I have been granted the opportunity to travel to many amazing places in my life, some of them for employment as well! The first and most important past relationship with teaching I had was when I worked as a lifeguard and swim instructor at the Kamloops YMCA. There I not only got my first real taste of being responsible for children, but having them look up to me and look to me for direction as well. Like teaching school, we were expected to compile lesson plans that over arched throughout an entire unit of swim lessons, and we got to watch as our students learned, grew, and got better in their own swimming. We offered corrections, demonstrations, and gave fully-rounded feedback throughout the courses as well as at the end. This was the first real job and experience that confirmed for me that I wanted to spend the rest of my life as an educator.

I have driven all over North America with my family, and we’ve taken our motorhome as far as Florida and back, a journey that marked many significant highlights in my travelling life. Completing trips like these with my family not only gave me a sense of extreme love for them (not just any four people could pile into a single tiny space for two months on the road) but it also gave me such a high value for the place I live. Each time I return home from a trip I feel completely whole, as I’ve gotten the chance to explore something amazing, but I still have a place to come home to, and right now that place is the City of Kamloops, situated on the traditional and unceded territory of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc band.

In 2015, just before graduating high school, my grandmother and my cousin and I visited Japan together, where we spent ten days exploring all that Tokyo had to offer. This was my first real opportunity to see another culture completely different from my own. We chose Japan because of our personal interests, but also because all three of us wanted the opportunity to visit a place that not only spoke a different language, but had a completely different approach to life. What we found there were kind people always willing to help us should we got lost or confused, as well as a culture so rich in its own history that it we were left blown away by how much there was to learn.

As well as these trips I’ve gotten the chance to visit many islands throughout the Caribbean, however, nothing really sticks out more than the two summers I spent interning on a college program at Walt Disney World Theme Parks in Florida, USA. There I worked behind the scenes of Disney’s magic as a costumer, both in their large warehouses and also on many shows, where I learned to put together and take apart costumes as out of the world as storm troopers and as fantastical as Maleficent’s full dragon complete with pyrotechnics (though I’m happy to say I went no where near those).
Through experiences like these, I have come to know myself not only as a person easily adaptable to being uprooted, but someone who loves experiencing different places and walks of life. I hope that my teaching journey continues to take me all over the world, as there’s so many more places I would love to see.