Story 4: Gender

Grad day, we look forward to it all year everyone dresses up and goes on stage, it is suppose to be about looking back on all the memories we made but it turns into a who looks best. All the girls are excepted to go out months in advance and buy fancy dresses, some girls send hundreds of dollars on these dress. Personally I am not a dress person, I only wear them about three times a year. It is what is expected of girls, and boys have to dress up in suits but they are not excepted to send money like girls are. There were lots of girls who send loads of money on a dress to wear it for a couple of hours to walk in a circle around a gym. It is supposed to be a beautiful.

As we where all arriving about an hour before the ceremony started so we could hang out on this important. I realized that one girl wasn’t in a dress, she was wearing a suit, everyone else looked like a princess, and she decided to be herself. In that moment I looked back and realized I had never seen her in a dress since she moved here in grade ten. I always new she was more of a tomboy but it surprised me because she not wearing a dress on grad day, the one day that a it is truly excepted of a girl to wear a dress. It made me feel happy for her, to be comfortable in her own skin, and proud of who she is, and the regular steorotypes of a girl didn’t apply to her, but that didnt make her any less of a women.

She dressed like a man according to some people that day, but why do we have put gender to it, why can’t she just dress like herself. She thought it was more important for her to be comfortable that day than it was to look like what was expected of her. She will forever be one of the bravest women I know.

Story 3: Socioeconomic Status

It was the summer time about two years ago, I was in Toronto with my family, we where staying in downtown for a couple days. It was our second day and I had been to Toronto many times before to visit. I had visited most of the attractions in the in the city, and it is one of my favourite places to visit. We where staying in this really fancy hotel, and it made my feel out of place it was too fancy for me, I was not in a high enough class to be there.

It was such a beautiful and instead of driving through the city we decided to walk the couple of blocks to the restaurant we where going to eat at and the harbour front market. Our walk took about 15 minutes, along the way we had to cross under a bridge, and under there where loads of homeless people living with nothing. This was the first time a had really seen a homeless person and were they stayed. I had only really seen hitchhikers in my small town, I had been to many big cities before but I had never seen them like this, we normally stay in the tourist parts of the city. It opened my eyes to how bad things really can for some people and the thing they go through.

In that moment walking under the bridge I realize how lucky I truly am for what I have I was on a vacation and this people had nothing. I had never had to go to bed hungry or missed on things on basic things becasue my family had no money. My heart broke for this people who had nothing in their life.

This city made me realize how different and far apart the classes really are, I saw the high class and the very low class, and I realized I am somewhere in the middle, and very lucky to be where I am.