Mia Dewdney

My ICE year!

During my ICE year, I unlocked so many experiences such as a trip to the capital of Canada, where parliament is, and so many other symbolic places. We also went winter camping. This was hard. It was cold, our tent was claustrophobic and we had to clean dishes in -10 water… ew! But I made it through. During winter camping, I learned that I am resilient and that I can power through anything I want to if I really believe in it. Whilst winter camping, we learned how to disarm a mousetrap. I wasn’t originally planning on participating in this exercise, but my curiosity got the better of me. Obviously, as soon as my name was called to go up I regretted putting my hand on. What if the mouse trap broke my fingers right off? “Enough of that,” I thought to myself as I went up front. I wasn’t confident that I would be able to do it. But I did. The moral of the story is that by going winter camping, I realized that I have a lot of curiosity. I also have shown myself courage. As a person who doesn’t like being in front of crowds of people, it was quite a hard decision to put my hand up, asking to disarm a mousetrap. But I’m proud that I conjured up that courage because after, I felt so proud of myself. Not just after that one moment, but for days I felt so proud of myself. I still do feel really proud, to be honest.

As for Ottawa, we went to an escape room. I’ve never really liked escape rooms because I never had much interest in them. My brain just wasn’t really wired for riddle solving. But in Ottawa, I learned that it was. Out of my group, I alone solved most of the riddles. Which I think showed me that I do have intelligence up there, it just doesn’t always show up at the right times.

Like I said before, I can be shy. Sometimes, putting my hand up to answer a question or comment is very scary for me. I could answer wrong, I could look dumb, I could mispronounce a word. But I would put my hand up anyways. Gotta do what you’ve gotta do right? There was this one time a question was asked about the meaning of certain landmarks in Ottawa and their meaning. I was talking about the eternal flame. The concept that I was trying to explain was very confusing to everyone including myself, however, I was consistent. The concept may have been confusing but eventually, after a good 5 minutes of embarrassing myself, a fellow classmate understood what I was trying to say. I didn’t feel proud of myself, but I felt as though I had accomplished something even if my communication wasn’t 100%. This experience was good because I taught myself that consistency always works and that giving up doesn’t get you anywhere. If you’re going to get anywhere in life, you have to REALLY want to get there because no one else will get you there.

I think that Ottawa was one of the greatest Canadian experiences that I could have. What’s more Canadian than the capital of Canada. Maple syrup and hockey probably. Anyways, when we went to the WWI museum, I felt a large amount of pride for where I come from. I’ve always loved being Canadian and being apart of a diverse and accepting society, and even though Canada isn’t perfect, and we are viewed as a ‘soft’ and hockey-obsessed country, we have pushed through two different World War’s. That’s tough. One particular moment stood out to me though as I stared up at a warplane hanging from the ceiling. I pictured it flying up high in the sky, a brave Canadian pilot at the wheel, and how that one individual made the biggest impact on how I live today. If that pilot didn’t risk their life for the better good of Canada, I could possibly be German, or maybe I wouldn’t even be here at all. From this experience, I thought about how much I take for granted, and how I need to treat my opportunities and material things with more respect. I think I have grown more loyal to this country, and I have developed more as a citizen of Canada by being well educated, being well on my way to helping this country be an amazing place for everyone, no matter who they are… just like all of our soldiers. Proud to be Canadian.

My Final Ice Project!!

I made a podcast focusing on how COVID-19 will affect the Canadian economy.

You can listen to it here