All for one and '1 4 all.

     
      Ever since I completed my very first day of school, back in September of 2001, I have heard everyone around me say "Enjoy these years while they last. Before you know it you'll be walking across the stage, diploma in hand, wondering where the time flew."

     Every year seemed to drag on and on. Then I reached high school, where my link crew leader told me the same thing. "Enjoy these next four years at Maggie, because before you know it, it'll be your last year and you'll be wondering where the time flew.". Based on previous years, and how it always seemed to be an eternity before the school year ended and summer rolled around yet again, I naively didn't believe her. Now three weeks ago I found myself walking through the double doors of Princess Margaret Secondary School, on my last first day thinking to myself: "wow... turns out they were all right. How am I already here? I am now a senior student. Top of the school. It's my very.. last.. first.. day."

   They say this is the year. This is your year. Make it worth it. Cherish it.
If I could go back in time and tell myself one thing it would be this: take their advice. Listen to what they have to say.. because believe it or not, when you find yourself facing your final year (which you will before you know it) you'll regret not playing messy musical chairs in the common area.. or playing rock 'em sock 'em with your best friend. Just get involved, as much as you can.

   The scariest thing about grade 12 isn't who you're going to go to prom with.. or whether or not you're going to trip on the stage on your way to collect the diploma you've been dreaming of since the first day you stepped into a school (well.. this might be a bit of a lie.. it is a pretty terrifying thought.). It's not even filling out the university applications, or the hours spent on your laptop trying to find the perfect 325 words for that scholarship essay you have to write. To me, it's wondering how the years have managed to, as the cliché goes, fly by. It's wondering what the future holds for me, now that I'll be leaving not only the comfort of home, but also oddly enough, the comfort of high school.. never thought I'd be saying that. But then again.. grade 12, already, seems to be making a huge impact in my life, and has me considering things, feelings things, and wondering things I never thought I would have.

Giorgia on my mind

      Globetrotter. Bi-Lingual. History geek and in her eyes a photographer. Born in '96, during an icy winter. Perhaps the bitter cold she faced as a newborn has something to do with how quickly she grows tired of the crisp months and the way she finds herself craving the long, peaceful summer days again.

      Her name is Giorgia. The name is, literally, like a melody. It always causes people to sing that Ray Charles song. The name that she has never been able to find on a keychain or a magnet. The name that is almost always misspelled. Giorgia is in many ways an average teenage girl. She hates Monday mornings. She loves starbucks. She's got a bad case of the 'like' disease and she loves to shop. But in many ways she's far from ordinary. She's been to Italia a grand total of 6 times, and seen 6 different European countries and she hasn't even hit 17 yet. In her free time she gets a kick out of watching youtube videos on how to speak various languages. Hej, jag heter Giorgia, och youtube som lärde mig grundläggande svenska. Jag älskar språk!
Her iPod is filled with music that isn't English, and she is capable of taking hundreds of pictures in one day.

     She is full of dreams and knows where she wants to go in the future. Ambitious, head-strong, and determined, nothing will ever get in her way once she sets her mind to something. These are traits she has carried with her from an early age, and traits that -hopefully- will never leave her.
 
    She's just an old sweet song, with a desirous heart full of dreams, adventures, and wanderlust.

She used to think.

     
      She was an average little girl. She played with her barbies, her collection of the "perfect" pretty skinny little blond dolls growing over the years. She ate her daily portion of fruits and vegetables, just like mommy told her to. She went outside and played with her neighbor, whom she was also supposed to marry when she got older. And, she watched TV. She loved watching tv... as a very young girl when she wasn't watching Disney movies, she was watching the Winnie the Pooh tv show, or Barney. Then she hit 6 years old, and she started watching some other things.. like Much Music, that had guests like Britney Spears and other famous celebrities of the time. She became fascinated by the story and the fame of these celebrities, and she started noticing them on the covers of magazines on the shelves in grocery stores. She noticed they all had something in common: they were beautiful, and they were skinny. Now as a young girl she was slim and the smallest in the class. But suddenly she became afraid of putting on a few pounds and not being beautiful like all the women she saw on the covers on magazines and in the tv shows. She used to think that being skinny was being beautiful. And the older she got the more obsessed she became with wanting to be "beautiful".

        There was always a little voice in the back of her mind telling her that she's not beautiful. That she's not skinny enough. But she was always strong enough, or maybe just too scared to really do anything about it, until she hit the teen years. She used to think that being skinny was being beautiful. And now, she would do whatever it took to be pretty, skinny, beautiful.
Do you really need to eat that?
Don't accept the ride home, you can walk, who cares if it's all uphill, you want to lose weight.
You ate too much today. Get rid of it.
You can go to bed hungry, it's okay.
Skinny.
Pretty.
Beautiful.
You want a "bikini body"
You want clothes to look good on you.
You want boys to think you're,
pretty.
skinny.
beautiful.
She used to think so low of herself. She used to think skinny. It took her a long time to pull herself up to a better place. She still fights it from time to time. But skinny is just a word. And she doesn't want to be just... pretty.

      She used to think being skinny was beautiful. The words floated around her head like something you'd see in a cartoon... skinny... pretty... beautiful... skinny... pretty... beautiful...
But now she thinks there's more to her than just her looks. She won't let the media tell her what beautiful is. She will make her own definition.

Erica Jong said, “If you don’t risk anything, you risk more”.

      "If you don't risk anything, you risk more."
       What could this possibly mean? How are you risking more if you don't risk anything at all.. wouldn't that just be the safe way out? If you don't take the risk you have nothing to fear... right?
Wrong. If you don't take the risk now, you could end up facing something that will follow you and haunt you for a very long time to follow.. Regret.
"Why didn't I go on that roller coster in Disneyland... what if I never go back, and I never have the chance to go on it?"
"Why didn't I talk to that cute boy? He seemed interested, but I got too nervous and walked away.. maybe that simple 'Hello' could have turned into something really amazing."
"Why didn't I tell my parents the truth when I had the chance too.. I know I would have gotten in trouble then, but now they've found out on their own, and I'm in even more trouble than I would have been if I just told them myself."
These are just a few examples of how not taking a risk could result in regret, and risking more for yourself than if you just took the risk when you first had a chance to. When opportunity knocks, open the door! You never know what amazing opportunity could be on the other side. Maybe it's the chance to go on your dream vacation.. Or maybe it's just the mailman. But if you don't allow yourself to take that risk, you'll never know what truly magnificent things you can experience in your life.

How are you similar to one of the main characters of your novel?

      Death. Death is the common factor that I share with Lindsay and Buckley Salmon two characters in my book "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold. Their eldest sister, Susie, was murdered, and now not only are Buckley and Lindsay left to face the hardships of the mysterious murder of their sister, but the whole family is. As a child, close to Buckley's age, my older brother passed away. His untimely passing, much like Susie's, left a huge impact on me and my family. The suffering that Susie's parents face is much like the suffering that my own parents faced. I lived through it. It's easy for me to relate, mostly to Buckley because he is close to the age that I was at when my own brother passed. It's hard to fully understand what is happening at that age... you just think that they're on some sort of extended vacation. You see everyone around you struggling to smile for you, and although you're young you know this, you know when someone isn't truly happy. You do what you can to comfort them, to make them smile again, because you miss their smile. At one point in my novel, Buckley found Susie's dad sitting on the floor in Susie's bedroom, crying. Buckley was unsure of what to do, and Susie's dad called him over and they sat together. Susie's dad clung to Buckley and reminded him how special he is to him. Buckley just nodded head seriously and kissed his father on the cheek. I did something much like this when my brother passed away and I found my mom crying on the staircase the day I got home from school. I went up to her, I hugged her and I told her everything would be okay. She tried to explain to me what had happened but I had troubles understanding her... however as I looked around me and saw my family all together in the living room, and a house full of grieving strangers I knew that something awfully horrible had happened, and that from now on our lives would be missing something. I imagine this is how Buckley must feel too, therefore it is very easy for me to be able to put myself in not only his position but Lindsay's and Susie's parents positions as well. Losing a family member is not an easy thing. Watching your family go through a loss like this at a young age, and growing up with other peoples' memories of a person you should remember, you wish you could remember, but you just simply just can't remember changes you, forever.

The perfect machine.

If an ATM machine were custom designed for me, there would be a selection of things being spewn out besides money. On the big, closet sized ATM machine there are a variety of buttons. The big pink button in the middle blasts out clothing items that I pick out on polyvore and pinterest. The little sparkling button right underneath the clothing button, is just for accessories.. rings, earrings, bracelets, hair accessories, shoes, nail polish, hair accessories, you name it! Off to the right of the big pink button, is the location of a purple puppy button. Pressing this button gives me the selection of a variety of puppy dogs. Now these aren't just regular puppies.. these puppies stay puppies forever. Once a puppy always a puppy. There are laberdoodle puppies, pomsky puppies, miniature husky puppies, maltese-poodle puppies, pug puppies, german shepard puppies, hush puppies, golden retriever puppies, labrador puppies, etc. To the left of the big pink button, lies a red button. After pushing this magical red button, you were to select any place in the world you wish to travel to, and the amount of time you wished to be on vacation for, and voilà! Out comes the (free) plane ticket to the place of your desire. I, of course, prefer to select places in the wonderful Europe. Italia, France, España, Nederland, Deutschland, Danmark, Sverige, you name it! I would also select places in Asia, and Africa for missions trips, and the Caribbean for relaxation. The final button is located at the botton of the perfect machine. This nifty beige little button gives me a selection of cameras. Vingate cameras, small cameras, polaroid cameras, professional cameras, digital cameras, water proof cameras, video cameras, all the selection you could possibly need for the highest quality photography!
All of this in one machine, just for me. The machine is programmed to recognize my finger prints, and no one else's. Therefore, no one can steal plane tickets, puppies, cameras or my perfect shoes!

Changing History

     
"Please don't do this..." I manage to say, barely audible. The officer looks down at me, his eyes daggers. "Give me one good reason not to kill you. You and your kind go against everything the Fuhrer stands for. You're filth. You're a stain on the perfect Aryan race. So tell me 4587... why shouldn't I kill you."

For a moment.. just a quick moment.. I close my eyes. I close my eyes, and I think back to what my life was like before I found myself in this horrendous place. I remember where my life began to change for me.

The date is January, 1933. Adolf Hitler has just been appointed reich chancellor of Germany, by our President Hindenburg. My father does not like Adolf Hitler. I've heard him tell my mother so. I do not have much of an opinion on the man.. however I do not know his ideals. Being a 13 year old girl, I do not follow politics, nor do I have much interest in them. I prefer to read books, play my violin and go out for ice cream with my friends. My father is a smart man, and if he does not like Hitler, I shall not like Hitler either. He says now that Hitler has wormed his way into the Reichstag, he will eventually become head of state, and if that happens our lives will never be the same. He will not tell me what exactly he means by this, but he is a strong believer in it.

August, 1934. Hitler is now the President of Germany. It’s amazing how much one’s opinion can change in just 19 months. I now know how I feel about Hitler, and not just because of my father’s view on him. I fear for the safety of the Jewish people not just in Germany, but perhaps all of Europe too. I can feel it in my gut, and I know better than to go against my gut feelings. Hitler strongly dislikes the Jewish people… but for now, life goes on as normal. I go to school, I see my friends every day, I go to the movie theatre, and I have violin lessons every Tuesdays and Thursdays with a very lovely elderly German woman.

September, 1935. The Nuremburg laws are passed, stripping the Jewish people of German citizenships, causing us to lose jobs, and many other basic rights. We are not permitted to display German national colours, or the national flag, which has also been changed to the Nazi symbol- the swastika, and Marriage between “Aryans” and “Non-Aryans” is forbidden. Life begins to go downhill from here. We begin to have to wear a gold Star of David on all of our clothing articles so people can tell us apart, so we can be identified as Jews. As a stain on Hitler’s “perfect Aryan race” A sore that won’t go away. Soon we are to attend different schools. In schools they teach you “what a Jew looks like.” They tell stories depicting us as menacing, perverted, beggars, criminals.. Life begins to take a sharp turn. I begin to hate Hitler more and more everyday. What did we do to deserve this? We are people just as much as Germans are.

The date I’ll never forget. It is February 18^th, 1936.
*BANG BANG BANG* There is knocking on the door. My sister sits straight up in her bed at the exact time that I do. I am now 16 years old, and I know what is about to happen. It is the German police, I know this before my father opens the door. It is the German police, and they are here to tell us to pack our bags and go with them. I’ve seen it happen. They will tell us to pack and they will take us away. I am unsure of where, I am unsure for how long and I am unsure of if I will ever see my bedroom again. My father now opens the door, my mother hiding behind him, and my sister and I peeking from the top of the stairs.

“Pack one suitcase each. You have ten minutes and then you are coming with us.” One of the two officers says to my father.

“And if I don’t?” My father asks.

“You will do as you are asked and pack your way, or you will be unconscious and I will pack for you, my way.” The officer says, nose to nose with my father. My sister begins to cry and I hold her. My mother lets out a whimper as my father continues to stare down the officer and the officer raises his hand as if to strike him. She pulls him away to their bedrooms to pack. She knows not to tell me what I need to pack, because she knows I’ve been waiting for this moment. She knows I am old enough to handle my little sister also.

Just like I had predicted, they took us. They took us to a concentration camp.. Dachau. From that moment on my life has been a series of hard labour, sicknesses, pain, suffering, and watching my loved ones, and people around me, die. Every day, death after death after death. My sister and I are the only ones left of this family. I fight to stay alive just for her. She is growing weaker and weaker as the days pass, she needs more food. I know I have to do something, so I sneak out and steal an extra ration of bread. A guard spots me, and before I have the chance to run, I feel the sharp sting of his belt on my back. I try to run, but he hits me again, this time the pain is so overwhelming I collapse to the ground. I try to crawl but he kicks me, repeatedly, over and over again. I feel myself start of cough up blood, as he continuously kicks me.

“Please… Please don’t do this” I manage to whisper. The guard says something to me… I close my eyes and think back to before my life became hell. I open my eyes just in time to see him raise his belt high above his head. Before I have the chance to open my mouth and scream for mercy, everything goes black.