Scholarship / Narrative Essay Scholarship Elementary School Memory; Every Child is an Artist [4]

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Every Child is an Artist

"Every child is an artist, the problem is staying an artist as you grow up." Picasso emphasizes that through petty insecurities the will to create burns out. The thought "what do others think of me" has power to demolish thoughts that are true to yourself. I reminiscent in the time where no barriers withheld my ideas. At eleven I was oblivious to society ideals, disregarded what others may think of me, and open minded -true to myself.

Using teamwork, creativity, and critical thinking, my team, "The Terrific Chorifics" and I, persevered though both the regional and provincial tournaments. After many days of practicing, fundraising and traveling, Jasper, Zach, Quinn, Taylor, Dani and I had arrived: it was the 25th anniversary Destination ImagiNation Global Finals in Knoxville, Tennessee. Competing in the improvisational category, our team was a thinking-on-our-toes theatre group. We would be given a certain chore and thirty minutes to plan out characters and props for a short skit. In mid performance, an obstacle and a previously researched person would be presented to us. We would fuse acting with imagination as we performed on the spot to create a solution to the obstacle and incorporate a new character as we finished the chore. We were not only a team, but became best friends that were masters at laughing. Secluded and humble, the team was off on an adventure from James Thompson to The University Of Tennessee that not only saturated us in diversity, but created friendships and memories to last a life time.

This university must be the size of Powell River, I thought as we were having to catching the bus to get to the opening ceremonies. Because I was the team representative, I had to separate from my team when we arrived. Entering the arena, I held the royal red, sunshine yellow and ocean blue silky cloth along with other wide-eyed overwhelmed kids from BC. I looked to the crowd to see the familiar faces of my team, their parents, and my dad. Instead I saw each state, province or country seated together around the arena with their flag colors, creating a rainbow of nationalities. Marching the flag around the arena, a symphony of twenty thousand screams numbed my ears. It was almost like my first concert, with blaring music, lasers dancing and ducking in the air and immense amounts of excitement packed in one place. After the ceremonies my Dad asked, "So how was it?"

"Wow..." was all I could say. Later exploring the campus, we participated in Destination ImagiNation's favorite pastime: Pin Trading. A team member from China approached me and gestured at one of my BC pins. I nodded, unhooked my pin and offered it for his China pin. It was my first time communicating with someone with a language barrier. With exhilaration, I ran back to my team and told them, "I just traded pins with someone who didn't speak English!" After expanding our pin collection, it was time to meet our buddy team - from Guatemala. We played a game of soccer that came to a tie, traded some souvenirs from each of our countries, and made hopes of seeing each other next year. Although it was my first time traveling to a new country, I felt like I got a little taste of many more countries around the world

Thursday approached quickly; it was competition day. To this day, at seventeen, performing in front of an audience would drown me in a sea of anxiety. Let alone improvisational theatre that you cannot even plan ahead for! But somehow, when I was eleven I performed in front of judges, my school, and large audiences and it was like they weren't even there. To me it just seemed like a game I was playing with my friends, everyone else was just in the distance watching. It was time and we were given our chore: to teach someone a song that is a similar tune to another song. Lack of sleep, anxiety and stress got to us as our planning was messy with disagreements and wasted time. When we got on stage, we pulled through, but ran out of time. Disappointment stung at my throat. I never wanted to win. I just wanted us to do our best and I know we were capable of a much better performance. Failure rolled in and hit me like a concrete wave. A tear rolled down my cheek.

My dad explained to me, "The only reason we came down here was to pin trade." I laughed and was quickly distracted during the after party. It was a playground from a child's dream. Outdoor pools, waterslides, sumo wrestling, and a slip and slide. There were even giant plastic balls you could run around in like a hamster. Also, a studio to sing and record karaoke in and a field full of blow up apparatuses. From then on I never thought about the performance again.

The whole week was action packed with meeting new people, exciting activities and turned out to be the best experience of my life. I owe it all to Mrs. Palmer from James Thompson for taking the reins. When nobody else thought we could, she ambitiously said, "We can make it happen." From there my school, community and our team's families worked hard to make our dreams come true.

Looking back at our crazy adventure the best part was all the laughs we shared as a team. We were all very different from each other, but none of us ever cared. That's the beauty of childhood friendships, they are completely blind and ignorant to everything except one's nature. I fully believe our team's open-heartedness was shown to us by Jasper. A natural leader, that lead with his heart and never words. A wise old soul packed into a life loving child. With a beaming smile, contagious laugh and a love for learning, he always lived every moment to the fullest. I saw that his child-like wonder for life never died, even when he faced the toughest times. He taught me that every child knows how to live life momentously, the problem is keeping the child inside of you when you grow up.