Throughout my life, I've been fortunate enough to participate in a variety of summer camps. In my early youth, I took art workshops where I learned how to paint on canvas. Gymnastics, swimming, tennis, and volleyball followed. After all of those sports, I realized the importance of being active and how invigorated I would feel after a practice.
Later on, the speech arts would intrigue me. At 15 years old, I took part in a week-long University of British Columbia debate camp. Coming into it, I had little knowledge and experience. Through lessons and practice during those seven days, I picked up tips and tricks to build my debate skills. Forming arguments and weakening those of the other team was a difficult task for me, but as my peers and the instructors encouraged and guided me, I was able to overcome most of my hesitation by the last day. Speech, I realized, had immense power to articulate impactful statements and enrich one's understanding of a subject.
That same summer, a week after the debate camp, I headed to a week-long creative writing camp, also in UBC. With eight other students and a kind teacher, I filled my notebook with timed fiction writing, poetry, and journal entries. Sometimes the teacher would take us outside and let us walk around in search of inspiration. We'd write in the sun and under a roof in the rain. I walked out the door with sharper writing tools and heightened ambitions.
An experience two years later would broaden my mind more than ever before. In the summer of 2017, specifically July, I stepped into the three-week Young Writers' Workshop at Simon's Rock, Bard College in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Its participants are selected from a large number of applicants. Being apprehensive to be living in a dorm on my own in a different country (albeit same continent), I was a little unsure of myself during the first day. The first workshop session on the second day, however, loosened me up a bit. I was sorted into a group of twelve students. The introductory games broke the ice and the following individual free-write helped me clear my mind. We would do the latter activity every workshop session and it would become one of my favourites. As days turned into weeks, I grew as a person and a writer. In the workshop sessions, I learned there was no right or wrong in writing. There were only different interpretations and approaches. Most importantly, we were to guide our fellow writers rather than critique their work. The last week seemed to pass so quickly compared to the first two. I had created so many memories I will cherish for decades.