Hello again. I’ll hopefully be writing more in the next couple of days than I have been.
Anyway, I wrote up a narrative today. The prompt was “People and events can surprise us.” I would really appreciate some feedback on it 
We all have expectations. From the anxious expectation of a child on Christmas Eve, to the confident expectation of a student that just wrote an easy exam, expectation is an inevitable feeling within all of us. Sometimes reality matches our expectations, and sometimes it doesn’t. Although many things go the way we expect them to, often the people and events that constitute our realities surprise us by not matching our expectations, which can sometime be clouded by such factors as overconfidence.
In my early years, I never had to try very hard in school. Sharp of mind and quick of thought, junior me was used to always hearing praise for her work and brightness. Studying for quizzes was a preposterous idea to me. Why would I need to spend time studying for something I had learned the first time I read it? Why would I spend time reinforcing concepts I mastered within minutes? Confidence, and soon cockiness, permeated my mind. Projects were finished in a day, homework was started the morning it was due, and tests were paid little attention to. All the while, I was bringing home report cards lined with little bolded capital A’s, and comments praising my intelligence, all of which became the expected norm.
It was still my expectation as young pre-teenager to rise above in that manner without effort. While alarm surfaced upon the announcement of a final exam in my science class a few years ago, I was cool as a cucumber, and remained so.
“Maybe I’ll study later,” became my constant mantra. I expected to do well, like I had always done until then. Finally the day of the final exam arrived.
“Yo I’m so nervous about this test! Did you study?” a fellow classmate asked me.
“Not really… I meant to, but I only studied a little bit last night. It can’t be that hard though, right?” I responded. I expected to do well, like I had always done until then. I sat down and waited for my teacher to bring me my test paper, secretly laughing inside at the panicked expressions of my peers. When I looked down at the booklet placed on my desk however, my heart sank a little at the thickness of it. I flipped through the pages, plastered with questions to answer and lines on which to write my responses, like some endless list of crimes I have been found guilty of.
“Whatever, it just looks harder than it is,” I assured myself. I expected to do well, like I had always done until then. But I was plagued by frustration the entire time I was writing it, brought on by the appearance of unfamiliar words, and confusing diagrams. I didn’t remember any of this, and most of my short answers were full of made-up facts and my multiple-choice selections included a lot of blind guessing. It was the first time I had faced such uncertainty on a test.
Even though I was nervous on the day we obtained our results, it didn’t faze me. I expected to do well, like I had always done until then. When I saw a large red C- scrawled onto the top of my paper, I was shocked.
“This can’t be happening to me!” I cried. I expected to do well, like I had always done until then. It suddenly became clear to me the meaning of the quote: “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” One can only coast in the wake of his/her natural gifts for so long. This hurt my science mark badly, earning me my first B grade in an academic subject on my report card that term.
This event surprised me, even though in theory I should have seen it coming. But my cockiness and overconfidence clouded my judgment, leading to unreasonable expectations.
I expected to do well, like I had always done until then. But sometimes, our reality just does not match our expectations.
You may have seen the monument of him at the Beach Avenue entrance of Stanley Park in present-day Vancouver, BC, or strolled the streets of Oppenheimer Park. What is his claim to fame? What is he known for? What did he do? Read on, and find out.
In 1871 David managed to buy the entire company back from Strouss, newly named Oppenheimer Brothers, but sold the Barkerville store in the September of 1872 due to the depreciating value of it that came with the end of the Cariboo Gold Rush. From then on, Yale was the main center of operation for David, who became well known as a generous man with care for the general interests of the city. For example, he vigorously contested the freight rates charged by Captain John Irving on the Fraser River, and as well as attempts to divert federal railway (CPR) funds to Vancouver Island as opposed to the lower mainland. He had built up a healthy reputation as one of the “good guys.”
Business was successful, but the brothers soon realized they should take advantage of the planned mainland terminus of the upcoming Canadian Pacific Railway, which they expected to be the young community of Vancouver (which was known as Granville back then). David had already begun to purchase land there (300 acres on the south shore of the Burrard Inlet, the second-largest chunk of land in the city) with several partners in around 1877. So after a few years in Victoria, they could easily move their business to Granville. But things just got better and better from there.