Reflecting on Change by guest student blogger Arshia Sorourian

This month’s blog comes to you from a guest blogger, grade 7 student Arshia Sorourian. Arshia has self-published four books to date and I have no doubt that there will be more to come. His books are How to Survive School, Turning the Gears of your Business, Flash Parenting, and 155 Tales of the Jungle. His honest, often humourous, and earnest writing style is a pleasure to read.

The first month of a new decade has just come to an end. The new decade has me thinking of all the memories and events that happened in the last decade and that left me with one big conclusion. I am so happy to be here!

I was only one year old when we moved to Canada, yet it has changed my life in so many ways. The turning point for us to move was when we were on a vacation from Iran. Everything was fine and dandy during the first flight. But what we didn’t know was that our visas had expired on one of the connections. We hopped on the second flight and we flew to our destination. Once we were there, we happily strode off the plane preparing for a week of paradise. Suddenly we saw police officers running at us. They arrested us and locked us in a smoking room in the airport, as that was the only place they could keep us. We had no idea what was going on and we were scared. We were locked in there for 7 hours before anyone even came in the room. Imagine seven hours, no access to the outside world, no food, no water, and no washrooms!

Finally a police officer came and began to talk to us… in a foreign language. We didn’t understand her and she didn’t understand us. Once she understood that we didn’t understand what she was saying she left for another hour and came back with an officer who could somewhat understand us. He told us that our visas had expired during our last connection and that we were here illegally.

Now, this was shocking news but we thought, “Oh no problem, we can just call the embassy and they will sort something out,” So we called them on a payphone, no answer. We called them again and this time someone picked up. We told him about our situation and they refused to help and then hung up! That’s when we realized, we needed to move to Canada. Where there is a better future, more opportunities and an embassy that helps.

The journey was hard. We had to let go of a lot of things that we held dear. The first years of my life here were confusing, everybody was speaking a strange language, it was difficult to make friends in Kindergarten. Then I moved to West Bay. Moving was a difficult experience for me and I did not want to move at all, I was beginning to make friends at school and I was feeling happy. But if I had to do it again, I would. I have had a lot of amazing experiences at West Bay that I will never forget. I really enjoy the hands-on approach here as it allows me to learn and experience way more. I have lots of incredible memories of West Bay. Soon enough though I must leave this school and go to high school, which means leaving behind many friends and a familiar place. But big changes in your life like moving schools, can create opportunity. It’s like having a blank slate you can fill with colour.  So if you ever get the opportunity to change something in your life for the better do it! Instead of thinking of all the things you might lose, think about all the things you might gain!