I just visited my first Vancouver High School in the role of selecting one. What a terrifying experience. It reminded me of documentaries I’ve seen on American prisons or those industrial photographs from Chinese factories or well, yes, the military.

It was massive! These endless lines of lockers, identical blue doors and it was empty, so I have to try and imagine what they are like full.

Perhaps this goes someway to explaining the large number of novels in this country that invoke or refer to High School, something that previously perplexed me, now understood.

We did locate the vending machine — certainly a priority! And I was impressed by a room that said knitting club on Mondays. I was completely unprepared for how big these places are. Clearly they need to make more films about Canadian high schools to educate people like me through popular culture, however then I’d have to also watch the films that were made. .. thus I propose one film about a knitting club in high school that shows how big these places are to those of us who haven’t attended them.