New Names 1

20 September 2011Annie B

For all of us, September brings change; at Brentwood, this is a well-understood truth. Summer winds down into half-packed cardboard boxes, then, quicker than you would expect, into sheaves of freshly printed paper – the orientation handbook, new class schedules, course outlines. Along with this shift in habit – the sight of a worksheet can be a scary thing after two months – comes a very particular yet subtle shift in perception. New names, at first just letters in ink on countless lists and sheets of paper, flesh out and take on a life of their own as the person they belong to becomes more than just words on a page. This happens with potential roommates, new teachers and house duty staff alike. As always, this September brought us many new faces – including a faculty member who isn’t quite what you would expect on paper.

Ms. Atlanta St John hails from Oxford, and the trek from her home in England to Canada was sure to involve the same cardboard boxes as it did for Brentwood students, as well as the somewhat strange feeling of packing up everything at summer’s end. Being half Canadian, arriving in Canada this September was not completely a foreign experience; many summer vacations were spent in Ontario visiting her granddad and her mother’s family. However, arriving at Brentwood the Monday of Orientation marked the very beginning of her acquaintance with our own corner of the country. If anything, she has one word to say after her first weekend in British Columbia – and that word is – hot. The weather in Oxford, a city as far as it can be from any sort of coastline, is akin to a perpetual BC winter. Rainy, cloudy and damp, her home town is very similar to Mill Bay from November to March. One outstanding difference however, she says, is that Oxford is “completely incapacitated by two inches of snow”.

Ms. St John is excited to be here, not only because of our snowplows and the fond, if not hyperbolic, stories and memories she has already heard concerning last year’s snow day, but also because of our proximity to the coast. In addition to being one of our new rowing coaches, she already has an affinity for the marine life surrounding us. She loves the seals that lounge on the ends of the docks on calm days. “I’d love to adopt one” she says “but I’ve heard they’re unpopular with the rowers, so I don’t know how well that would end”.

The rowers are a crowd Ms. St John is sure to be spending a lot of time with. As a former athlete on the British national rowing team, she started her coaching career after a shoulder injury left her unable to continue as a full time athlete.

The transition from athlete to coach and teacher – Ms. St John has degrees in both history and business management – has left her free to rectify the unbalanced sports vs. music conundrum many of us face here under Brentwood’s busy schedule. She’s an avid Glee fan, a “horrible rumor which is completely and utterly true”, she admits. Although in her time, she has played a couple of instruments, including the recorder, her musical landscape primarily consists of living vicariously through the cast of her favorite TV show. On duty and advising the Grade 11 girls of Mack House, the Tivo, found in the common room, and the vast library of recorded shows stored on it might just provide a relaxing break in the busy weeks ahead.
As well as her Mack House duties, Ms. St John helps out in Hope on Mondays and Fridays and has a spot on the substitute teacher list. With her role as a rowing coach, her friendly smile and Oxford accent (and perhaps even her love for Glee) she is sure to become a familiar face around school quite soon – just make sure to get her name right. How it appears on paper – Saint John – and the sound of it spoken aloud – Sinjin – are very different. Why? “It’s a mystery” she says. It has nothing to do with the accent, or her Oxford origins. It is “just an old name”, a name that, until recently, collected below the long, flat list of others yet to be personified.

For each of us, September heralds the start of something new, be it new classes, friends, a new career, or the novel moment when a name evolves into more than words on paper, and a new face, such as that of Ms. St John, becomes a part of the vibrant, busy, ever changing Brentwood community.

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