Dedicated to SHAD Western Fellows of 2017, Program Directors and Assistants and everyone who made my summer SHAD experience possible.
You can find a few accounts of SHAD Fellows’ experiences here on Youth Are Awesome, and from each of them you can easily deduce that SHAD is certainly a summer of a lifetime. I can spend hours telling you how amazing the program is, but since there are already countless articles and blogs outlining just that, I want to take this opportunity to share my own experience.
Before we get into my personal story, I wanted to note that there’s a common misconception that SHAD stands for something. In a sense, the charity does stand for something; It values Creativity, Excellence, Community, Diversity, and Responsibility. That SHAD itself is an acronym is a total myth.
It was Canada Day and I was packing for my flight to London, Ontario. Never would I have thought that a one-month camp would generate such special and dear connections for me.
The first morning I remember standing outside one of the SHAD’s dorm rooms, after being invited to hang out when I woke up, and waiting for at least five minutes at a time to knock when I wouldn’t interrupt the conversation inside. My stomach was knotted with nervousness; fearful that I wouldn’t know what to say to my fellow campmates, I contemplated going back to my room. I’ve always been afraid of socializing with new people and I couldn’t find a will to enter that dorm room. Finally, I convinced myself that everyone must have the same feelings as me and I tentatively knocked. It took a few times before the voices inside acknowledged my knocking.
And just like that, my journey began. We bonded over Jenga, card games, pool and table tennis. We sang “Slow Hands” on repeat and created hilarious skits involving wacky words like flabbergasted and cloudburst. We admired each other’s talents and complemented each other’s skill sets.
SHAD provided me with an environment that allowed me to fulfill a lot of my goals that I didn’t even know I had, such as talking about Snapchat for my SHAD Talk (which was SHAD’s rendition of TED Talks) and being a punny emcee.
STEAM: the very core of the SHAD experience. Performing scientific procedures in a chemistry lab and learning about astronomy was incredibly fun. We got sneak peaks into the latest technology at WindEEE. Our inner engineers were kindled from building model windmills, rooves and robots. Wire sculpture and watercolor paintings showcased amazing art skills. And lastly, we wore our math hats when solving math problems during our math lecture(which also involved playing with a bee colony simulator that the professor coded himself).
Now aside from what I did, my experience with the people there was what brought me to make profound realizations about myself. SHAD is never about never and is always about always- always taking risks and putting yourself out there. Knowing that I was constantly in a judgment-free zone, I did a lot of things that I normally would not have had the courage to do.
In the blink of an eye, my SHAD experience was over. My physical experience at least, because I know I will forever carry on what I learned forwards. On the last morning, I was groggy and all nervous again, just like on day one; except I felt this way for a different reason. I was nervous about never seeing this group of amazing individuals, my ohana, ever again. Everyone at my campus helped change me for the better and I can only express so much gratitude.
These were the words I was left with at the end of my journey.
“I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.
I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.
I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.
I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.
I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.
I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.
I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye.”