Discovering Adventure
As Academic Prefect and Drama Co-captain, Scarlett, pointed out, we’re not always aware we’re on a journey, discovering the grit needed to form a pearl.
Each week, our student leaders share their insights with their peers in Assembly.
Like many of you here today, I grew up reading and watching adventures. I devoured Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, and every dystopian young adult series imaginable. Until I turned 11, I had a crush on Sean Astin from the 80s adventure movie, The Goonies – only to discover that he is the same age as my dad.
I’m sure you can imagine my disappointment when I turned eight and didn’t find a wardrobe to Narnia; when I turned 11, and my letter from Hogwarts didn’t arrive; and finally, when I turned 12, and my best friend didn’t turn out to be a half-goat, half-human guide to Camp Half-Blood.
However, I still have hope that at the age of 50, Gandalf will come and whisk me away on a long-awaited adventure.
I yearned for adventure. I wanted to run through a forest, swim through a flood, and live a life as fantastic as the stories I read.
Now, it’s a common exercise of mine to read through my diary entries from past years. I relish – and detest alike – the ability to flick back several pages and gain insight on days where seemingly important things happened or indeed, nothing happened at all, which regardless can be just as interesting.
Through this, I have come to realise that perhaps I have adventured. But every adventure has a conflict, a struggle; grit to form a pearl.
One entry stands out – 19 April 2022 – the day I met with the biggest challenge I have experienced. I was 14 and in Year 9. That was the day someone in my family was diagnosed with an illness.
Over the following months, I watched this person endure invasive treatments and surgeries. I saw someone I had once taken for granted as a constant in my life become the strongest person I knew. But the bigger the grit, the bigger the pearl. Through this struggle, my family only became closer.
At the same time, other diary entries show glimpses of joy. I was lucky enough to be in the School play, The Crucible, and, after three years of trying, finally made the IGSA Cross Country team. I had a community. I had support. And even though those around me didn’t know what I was going through, they treated me with unconditional kindness and respect. Looking back, I realise they were kind to me because they, too, were enduring their own grit, forming their own pearl.
We often talk about how every pearl – every journey through hardship – is unique. But with nearly 1,000 of us in this room, surely some of us have experienced grit in the same way?
In Nausea, one of my favourite novels, Sartre suggests that we are often not aware of our adventures until they end.
"Something begins in order to end: an adventure doesn’t let itself be extended; it achieves significance only through its death … I think that I would agree – even if I had nearly died, lost a fortune, a friend – to live it all over again, in the same circumstances, from beginning to end."
So, what is the pearl born from this grit? What is my adventure?
I am seven months away from turning 18 and graduating from Wenona. Childhood is coming to a close, and I am drifting away from the grounded community where I have found comfort for almost 13 years.
Many of you won’t yet relate to this feeling of nostalgia – you still have many years of schooling ahead of you, but for Year 12, as our school life draws to a close, I am beginning to realise, my goodness, what an adventure it has been.
I hope you all cherish every moment of your education because it is more than just a privilege – it is an adventure.