Where Have I Been?

Hey everyone, I'm finally back to blogging!

So as many of you may know, my last blog post was back in February, and honestly the first reason as to why I stopped blogging back in February is because I'm awful at keeping secrets.

I have an older cousin who lives in New York and I love her so much, she's my inspiration. In late January, her friends and family from back home in Canada decided to book flights over our March break to surprise her for her birthday. We've been discussing the possibility of going to New York and surprising her for her birthday back in June/July 2015, so there was no way I was going to ruin the surprise.

I honestly came close to letting the cat out of the bag (as did some other family members) about this whole trip while on the phone with my cousin. From February into March, my family and I had limited contact with my cousin and kept all conversations general, we were all scared of spoiling it.

I keep my blog extremely private and only a handful of people know my identity behind the screen, and my cousin is one of them, so I decided to stay clear of blogging until the trip happen.

My cousin's family and friends all arrived in New York and she was really surprised to say the least. There were a few glitches that my family still laughs about to this day, but overall it was all that we expected.

I actually filmed the majority of our trip to make a birthday video for my cousin as a present, so the weekend after we got home, I was in the middle of editing my first ever video and my laptop broke!

That's the second reason as to why I haven't been able to post until now.

Do you know how expensive it is to pay for an unexpected new laptop? It's not fun.

So since then, I've worked as many shifts as a swim instructor as I could to pay off my new beautiful MacBook Pro and I'm currently two thirds of the way to finishing my lifeguarding course!

Since the last time I posted, some pretty amazing things have happened to me, so I'll list some off:

• I turned 16 and have had my beginners for a fair amount of time now
• I will be returning to New York in 21 days (or so) with my school band
• I have been teaching mermaid classes with an actual mermaid company, they give me a tail and I help them manage the kids
• Teachers at my school have asked me to represent my school and give a speech at City Hall

Overall, I'm happier.

I've had amazing opportunities come my way since my trip to New York in March and I don't see them slowing down anytime soon.

I think I've caught you up on most things, so I will be back to posting regular from now on and I'm so happy to be back and blogging again.


One More Girl, no longer online

Give And Take

Although my current boyfriend is the only one I've ever had, he's the best one I've ever had.

He makes me laugh, comforts me when I'm said or upset, takes care of me when I don't feel well, talks me down from potential anxiety/panic attacks and he's bought me chocolate just because.

It's amazing to have him in my life and he does a lot for me. For example, when I'm in one of my low moods or generally not feeling well, he'll come over and watch Disney movies with me.

This is a guy who grew up with an older brother and never got into the whole Disney scene and never watched the princess movies.

This is a guy who loves horror movies yet knows how scared and jumpy I get from them so he'll settle for a Disney movie with me.

I'm sure we've gone through almost, if not all, of the Disney princesses movies and he hasn't complained once about. I'm sure he's joked about it, but he never seemed to mind watching the movies with me.  

Now I've never been one to watch sports. I think it's definitely something to go see live if you have the chance, but it's just not the same through the TV in my opinion.

My boyfriend loves to watch sports, he's a hockey player and follows the National Hockey League (NHL) as if it's his religion. Hockey is his main sport, yet he'll watch any sport.

As many know, Sunday was the SuperBowl. 

I've never watched football in my life yet we made plans to watch it together.

I've never watched football nor do I understand the sport all that much, my guy still wanted to watch the game with me.

I wish I could say that I tried my best to follow along, but honestly whenever the whistle blew for fouls, I was already asking about 20 different questions.

He had no knowledge of Disney movies and I had no knowledge of football games.

When you're with someone special to you either it's a partner in a relationship, a friend or a family member, you should always take the time to watch something they like and learn about that person.

Even though you find that whatever your friend wants to watch is absolutely boring, stick it out because that's what every relationship is about: Give and Take.

He took time to watch Disney movies with me so I'll make sure to watch the Stanley cup playoffs with him.

In my blog posts, I try to avoid writing about personal relationships simply because you never knew what could be coming down the road, however I thought that my relationship would be a really good example for this and the topic of give and take.

We might not have the same taste in movies, but that's okay because we can either compromise on the spot or one of use will give the other the choice. 

Admittedly we have a lot of "You pick." "No, you pick," moments, but in the end it doesn't matter what we do because we just want to spend time together in the end.

Try something new for someone special in your life because it's all about finding that happy middle ground where everyone gets a chance for something they like.

One More Girl, no longer online

My First Exams and What I Learnt From Them

Well it's been quite a time since I last wrote.

The last time I posted was a few days before my exams started and I expressed how I wasn't feeling too stressed about things and that I was feeling pretty good.

Things didn't go the way I thought they would.

My Sunday before exams was planned out: go to work, tutor a student in my French class for our exam and then study math for myself.

My work shift is just 9am-12pm Sunday mornings, however I got myself into a bit of a jam because I took an extra shift right after.

They were desperate for someone else to work, so I step up because frankly, I need the money.

It wasn't too bad, but I ended up working 9am-5pm.

That set everything back at least three hours.

I only met my friend to help him study French at around 5:30 and we both had to leave at 7:15. 

I did as much as I could to help him prepare and taught him how to answer the question with the words already placed in the question.

I found out today once I walked past him in the hallway that he passed the exam which is great! He struggled with a failing grade for the majority of the semester, however he was able to bring it up in the end!

After I got home, I studied for math and then went to bed for a good night's rest before exams.

I woke up the day of my first exam feeling immensely sick.

The stomach flu had been going around just a few days before and I was convinced that I got sick myself.

There's not much you can do, you can't miss an exam unless a family member has passed away or that you're hospitalized. 

I went to school on Monday and wrote my first two exams, English then French, and felt progressively better throughout the day.

I thought I was getting better and went to bed early that night to be refreshed for my morning math exam on Tuesday.

I woke up and the stomach pains hit me harder than ever.

I couldn't eat, I couldn't drink, I had a headache and my mind was set that I had the flu.

Once again, nothing I could've done so I went to school.

I used my whole two hours to work on my math exam and when I walked out of the exam room, all of my symptoms disappeared.

There's nothing else it could've been except for anxiety. If that's the case, I've never had anxiety at a constant level that high before.

It was crazy to realize that it was anxiety, but then I figured that I must've been so stressed about my exams that I kept my mind busy with anything and everything, like taking an extra shift and focusing on tutoring someone else, to keep my thoughts from drifting to my exams.

Im so glad I have them over with and that I've started my second semester, however I learnt an important lesson.

In a few years from now, possibly even one year from now, those marks won't matter.

Your exam marks don't define you as a person. They don't test your knowledge in a skill rather than your memorization skill. It's completely unfair to tell students that they all learn in unique ways yet have a standardized test to challenge what we can remember, however there's nothing that we can do about that yet.

Anyway, your exam results are a number, a fraction or a percentage that you won't be able to remember in two years time. 

Those digits will not define you as a person or limit you to what you can do in your life.

If anyone else had exams I hope you did well and if you have any coming up, I wish you the best of luck.

One More Girl, no longer online

Life Happened

Isn't it a little ironic how when I make a post about coming back from an abrupt break, I disappeared for a bit?

Sorry about that.

In the time that I've disappeared from my blog, it's not that I became less interested, but life got in the way. 

Allow me catch you up.

I've got school exams starting next Monday (January 25th), however I've mainly been procrastinating with my studies. I only have three exams; English, French and math. I know I can study for math, I'm going to write up proper notes for all the modules on my math exam, but I have no clue how to study for a language exam.

French will be very easy for me considering my upbringing so I don't feel the need to study it at all, however for English, I could use all of the help I can get.

I'm doing well enough as it is, but I'm awful at analyzing texts and going "deeper" into the symbolic meaning of it. 

I feel like I should be worrying about my exams a lot more, but I'm not and it confuses me a little bit. However my Sunday night post might be me writing about how much I'm worrying about my exams on Monday.

Along with those classes, I'm also taking band. 

For that class, we practice conducting for a week and then had an exam (The exam was just conducting a small piece to the class while the other students played). I was feeling really good for the conducting exam because every time I practiced in front of the class, I felt as though I did really good; the only thing I had to remember was to distribute my weight evenly and not lean to one side.

Midway through my exam, I tried to shift my weight, I missed a beat and missed a cue.

Honestly, I thought my mark on my exam was going to bring down my overall mark in band, but my semi-bad exam raised my mark. I got a 99% on my band exam.

I was shocked and extremely happy.

It just goes to show that you should have faith in yourself because you'll do better than you might think you did and that exams aren't going to define who you are as a person if you mess at the wrong time.

That's everything that's happened to me during school, but more has happened outside of my school life, too.

Friday night at supper my mom got a call from my uncle. He was calling to let us know that he was in hospital and recovering after getting treatment for a heart attack.

He was shoveling his driveway and started to have chest pains, but he waited the following day before telling my aunt that he needed to go to the hospital.

It was definitely a shock to my family, but we knew how to handle it since my dad has suffered from two heart attacks himself.

My uncle is the father of my cousin who lives in New York, so she came home for a bit to be with her parents. My mom and I were able to visit her, my aunt and my uncle when he was able to return home. He's doing really good though, he's recovering greatly.

That's family life covered, only thing left is personal life.

I'm doing pretty well, I feel as though the realisation of exams will hit me later sooner or later. I, myself was in a hospital for a bit because of chest pain, but I was told I pulled some muscles across my chest while teaching from the repeated force of having kids jumps into my chest rather than my arms.

Other than that, I'm in perfect health! I'm sleeping more, going to the gym and eating actual, full meals.

So that's everything I missed during this accidental break and it's really nice to be back to blogging, but as I said, life got in the way.


One More Girl, no longer online

I'm Back From A Break!

Hey guys, I'm back!

I know it's a Thursday and I promise that I genuinely wanted to have this posted yesterday on my usual Wednesday/Sunday schedule, however I arrived home last evening feeling sick with a massive headache so I thought I would wait another day to make sure that I take my time with this post and I didn't rush through it.

So yes, I didn't post at all over the Christmas break and honestly, I think it was the right thing for me to do.

Admittedly, I'm not particularly close with all of my family. Whenever I see a few off my aunts and uncles, there's always a comment to be said about either my hair or jeans or class choice or song choice or personal interest.

There's always something unnecessary said about my personal choices and it gets to me. I usually get frustrated or angry, but this year I just felt down.

During the break I spent the majority of the time at my house, I left a few times but not too often, and I felt down about having to go see my family members because I knew what to expect.

If you ever start feeling down because you have to visit family, that's not a bad thing and you aren't a horrible person! If they aren't a positive motivation in your life, you don't have to put pressure on yourself and say that you have to love them because they're family, because honestly, you don't.

They say that you can't pick your family, but you can pick who's close to you in life and who you want to surround yourself with.

That doesn't specifically mean family.

Either way, I got through my holidays.

I had a few friends come over on New Years Eve and I was really starting to feel better, we only watched movies and I fell asleep 40 minutes before the New Year and was awoken in 2016.

A few hours later I did the polar bear swim! (For those who don't know what it is, it's when you run into water outdoors whether it's a lake/ocean/river)

I wasn't sure if I would do it this year but honestly it was probably the best year I've done it yet!

Later that night, I went to go see Star Wars with the same friends that were over for New Years Eve, and this is when things turned.

We got maybe a third of the way into the movie when I had an anxiety/panic attack. I don't know which one it was; I felt anxious because the theatre was completely full, however I calmed myself down during the previews and then laters had the anxiety/panic attack.

I want to say it was a panic attack because had it been anxiety, it would lasted until I got out of the theatre, but I'm honestly not sure.

That really set me back.

I was feeling pretty good, but then that happened and I fell right back down into my slump.

When school started back up, I came to realize that it's okay to be on a rollercoaster with my anxiety and depression because that's the reality of it. I'm going to have good days and bad days, I'm going to have anxiety/panic attacks. 

I want to get right out of those periods, but sometimes it can be really hard.

Things might seem bad now, but in a year I'll be able to look back on this and see how far I've come.

That was my break, tell me about yours! I hope you all had an amazing break that was both fun and relaxful.


One More Girl, no longer online

Don't Deny A Friend

When a few friends and I were just discussing a possibility of plans of watch a movie after school during the school day on Monday, we didn't know that it would go this far.

On Monday, we were talking about the possibility of the plans, it was only among three friends and I.

When we touched on the topic on Tuesday in math class, another person in our social group jumped in and said he couldn't wait for it.

The social group I'm apart of is pretty spread out, it's almost like there's one in each class and this would be my math and band social group.

I didn't know what to think of another friend jumping in on the plans, so we left it until today.

While finalizing the plans today, the friend who sort of invited himself said he was really excited, and I didn't have a problem with it.

However, one of my friends in the original planning group approached me and told me that he's iffy about the guy that invited himself because sometimes he makes him feel uncomfortable.

To be honest, I can understand where he's coming from because this guy doesn't always know when it's okay to continue on a joke and when you have to stop it there.

In other words, he doesn't always know where to draw the line.

It can make people feel uncomfortable, but that's him and maybe he'll learn later in time where to draw the line, and it's alright if that will take him a bit more time.

At this rate, I was torn.

Do I invite the friend who seemed like he really wanted to come or do I accommodate to the friend who feels uncomfortable at times around this person.

Then I realized something.

Not even 6 months ago, I was the kid who wanted to be invited to social events but wasn't always invited by the people I called my friends.

I know the feeling of thinking your friends hate you, I know the feeling of thinking you're alone and I know that it's one of the worst things to hear plans be made in front of you and you're not a part of them.

I talked to my friend that was a part d the original plan and explained to him my point of view and he agreed and saw where I was coming from.

He said that he could manage for a night, so that's what we did.

We all went to my house after school, played a few video games while waiting for one friend from the original plan and another last minute joiner because they were both at work and then we watched a movie.

In the end, I learnt that in high school, your social group will be very diverse and you will have many friends in all of your different classes.

It's okay to want to make plans with just a few of them, however if you are to make them, do them in private.

It's one of the worst feelings to hear some of your class friends make plans and not include you, but it also hurts to hear "I guess you can come too."

If you want a small group, make plans in private and if another wants to join, there's no reason nor need (unless it's something like your parents put a strict limit on number of friends that can be at the house) to deny them of the chance to be with friends.

Sometimes the only thing someone needs is a friend. Don't deny them of that.


One More Girl, no longer online

Anxiety and Depression VS. Anxious and Depressed

When you tell people you have anxiety, they usually say that they have it too.

Everybody gets anxious. It's a general feeling that pretty much everyone will feel once or many times throughout their life.

When you tell people you have depression, they might say that they feel down at times, too.

Everybody gets depressed. It's a general feeling that pretty much everyone will feel once or many times throughout their life.

Those two terms should be able to be used freely by people who are feeling those ways without people with anxiety and depression jumping down their throats and saying that it's not okay for them to feel that way or without feeling offended.

Of course if you have anxiety and/or depression, you might feel as though things are worst for you, but other people can feel anxious and/or depressed, maybe just not the same way that we do.

I agree that there is a difference, but everyone should be able to express how they feel without someone saying that they "don't know what real depression is like."

However, no one should ever joke about having depression or wanting to commit suicide. I can't believe that it's 2015 -almost 2016- and people are still joking about this serious issue when anyone around them could be pushed over the edge at any moment.

It's sickening.

Everyone gets anxious before speaking in front of the class or before they have to write a test and everyone gets depressed when they lose a loved one or have some sort of traumatic event happen.

Feeling these emotions can cause disruptions in someone's life.

Recently it's been disrupting mine.

To be honest with you all, I don't know what's wrong. I've just been really anxious with school work, I was really anxious with swimming report cards and by the end of the day when I would usually write my blog posts, I just don't have the mental energy to write them.

If anyone read my blog every day when I posted on a regular schedule because they found it therapeutic or simply enjoyed it, I'm sorry for not being back on my schedule, however I'm not in a mental place right now to have a set schedule.

I promise that they will be relatively around the time I used to post my blog posts, every Sunday and Wednesday, but at the moment I'm focusing hard on my mental health and I hope that you can all understand.


One More Girl, no longer online