What I'm Into

     Since I was a little kid, I, like many of the rest of you Horizon students, have been someone who loves to be involved. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a group or a club that I didn’t, at some point, want to join. In fact, I’ve often had to limit myself from trying to join EVERYTHING. Although I’ve tried my hardest, I’m still pretty busy and I often don’t have a lot of "free time" but, that’s just how it goes. To me, my "free time" is all of my activities. They’re something that I really enjoy and that’s what makes all of the rushing around and business worthwhile. After all, there’s never a dull moment!

     When I was in kindergarten, I did one of the best things I could ever do: I became a Spark in the Girl Guide program. I loved it and I stuck with it right up through, becoming a Brownie, Guide and Pathfinder and finally earning my Canada Cord. Now, I volunteer with the Guides as a Junior Leader. Girl Guides is a great program that I’m so happy to be a part of. Through it, I’ve made friends, earned badges, gone camping and helped my community, too. Girl Guides is something that really showed me how great volunteering really is. I love helping out with the girls at our weekly meetings. It’s a great experience to see them enjoying themselves and, the truth is, I have a lot of fun, too! Even though I’m the only person at Guides who’s my age, it really doesn’t matter. I have such a great time volunteering that the time just slips away. It feels really great to know that I’m helping my community. It doesn’t hurt that I’m having a blast while doing it, either!

     Besides Girl Guides, I’m also actively involved in my church. I volunteer with the services, I’m a member of the Junior Choir and I teach Sunday School, too. My friend and I share a class of about 10 kids in Grades 3 to 6. Even though I enjoy it, this can often be very stressful! Sometimes the kids don’t pay attention or just won’t listen and calm down. There are days when I come home from church and just want to drop! Despite all this though, I would never consider giving it up. Being a teacher has taught me a lot and I really do enjoy it. I’ve learned how to be patient with the kids and how to figure out the best way to keep their attention. Most of all, I’ve learned that sitting down and just doing "schoolwork" isn’t going to cut it! Whenever it’s my turn to plan our lesson, I try to come up with creative ideas like crafts and games. It doesn’t always work but, at least it keeps the kids’ attention and they have fun. If that happens, I consider the lesson a mission accomplished! It’s a great feeling to know that I’m volunteering by helping with and contributing to my Sunday School and church. Volunteering, especially teaching young kids, isn’t always easy but, to me, when you know you’re helping somebody, that’s what makes it all worthwhile.

     At my school, I’m part of the Tutoring for Tuition Program, where I tutor another student in my grade in math. I like being a part of this program because I believe that it’s really nice that students can be tutored by their peers. Giving someone that little bit of extra help to pass that test or understand that topic gives you a good feeling inside. After all, if you understand, why shouldn’t you help someone else achieve the same thing?

     In addition to tutoring, I’m also on the Math Team at my school. We’re a group of students that get together to participate in several math contests that take place in schools all across the district. I know it sounds nerdy and hard to believe but, I really do have a good time at our meetings. We work together in teams of four to solve a series of questions to score more points than the other teams. Unfortunately, some of these questions can be really tricky so, we often end up just guessing the answer or coming up with something totally wrong! You’d think that this would stress us out or frustrate us but, we usually just end up having a good laugh about it. I actually look forward to our meetings and the fun we have. The best part is, it’s educational, too!

     Something else I’m a part of at my school is the art and music program. I’m in Art Club, Choir and Band, where I play flute. I love doing art and music so, these are perfect activities for me. Art Club is pretty low-key and we start and finish projects without hardly any deadlines or schedules. Right now, we’re working on a large tile mosaic that is going to go on the wall in our school. In Choir and Band, we participate in our school concerts and concerts in the community. One of my favourite parts of band is going to and competing in the Kiwanis Music Festival. It feels really good to know that all of our hard work pays off in the end when we participate in the competition. It doesn’t hurt that we get a day off school either!

     Finally, my last activity I’m going to talk about is Leadership Group. I know I talked about it in my first post but, it’s such an important activity to me. I really feel strongly about what we do by helping out our school and community. We’re always planning some kind of school event or fund-raiser for an outside group. Leadership Group has given me the opportunity to volunteer and make a difference in ways that I had never done before. That’s why it is so important to me.

     Now that I’ve finished writing this it really seems that I’m a part of so much. I guess that’s because involvement and volunteerism are both so important to me. When I write everything down like this, it seems like I don’t have a moment to breathe but, when I’m actually doing everything, it doesn’t seem like that at all! I love and enjoy everything that I’m involved in and I can’t even imagine what my life would be without these activities. I seriously don’t know what uninvolved people do all of the time. They miss out on so much! My experiences from being involved have made me who I am today and I know that if I wasn’t involved I would be a totally different person. My activities and volunteering experiences always have been and always will be a huge part of who I am.

TED Video

    

     For this post, I’ve chosen to write about a speech by Kathryn Schulz called, "On Being Wrong." When I first saw this video, I knew I had to watch it. I’m someone who absolutely hates being wrong. Well, I know that nobody likes to be wrong but, I absolutely can’t stand it. It was almost like this video was trying to tell me something.

     I found what Kathryn Schulz had to say really interesting. She believes that we all try to avoid being wrong and think that we’re right all of the time. We are trapped in a bubble of feeling right about everything for our whole lives. She thinks that this is a major problem.

     In her speech, Kathryn Schulz explained why we hate knowing we’re wrong so much. She claims that it starts way back in elementary school. When we were in elementary school, and someone got something wrong like, say, failing a spelling test, we know exactly what to think about them. They’re the stupid ones who get into trouble. Kathryn Schulz says,

"by the time you are nine years old, you’ve already learned, first of all, that people who get stuff wrong are lazy, irresponsible dimwits—and second of all, that the way to succeed in life is to never make any mistakes."

When I heard her say this, I knew that she was speaking the truth. I realized that I held this same view and had for a very long time. I’d just never thought about it before.

    Kathryn Schulz says that this belief is such a problem because it pushes us all to become

"perfect little A students, perfectionists, over-achievers"

and that when we get something wrong it causes us to stress out and believe that there’s something wrong with us. To me, this is so true. Because of my belief in not being wrong, I, probably like many of you other Horizons students, am a perfectionist and an over-achiever. When I get something wrong, it just kills me. Earlier this year, I got a lower mark on a test than I wanted to and it really made me upset. It only brought my average in the course down by 2% but, I didn’t think about that. I only thought about how bad I had done and what I should’ve gotten. As much as I tried to "build a bridge and get over it," as the saying goes, I just couldn’t. It bothered me for a long time. I was so afraid of being wrong, that I let this mark really hurt me. As I listened to Kathryn Schulz's speech, I understood what she was saying. Being afraid of being wrong really is a big problem.

     In her speech Kathryn Schulz said,

"Think for a moment about what it means to feel right. It means that you think that your beliefs just perfectly reflect reality."

So, I thought about it and I realized that this is not always going to happen. In fact, I believe that it’s hardly ever going to happen. How often do our beliefs perfectly reflect reality? Not often, even if we think they do. So, being wrong most of the time is normal. In fact, it’s actually okay. Not everyone sees the world the same way. Kathryn Schulz says that if everyone was right all of the time, life would be boring. One of my favourite quotes about life from her speech is,

"We think this one thing is going to happen and something else happens instead."

That’s just how life is.

     I really liked Kathryn Schulz’s speech. I felt like she was talking right at me. She helped me see that I’m not always going to be right and I need to realize that. When I’m wrong, I’ve got to accept that I just fooled up and it happens to everybody. I know I’m never going to like being wrong but, maybe I’ll be able to come to terms with it better than before I heard her speech. What Kathryn Schulz said made me think about a lot of things that I’d never thought about before and that’s why I chose to write my post about it. I hope you guys watch her speech and I think you’ll like it just as much as I did. But, who knows, maybe I’m wrong.

All About Me

     How did I become involved in leadership and volunteering? I really don’t know. It seems that leadership and volunteering have always been a part of me. I’ve enjoyed it since I was little. When I was younger, I was a member of my church’s Sunday School and I was a Girl Guide. Both of these activities really introduced me to being a leader and a volunteer. Of course, at that age, I didn’t realize that that was what I was doing. All I knew was that I loved helping the younger children at church or singing for the senior’s at my local senior’s home. These activities helped shape me as a person and I didn’t even know it!
     My first formal leadership experience was way back in Grade 8 when I attended a junior high student leadership conference. This was a great experience for me and it really opened my eyes to who a leader was. A leader didn’t have to be someone who was ruling a country or changing the world, it could be someone as simple as a junior high student who loved to be involved and to volunteer. I realized that anyone could be a leader. That weekend was one of the highlights of my elementary school education and I know that it made an impact on me as a person.
     That next year, when I moved up to high school, I made the decision to join the Leadership Group. I have to say that this is one of the best choices that I have ever made. Leadership Group has helped me grow as a person and widened my volunteering opportunities. I really love what we do as a group. From simply staying after school to make posters to attending leadership conferences, I love to do it all. That feeling you get when you know that your fund-raiser made a difference or that you convinced a group of students to participate is something that no one can take away. I am so glad that my Leadership Group has given me the opportunity to experience this feeling.
     My Leadership Group has also given me the opportunity to become a Horizons Student. When I applied and was chosen, it was such an honor for me. I was really shocked to know that I was one of the fifty students that had been accepted. This past summer, as a Horizons Student, I was given the chance to attend a Leadership Development Weekend. This was, by far, one of the highlights of my holiday. I met so many great people who, just like me, loved leadership and volunteering. I had a great time and I learned so much as well. It was a wonderful experience that I will remember forever.
     I am not sure yet what I want to do with my future but, I know that being a leader and a volunteer will always be a part of me. When people ask me why I do it or say, "Who gets in leadership?", I really don’t know how to respond. It’s just because I love it and look forward to it everyday. I enjoy it so much. Today, I walked for two and a half hours dressed up as a giant onion in my local Santa Claus Parade. It wasn’t that easy and now I’m dead tired but, when I saw all of the donations that we collected for the food bank, it made everything worthwhile. I knew that we had helped the community and that I had enjoyed myself as well. To me, that’s what being a leader and a volunteer is all about—helping others. People shouldn’t be surprised if they enjoy themselves too. After all, helping someone else is one of the best things that anyone can do. That’s why I love to be a leader and a volunteer. That’s why I want to continue being a leader and a volunteer, whatever path I choose for my future. I know that it will be something that I will carry with me, whatever I do.