirit leaders and other school participants. My group consisted of 3 Strathmore high school spirit leaders and 16 other student participants. Supper was the first time that we all got to know each other and introduce ourselves. We played a few social games like 2 truths and one lie while waiting for our food to be served, and exchanged snapchat. Since there were so many people in our group and ASLC as a whole, we were all overwhelmed and nervous about how the weekend would end up. However, I was confident that everything should end up just fine as long as we keep our group entertained and do our best as spirit leaders. After we had time to eat dinner and socialize with one another, I was actually not so worried about the rest of the plan and the activities anymore. Not only did I get to know everyone’s faces and introduced myself to everyone, but all the other students seemed to get along well, which was such a relief for me. After the dinner, we had 2 cultural activities planned: a dance practice and performance from people in Bangladesh, and a Chinese dragon dance. The first one my spirit group did was the dance from Bangladesh. It was an hour of dance practices and learning traditional dance moves from the teachers. We went through the choreographies one by one, and then danced with the music after each section. After we went through the whole dance, we got to watch some authentic dance moves from the dance group and it was really awesome. It was a really intense session and we were all tired and hot, as we were all packed into a hall with 200 other students doing the same thing. Afterall, we all enjoyed it and it turned out to be more fun and entertaining than what we thought it would be like. Next up was the Chinese dragon dance and performance. We first watched the professionals act with the handmade dragon as it was such a cool thing to see in real life. Afterwards, we all got to carry the dragon on the stick and move it around along with the traditional music. We all enjoyed it and it was also a cool experience. This was the last activity that lasted till 10pm at night. By that time, we were somehow all very close and were all friends with one another, and it didn’t feel like we just met each other a few hours ago. We were all tired and the participating students headed back to their hotels in Strathmore, while us spirit leaders stayed a bit longer to clean up and prepare for the following day. After all of that, I finally got to go back to the dorms with my other fellow dorm friends that were spirit leaders as well. It was such a long and tiring day, but every second of it was worth it, as I not only met so many new and awesome people from all around Alberta and became friends with them, but I gained confidence and had a clear goal to what I want to achieve during the next 2 days; create even more friends with other spirit groups.

On the second day of ASLC, on the 10th of May, the day started at 8am in the high school, with the official welcome ceremony, followed by another dance activity. There were many important and famous people from the head of the Student Conference in Alberta that organizes and plans these massive events throughout the year in high schools all around Alberta. They gave up welcoming words and inspiring messages about leadership and how it shapes our young futures as inspiring leaders of Alberta. During the dance session that morning, we all gathered in the school gym and danced to the beat of the music. We danced along with the dance coach, and it was such a fun but tiring thing to do from such an early time in the day. However, I thought it was a good way to start the day, as it not only woke us up, but we all already got talking with our new friends with no hesitation, nor any tension. We had our first Keynote speaker at 10am on that day, where all 500 of us gathered in the bleachers. He was actually a famous person in Canada; Tyler Smith. He was one of the surviving people in the bus crash on the 6th of April, 2018, where 16 other people who were his friends had died. He talked about how everyone is not alone, and that you just have to keep on moving forward. Him and all the other speakers that come of ASLC 2025 in Strathmore high are all inspiring people that have a message that they want to send to people all around Alberta and Canada. They are not only inspiring and respected, but they have dealt with significant things that changed their lives and want to share that experience with others. After that, we had a short spirit group session, where my group gathered together, and we played splash and following the leader. We had our lunch break back in the same place we had dinner the previous day, and we all talked so much about lots of stuff. We got to know each other’s future goals, university, sports they place, their hobbies, and their high school’s student council and what they do there. The afternoon on that day was packed with 3 sessions with other keynote speakers, from Strathmore high school. It was interesting to see our school teachers talking about leadership and inspiring things towards all of us, as all we usually see is them talking about homework, and assignments, and tests, and whatever. They had cool activities; one of the keynote speakers (my science 10 teacher) took us out to the school green house and explained how it functions and how it was created by the high school students from previous generations. All of the 3 sessions were fun and we were all socializing and bonding with one another. We had our hour-long spirit group time afterwards, where I got to accomplish my goal from last night; create new friends with other spirit groups. My spirit group and another spirit group decided to join together for this hour-long session, making us a group of 40. During this time we played competitive and cooperative activities; spaghetti marshmallow towers and musical chairs. Now that we had 5 spirit leaders for this big group of 40 (3 from my team and 2 from the team we grouped with), we could run the activities more smoothly. For example, while I was in charge of gathering material and supplies for the spaghetti marshmallow tower with another spirit leader, one was preparing the chairs and music for the following game (musical chairs), while the other 2 were separating the 40 people into groups of 5 or 6 and were explaining the rules of spaghetti marshmallow towers to them. I thought it was an efficient way that we dealt with the large number of people. All of the groups were very competitive, with some creating towers that looked very mathematical, while others looked rather simple. We compared all of the towers and ranked their heights. It was a fun and creative activity to do with our new friends and everyone enjoyed it. Next up was our second activity we planned on doing during this hour long spirit group session: musical chairs in the school gym. We used the speakers in the gym to blast music while the other students were competing between each other to win in the game. They were all so excited, that this part took over 30 minutes for just 2 rounds of the game. After all of the fun in our groups, it was time for mothers day letter creation, as the weekend was also mother’s day this year. We all wrote letters and decorated them for our parents to take back home. Dinner was at the hall again, where we sat with just anyone we wanted to, as it was the last gathering for food for this year’s ASLC. We had the ASLC 2025 party in the gym after dinner, where students had to dress up as superheros, as that was the theme for this year. It kept on going till 10 at night on that day, and it was fun. Local DJs came to the gym to perform for the whole night, Dominos gave us $2000 worth of pizzas, there was a photo booth for friends to snap pictures, we all were wearing light in the dark wrist bands, and we all had face paintings of heroes.

The 3rd and final day of ASLC 2025 was on the following day, on Sunday. It was a half day just until mid-day, as it was the last day of ASLC 2025. We started early in the morning at 8am, with the closing ceremony and one last keynote speaker. During the closing ceremony, the people from the head of Alberta Student Leadership Conference said a few words about how being a part of ASLC is such a great accomplishment, and that we all would become great leaders in the future. I felt like these were the kind of people that young leaders (and to be honest, prestigious universities as well) look up to as not only amazing people with talent and experience, but as their role models. We played a few games where we talked with new people and socialized with them. We finished the 2025 ASLC with a 2-hour long talent show where anyone could sign up to go on the stage to perform in front of everyone. There were so many people that signed up, and they sang famous songs, performed a group dance, did a talk show, and lots more. At the end of the day, the participants from all the other schools grabbed their lunches and headed back to their homes. After everyone left and ASLC was over, we were exhausted but had a sense of accomplishment and achievement. It felt like I overcame lots of my fears and worries that I had before and couldn’t have done it without this experience. I am planning on participating in ASLC 2026 next year in Olds, but not as a spirit leader that goes through all the stress, but as the one who is there just to have fun and make new friends from all around Alberta.

The 2025 Badminton Provincials Tournament in Alberta was held on the 2^nd and 3^rd of May, in Red Deer. To qualify for the badminton provincial games, one and/or their pair must rank in second place or higher in their zone games held 2 weeks prior to the provincial dates. Sadly, I and my junior boys’ doubles pair made it to the semi-finals in zones, but lost both games there, ranking 4^th place in that tournament. From our school, one intermediate boys’ single player, one senior girls’ doubles pair, and one intermediate girls’ doubles pair made it to provincials, all ranking at 2^nd place in the zones’ competition. They headed to Red Deer, a city 3 hours away from Strathmore to play in the provincial games during the weekend. They played all day during the weekend, where they would be categorized into 2 categories before determining who is/are the champions in the whole province. After that, they compete to be first place in their designated categories. Category A was the group where the winners advanced into, while Category B was the group where the losers advanced into. Both categories are very tough to play in and are very well respected, but category A is a tougher pool to play in and is the pool where the ultimate number 1 of Alberta will be decided. In the end, the intermediate boys’ single player advanced into category A got 5th place, meaning that he was 5^th in the whole province of Alberta, while the senior girls’ doubles pair moved into category B and won the silver medal, ranking 10^th place in the whole province, and the intermediate girls’ doubles pair moved into category B and finished at second place, also ranking 10^th in the whole province. They were all tired and proud of their achievements. These provincial level badminton players were also invited to join team Alberta to compete against other provincial champions. 

2 Weeks later, our school received the 2025 badminton zones banner that us players would sign on and hang on the walls of the gym as an ongoing tradition in the school with these banners. It felt so cool to be a spartan and to have my name recognized on the school walls.  

As summer was approaching, the gophers that were all hibernating all suddenly appeared from the grounds. During the early days of May, there were so many new born babies, and they were all so small, slower at running away from people, and were in groups of 5-10. They were all cuddling around their hole that they came out of, exploring the new world. I wish that I could just take some of them as my own. 

The graduation for the class of 2025 was on the 24^th of May. There were about 100-200 graduates. The graduation ceremony started with the families and friends entering the gym. In order to participate in the graduation ceremony at the high school as a guest, one was required to have a graduation ceremony ticket. Graduates got one for free to give to other people, and a maximum of 6 with one costing 10 CAD each. I got my graduation ceremony ticket from a friend of mine who was graduating in the dorm, after spending 3 years there. Then, the graduates entered in a single line, and headed to the bleachers after walking around the whole crowd of guests. Afterwards, the principal and other teachers and representatives gave speeches to the parents for their hard work, and the graduates for completing their high school life. Then came the time for the graduates to walk the stage, and to shake hands with the people and officially graduate from Strathmore high school. Each of them were called out individually, and they each got a photo taken of themselves with the principle. It was such a happy day for the graduates, but a sad one for us fellow friends. Although some of them would be going to universities nearby such as in Calgary, others are headed off to other provinces or other countries. 

I went on a school field trip on the 30^th of May to a mini golf center in Calgary. It was a field trip specifically for the international students attending the high school, and for them to explore Alberta. The mini golf center was indoors. There was the golf course, along with other arcade games. It was so much fun, as we kept on competing against our friends to win final prizes. After spending the morning there, we headed to the Calgary farmers market to get lunch and to spend the rest of the afternoon there. The farmer’s market was an actual market, with not only vegetables and farm goods, but also with stores selling furniture, snacks, and restaurants. I went to a Korean restaurant, as I was missing Asian food. It was so good, and I was so excited to go back home and eat good food. After spending the rest of the day there, we headed back to school. It was a great day, because not only did I get to have fun with friends in Calgary, but also because I got to know the two teachers who came along with us more. One was one of the English teachers from school who was also the representative teacher of international, and the other was the Spanish and French teacher from the school. They were both teachers that I knew, especially the English teachers, but it was nice to be able to talk with them about stuff.

The year end party organized by the dorms was on the 31^st of May, and all of the international students (about 80 of us) gathered in the gym to celebrate. There were pizzas, pop, snacks, and we played many games together to win prizes. We played musical chairs with about 40 people, dress up relay games, and got awarded at the end for different accomplishments we had in the dorms over the years.