Stories of Resilience

Humans of Year 7

As stated In our last newsletter,  Year 7S and Year 7G really enjoyed the blog "Humans of New York" by Brandon Stanton so we decided to create a blog using the same elements to tell our own stories, in our own way.​ Not only were Year 7 brave enough to share their stories, but they built stronger connections with their peers.  We're very proud to  publish a selection of these stories below.

Bounce Back King!

Being resilient is extremely easy for me. It always has been. Bouncing back from adversity is a skill that really has its moments. Losing in a game is a weakness of mine. I am very competitive. In the past, I would rage and scream but now, I just breathe and relax. Winning to me is something that I now take for granted. My favourite shows help me relax and stay resilient during tough times especially when I am enraged about something. My friends are especially outstanding and we like to ‘hit the whip’.

The characteristics I look for in friends are being nice, trustworthy and they like me for being me. Of course, life isn't always gonna be the best and all happy with nice people and good events, I have been struck down with the death of my grandparents and great grandparents. I felt rejected and felt squashed like I had lost a battle to the world and no one was there for me. On top of that, I was beginning to be bullied by a crowd of people at school. They pushed me to the ground and pinched me, at this moment I felt disgusted and depressed, I assumed I couldn't overcome this. It was all spiralling out of control. But I faced all my problems and powered through life and made the most of bad situations - or in this case, situations. When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade! Right?! The most important thing is to be happy. I was determined to win this battle with being resilient. Strength is mental and physical, and I have it!   Anonymous 7G

Broken Promises

It was the first game of AFL our team had ever had. We promised our coach to win our first game. The hour went by slowly and before we knew it, the whistle was blown, signaling the end of the game. We summed up all the scores and we had found out that we lost. By a full 36 points! We were all disappointed with our game. We felt like we had let our coach down, our heart ached. The fact that we had broken our promise to win made us even guiltier than before. Some said we exaggerated our loss, but we were genuinely sad. Every day that we had training sessions or any time we had a match, we would record or have our coach monitor our training and our games to see where we could improve or where we had gone wrong. This gave our coach the data to know how we could train our skills. Soon enough we had one a game by 44 points and that made us happy. Euphoria rushed throughout our whole team. What made us resilient was our coach. Our coach comforted us all and helped us to get better to get our win. We didn’t win more than 3 times, but at least we were proud of our win and we had made our coach happy too.   Anonymous 7G

Kindergarten Bullies Be Gone!

When I was in kindergarten, people started bullying me. They called me names and left me out of many activities. It was hard for me to make friends. They always neglected me and it made me feel uncomfortable. I didn’t want to go to school. It affected my education because I found it hard to focus on learning. All I thought about were the bullies. The same sentence in my head replayed every hour “how will I deal with the bullies?”    ”What am I going to do?”  I was so upset with what they were doing to me. I tried so hard to forget about them but the bullying really got to me. This lasted until I was in year 3. I was so miserable, I always felt lonely. One day I decided to do something about the bullies. It was the middle of the night when I decided to build up the courage and talk to my mum about how I really felt. As I walked to my mum, my heart pounded faster and faster. I faced my mum and broke down in tears as I explained to my mum about the terrible bullies I faced at school. After we talked, I felt so much better knowing that my mother knew how I truly felt. My mum wasn’t happy. She took this matter to the principal and soon enough, my bullies were suspended for 3 days.

Thankfully, the bullying ended very quickly. I was so glad they stopped bullying. Ever since year 3, I have been living life without any fear of the bullies in my life. I felt safe and confident. I really wished that I could have done something a soon as the bullying started. Hiding your feelings won’t help with anything, it will only make matters worse. Being confident and telling people you trust is the best thing to do if you aren’t feeling at your best.  Anonymous 7G.

Changing

It was the day before the first day of high school and I was scared like a chicken in the dark. I couldn’t believe that I was leaving primary school and moving to high school! I would have to leave my favourite teachers and all of these sentimental memories behind at primary school. I wasn't ready to leave and forget them. I talked to my parents and they said that this is part of our life, we can’t change it, we just need to grow from it.

I had to understand that I cannot run away from this big change, so the next day I accepted the challenge and made my way school! I’m not going to lie, I was scared for my life. When I arrived there I met my class. At first, I thought that they would be horrible but I was very lucky that I had one of my good friends in my class, and some of her friends were in the class too, so she introduced them to me. After the first week of school, I really enjoyed being in my class and my friend and I became comfortable with my new friends and we all became very close. I really enjoyed being at school, it wasn't actually as bad as I thought. Now, my friends and I, help each other with homework and problems that we have inside and out of school. We all enjoy high school but we were still getting used to moving and where all our classes were.  We are getting used to it and now we have even memorized our teachers and classes.

Moving

The last time I was resilient was when I had to move out of my home and change schools. I was in year 1 at the time and when I was told that we were going to move, I felt very distressed and in denial with the sudden news. I did not want to move out. I became less enthusiastic during the last two years at my old school while my brother and friend both helped make me feel better by comforting me. We had to rent a different house first before moving into our actual house because it was still being built. The rented house was not the best. The floor was full of dirt and I kept sneezing because the dust was triggering my allergy. The location of it didn’t help either, it took around an hour to get to school and we had to wake up early in order to get there on time. After around 9 - 10 months, we finally got to move to our new house and, being the salty child I am, I was still mad at my parents for moving. It took a week for me to accept that we moved and I soon decided that our new house was better than our previous home. ​

The Broken Arm

My childhood was extremely fun. I mean I’m still a child but when I was younger I was in Heaven! I got to play with my cousins and family which was very fun and exciting. I also got to play the ‘Dora the Explorer’ game on my 3DS. It was all going well until this dreadful day. It taught me to be more cautious and to watch my surroundings, to push through the pain and to have resilience. In 2016 I was swinging on the monkey bars, at the park with my aunty, cousins and my mum. And out of the blue I decided to use the ‘skip a bar’ technique and skip 4 bars. Aren’t I smart? And as you guessed I fell off the bars and landed on my arm. I was in shock and indescribable pain. I was panicking and crying.

Immediately my mum, auntie and cousins raced me to the hospital. I never want to experience this moment ever again. At the hospital the doctor gave me the news that if I break my arm again, I will have to get my bone replaced with screws and metal plates. And that I would now have to wear a cast for two months, and no I wasn’t happy. I had to stay home and not go to the park because of my broken arm. After getting my cast off I still wasn’t allowed to play sports or do any activities which was really disappointing because I really wanted to play sport. I felt left out. I had to dodge sports for six months and after those boring six months I was FINALLY allowed to play sport. As soon a