Welcome back. Today’s post is going to be a first for me. It’s going to be a collaboration…

Of sorts. I am going to be collaborating with my past self. That sounds strange but I assure you, you’re right. It is a strange idea. But when grade nine started, the first unit caught my eye. The title was the power of place.

To me, this unit sounded perfect. I had recently moved halfway across the world. This was an amazing opportunity to write a post about what I thought power of where you live has on you.

So to start off, let’s read what I wrote at the start of the year…

How does place affect who we are? I consider myself a relative expert on the subject because as I write this, I am surrounded by the sound of cowbells and loud French children. I can say first hand that where we are affects us in more ways than one. 

Firstly and most obviously, our surroundings affect who we are. They have the power to inspire or depress. 

Every rainy morning, my dad and I walk the small hill up to the car. My dad always says something along the lines of, “We are very lucky to live in a place that looks like this…”, referring to the surrounding mountains. I give some vague response and don’t think much about it, while my dad goes about his day with a bit of a gleam in his eye. 

Thinking about this small interaction, I realize now that while my growth mindset has grown tremendously, I still need to work on it. This romanticism of daily life is something I envy the people who can accomplish it.

The way people treat you in the place you are, also affects you. That’s my biggest takeaway from these past ten weeks. If people are kind or even just humane to you, it’s easier to get out of bed. Having nice people around you shapes your worldview of where you are. That’s an important thing because feeling like everyone hates you makes you feel like there’s no incentive to like where you are. If that makes sense. 🙂

I further my point now that it has been a total of 20 weeks in Switzerland. One third of the way through the year and I feel almost the exact same.

Now, about nine weeks away from moving back to Vancouver, I have the same views. It’s not difficult to treat people kindly. More specifically, it’s not difficult to treat migrants kindly. This means that people have a positive worldview of their new home.

The next part of this assignment was to create a four minute video. I filmed mine in the forests of Switzerland, commuting with my bike to each location. Here it is!

My video wasn’t of the best quality because of the sound but I’m proud of it. I hope to be making more content soon of a similar nature, but a little bit better quality.

I hope you enjoyed the video and this post and thank you for reading / watching! The end.