G’day friends and welcome to another week and another blog post!!
This past week marked six weeks since I graduated high school!!
I honestly can’t believe how fast the time has gone! 16 year old me would never believe in a million years what I have been able to achieve in my 6 years post high school.
So I thought for this blog post, I would take a little trip down memory lane, and share with you how I survived school, and especially year 12!
How I survived school- The power of the Movie quote
Anyone who knows me well, knows that I absolutely love movies and TV shows, and will quote from my favourites all the time.
So that was one of the ways I got through school!
Each year the grade was given a school diary that had all the school rules, uniform rules, a place to keep our timetables and of course a weekly layout to be able to keep track of our homework and assessments.
In that week spread, on the right had side was a notes section. And I got into a habit every monday morning during home class in year 11 especially, I would write in that section the entire speech that Rocky gives to his son during the last Rocky movie. I had memorised that quote back to front, and if you saw my diary that I still have to this day! you would see all the notes sections filled with Rocky inspo!
I tried to find that diary to take a photo and show you! It has gone missing!!! I have my diary’s from each year apart from year 11! Hopefully when I do I will take a photo of it and put it up on my social media platforms! So be sure you are following my social media pages so you don’t miss it!
That speech is one of the main things that got my through a very trying year at school.
I had also printed off numerous speeches, and photos that inspired me and had stuck them on the inside of my locker. We were all allowed to stick whatever we wanted inside our locker doors to to personalise them a bit.
I loved every time I opened my locker to see all these great inspirational people and quotes.
Motivational videos – cheesy but brilliant!!
The next thing I did all the time, was to watch motivational videos. Now whenever I listen to them its almost like a time capsule remembering and acknowledging how far I have come!!!
I would watch or listen to them when I would have a particularly trying day at school, and it would immediately make me feel stronger in a strange way.
If you are on the motivation content consuming bandwagon you will know what I mean.
I will list some of my go-to motivational content makers here so you can go and check them out if you want! Trust me you won’t be disappointed!
My top motivational Channels:
- Mateusz M
- Motiversity
- Motivation Mentors
- Eddie Pinero
However, perhaps the video that also changed my life and gave me the extra push I needed in year 12, was a video called Why Do We Fall by Mateusz M. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgmVOuLgFB0&t=159s
I still have it saved now on my Spotify Playlist, and only last week the video came on in the middle of a workout, and I stopped and started crying just remembering the state I was in when I heard it for the first time, and were I am now.
Getting Down and Dirty with School Work!
Believe it or not, but school work and all the assessment actually helped me survive my thoughts and the pretty constant bullying and just general hard times.
As I took my school work so seriously, it helped me drown out all the school yard drama and even my disability. It was the one thing I knew I was good at and so I through myself into my work and I loved every minute of it.
Yes I know, I am that person who loved school work. And yes for the most part I still love writing essays!
Gotta Have Faith
The last thing that helped me through was my Faith. Now I am not about to push religion onto you so don’t worry. I had the great honour in being one of the Ministry Captains that year, and if I could go back in time I would change so much of how I did that job. I just put my hesitation and quietness down to insecurity.
However, my Faith was one of the big things that got me through the trying times of high school. Knowing it was part of a bigger purpose that would be revealed when needed. And it is safe to say the bigger purpose has been shown to me more than once.
Knowing that I had my family, my 3 close school friends, teachers and God in my corner made high-school all the more bearable.
But the biggest thing, was that I had to find a way on my own to get through school. Because, lets face it, you can have all the support in the world, but if that little voice inside your head isn’t wanting to listen to them, you have to battle that voice on your own. And those three things I mentioned served me well in more ways than one.
Six years On…
I am grateful for the experience that I had in school, because it has given me so much to work on personally, and has helped me find out what I want to do with my life.
So even though school may be tricky, horrible, and just petty and bully overload, it is also a great teacher (pun not intended) outside of the classroom about who you are, your boundaries and tee you up for the person you will become once you graduate.
Reflecting on the past 6 years and also my time in school, I am blown away with the journey and how much I have changed from that insecure 17 year old girl, to a 23 almost 24 year old Law Graduate who is a few months away from finishing her Honours year! Safe to say, I am not the same person who left my school six years ago. I am more confident, passionate and stubborn that that 17 year old who graduated that November evening.
Having said that, I am grateful for the trying times, the bullying, the feeling of being invisible and misunderstood. Without them, I would never have gone to study law, never found an extra level of grit and determination, and never met some incredible people! Not to mention I wouldn’t have discovered some pretty epic motivational speeches and videos that are mind-blowing.
Most importantly though, I owe it to that young girl even may back in primary school to do everything I can to live a life that is full of service and purpose, to make all the trying times mean something.
till next time,
Rhi xo
p.s. if you want go back down memory lane even more, check out my other school blog posts! https://livingabled.com.au/school-the-good-and-the-just-plain-awkward/https://livingabled.com.au/what-i-wish-i-knew-in-school/