National Adult Literacy Database

May 31, 1999

Today, we are launching 5 stories from Samaritan House Training Centre in Brandon, Manitoba and as a special event you can read their stories as well as hear an audio version. The goal of the Centre is to help our students learn, and to improve their chances of finding meaningful employment through improvement in their academic, technical, communication, and workplace skills.

Debbie Netzel has been a student at Samaritan House Training Centre during the 1998-99 school year in the TechKNOWLEDGEy Program. Debbie is known at the school for her avid interest in math and computers, and for her creative writing abilities. She is a diligent student with a fun sense of humour. Debbie is looking forward to a career putting her computer abilities to use, possibly in data entry or as a computer technician.

Play an audio version of this story

A Day in the Life of a Mysterious Building

by Debbie Netzel

With the rise of the warm morning rays, a day in the life of a mysterious building begins. With a cappuccino flair glowing from its rough exterior, this angular building will be host for a festive celebration. It was waiting in eager anticipation like a crowded bus shelter on a windy, snowy afternoon.

Upon arrival of the white limousine the building welcomed the visitors like a polar bear on the tundra greeting the arrival of the frozen icepack. The red carpet was rolled out as if the Queen of England was inspecting the troops. The special guests the building was going to greet this day stepped out of the limousine to start their life together. They were showing their feathers like a peacock in full plumage. Seeing this sight there was a smile that could not be wiped off from the face of this structure like a child with permanent marker smeared from ear to ear.

The event was about to happen. The building had been preparing for this event by being dressed with the colours of a rainbow after a spring rain. The crowds were gathered in waiting inside for the grand entrance of a stately figure as elegant as a white swan.

While the march of the figure in white to her mate was playing the building was a buzz with whispers of awe. This building had never been witness to such a royal union in its history.

The experience was like a mallard duck committing to a drake for a life-long affair. At the moment when the kiss to seal the union was locked, there were choirs singing like angels in the heavens and the building was rejoicing with excitement. There was a cascade of bouncing balls in many colours streaming from the balconies. It was as if there was a strong wind blowing through an apple orchard when its trees are in full bloom.

The march out of the mysterious building was as stately as the grand march of the graduating class of the year. The moment they walked out of the building, they were showered by a flutter of snow-white doves dropping upon them a rain of brightly coloured dewdrops. The white limousine in waiting like a white chariot then whisked away the princely passengers, and another day in the life of a mysterious building was drawing to a close. The dawn of a glorious day casting shadows into the peering glasses that glanced in the lives of the world around it signalled the end of another day in the life of the building with an air of mystery.