“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and for offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

Welcome to my final MPOL. I know, you’re just as relieved as I am. 2022 has been such a year of growth for me, but today I only want to touch on that. I really want to open a conversation with myself and others about how to make the next few months of school manageable. I also want to go back to creating work that I can be proud of and not have it ruin my energy levels.

For a lot of people, that last sentence sounds like I am being dramatic. I really wish I was. I have such a hard time doing things without some kind of mystery motivation. Sometimes the consequence of dealing with late assignments is enough, but often it’s not. I have to do things that feel important in order to do them to a level I feel is good enough. 

When I started school this year I couldn’t except that I wasn’t being lazy and pathetic. I had to learn that I simply (or un-simply,) live with an illness that means that my capacity for exerting myself is diffrent than others’. I don’t think many other young adults face a challenge like that. 

This year I also discovered a new community of people. I’ve become somewhat active in the Vancouver punk scene. It’s amazing to meet so many new supportive people. They’ve helped me get to where I am. They’ve also helped me develop a new analogy for my growth in recent years. 

I’ve been trying to dedicate some of my day everyday to learn something I think is intresting. Although I do find it to be frustrating not getting agnolaged for the work I put in, I’m trying to accept that I’m doing this for me. Not for anyone else’s praise. 

One of the things I’ve learned is that when The Clash was releasing the album, “London Calling”,  they took direct inspiration from Elvis Presley’s self intitled album. In the band’s mind, they were starting a new era. Old rock and roll is dead. Long live the new, born out of the ashes.  

I feel as though this is a good representation of my growth and of my goals. I’m taking inspiration from the past, as The Clash did, and using it to create something entirely new; a new and improved Self 2.0 with all the things you loved about the original*, and none of the blue suede shoes.

One thing I’m definitely keeping are my values. They’re something that I always fall back on. There have been some times when they don’t serve me but that part of my identity will be with me until I die. 

A thing I’m working on changing would be my habits that make my life harder. Habits like under planning and over stressing. I can recognize that these habits are detrimental to my physical and mental health but never have the willingness or energy to start making the change. 

My PLPeers have been with me for 5 years on an off. There’re the people that have been with me through it all, for better and for worse. I must say, although they’ve been great influences, I don’t think I could take another year. 

They’ve taught me some important lessons and in my last year, I’m trying to squeeze everything they can teach me out of them. 

One lesson I learned pretty early on is that most people won’t give you opportunities if they think they’re competing with you.  Which makes sense I suppose, on a basic level. It’s easy to be selfish. It’s hard to watch others succeed when you’re not doing the same. I’m also guilty of doing this. Not as much in grade 12, but in grade 10 and some of 11 certainly. It’s strange that for a good chunk of people empathy for those around you is limited.   

Another lesson I’ve learned is that privilege manifests in self in constant and sometimes invisible ways. Even with that sentance I can realise that I’m lucky to have gotten this far in life without realizing that. 

Ignorance is bliss. 

The last big lesson that I found was also the most eye opening. I’ve always tried to be myself even when it’s hard. I’ve learned that being yourself might mean you’re disliked, but its worth it to feel like crap being yourself than feel like crap becuase you’re not being yourself.

That being said, it sucks having people not like you. Having people who care about you is so important. It’s been hard for me to re-integrate with the PLP cohort since leaving for a year. A lot of the time I’m left feeling like an outsider which used to be quite normal for me. The problem is now, knowing that it doesn’t have to be like that. 

The real issue here is that I refuse to give up my identity in order to satisfy the “part of the group” craving. I find myself stuck between two seemingly bad options. Alas,  I’ve made my choice. I want to express myself as who I am, even if I am left to feel like an outsider

Now that we’ve soft launched the “New Me”, we have to decide how we’re all going to get there. The most effective way to do this for myself, is to make a semi-flexible plan. If I set one too rigid, I end up disappointed. Too loose? I forget about it. The way I plan on doing this is through my own version of the Switch* framework I created for PGP. Here’s what it looks like:

 *(Self improvement book written by Chip and Dan Heath) 

And here’s what the plan looks like:

Another thing I’ve learned this year is that I have an absurd amount of difficulty writing things on subjects I don’t care about.  I have no thoughts worthy of writing down becuase none of them seem intresting. I’m trying to work on accepting the not intresting thoughts and adapting them to be as good as they can be but the motivation is lacking. 

As a PLP student, I am both aware and grateful that I’ve been able to grow as much as I have. Without PLP, I truly don’t know where I’d be.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to seeing you again at my tPOL!

-Zo