Emily Wong, a student at our Vancouver dramaschool, is in her final year of the UBC Transition programme, a two year programme 
that transitions from elementary school to the University. A true polymath, 14 year old Emily’s passions range from Physics to Poetry with so many in-between. Her dilemna right now is prioritizing her interests in preparation for university next fall. Will her career be in biology, engineering, business, writing, psychology? Top of her bucket list is to travel the world.
This summer she did a short internship at Seaspan, the Vancouver shipbuilding company, where she was given two days to research and prepare a business presentation for the Horizontal Engineering and Program Plan division. Here is a comment from one of the engineers, "Emily did an absolutely awesome job! This is a subject that is not understood by many experienced project managers; but this presentation takes the "mystery" out of Earned Value Management and makes it easy to grasp and understand. I had many reference sources while studying for my PMP exam a few years ago and this would have been more helpful than some of the material I had!” Emily used the example of baking cookies for profit, demonstrating precisely why Earned Value Management is used as an early warning system to determine if a project is behind schedule or over budget. She “hit the task out of the ball park” in the words of the Program Manager.
Just recently, Emily learned that one of her poems will be published by Polar Expressions in The Chance, a collection of poems and short stories written by young Canadians. Here is Emily’s poem, entitled Honest Masks:
What makes the world go round?
Some say love, some say money
some say the sun’s gravitational pull.
But the true oil of society’s machinery
drips from cold pressed lies.
Don’t deny it—
you’ve lied already today
or maybe you’ll tell one later.
Fibs, fable, tall stories,
“omitting the truth,”
we all do it: it’s in our nature.
“Honesty is the best policy”
…but is it really?
Is it really worth hurting someone’s feelings?
You say you want the truth
…but do you really?
Here is my truth:
I know when people tell a lie.
I see it in their faces.
I can’t tell you how I do this
it would be like describing colour
to someone who has never seen.
But these are not shades of saffron and marigold
I see rust and starless black.
The sweet angels have their secrets
which flicker them to demons.
I can’t tell them, of course.
They would cast me out
sever all connections.
Because you can’t have me knowing
all your dirty little secrets.
So I block them out—
continue as if I hadn’t seen
that tiny expression
flashing past your honest mask.
I wonder how it would be like
in your blissful, ignorant world.
For if you could see what I see…
we’d probably all be gone;
lying until extinction.
This oil that keeps our societies running
seems grimy and vile,
this inky darkness causes such unease.
Yet when you spread it thin
look closely
you can see the rainbows within.