Don't Hold Back

As many of you know, I volunteer at a museum. 

More specifically, an immigration museum.

As a volunteer, I tell the volunteer coordinator when I can go in and she adds me on the schedule accordingly. So far I'm going in every Saturday afternoon until the end of November.

Seeing as this past Monday was Canadian Thanksgiving, she asked me if I could go in and said that she understood if I had family plans. I told her it was no problem and I would be there for the shift she put me for.

I walked in and it turns out that she forgot to add me to the schedule. Not knowing what to do and not wanting to make my mom drive back already to pick me up, I decided to stay and to just walk around, talk to our visitors and see if I could help them out with anything.

Because I made that decision. I met some wonderful people.

We have two exhibits at the museum and I met one group of people in an exhibit and they were looking for something in the opposite exhibit, so I told them that and said that I'd be more than happy to escort them over to what they were looking for.

They were pretty thankful for that and I led them over to the exhibit.

I ended up giving them a tiny tour of the exhibit and talking to them a lot about the stories of the immigrants from France, the story of the Deportation of the Acadians and a few other stories that I knew. I told them a few personal stories of my own and they said that they loved that I was sharing my stories with them because it enrichened their experience at the museum.

I was so honored to be able to meet and to talk to these people because they were just wonderful and the sweetest people.

Not too long after that, I ended up chatting with an elderly woman who immigrated to Canada from Scotland. 

She was telling me that for her, her brother and her sister in-law, the experience was long and awful. Her brother and sister in-law got so fed up that they decided to immigrate to New Zealand instead.

I was chatting with her about her whole immigration process and I asked if she had any regrets.

She told me that she packed her bags in Scotland at 18 years old and hasn't regretted it one little bit.

She then proceeded to ask me about myself. At first she thought I was a university student, but she was rather shocked when I told her that I'm still in high school.

She then asked me what I wanted to be when I'm older and I told what I want to be: a travel writer.

She told me that every time I get a paycheck, I should take 10% of it, put it away and never touch it so that I could retire at 55 and live comfortably. 

It was really good advice and I'm going to follow it. She also asked me where I wanted to go, so I told her my top destinations but that I was also hesitant to go.

She looked me in the eyes and gave me advice that I'll never forget.

She told me to go for it.

She told me to do what I want to do and that it's a good thing to be scared. 

She told me that she wasn't sure if she wanted to immigrate to Canada or Israel, but she said that if she didn't like it in 5 years time, she could change her mind. But 30+ years later, her she is, still in Canada.

She packed her bags at 18 to find something better and I'm going to do the same.

I can't say that I'll immigrate to another country, let alone another continent when I'm 18, but I'm not going to let fear hold me back from going to new places and meeting new people.

Great minds must think alike because this lady and my amazing older cousin both gave me the same advice.

Don't hold back.

And I won't.


One More Girl, no longer online

Final Decision

As the majority of you may know, from the start of the summer to just recently, I've been debating whether or not my decision to switch schools was the right one or not.

I'm glad to tell you all that I think that I have my final decision on the matter.

I am happy that I did it.

Of course a piece of me will always miss my old school, all of my old friends are there, everything I ever knew is back at that school, but I'm happy with my new school.

I didn't think that I would make many friends, but I did. I have a handful of friends that I talk to every school day. I can't say that I have best friends right now, I'm not particularly very close with all of them, but I do have someone that I have hung out with for a week straight (and there's also this next school week to be added to that) and I find them easy to talk to.

School is still something that I don't specifically look forward to, but I feel as though there's something more for me there.

I felt fine at my old school, but now I feel...accepted. I feel as though there's something for me at that school that I didn't have before.

Of course I still find it terrifying to walk in the hallway at times, but that will probably stay until the rest of the year.

Something else that's really exciting is that I made my school's boys baseball team!

Well, I'm sort of on the team.

I am one of four AP players which means I'm an affiliate player. That means that I only play in exhibition games or if we have a secure spot in a tournament.

I'm happy with that because all the boys who tried out are high level baseball players.

I don't find myself wondering what if, of course I get nervous sometimes when I arrive at the fields for a practice or game, but there are three other people on the bench and then I take a breath and realize that everything is going to be okay.

During the summer, my older cousin was telling how it's a good thing to be nervous sometimes and back then, I was wondering "How? How can it possibly be a good thing?" But now I understand. 

Being nervous isn't a sign of weakness, it's a sign of being human.

I still have many things to learn about the school and the people in it, but I think it's going to be a good year.

Everything is falling into place for me at the moment. I start working as a swim teacher this Saturday, I'm volunteering at the museum, I'm a peer tutor during some of my lunch breaks and helping other students learn french, I don't feel too stressed (yet) with my homework and I have people to turn to when I need to talk to someone.

I don't know what it is, if it's the things I listed above or not, but something feels right at the moment and I really hope that that feeling doesn't change.


One More Girl, no longer online

Silent Battles

As some of you may know, I volunteer at an immigration museum, but I haven't been having steady shifts because my schedule is all over the place at the moment, however I was finally able to go in today.

My shift had a quiet start, I started in two of the hands-on stations; one where you can take a little citizenship quiz and another where you can colour a suitcase.The colouring of the suitcase station is mainly for younger kids while parents look around, but sometimes we have teens and parents that join in!

I met some lovely people while at the citizenship table and I also met this family with three adorable little boys of the ages four, two and a half and a baby that I say might've been six/seven/eight months or so.   

I'm not one to usually go out of my way to talk to a stranger as you all know, but it's different in a work environment. I'm not sure why I find myself more outgoing there, but maybe it's because people are interested in what you're saying and are curious. 

I'm not sure what it is, but I love talking to the people who come through the museum because people are visiting the museum from every corner of the world. 

Seeing as it's an immigration museum, we have visitors that have actually immigrated through, what's now known to be, the museum. They love to stop and chat about their experience and where they came from and it's honestly such an amazing thing to hear their stories.

Anyway, after those stations I was then at the information booth alongside a co worker.

The co worker I was with is actually an immigrant herself (not through the museum, however) and today I got to ask her about her learning experience.

Where she grew up, she would learn things and the teachers would go on about how "This is the Belgian way to say it...This is the French way to say it...This is the Canadian way to say it.." so she ended up learning how to say specific things in many different languages and that blew my mind.

I was amazed by that and she went on to teach me how to say a few numbers the Belgic way when she told me that she was tired.

I asked if she was going home after her shift and it's what she told me next that made me admire her even more.

She told me that she never went home after her shift at the museum because she had to go work at one of her other jobs out of three.

She told me what she did and what her hours were and I was...shocked. 

She's working three jobs to pay off her appartment and to put herself through a university course here.

She told me how she wanted to find a cheaper apartment because her current one was starting to be too much for her alone, and she also told me how her current landlords won't do anything for her.

She explained to me that she had a broken window since this winter and they won't come by to fix it and that she's struggling with a rat problem. She's tried many things to get rid of the rats, but it's not working. 

She told that sometimes it got to be too much.

I know that I said "She told me.." many times, but I wasn't quite sure how else to word it besides "She went on.." and to me, that sounds almost negative, but I wanted to listen to her story.

I wanted to listen to her story because I didn't know it.

I didn't know her story and I probably never would've been able to guess it because she always has a smile on her face.

She told me that she was tired yet she kept smiling, she was happy, she was kind, she was energetic, she was friendly, approachable, caring and overall amazing.

I've only known this woman for a little bit, but she has been smiley, happy, kind, energetic, friendly, approachable and caring since the day I met her. I can't imagine how long she's been that way and will continue to be that way.

I never knew that she was struggling with any of that, but she reminded me of something really important.

Everyday, people everywhere are struggling with their own silent battles. We don't know what position the people around us are in, so we should always be kind and not try to make things worse for other people.

If someone needs a reason to be kind, there it is. 

You honestly have no clue about other people's battles until they tell you it themselves.

Although it was sad to hear her story, I have nothing but respect for her. She's just incredible and amazing. I can only hope that someday I'll be as strong as she is.

Silent battles are the ones that take up the most energy and strength, but no one else is aware. It's almost like struggling to swim while all the people around you are holding on to a flotation device but you can't ask for one; maybe because your mouth is underwater or maybe because you don't know if that person needs that flotation device more than you.

In the end, silent battles are the strongest fought battles. You can never know who fought one or who is currently fighting one.

Either way, being kind to someone might make the battle a little easier for them.


One More Girl, no longer online