I started the day with a sore throat and ended it with a sore throat, liquid streaming out of every facial cavity and a fever: not a very lovely sight.
It's like a baptism by fire: my own body is dousing me in light flame to expunge all the bacteria and bad shit, but also all the bad/negative crap from my past, I suppose. I'm an adult now.
But in my opinion, there's been very little to burn away: anything negative becomes a learning experience.
So here's a list of things I've learned from every year I've been on this earth.
Nineteen things I've learned in my nineteen years:
1. Don't deny your bodily cravings.
Whether you want to take a shit or really want to eat, it's more often healthier to do what your body tells you to.
2. Sleep.
My mother tells me that I had a really fucked up sleeping schedule as a baby. It's still kind of fucked up, but I always try to get at least 6-8 hours when I can, or else I'm just half-sane.
3. Take a leap of faith.
I moved to Canada when I was three with very little, and it's turned out fucking great for my parents, and myself. And my brother too.
4. Know your audience.
We were doing "Show and Tell" sessions in JK and we were all required to bring in a toy that started with the letter "P". I brought in my red Power Ranger, and the teacher sent it back home with a letter because it was "too violent" or some stupid crap like that. "You've got to get obsessed and stay obsessed" but make sure you're presenting to an open audience; if not, show it to someone who is, or cater to the audience first to get their attention & trust and then show them. I remember the satisfaction, years later, of being able to role-play Pokemon in SK though it was against the rules by disguising it as Digimon.
5. Don't panic.
One of my most vivid memories of SK is falling off a tipped wagon, looking down, and seeing my little right toe become a scarlet mess. I didn't panic, and I got it band-aid-ed up in a matter of minutes and was off to play. This directly contrasts the incident when I cut my finger, and panicked when my supervisor told me to suck the blood for fear of "becoming a vampire'. I had to be calmed down and damn, I lost playtime.
6. Don't believe everything.
Someone from the neighbourhood told me that they had a wiener dog in their house when they didn't. It disappointed me greatly.
7. Change is not terrible.
I had my first move (well, second-- first one that mattered) and switched schools for the first time. I thought it sucked balls at first, but I had some good experiences and met some new friends, some of whom I'm still friends with to this day. (S/O to J9.)
8. If you have the opportunity to do something nice for someone, especially at no cost to you.
I had no friends on the same bus as me when I moved to my new school in third grade. The VP asked me (because I was Chinese, I suppose, and because I looked lonely) if I would sit beside this new immigrant, who was in the first grade, and help him adjust to Canadian life just by talking to him in Chinese and such.
I accepted, and let me tell you, this changed my entire life. I had no sense of public service before this moment, and this opportunity opened my eyes to helping others and making that difference in one other life that was definitely not there before. This is the first choice that I made for myself that really led me down a completely different road.
9. It's not worth sucking up to your superiors.
Get them to respect you.
I had a substitute teacher once who shat on me because I tried to suck up to them by helpfully pointing out that she had left a spelling poster up during a spelling quiz. Another student had done the same thing earlier to our actual teacher, and she had appreciated the sentiment, and I, in my haste to get the sub's good graces on my side, did the same. She shat on me. Getting people to respect you, even if they don't like you, is worth so much more, because you know they value you for your hard work and dedication over compliments and false pretences, which will fall through eventually.
10. "You've got to get obsessed, and stay obsessed" even if it means you suck at the beginning.
Fifth grade was when I got into politics, and good god, I spent most of my time parroting what I saw on Rick Mercer Report and Air Farce without understanding the implications of what I was really consuming. Dangerous, and real embarrassing, but I realized that I got older, and still was interested, that in order to reallt understand, I have to take the time to read, think, reflect, and that's okay. I still am.
11. Don't linger on the road not taken.
I failed the gifted exam in sixth grade and it DESTROYED me; I had been the top of my class for years, and suddenly not being bestowed this "special title" was a killer to my self-confidence and sense of self. But because I didn't pass, I didn't get into the Gifted class, and I went into Late French Immersion instead, which turned out to be one of the best decisions in my life, academically and growth-wise.
12. There will always be haters.
I overheard someone talking about me in the bathroom in seventh grade, and it's one of those moments that has always stayed with me. It was a few years before I really learned to trust anyone again (because I was never sure if my friends were "my real friends") and my self-confidence stayed in tatters until I was maybe 15 or 16. It hurt. A lot. But, there will always be haters, and there's a valuable lesson to be learned in learning how to deal with them.
13. Deprecating humour is false attention.
I wanted attention as a kid- who didn't?- but I was never sure how to get it. This is a lesson I learned both as a thirteen year-old but also as a twelve year-old: I resorted to deprecating humour at the cost of some educators. I got the lesson twice: once from another educator, and another time from my own conscience, chastising me for saying such terrible things. Attention sought at the expense of other people is fleeting, but speaking meaningfully, thoughtfully, holds hearts and minds. People will return if they find you are of substance, or havel something valuable to say.
14. It's okay to feel sad.
I moved again between eighth grade and ninth grade, and I was caught in a storm of melodramatic teenage hormones for a year. I loved my middle school; I was unsure that I could learn to love again, and so I moped for pretty much all of ninth grade. Mope mope mope. But by the end, I found myself almost sick of my despair, and I found myself wanting to get out of it, to do better. I daresay I did, and if I held onto that initial emotional shittiness, I don't think I really would have. It's okay to feel sad, it's okay to be mad. We are human: we're entitled to these monstrous emotions just as well as we're entitled to joy and love. They are two parts of a whole.
15. It's okay to be alone.
I've always been an introspective kid, and I've always been terribly shy around peers I perceive to be more "popular" or older, but I still wanted to try out for the play, go to events where I didn't know anyone. I spent a lot of time alone, but I also learned how to step out of my comfort level, and learned quite a few things from my moments of quite reflection. I know there is a recurring theme of only going somewhere if your friends are going, but it's okay not to. You'll force yourself to meet new friends, to find out a few things about yourself you didn't quite know.
16. Love people as hard as possible, as much as you can.
I learned this long ago, but this ideal really began to cement itself in me around this time. My world brightened.
17. Give 100% of yourself.
What's the point of doing anything half-assedly? Don't do it otherwise. Try, but try hard.
18. It's not what the world holds for you, but what you bring to it.
At graduation, in grade 12, I found myself overflowing with love and fondness for my school, just like I had in grade 8-- I had feared that I would never love anything again, never fear anything so intensely, but it happened, right? I worked hard, jumped at every opportunity I could lay my hands on, and met people with my heart in my hands. It wasn't my middle school that made me love it, it was me-- I made myself love it. I made myself love.
19. Live passionately, earnestly.
The older you get, the more people you know die. Live intensely, live passionately, like every night, every day, your last. Try to find happiness in every corner, seek beauty in everyone you meet.
I'm a very sappy individual, and life is short: it's meant to be lived full throttle. These are things I've learned over the years, and hopefully things you've learned for yourselves.
I think, above all else, the most important and valuable thing I've learned was how to love, as it's coloured my thoughts, my mannerisms, my person, my walk, my path.
I'm nineteen now-- cheers to many more lessons.
A.
