Have you ever thought about moving to a completely foreign country, to an unknown family and a new environment for six months or a year? And that completely alone? Maybe some of you thought yes, but others also thought no. In any case, I have always dreamed of doing a year abroad. Even when I was a little child, I knew that I wanted to go to America someday. But planning a year abroad is not as easy as I thought. The whole time I just kept telling everyone that I was going to leave at some point, but I never really thought about it or made any plans. When I was in the 9th grade, a friend of mine was in Canada, near Toronto, and my mother asked me whether I wanted to do a year abroad or not. Of course I wanted to. But then she asked me so many questions and I just said that I still had enough time. Well, time passed and passed and at some point it was January again and my girlfriend was back from Canada. She told me everything and I thought it was so beautiful that I just wanted to go there even more. In the meantime, my mother had asked around where there were a few trade fairs where you could look at organizations. At that point I really wanted to go to Florida or California. In April 2022 we went to our first trade fair and looked at many organizations. We took magazines with us but I didn't look at them again until the summer holidays. When we were on vacation and had enough time, my parents and I looked at which country would be suitable and which would not. We quickly realized that the USA was far too expensive. In the meantime I wanted to go to Canada anyway and preferably towards Vancouver. We then used the same organization as my friend because everything worked out well for her. Once we had personally spoken to the members of Southern Cross and exchanged numbers, we had to wait a bit. At some point I had to facetime with one of them so that he could show me the different options around Vancouver. I quickly decided on Delta because it's not directly in Vancouver, but you can still get to the city center quickly. Since I had now decided on a district, it was now the turn of the school. I could choose the first, second and third choice. My first choice was SDSS. I then had to send my last 3 certificates to the school. After a few weeks, I finally got the news that I had been accepted. Now it was time for the letter of motivation, which both my organization and the school could read. This writing is so that my host family can get to know me a little. I then also had to fill out a questionnaire about whether I wanted siblings, pets, what my hobby was, etc. Because I was going to SDSS, I would only have been able to get a host family in Tsawwassen. While I was waiting for an answer for a host family, my mother and I had to submit a lot of documents e.g. Fill out health insurance, allergies, for the flight and much more. I wasn't motivated to do something like that, but my mother kept trying and got me to do it. For which I am super grateful to her. We paid in January 2023 and I finally got my host family in April. A month before departure I also had individual conferences with people from my organization or from Delta. A meeting could last up to 6 hours. Then it became more and more serious and I slowly had to think about packing and saying goodbye to some friends. Packing wasn't easy at all because I was only allowed to choose a few things because there was a maximum weight. I had to have all the documents for the flight, customs and myself ready in my backpack. On August 25th the time had come. I was standing at the airport with my parents and two friends. I said goodbye, which was difficult for me, especially with my parents. But before I came to Canada I was in New York with my organization for 4 days. The time was unforgettable. I've been in Tsawwassen since August 29th and I can say that the effort was worth it and I'm endlessly grateful that I'm allowed to be here and that my parents made it possible for me. All in all I can absolutely recommend that everyone who has the possibilities should do an exchange year during their time in high school or university. It is definitely a lifetime experience. Merle S.
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I honestly feel selfish. I feel selfish for continuously thinking about everything I am missing and the fact that I keep fucking crying over graduation. I feel like a horrible and ungrateful person for pitying myself for even one second when I am stuck in a nice house, surrounded by my family with food in our fridge and millions of things that I can do to keep busy. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people are dying and suffering around the world, and I can’t let it go that the end of my Grade 12 year has been ruined. This blog will probably make me sound like a horrible, pessimistic and self-centered person, but I need to write about it. Hopefully writing this blog will release a bit of tension that is causing me so much pain.
As we all know school has been suspended indefinitely due to COVID-19. But let’s face it; this school year is over. Coming to terms with this fact has been very difficult for me. If you know me then you know that I actually enjoy school because I get to hangout with my friends all day and all my teachers are great, I love my classes and I actually love learning new things. Ever since grade 8 I knew that I needed to cherish highschool because I knew that I would miss it once I graduated. So I tried to go into every day knowing that my days at SDSS were limited. But having the end of my graduation year suddenly be taken away and me being powerless against it makes me so fucking mad and so completely devastated. I've missed and will miss so many experiences in the next 2 months that I will never ever get the chance to do over. Last week we were told that the West Coast Trail trip is canceled. For people that don't know, the WCT is a 75km hike that the school gives grade 12 students the opportunity to go on. My older brother and cousin both did this and both said that it was the best part about each of their high school experiences. I’m not going to get the chance again to go on a week-long hike with friends and some other kids in grade 12 that I wanted to get to know better or the 4 great teachers that were going with us. That’s only one example of something amazing I will miss. Trying to suddenly come to terms with the fact that I won’t get the graduation I've been working hard for for the past 5 years and that I have been thinking about and looking forward to since I can remember is heartbreaking. Everyone obviously will have to deal with moving on from high school and looking forward into the future, and even if you don't actually like school there is still something sad and hard about saying goodbye to the last 5 years of your life and essentially some level of childhood. After high school you’re pushed into the beginning of the “real world”, and whatever that looks like for each person it can be scary. I knew that I would have a really hard time saying goodbye to high school in general but I also can’t properly say goodbye to teachers or friends and the people that I’ve grown up with that I know I probably see won’t again. No one knows what kind of graduation we will get, if we get one at all, and it’s frustrating because it’s absolutely nobody's fault. I actually originally had quite a different topic to talk about that I had set up for this blog and I’m not sure what the point of writing this was because there aren't any tips or whatever to help you grow as a leader, I guess this was just to rant and get it all out. But I will say this, something really important that everyone needs to hear and genuinely understand; take nothing for granted. The thing about taking things for granted is that you don’t realize it until it’s gone. I’m glad I never took high school for granted because I have loved and cherished every unforgetable moment, stupid decision, fucking useless math test and every horribly stressful time throughout my 5 years at SD. I can look back at my high school experience without any regret because even though I am missing the best parts, I know that I can’t do anything about it except instead to think of all the great things I’ve gotten the chance to do over the years of being a devil. This experience of losing something very important to me has made me grateful that I was always treasuring attending SD because I knew that I would miss it. If I hadn’t done that then this would seem more sudden than it already does and be a lot more painful. So take nothing for granted because you never know when something as crazy and random as a worldwide pandemic will come along and fuck things up. Stay healthy and safe xx Georgia F |
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