What do you love about your current role?

I love that studying has taken me to Europe!

I have spent most of my life in Ōtepoti, so the shift to Denmark has been a big change. I have had to get used to a lot of new things; they drive on the right hand side, it snows in February, and I don’t leave supermarkets having spent half my savings.

In a way, I feel a bit like a year nine again having to make entirely new friends, asking strangers if I’m going to the right classroom, getting super nervous before new trainings with older students. though I wouldn’t say this is an entirely bad thing. Being out of my comfort zone, completely away from my safety net, has forced me to come more into my own. In addition, I have also been granted with copious amounts of new experiences and opportunities. I am incredibly excited to learn in a totally different social environment, for the chance to make friends from all over the world, and for the insanely cheep flights to other countries.

I hope that when I return I will do so as a more developed version of myself (both emotionally and in terms of my wardrobe). I am only three weeks in, so my optimistic stance is prone to change (especially considering my love for shopping and rapidly depleting funds). Though in total honesty, think that this next half a year is going to be a pretty incredible time of my life.

If you ever get the opportunity to travel, be that overseas or to a different part of Aotearoa, I 100% recommend you take it. being a year nine again is not the worst thing that can happen, especially when it is in a pretty cool part of the world.

Your highlight from high school?

I loved sports tournament weeks. even though they were usually hosted in Invercargill and Palmerston North, some of my best memories from school were made there. I also just loved being in class with my friends. I don’t think I have ever laughed as hard as when I was sitting back row in physics.

What do you wish you could tell your younger self?

Firstly, i would tell my younger self to not be afraid of getting older. Throughout high school, and even into the early years of uni, growing up terrified me. It meant the onset arrival of reality, the pressures of knowing my future, and (perhaps scariest) the disappearance of my youth. The latter really used to bother me, as through media and society we are constantly hearing this idea that youth is the “ultimate era”, and that the “best years of your life” is something that you can age out of. It’s a pretty morbid concept, one that I now (with my brain having developed ever so slightly more since 18) totally disagree with. i know that the experiences i had at 13 are different to the ones i am having at 23 (as i am sure will be the case for 33, 43, and so on), they happened at different stages of my life when different things were important to me. but one is no less valuable to my life or my subsequent enjoyment of it!

I love looking to my parents, or my grandparents, or other older figures in my life, and seeing what it is that they have done and loved as they have grown and continue to grow. it is through seeing them that i have come to understand the potential for an indefinite extension on the “best years of your life”. Even though I am only 23, and probably have a good few years before anything I say is taken seriously, I think getting older is never something we should resent or fear. ageing should not be acquainted with gradual loss of fun, rather should be considered an aid to it.

Secondly, I would tell my younger self to be more organised, because writing assignments the night before has become a terrible habit of mine.