Pokemon & A PhD

22 January 2021Jensa NG, Mack ‘23

According to her peers, Ms Legassicke is one of the school’s most accomplished RFAs, and she is the first Residential Faculty Assistant I have interviewed who did not attend Brentwood as a student.

As I began to get to know Ms L, I had to start off with basic questions, such as “Where are you from?”, “What high school did you go to?” and “What were your interests in your youthful years of secondary school?”.

Ms Legassicke shared that she grew up in Nanaimo BC, just up the Trans-Canada Highway. She attended Dover Bay Secondary School – one of Brentwood’s great sporting rivals. Ms L was a hands-on student in not only her academics, but also her extracurriculars. She took part in the Student Council, Field Hockey, Peer Counselling, Peer Tutoring, RCMP Youth Advisory Group, District Student Council, Band, and Model UN/Debate. While our fearless leader, Mr Patel, might call this a shining example of a tripartite student, my interview with Ms L revealed this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Following her years at Dover Bay, Ms Legassicke continued her academic adventures at the University of Victoria, where she completed her undergraduate degree and earned a double major in Political Science and History. She did not stop there! No, dear readers, this impressive RFA went on to complete her “Masters of Arts at the University of Waterloo in the Department of Political Science specializing in conflict and conflict resolution.” Once more, she did not stop there. She continued to thrive and found herself working for the UN. For many, this might be a dream, but thanks to her stick-to-it mindset Ms L made it a reality. She told me that she is currently “in the process of completing my PhD in Political Science at Dalhousie University. I only need to complete and defend my dissertation, which is on the reintegration of rebel groups back into the state after a civil war.”

I next tried to stump her with a tough one – "Which accomplishment are you most proud of?", imagining it impossible to narrow her many achievements down to just one, but no, she came up with this: “Conducting my PhD fieldwork in Sierra Leone. It was one of the most challenging things I have ever had to do and required a lot of quick problem solving to be able to conduct the research I was doing.”

The year before she arrived at Brentwood, Ms Legassicke worked at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre. Unaware of this organization, I took my curiosity to Google. Their website states that “The purpose was to build upon and share Ghana’s five decades of internationally acclaimed experience and competence in peace operations with other states in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) region and the rest of Africa.”

On top of all her serious work, Ms L enjoys her time off. When she is not overseas keeping peace, she is playing Pokemon, traveling, or even fishing. She was once invited to a Pokemon tournament in Germany. Ms Legassicke claims she is “an avid fisherwoman.” In September, 2012, she caught a Tyee salmon which weighed over 30 pounds. “I was on the leaderboard of the Port Alberni Salmon Festival at 8 am when I headed off to work. I found out that I had been kicked off the leaderboard later that afternoon over the local radio station.”

Ms L hopes that her future holds more time in the classroom as a social studies teacher as well as breaks spent traveling the world. “I would like to travel more. Though I traveled to a lot of areas to research and work, I did not always get the time to explore the areas I was in. I also have not been to South America yet, and hope to explore that continent when Covid is over.”

Now time for the sappy stuff. As many staff and students at our school would agree, Ms Legassicke declares that her favourite part of the school “has been the community. I feel very lucky to work with such an engaged and enthusiastic group.” Don’t we all!

I ended the interview pondering how a woman like Ms Legassicke has completed so much in her lifetime – already. From student council to UN representative, she has done it all. And she couldn’t have done it without the “I want to be the very best, like no one ever was” (Pokemon, 1998) mindset that keeps her going.

Jensa NG, Mack ‘23