A Day in the Life—Gryphon House Boarding Student Minori

Gryphon House is the home-away-from-home for 23 boarding students who have joined GNS from around the world, as well as three caring, live-in house parents. The historic setting and family-style atmosphere make for a truly unique boarding experience right here in Victoria, BC, Canada.

Minori is a Grade 12 GNS student from Japan, who has been living at Gryphon House for three years. We asked her to describe a day in her life, explaining what it’s like to be a Gryphon House boarding student.

Mornings

“I usually wake up at 6.30 in the morning, and I get ready for school. For the last two years, I haven’t really eaten breakfast because my old roommate was not the type of person that wakes up early. But this year my roommate An is pretty active in the morning, which has been good for me. I’m a night person.”

“We usually pack up together and then around 7:00 a.m. we go downstairs to get breakfast. There are leftovers from dinner, but what I usually do is create a sandwich for breakfast with the panini press. Paninis are popular in our house because we have a panini press and they’re freshly made. We have a student fridge, so you can keep your own ingredients, but we usually have ham or cheese that you can use.” 

School Day

“I’m doing a full IB Diploma, so I’m taking three HLs (Higher Levels): Economics, Global Politics and Language and Literature. The others (Standard Levels) are ESS (Environmental Systems and Societies), Math A&A (Analysis and Approaches) and Spanish ab initio and then TOK (Theory of Knowledge).”

“My favourite class is either Economics or Global Politics; it really depends on the topic. I’m more of a critical thinker, instead of finding just one right answer. So I really like to think about international perspectives. In university, I’m going to focus on international business, economics and liberal arts.”

Lunchtime

“My friends and I sometimes walk to Red Barn for lunch. The walk takes the whole lunch period though. Mainly, though, I grab lunch in the Dining Hall. Sometimes they provide a Japanese meal. One of the ones that is my favourite is miso soup. At Gryphon House, they are going to have a night that represents each of our countries, Japan Night, Korea Night, Mexico Night, etc. I have a drawer where I have all of my snacks and all of the tea and everything from Japan.”

Co-Curriculars

“There are lots of activities, clubs and co-curriculars going on here. It’s really hard to choose. I am currently in the Entrepreneurship Club because I’m interested in learning more about Economics. We’re learning about investing in stocks, which is pretty helpful for me because I’m doing Economics as a class.”

“I got involved in Theatre in Grade 10 because I took it as a class. I was not really sure if I was interested, but because I like to sing and dance, I joined and the rehearsal was fun and a good community. For Mean Girls, I made my own choreography with the show’s choreographer for my CAS (Creativity, Activity and Service) project. Then I taught some choreography to the ensemble. To see my own choreography actually being in the musical was pretty cool.”

After School

School ends at 3:15 p.m. Some Gryphon House students take the school bus to the Junior School and walk home; it’s about a 10-minute walk. I usually wait for the Gryphon House bus that picks us up at 3:45 p.m. It depends on the day, but I sometimes just shower before dinner to really focus. Now that I’m in Grade 12, everything is coming up, so I’m basically studying a lot.

And then the dinner starts around 6:00 p.m., the chef makes it for us. It’s a buffet style, so you can take whatever you want. And 6:30 p.m. is the end of dinner, and then 6:30 to 8:00 p.m., that’s when prep time happens. The prep time is really helpful for me. We have to have our doors open so that the house parents can check in on what we are doing. It’s a pretty good thing because it makes us really focused.”

“After that, we have our own time, like from 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., it really depends on the day though. Grade 9s and 10s usually have to go to their room at 10:00 p.m. on school days and give in their devices. For us (Grade 11s and 12s) on school days it’s 10:30 p.m., and on non-school days our curfew is 11:30 p.m. We just go back to our room and just get ready for bed.”

Weekends

“I’m in Kevin’s advisory group. I have been for three years now. There is a house cup that we compete against each other, but we sometimes have team activities where only people from our team go. Last year, I requested bowling as an activity, but then, because I had the musical, I couldn’t go. So Kevin very nicely changed the activity, and this year we finally went bowling!”

“Camp Gryphon was fun, and the ice cream was the best part. When I came to Canada, it was my first time seeing an ice cream truck. I thought that was only in movies.”

“The fact that Gryphon House is not on campus was a huge plus for me and helped me choose GNS. Escaping school really helps. Oak Bay Village is about a 15-minute walk from Gryphon House. There are restaurants, cafes, shopping, and it’s a good community. It’s a nice walk, or you can take the bus. I usually go to Fairway Market because there are a few Asian foods that I can buy to feel like I’m back home. I usually go to Starbucks to study, and I come back by walking or taking the bus.”