I’ve always considered myself a normal person, but that changed.

I left for the Ontario Classics Conference (a series of competitions for students in Latin, Greek, or Classical Civilization courses) on Wednesday night, and even though I returned on Sunday, everyone on the trip agreed that they had become a lot “weirder” over the course of the four nights (three for me, since Friday was an all-nighter).

There were 45 of us from my school, and though we don’t study very hard for the competitions, we always have a blast. The school has a reputation of being loud and funny, and this was true. We stayed up until the early hours of the morning every night, listening to music all together in the dorms, and blowing vuvuzelas at every chance we got (until they were confiscated, then we got party noise-makers).

The atmosphere of our classics team can be summed up by saying that anytime you make eye contact with anyone, you make a funny face at them, and anytime you don’t know if you should sleep or not, you stay awake. It occurred to me how much the “normal” world is overrated – how we walk our halls at school all the time but never really bond with people. The conference was the opposite of that. Everyone was weird and wonderful. We were a group of people who clicked.

It was nice to be a part of that different world, even if it was just for a few days. You could really forget about people judging you and there was no shame (even after a breakdown the morning after staying up all night, involving laughing and crying at the same time). A lot of people would say we were very weird, and we would agree. In fact, I have a vague recollection of being a normal person a few months ago, before the effects of being in Classics got to me.

“Weird” is wonderful. It’s funny and fascinating and it means laughing a lot. Now that I’ve been thrown back into mainstream society, I realize how weird it feels to be in a place where it isn’t normal to be weird.

Love always,

Catherine

A part of Girl Guides that I love is camping. I love the effort you have to put into it, I love sleeping under the stars, and I love the people that do it with me.

Every summer I go to camp, and last summer I paddled the Missinaibi River for 22 days. You might think it’s a bit late to be reminiscing about last summer’s adventure, but stars are timeless.

On our last night of the trip, we were far, far away from any civilization. The closest town probably has a year-round population of fewer than a dozen. We had been through physically the hardest three weeks of our lives, portaging and walking our boats through rapids that were too shallow to shoot, nervously shooting huge rapids (and tipping on one) and getting far too little sleep. Some days, we would paddle until eight o’clock when camp policy determined we had to set up site – so we’d set up our tents on grassy shores and deal with sore backs in the morning, when we’d wake up in the dark and only see the sun rising after an hour or so.

After all that, we never forgot the beauty whose presence with which we were graced.  On the last night, we all lay down on the sand (it was probably close to midnight and as black as night can get) and stared up to the stars, and someone said something like, “I know it’s cold and late, but I know I’m not going to see this for a long... long, time.”

This weekend I went camping with the Brownies for whom I’m a junior leader, and as we were stargazing at the somewhat pathetic amount of stars you can see 40 minutes outside the city, and as we were silent to the sound of the highway, I thought back to that night. It’s one of those moments that I’ve replayed a thousand times.

It’s hard to have intense camping experiences at the age of eight, but Brownie camp is a start. I really hope some of the girls that I lead fulfill nature-related dreams. I, for one, dream of tripping the Coppermine River, which is in Nunavut, and flows out into the ocean in the northern part of Canada. I think it would be absolutely amazing to trip one of the rivers that far north. Part of the Coppermine River that I’m really interested in is the midnight sun – in certain parts of the summer, there is 24-hour sunlight that far north, and I think that would be cool to see.

For some of them, this will be the closest to the middle of nowhere they ever get, but I’m sure that for others, they’ll find they can excel in nature.

Camping really is a gift, even if it’s just two nights in the lowlands. It’s a break from constant crowds, Internet access, and the omnipresent labelling of people and things. Some people would say I like camping because it’s a break from reality, but it’s quite the opposite: it’s a break into reality. 

There are many world issues today, and one that is at the forefront of many conversations is the environment. Often, it seems pretty boring to learn about how we can help the planet – turn off your lights, don’t leave the tap running while you brush your teeth, recycle plastic bottles, on and on the list goes. However, it’s important to find dynamic ways to help the planet because those are the things that people will want to do. Who wants to sit through another lecture about “you should walk instead of taking the car”? Usually, the way people learn about the environment is boring, however one woman decided to live in the environment in order to help it.

Jane Goodall is a woman who inspired many people to love the environment before it was a trend. Goodall is best known for her study of chimpanzees, and this she did remarkably. An avid environmentalist, she would immerse herself into the chimps’ environment and become one of their society.  After observing for weeks and weeks, and letting the chimps see her and get used to her, she would gradually move closer to the group that she was studying, and eventually they would accept her.

The way that she became one with these animals was amazing – they treated her as if she was a chimp, caring for her and interacting with her. Goodall opened our eyes to how similar we are to chimps and primates in general. She showed us that they care for each other just like we do.

In doing her work, Goodall inspired thousands of people to open their eyes to the animal kingdom, and, therefore, the environment. Her attachment to the chimps made people realize that we’re not so different, and that it’s our duty to care for animals just like we care for each other. In showing us that chimps are like us, we could relate to them, and people could be more sensitive to the needs of the natural environment.

Jane Goodall is a remarkable woman because of her exceptional work in nature. She did many great things, and she made everyone realize what a beautiful earth this is, and that we should take care of it. For her, environmental activism was more than giving speeches at elementary schools – it was about living your beliefs and being proactive, which are things from which every single one of us can take something. 

Does anyone else have that problem where they’re supposed to do what they love and build a whole high school identity off that – and yet, they don’t know what they love?

 If we do have an idea at all of who we are, it’s constantly changing and never static. So I think it’s pretty hard to figure out what you love to do, what you really love to do, when you don’t know who you are or what you want. That is, unless you’ve been raised from the age of three doing dance competitions or playing hockey non-stop, then it’s probably set in stone.

 In high school I revved everything up by joining every possible club and committee there was. I was sick of elementary school, and once I was free to be one fish out of all 1,200 at my school, I seized the chance to be anonymous.

 I learned a lot from grade nine, since I was part of so much. I treated the school like my stomping ground – I played three sports, went to leadership camp, did far more than my mandatory forty hours of service – but one thing I didn’t learn was what I loved to do. It was only this year, when those hours of club meetings started falling apart, as I started to drop out of ones I didn’t enjoy, that I began to stop hating the fact that I didn’t have any one thing to my name: I was, and am, a pell-mell of a million different characteristics. I used to see that as a lacking of identity, because there was so much pressure to be somebody and to stick a label on it.

 I’m still someone who is all over the map in every single way, and I am still using my world as my stomping ground, but the thing that has changed is the way I see it. I’m not only a rugby player or only a writer or only a bad singer or only any one thing. Everyone’s a lot more than that. Just because you can’t find a label for what you love to do, doesn’t mean you’re not a person. 

 I’m kind of sick of labels. Who you are doesn’t need to have a word attached, and if you really need it to have one, the only word I can think of that should always be attached to any given personality is happy.

 Love what you do – your life. Do things that make you happy, and if you can’t find “your thing”, don’t stress. It will come. Forget about words, and labels, and superfluous things that high school is all about, and just go with your heart. It sounds cheesy but it’s true:  find that passion, and you’re set.

 Do what you love, and if you don’t know what you love, then set sail all over the map to find it. The winds won’t let you down.  

Love always,

Catherine

Imagine what it would be like to have a miniature Amazing Race between you and a couple dozen other teams, all trying to take photos of ridiculous activities (and having a great time in the process).

Last week at my school, we started a school-wide photography scavenger hunt. There’s a list of a bunch of tasks (precisely 76) to do and take photos of ourselves doing. Some of them include “planking” in the cafeteria, having a full-blown wedding ceremony, or eating spooey at a sleepover. One of my favourites was to have people giving piggy backs in front of a body of water, but they specifically said it didn’t have to be a natural body of water. Of course, our team’s picture is four people in standing in front of a toilet pointing at it and laughing. Body of water? I think it counts. All the tasks are really hilarious and my friends and I were eager to get started on them.

I immediately made the hunt very competitive by telling all the other teams (while smiling, of course) that we would win the hunt, by doing the most tasks. All the teams are competing to get first place, and more important than winning, for my team, is having fun running around the school trying to do the tasks and seeing other friends on other teams run around, and trying to interfere with them.  It’s all turned out to be very funny, especially when the teacher team walked into the cafeteria and proceeded to have a candlelit dinner surrounded by students who started to clap at their wonderful efforts.

The scavenger hunt has brought us together, and gotten us around the school. One of my favourite things about going to such a big school is that there are always people I know in the hallways, and to whom I can say hello. Saying hi to people, and smiling at people, is a big part of my day, and I love talking to everyone and simply being a part of everything that’s going on at school, especially this scavenger hunt.

I think that knowing people is great, even if you don’t know them that well, because there are always jokes to be made, and things you can do with anyone. Being out there through clubs, sports, music or just through the people you happen to know somehow is great, and a lot of people don’t realize how much friends and acquaintances can mean.

I guess what I’m trying to challenge is the way you see other people – to me, everyone has an intense personality, and I honestly can’t wait to get to know them all. Something that has changed for me a lot this year is the way I think of others: I really can’t think of anyone I don’t like, because once you open up to accepting absolutely anyone, the rest of the world opens up too. One of my favourite quotes is “What this world needs is a group hug”. It’s so true! The power of compassion is amazing, and as soon as you start to smile at everyone you know, and recognize that it wouldn’t be the same without each unbelievably incredible person, the world starts to smile back.

Love always,

Catherine