Reflective essay
The meeting that changed my mind
When I was young, I was a very immature boy, somewhat like a baby.
I took everything for fun, and I was never serious about anything. I never thought about my life, or my dreams, or what I really wanted to do. I were just living my days, without any reason.
After some months in high school in Italy, I joined a school program, called the EPMagazine. I joined it to make some friends and to try to change how awful my life was in middle school. I also joined because the teacher that runs the project, was in my class. Some better grades can go out of this I thought.
Little did I know that in the end, a decision that was made for the wrong reasons, gave me the best result I could ever have imagined.
A few months after I joined the magazine, I was at one of the Editorial Board meeting.
We were all seated when our teacher began to talk.
“Guys, in two months there will be a congress in Greece. You have to go there and present at least one lecture, and it has to be done in English”
We stared our teacher, with fear in our eyes.
We were just fifteen, without a worry in our heads and so immature…
I was hardly breathing. A cold chill went all over my body, and I could tell that everybody else was feeling the same emotions.
We were all still little boys, and so we didn’t pay so much attention at the paper we signed when we joined the magazine, but in that moment our minds went back to that piece of paper.
It told us that the magazine has some meetings, and that we had to participate.
And in that moment another thing went back to our minds: we had to be hosted by an host family, some complete strangers.
We didn’t ask any questions, and some minute after we go out of the room, somehow, as the meeting ended.
I took the bus home, and I didn’t realise I passed my stop, and the one after too.
The next months before the meeting we were all working on the lecture.
We didn’t know what to do, so we took a computer and start working on the power point.
We wrote on that many times, over and over, but we didn’t realise how to write something really good. Every time we wrote something, thought it was great, and then, reading that, realising it was a crap.
And then, we started following our teacher's advices. We wrote a check-list, organised the things to do, and just after work on the power point, but we wrote the check-list in Italian.
“Why are you doing this?” our teacher asked us.
“Because is more simple!!”
“Listen to me, it is not. You will have problem when you have to talk in English” our teacher warned us.
We didn’t followed his advice, and continued to work.
Months went by, and our lecture grew. We continued to ask ourselves: if this will be good? And if it isn’t? What can I do? O god, what if I fail?”
The day before the departure, I didn’t sleep well. I first stayed in my bed, reviewing the lecture in my head, over and over. Then I fell asleep, but it was even worst.
I was dreaming of being there, on the stage, and I couldn’t remember the words to say. The public was laughing at me, making fun of me, and I couldn’t escape. The attention of everybody was on me.
The day after I had to wake up very early. Our plane departed at 6 in the morning, and we had to be at the airport two hours before.
We were all carrying our luggage somehow like zombies. Our minds were not there in that moment, even if it was a great moment.
We were leaving our city for the first time without our parents.
“Why did I choose this magazine? I wish I’d never done this.” I was saying inside me, but it was too late.
We arrived in Greece at night, and we met the host family right after. We were left in the hands of these strangers, and put in their houses.
That night, was probably my worst night ever.
Lying in that unknown bed, I was wondering about the lecture, that was the next day.
I thought about my house, and my comfortable bed.
Finally, I fell asleep. I’ve done that because I realised that I was there, there was no way to escape and it was not so bad at the end. “I can do it” for the first time I told to myself.
The day after I woke up, but I stayed in my bed, looking I was still sleeping, until my host sister woke me up. I tried to eat my breakfast, without really watching what I was eating.
We went to school, and I was wondering what I was going to do.
Finally, I don’t know how, I found myself in a room with a lot of people. I looked at them, and they were staring at me. My teacher presented me and pushed me on the stage.
I couldn’t breathe. I stammered for some minutes, hoping not to be there.
The eyes of lots of students and teachers were staring at me. I could feel how they waited for something, something from me.
I had troubles breathing, and my heart became an heavy drum in my chest.
Suddenly, I thought about what my teacher has keep telling me for the last months.
I hoped to had wrote the check-list in English, I hoped to had followed the advices.
Then, I started to follow them: All that I’ve studied for the speech went off, and I became to speech, trying to remember all the things I had learnt for the preparation of that speech.
My words were coming out like a little river now, even if the fear was still there.
It seemed to me that those eyes that first were so scaring, now were looking encouraging me.
At the end I ran away from the stage, sat on a chair, and finally take a sigh. My body relaxed, as I realised that I made it.
When at the end of the week we left Greece, I knew that that experience was strong, but I didn’t realised how much.
The next year, we were doing another lecture, for another meeting. We were surprised of finding ourselves doing a check-list in English now, instead of Italian.
When I came back, for the first time I was serious talking about the experience.
I began to have moments in which I thought about my life, about my future and my dreams.
During the years that passed, I was always wondering why my schoolmates looked at me like a crazy person when I suggested them to join the magazine.
For me, that was the best advice.
“What? We’re not crazy. We are good here, we don’t need a crazy teacher to make our life interesting” the always tell me.
I just don’t understand how other people don’t look at this like a great experience to do.
It’s important to experience this kind of thing, because they make you more open-mind and ready to face even bigger experience.
Don’t run away from big things, saying they are impossible, but run up to them, and at the end you will be satisfied of what you’ve done.
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