IBAAW

My name is Aisling. Right off the bat, you may notice my name is a little odd. Unless you live in certain parts of the UK, or you know someone else with the same name, of course! It is Irish Gaelic, and means dream, or vision (less common definitions include inspiration and illusion) .However, I live in Canada, and have only encountered my name on a few rare occurances! I'm pretty much used to people pronouncing my name wrong, however, I still blush a bit at being called ASS-LING which was most popular when I was attending a French immersion school for junior high (grades 7 to 9).

I've pretty much spent my entire life as a student, up until now. I graduated in 2006 from Crescent Heights High School, here in Calgary. I actually graduated in February, but didn't realize it until a bit into the second semester, so I just stuck around until June. I had drama anyway! My life was pretty typical during this bit. I lived at home with my parents, I have one slightly younger brother, and I had to deal with my best friend leaving for a student exchange to Belgium. Then, I found my next learning adventure!

On November 22, 2006 I left for the Katimavik program. It's a nine month youth volunteer program. There are groups of 12 max. participants from all over Canada, who are assigned to live together in three host communities for three months each. We learn all sorts of things such as leadership skills, cooking, cleaning, and how to live with large amounts of other people our own age! We also each held a full-time position with a non-profit organization, so we were able to learn about different jobs and acquire different skills. It is a very interesting program, and I give it my full recommendation.

More recently, as in, on August 22, 2007, I returned from Katimavik and have begun to settle back into my life in Calgary. It's been a bit of an odd adjustment, going from a house of ten to a house of four, and trying to get to know my friends again. It will also be interesting to see exactly how much learned in Katimavik. Some people say it takes a while for it to sink in and for past participants to realize what they learned. I'm very excited to learn more about myself and the world around me!