As May comes to a close, culminatings and exam season have once again made their way into our lives, and our final spirit week for the year has ended with a bang. Prom gave seniors a last chance to look back, have fun, and celebrate their high school careers. In the middle of all these events, it’s important to hold onto the little moments we share, as it's the small things that we often fail to notice that wind up being priceless and special beyond compare.
Arriving promptly in our building every morning and making sure our building is an attraction in itself, Mr. Dexter is the one behind it all. The spontaneous laughter and joyful smile he brings, along with being a regular listener of “A Day in a Life Of” himself, saying that it was a pleasure to produce this episode would be an understatement. A father who has a particular niche in the kitchen, Mr. Dexter even has future dreams to accomplish within the halls of Mackenzie. If you want to know what it’s like as lead caretaker (other than sweeping our halls), this unique episode is sure to enlighten you!

Welcome back to your favourite once in a while athletic review! Let’s see what’s going on with sports and Mackenzie!
Volleyball:
When you place the 3 boys and 3 girls from Mackenzie’s amazing volleyball teams, there’s practically no team that can stop them. You know it’s a bit of a slaughter when the game barely lasts half an hour… For the last game of the season, a couple of Mackenzie’s players seemed to have to leave early as they barrelled the volleyball onto Downsviews court over and over. With a convincing score of 25-06 and 25-06, fans were able to watch a game, and still catch their bus to go home! And with that win, Mackenzie’s Co-Ed volleyball team goes into the quarterfinals undefeated!
Track and Field:
Posted on wlmac.athletics on instagram on May 13th:
Over the past 2 days, the Mackenzie track & field team competed at the North and East Regional Championship across a variety of events, coming in 3rd place in the north. Shoutout to those who participated, and a special shoutout goes to the athletes that qualified for the Metro Championship, including:
Novice Boys North:
Kyrie Savvaidis: 1500 m - 🥇, 3000 m - 🥇
Adam Ferguson: 800 m - 🥈, 1500 m - 🥈, 3000 m - 🥉
Matteo Marrello: 100 m - 🥈
Rashaun Green: long jump - 4th
Simon Michetti: 3000 m - 4th
Junior Girls North:
Sarah Khan: 400 m - 4th, 800 m - 🥇
Edna Nortey: triple jump - 🥉
Bertina Yang: 800 m - 4th
Avery Lee: 3000 m - 4th
Julianna Yuen: 3000 m - 6th
4 x 1 relay (Dana hum, Edna Nortey, Ella Richmond, Marie Gaiotto) - 4th
Junior Boys North:
Jaden Stewart: triple jump - 🥇, long jump - 🥈, 400 m - 🥉
Chivi Kpeagbara: 200 m - 4th, 400 m - 6th
4 x 1 relay (Jaden Stewart, Aubrey Weiner, David Tyufekchiev, Chivi Kpeagbara) - 🥇
Senior Girls North:
Asia Phillips: triple jump - 🥇, long jump - 🥇, 100 m - 🥈
Senior Boys north:
Daniel Morgan: 800 m - 4th, 1500 m - 🥈, 3000 m - 🥈
Jacob Stotland: 800 m - 🥈, 1500 m - 🥉
Ethan Andrew: triple jump - 🥉
Owo Jones: long jump - 🥉
Simon Drolet: 1500 m - 5th, 3000 m - 4th
Jacob Kuo: triple jump - 4th
Noah Lorber: 800 m - 5th
Arthur Mkrtchyan: 2000 m steeplechase - 5th
4 x 4 relay (Kamron Minoo, Juan Marro-Sanchez, Jacob Stotland, Daniel Morgan) - 🥈
Soccer:
Rain, rain, go away
Come again some other day
We want to go outside and play
Come again some other day
The varsity girls soccer team absolutely loved the muddy conditions for their game against Earl Haig! With mud, hair, and cleats flying everywhere, the team ran onto the field on this nice sunny afternoon. With some great team work and some amazing individual effort, the team was able to pull out a fairly convincing 5-2! Great work girls!
Baseball:
Tier 1:
The boys came out to play against one of Mackenzie’s biggest rivals: York Mills. They played hard, but sadly fell short to YMCI’s quick plays and hard hits. The final score of the game was 1-5, nice try boys!
Tier 2:
The tier 2 team on the other hand had a field day. The boys played against Emery and they decided to show no mercy to the lesser experienced team. The boys scored run after run against the run-less Emery team. The ending score was a blowout 14 - 0 win for Mackenzie.
Final Game Scores:
WLMCI vs. DSS (Co-Ed Volleyball): | 25 - 06 | 25 - 07 |
WLMCI vs. EHSS (Varsity Girls Soccer): | 5 - 2 |
WLMCI vs. YMCI(Tier 1 Boys Baseball): | 1 - 5|
WLMCI vs. ECI (Tier 2 Boys Baseball): | 14 - 0|
Don’t forget to bring your Student ID to get into the games!
Be sure to follow @wlmac.athletics for everything to do with Mackenzie's athletics!

Photo credits to Kikkoman
When my sister was first learning to read, my parents incentivized her with a trip to IKEA every time she completed a level of Ladybird books. For a four-year-old who had just barely learned to say “hi,” the promise of one hour’s worth of playtime in the ballroom, followed by meatballs, followed by ice cream, served well in quelling learning frustrations. I can’t say it didn’t please me too at all, every time my mother proudly announced that another three Ladybird books had been mastered and as a reward, the Friday upcoming, we would go to IKEA.
“Mashed potatoes or fries?” My sister nudged me from below as the server held up a plate of Swedish meatballs, already swathed in gravy. “You get the mashed potatoes, I get the French fries, and then we can share,” she whispered, eyes wide and nose twitching at the warm smell of meatballs, gravy, and potatoes that would never lose warmth. “If you can read this label for me,” I whispered, holding out my plastic packaged apple slices. She frowned, “Washed and ready to eat.” So she was learning. “Mashed potatoes please,” I called.
The rest of the evening was spent in complete enjoyment. Over delightful bites of meatballs and over the cooperative trading of fries for potatoes, I recounted my school day to my parents, my parents reminded my sister they were proud of her, and my sister reaffirmed my love for her, “Do you love me, Adai?”
Love her? In these carefree moments shared after careful toiling, I adored her and the world. Looking back at how we happily placed our trays on the rack before rushing off to play on the colourful abacuses, and how each night out ended so sweetly with an ice cream swirl savoured in the library, those Friday nights were not magical because of IKEA alone. I don’t think I could ever play so long and often with an abacus today - only as children did my sister and I find fun and freedom in even the most simple things.
For all the times we mounted back into the car and drove away from those red, yellow, and blue flags, it took me years to realize family moments like those made more than memories. As the taste of meatballs remains forever fresh on my tongue, so does the significance of our IKEA childhood routine. It was more than reading that was learned, more than my sister whose world was brightened, and more than the present that was celebrated.
Project Metropolis will be selling meatballs on Food Day. Come support us and buy a bowl, 5 warm meatballs for $3!

Hey guys, new blog dude here. First post of the year so whether you’ll be seeing more of me later on or not will highly depend on how this one goes.
Recently I’ve been hired to produce a piece of writing about bubble tea for Project Metropolis. That's all they told me, “Just write something about bubble tea.” This is possibly more agonisingly open ended than those university application questions that are all essentially variations of, “Tell me about yourself.” But I digress, back to bubble tea.
Bubble tea is pretty awesome. As with most East Asian things, it comes in about fifty million different flavours. Now, as with many things, when you have way too many flavours, there’s going to be more that are not so good than ones that are actually good. In fact, that’s probably why bubble tea shops tend to have a maximum of five drinks that have images and 90-pt font descriptions, and then there’s the rest of the menu that's written in 3-pt font and you have no idea what any items are gonna look like. It’s basically their version of realising that they have to extend their one paragraph into a 3000 word essay.
Personally, I’m a pretty big fan of bubble tea. If this was supposed to be a promo for selling bubble tea, this is where I would start talking about how awesome it is and why everyone should try it. But I don't feel like doing that. What I will tell you is that I have tried at least five drinks from every bubble tea shop on Yonge Street (other than Machi Machi because I am not paying $20 for a bubble tea), and I have made a mental tier list that includes every single one. Is that concerning? Probably. Am I going to stop? Probably not. Yes, I know it’s not extremely healthy for me or my wallet, but what better experience could one ask for when commissioning another to “just write something about bubble tea”? With that in mind, I’m going to start talking about some notable bubble tea shops and my opinion on them. Before I begin, I would like to make clear that this is purely my personal opinion without intent to offend or shame anyone and especially everyone who is not in agreement.


Shuyi: one of the better bubble tea shops I have ever had, and I will fight to a reasonable extent about it. At my peak I knew the cashier on a first name basis.


Chatime: easily one of the most questionable because their seriously overpriced drinks taste like watered down juices to my tastebuds.


Real Fruit: I don’t like this place very much because their idea of ‘bubble tea’ sometimes seems to be putting tapioca pearls into every drink they serve (No, I do not like tapioca in my Mango Slush). Not as huge of a red flag as Chatime and I’ll deal with it because their slushies and smoothies do taste nice.


Kung Fu Tea and Yi Fang: their fruit teas are so good that they are the sole (or duo?) reason that fruit tea is at the top of my drinks tier list.


Coco: easily the best bubble tea shop I have ever had - I believe that everyone should definitely give it a sip. Project Metropolis also happens to be selling it for Food Day this Friday.


Remember when I said I’m not following other promos’ tactics? I meant it. I am not being threatened. This is my own opinion. Project Metropolis works for and shares with our community with love, and here’s a way you can interact with them person to person, a refreshing drink for a resourceful cause. Please h̸̺̲̫̬̤̠͔͋̇e̶̡̞͎̼̭᷂̙᷂̞̾᷁͜l̸̰͇̂᷉̄̉͘p̴̡̞̰̟̀͠ buy.