Memories of Miomo – Melissa Kerr
Memories of Miomo
Melissa Kerr – Dec 2009
Remember your first day at Primary? Trying to look impressive; but very hard when your Nana had given you a haircut three days before the start of school. Remember that daunting walk into the classroom with everyone’s eyes looking you up and down, judging you with every step. How you were going to survive? Befriend someone? What if they reject you? These questions were running through my head on the first day of Miomo Monday 23rd November 2009.
Walking…well, limping with my sore knee to be exact up the Millennium Gym stairs to the boarding room, I had many thoughts going through my head. I had just finished 7th form, why was I going to put myself through this again? First I blamed my parents. They put the idea to me and well, let’s just say that I’m a pushover. So I managed to turn the blame on me, pretty mature huh? Anyway, when I arrived at the door I thought: ‘Just slip in, get to your seat quickly and sit down. Don’t look anyone in the eye!’ Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a person with a limp try to walk fast but I felt like a gump. To make matters worse, it was impossible to slip in unnoticed. I took one step in, Yvonne yelled my name and every pair of eyes turned my way. This was not good. Me and attention is like mixing baking soda with vinegar. I felt heat rush to my head, my good knee started to wobble and I had a stupid grin that I couldn’t wipe off my face. But my legs had a mind of their own. They marched me straight to my folder sitting on the table. I sat down feeling the corners of my mouth twitch from smiling too much.
Yvonne asked how I was and what I had done to my knee. “Are you excited”, she asked? Her voice was so confident and her face held that of a child’s in a candy shop. My voice shook out the answers as my lips never stopped smiling. I just wanted all the eyes off of me, the attention was too much. Luckily some other unfortunate soul walked through the door and stole the eyes away, thank goodness! While everyone focused on looking at this poor boy I took the chance to look at everyone else. They all looked my age, we had pens and refill in front of us and there was a projector at the front of the room. My worst nightmares had come true, I had finished school to start a new one…again. The same feelings as before, the same stationary, even the same classroom lay out. I tried to be optimistic, really! I thought: ‘well at least there isn’t a teacher standing at the front of the room talking at us rather than to us’. As if on cue, Michael Henderson happened to walk in holding his laptop. ‘…great’
Thoughts flooded in like – teachers are out to get me, I don’t need this in my future and I can’t wait for home time. Now, I’m pretty good at getting distracted and what better way than to doodle in my folder. To put it simply, I zoned out. I focused my attention on my doodles, hearing the occasional words: motivation, values, Sahara Desert…’wait! What? Now we’re talking Geography!’ I snapped my head up at the mention of the Sahara Desert. I only wanted to know how he managed to change subject like that. He spoke about how he got lost in the Sahara Desert and how the only way he survived was his motivation to want to change his life for the better. “Huh, that’s actually pretty inspiring” My ears started to prick up and I hung off every word he said. By the end of his talk I thought that I should maybe try to listen to other speakers. At the end of the day, I remember sitting in my car at the gym parking lot feeling embarrassed for myself. Boy, had I made a HUGE misunderstanding of this course. Miomo is not like school. At school we learnt how 2 + 2 = 4 and ‘I before E except after C’ but at Miomo we learn the basics of how to live. We learn things that actually matter like: how to manage money, how to write a CV and how to cook meat and vegetarian meals. These life skills can’t be taught at school. Oh and don’t worry, if you’re an active person like me then those needs can be seen to with the help of blue light and the tree tops confidence course. Miomo is also at the gym so just a trot down to the gym at lunchtimes to pump some iron or run a K or two will surely satisfy the fitness freak inside.
I’ve taken so much out of Miomo. Not only have I come away from this once in a life time opportunity feeling like I can take the world on with one hand tied behind my back, but I’ve come away with a better idea of who I am and who I want to be. I’ve also come away with lifelong friends. Unlike school, we all actually wanted to be there. So there was no judging when you answered a question, no one looked down their nose at you because you wanted to learn. Over the course of the programme hanging with amazing and unique people you become one big family. I felt like I became so close to them that I shared my darkest secret that only my family and best friend know. Miomo is NOT a chance to pass up if you need to “rethink your life”, it can “transform ya” into who you want to be and it’s something that you never forget, because I certainly won’t.
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