A Quick Catchup

Wow, it's been awhile, hasn't it? The last time I posted was back in May. Let me catch you up on what has happened since then.

The end of the school year rolled around and I had trouble coping with my anxiety during exam week, however I managed it a lot better than I did when I had my first round of exams in January. 

Other then that, my summer was fairly tamed. I worked every Monday-Friday as a lifeguard/swim instructor and I got really good hours. The way it worked is that the first two weeks, I would only be lifeguarding and then the next two weeks I would be teaching as well as lifeguarding and it went by that rotation the whole summer. By the end, I got roughly 58 hours in biweekly so that was pretty good. 

I would say the only downside to working in a pool all summer is the heat. They have to keep the pool deck a certain temperature to maintain the temperature in the water and to keep it somewhat consistent. That means when it gets hot outside in the summer, it gets hot on the pool deck too. I had a supervisor come and check on my one day while I was working because another coworker of mine thought I was already suffering from heat exhaustion. I felt alright and I felt as though I was able to perform my job properly (had I not felt that way, I definitely would've called over a supervisor), so I kept working and I was really thankful to have coworkers that cared enough to say that hey, maybe it's time to step back and have a break for a few minutes.

By the title of this post, you're all still probably wondering about someone breaking their ankle. 

I broke my ankle the last week or so of August.

During my summer of working at the pool, two of my shifts were the opening shift, so from 5am-9am. By the end of August, I was getting used to waking up at 4:40 to get to the pool on time, but when the last week of August came by, I wanted the chance to sleep in so I was looking to give away these shifts so I could sleep in but also have the chance to finish up some summer homework I hadn't really started.

A girl who recently became certified offered to take both shifts, but she was a little worried because she wasn't too sure how to open the pool (how to put in the lanelines, how to check everything in the first aid kit, how to get the flags up) and she didn't want to do anything incorrectly. I told her that I would go in with her on the first day, show her how to open and then I would stay in the staff room a bit, get my homework done and if she needed me, I'd be there, but if she didn't need me anymore and felt comfortable, I'd go home to do my homework.

I get up the morning of and I'm on my way out of the door, eating a bagel and I had my cellphone in hand, wasn't even on it, as I was going down my lawn to get to my car. 

The driveway that the car was in has a hill, probably a foot/foot and a half tall thats on a 60-70 degree angle. I was walking down the hill when my right foot slipped out from under me because of the dew on the lawn and my left foot stayed under me. My foot stayed flat as my leg went down on top of it and I ended up having a clean, diagonal break through my fibula. 

After the slip, I didn't really scream, it was more of a yelp in pain. After the shock set in, I realized that I still have to have someone get to work. 

This is where it get's rather entertaining.

I'm sitting on my front lawn, ankle at a weird angle and who knows where the rest of my bagel ended up but I was able to reach my phone, so I called the girl I was supposed to bring to work. I swear this is almost 100% how the conversation went.

She answered and my voice was pretty steady so she couldn't pick up on anything being wrong, so I said "Hey (her name), I'm really sorry to do this to you, but I can't drive you into work anymore. I think I just broke my ankle." 

She was shocked.

The sweetheart that she is asked if I needed any help or if I needed a drive to the hospital or anything and I told her that I was okay and that I would figure that out and she should go to work because she might be a bit late at this point and call me if she ran into any trouble and didn't know what to do. She hesitated but agreed and she went off to work.

I just felt awful at this point but I was still sitting on the front lawn so that's when I called my parents who were still sleeping in the house. My mom picked up and I just said "I slipped down the hill," and she knew that something wasn't right for me to be calling her and telling her that at 4:45 in the morning so they came out, saw I was in pain and I was at the hospital around 5:00am.

Here's the thing about the emergency room: They don't have x-ray technicians until they start a 'normal' work day of theirs from 8-5. If it's life or death matter, they'll call one in. Since it wasn't, I sat in the emergency room and at 8:00am on the dot, 5 people in the ER got called back for x-rays.

I sat around and waited another 15 minutes or so in back to go get my x-ray and around that time, a supervisor got to the pool and the girl lifeguarding told her what happened. I never heard if she was late getting to the pool or not, but if she was, after she told our supervisor what happened, all was forgiven. I got a text from her saying that she heard I hurt my foot and she was wondering what happened. I told her I'd let her know for sure once I get the x-ray done. 

Got the x-rays shortly after and then the doctor called me over so I could have a look at it myself. Yeah, it was a clear break. It wasn't one you have trouble seeing or you're straining your eyes to find, it was literally right in front of you.

I called my supervisor, said it was a break and I'll have a cast for 6 or so weeks and then I'd still have to stay off of it for awhile while doing physio. I'm most likely out for 10 or so weeks. We agreed that I would attempt to find subs for the rest of my shifts but if I couldn't they would step in and help me find people.

We have a Facebook group where we post if we need any subs and the only thing I said was "Hey guys, I hurt my ankle this morning and I won't be able to work the rest of the week. I need someone to take the following shifts," and I posted my shifts below.

I'll admit, this looks really sketchy for someone wanting the last week of August off, but people wanted the money and they took my shifts.

The first day of school, I ran into a coworker. I guess word hadn't spread on what happened to me/my ankle, but he looked at me, saw me on crutches with a big cast on and said "Wow, you really weren't kidding when you said you hurt your ankle."

School has been a little rough. It's hard to get around the hallways on crutches when people are constantly slowing down in front of you, blocking the way and shoving in the hallway, but thankful I'm almost done with my struggle of getting around school.

The past 6, almost 7, weeks have been extremely long, but I get to go back to the hospital on Monday to have it reevaluated, so hopefully that means at least a walking cast.

For me, it wasn't having the cast which was bothersome, it was the not being able to do anything. I couldn't work, couldn't carry anything, couldn't cook, couldn't stand and I had so many limitations on so many things I don't usually think twice about. When limitations are placed on you, you appreciate all the little things you didn't realize you're lucky to be able to do in your day-to-day life.

I'll be so thankful for when things can return to normal, but I'll remember to count myself lucky for all that I do have.

Until next time!

Where Have I Been?

Hey everyone, I'm finally back to blogging!

So as many of you may know, my last blog post was way back in December 2015, and honestly the first reason as to why I stopped blogging back in December 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 about 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.

Not many of my family members know about my blog, however 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! Hopefully this will mean I'll be able to get even more extra hours.

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.

As I mentioned before, I made a video for my cousin while I was in New York, so I'll leave that here if you'd like to watch it! As I said, it's my first attempt at filming and editing a video, so I'll learn from this experience and get better at it!

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.

Until next time!

Good Memories Don't Leave You

Something that my old school does every year is that the graduating students put on a show.

For the past seven years, it was "Roi de l'École" meaning "King of the School".

Because it was the King of the school, it was only the boys who could enter as contestants although the girls were in the show, however they couldn't win a "prize".

This year was the first edition of the "Star of the School", so anyone who wanted to could enter as a contestant.

There were only five contestants, but all of the graduates participated in it someway or another.

This was the first year I went to go see this event at the school, so it was a little weird seeing something I always thought I would participate in.

I met up with a few of my old friends when I got to the school and we watched the event together.

The event was really well done, it was amazing and it was great seeing all of my old friends.

However, I have to admit that being at my old school brought up a lot of good memories and it made me want to go back.

These are the kids that I've gone to school with since primary, we have pictures of each other from when we were 5-6 years old! I moved away from everyone that I knew since I was little and sometimes I still wonder "Well, what if I stayed?"

Honestly, I thought about going back for grade 12 and it was immensely tempting.

When I got home, I talked to my parents about it and the only way I could go back to my old French school and still stay in the IB program would be to switch back after Christmas break this school year.

I wouldn't be able to go back just for grade 12 because the schools don't offer the same IB program and to go from none intensive writing in French to a high level French exam, I would be a little rusty.

I can't lie, I spent my whole evening thinking about what I really wanted to do, all of my good memories are at that school, and then I realized something important.

Memories don't change.

I can have all of those good memories at the French school and make more at my English school.

Of course the friendships aren't as close as my past ones, but you're constantly meeting people your whole life and being with the same people for so long can cause you to be in a safe bubble you can no longer venture out of.

I don't need to be in the same school to remember the good memories from it, I just have to remember that those memories aren't going anywhere.

Until next time!

The Importance of Long Term Time Management

I love blogging. I love the idea of posting freely whether it's a long rant or posting pictures with captions that are just a sentence long, I love everything about it.

I haven't gotten to write too much on this blog simply because I haven't had the chance to, but I plan to change that within the next few weeks.

I was planning on writing a post a few days ago, but I was too tired.

Naturally, this inspired a blog post for me.

I was on the phone with my boyfriend Wednesday night, I had my headphones and mic set up so that I didn't have to hold the phone up and my laptop was in front of me, I was ready to write a new blog post, but I kept falling asleep.

I felt awful for my boyfriend; I believe it was mainly a one sided conversation because I kept falling asleep every five minutes and I would be out for 10 minutes at the time.

I apologized a few times, but I definitely felt like I should've apologized a lot more because I did feel just awful about it.

This will bring me into my topic of today: time management.

Many people can list off the importance of time management for short term reasons, but I'm starting to be affected from my lack of time management for long term reasons.

You see, I'm a swim teacher that works Saturday and Sunday mornings, but I recently picked up an extra shift at the pool Thursday nights to make more money.

When I thought about the consequences this would have on me, I only thought about a few weeks into the future, maybe two weeks.

I didn't think about how it would affect me during a six week period.

I didn't think to manage my time in the long run and this has already caused me to be overtired, cram a little bit with schoolwork and to generally not have 100% control over the things I would like.

This taught me the importance of managing time within a long term as I will definitely be doing things differently for my next work term.

When you have an abrupt change in your schedule and you know it's going to be for a long period of time, plan ahead that far, look into your schedule that far into the future so that you know you aren't overworking yourself.

In other news, I went to go see the new James Bond movie, Spectre, and for the most part it was great! The other parts I can't remember because I fell asleep.

Yeah, I fell asleep in a movie theatre because I was that exhausted from work and schoolwork.

This just goes to show the importance of long term time management!

Until next time!

Don't Hold Back

As some of you may 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 today is Canadian Thanksgiving, she asked me if I could go in today 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 today 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 today.

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.

Until next time.

The Beginning of an Amazing Adventure

I've always been a wanderer at heart.

I remember when I was younger, my mom would be in the living room with her cup of tea in the morning and she would be watching travel shows, and I would be making mental lists of where I wanted to go.

I would watch the show with her, but I was never mentally there because I dreamt about being in the location of the travel episode we were watching.

Growing up. I still am filled with wanderlust, but I can't exactly do anything about it yet.

I can picture these grand and amazing adventures when I can't even afford two packs of gum.

As I grew older, the desire to travel and to have an adventure was put on the backburner while I started to focus more on school and my jobs.

When things in my life started to get too chaotic, I saw adventures as a way to leave everything behind. It's like as soon as I have the greatest adventure of my life, I'll be okay.

I'd be leaving the stress of work, of school and of home life behind me.

It would only be me and an unexplored part of the world to me that was just waiting to be explored.

I've heard travel stories from dozens of people, and every time I hear a story, I feel as though something is missing in my life and and I won't feel while until I have this grand adventure.

I spent the day with my friends today and one that I'm particularly close to kept saying that we were going on an adventure whenever we started to walk to a new destination.

I never realized how right he was until today.

According to Google, the definition of an adventure is "An unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity."

Although it's not always hazardous, spending time with my friends, there's always something unusual and exciting. There's always something to laugh at, you never know what topics are going to come up in conversation; it's always an adventure.

Something else that's unusual and exciting is that from where I live, there's a lunar eclipse tonight.

I've been photographing it and watching in amazement as the moon is slowly becoming dark and then red.

I don't think I've ever watched a lunar eclipse before, so this is something completely new and interesting and amazing to me.

With all of these events going on, I realized that adventures don't have to be as big and as extraordinary as I pictured them when I was younger, they just have to be something new to me.

I am not in the part of my life where I can control anything whenever and however I want to and I know that, but I'm not going to let that stop me from trying to fill that emptiness I have from not being able to have a great adventure right now, but I don't have to go far to have an amazing adventure.

Sometimes the greatest adventures of them all happen where you least expect them to.

Until next time!

Back To School Must Haves

I go back to school tomorrow and I figured that I'd share my back to school must haves!

I realize that I'm probably among the last wave of students going back to school, so if I decide to make a post similar to this next year, I'll remember to do it sooner. Even if you're already back to school, this post might give you ideas as to what to buy or what you could've forgotten; the school year has just started!

I am going to be separating my back to school must haves by items for the classrooms, then beauty products and finally items to have during a break.

Anyway, let's get to it!

Must Haves For: The Classrooms

Starting off with the classics, pens and pencils.

I usually prefer to use pen over pencil (unless it's for a test or math), so I always like having at least two pens on me at all times during the school day.

My go-to pens are the Sharpie pens.I prefer them because there are so many colours available that I can write my notes in different colours, so I can have keywords in one colour, underline the important things in another and have the rest of my notes in another different colour. Of course you can do it with the usual red, black and blue pens, but Sharpie pens have a larger colour variety and it makes writing notes more fun.

When I do use pencils, I'll always go for a pushpen because I wasted a lot of time last year sharpening pencils until they met my standard of perfect, so a pushpen would spare me a lot of time towards the end of the year.
Next, we have notebooks.

Record notebook bought at HMV
Live Every Moment notebook bought at Target

Now, a little fact about me is that I have no problem spending money on journals that I like. I will shamelessly buy three at a time and never write anything in them because I don't want to ruin them.

This year, I'm using some journals to write my notes in for some classes. Yes, they're smaller than notebooks, but I find that that makes them easier to carry around and you can have more on you at once than the full size notebooks.

I use the notebooks where the pages easily rip out for school work. If it;s for proper work like math class, I'll use one whole notebook and leave that notebook for that class alone, but I will also take a notebook like that to all of my classes so if I have a one off in-class assignment to hand in after the class, I can easily rip out the page(s) I worked on.

That way, I don't have to carry around a binder with a ton of loose leaf in it and supply everyone else in the class with paper.


Probably most importantly, a calendar.

Most schools probably give you a calendar/agenda, but if you don't have one, you should get one.

Calendars help you so much to prioritize what work has to be done because you have all the due dates /dates for every assignment, test, quiz and project. 

I personally prefer monthly calendars/agendas because it helps me see a lot more at once and it saves me the trouble of leafing through many pages to find the date I was looking for.

Must Haves For: Beauty Products

I usually do my makeup for school, there were probably a handful of days when I went to school without any makeup on last year, so I'll share with you guys my favourite beauty products at the moment with you guys.

First up, foundation.

Foundation and brush bought at Shoppers Drug Mart (Drug Store)

I recently started using Rimmel's Lasting Finish with Comfort Serum, but I love it everytime I wear it. It's really light, I feel as though my skin can still breathe through the foundation and I love that feeling. I wear the colour 100 Ivory and I feel as though this is the first time that I've found a foundation that almost matches my skin tone completely.


Following, concealer.

Both concealers bought at Shoppers Drug Mart (Drug Store)

I haven't been using too many different types of concealers, but that ones I have been using are Maybelline New York's concealer in 15 Fair for under my eyes (top one) and 10 Light for any blemishes that I have (bottom one).

Just like the foundation, I find them light and they do their job well. They brighten up the area under my eyes and they help cover blemishes better, so I really like them.


Next, eyeliner.

Both eyeliners bought at Shoppers Drug Mart (Drug Store)

I love eyeliner, I love doing it because there are so many different ways that you can style your eyeliner and I really enjoy doing it in my beauty routine.

I've used and love two different types of eyeliner, the first one is Quo liquid liner. I love this liquid liner because I've never had it run under my eyes during the day, it stays put for the most part, but I do find that you might have to reapply it in a few areas during the day; mainly the inner corner.

The second eyeliner is Rimmel's Exaggerate Waterproof Eye Definer in black. I find it so easy and fast to apply. I've had it run down under my eye a few times, but its nothing that can't be fixed.


Then, mascara.

Mascara was bought at Shoppers Drug Mart (Drug Store)

I haven't experienced much with mascara yet, but I'm currently using Maybelline's Mega Plush Volume Express. I'm enjoying this mascara because not only does it add a lot of volume to my eyelashes, but it's also waterproof and has a dent in the brush to make it more flexible to help you reach every lash in at any angle. 

Although I am enjoying this product, I might look around a bit more before I go back to that one just to see what's out there and what does the best job for me.


Next, lip balm.

I am big on lip balm, my lips get chapped often (especially in the winter) so I love having lip balm on me. In my bag, I will have both an EOS and Burt's Bees lip balm. They're both natural and really hydrating which make them both great. Depending on which Burt's Bees you get, they can tint your lips a little bit which is great, but if you already have lipstick and/or lip gloss on, then EOS is the way to go.


Must Haves For: Breaks

Phone case bought at Target

Music helped me get through last year a lot. I listen to music when I'm stressed to help me relax or when I need to give myself a break from working.

I was aloud to listen to music in classes last year, so whenever we got to work on our own, I would always have both headphones in, listening to music, to help me stay focused on my work and not be distracted by all the sounds around me.

You can listen to music in class (if you're allowed), during lunch, during a free period or even when you're walking to a different class. 

If listening to music helps you in any way, then go for it. If you're looking for new music, you can check out my Road Trip playlist here.


Finally, books.

Books are great for when you're done work or a test before everyone else and you still have to be quiet.

Books for me are also like a little escape so their also nice to help you relax after a day at school.

I'm currently reading the book Everyday by David Levithan. I'm not far into it so I can't tell you much about it, but the plot is that this person walks up in a different body everyday and they have to discover who they are all over again. So while being themselves, this person is also someone else at the same time.

It's a really good plot and I can't wait to read more of it.

Well that's it for my Back To School Must Haves! I hope you this helped some of you guys out as to what to have for school!

Until next time!