Little Girl, Found

For various reasons, I haven't posted a blog post for months. Other than the fact I've been ridiculously busy, I've just not felt it.

I've written lots of things. I've even started to write a book. But I wasn't ready to share any of it with the world.

Tonight, however, I am drawing a line under 2013 and the fear that came with the unknown and the hidden memories that I wasn't prepared to deal with until recently.

Tonight, after 15 months, I will be seeing my counsellor for the very last time.

I don't know what to say now. I guess I don't know what to expect. Maybe I've forgotten something important, some repressed memory, that will one day jump out to surprise me and push me straight back to square one.

Or maybe I'll be ok.

Who knows?

I suppose no-one really knows, do they? Otherwise where would be the fun? We can make plans and assess risks as much as we like but, as a wise woman once said to me, whatever happens is going to happen for a reason. Plans are good, but things rarely go to plan. You just have to learn to go with it.

I'm talking in clichés again. Sorry.

So I suppose what I'm trying to say is this is me. This is where I'm at. Am I ready to let go of my safety net? Absolutely not. But is there ever going to be a better time to let go? No.

Letting go is hard and scary, but I have two choices. I can cling on to this, and the reminder of all the negative things, or I can let go, knowing that I am never going to be in this exact place at this exact time ever again in my life.

So tonight I am letting go. Letting go of little girl, lost.

At this moment, I am little girl, found.

Onwards and upwards.

(OK, enough of the clichés. I'm done now).

CSW57 Update: STOP The Tide

Tuesday 5th March 2013

(Or: how I got very angry at the EU)

This morning started bright and early as I got up, put on my green (for girls) tights, a skirt and my "Stop the Violence" kit, and headed to Starbucks for a last-minute run-through of the speech I was to be giving this morning.  

After a super-large cup of tea and the biggest slice of cinnamon bread I have EVER seen I headed across to the UN Church Center.  The butterflies were flapping away on overtime (blame the cake!) and I think I went to the toilet at least three times within the space of half an hour (sorry - toilet chat), but eventually it was 10.30am.  The room was full of people - not just in seats, but standing at the back and sitting on the floor as well!

This was a joint parallel event run by WAGGGS and Soroptimists International called “STOP The Tide: Tackling Adolescent Dating Violence”.  We started with a presentation by a lady from the US Government about her work tackling Trafficking, which was really interesting but I'm not sure I heard much of as I tried to ignore the butterflies, the number of people in the room, and the fact that I'd put my tights on backwards (don't ask!)

All too quickly, I heard my introduction - Fiona, one of WAGGGS' Youth Delegation Coordinators, was chairing the panel - and so I stood up and walked over to the microphone.  It wasn't until I got there that I realised I wasn't wearing my shoes.  Oh well, no turning back now.

Karaoke, UN-Style

As I started to speak, I realised the room had gone quiet.  As had the butterflies.  After a couple of seconds, the nerves had disappeared and I was starting to enjoy myself.  I knew what I was talking about and I recognised at least 10 of the people in the audience from the previous night's NGO reception.  I was aware of the reactions I was getting, particularly to a very un-childproof extract from 50 Shades of Grey, and they were exactly as I was expecting.  *phew*
 
I spoke about the issue of teen dating violence from a UK perspective, focussing on sexting and the impact of the media, particularly films, on creating stereotypes. I also spoke about why non-formal education is key to empowering girls and young women, giving examples of the work my Brownies did during our pilot of WAGGGS' Voices Against Violence syllabus. 

Signs of healthy and unhealthy relationships

After my speech, we ran an activity from the Voices syllabus, asking participants to look at a picture they had been given when they arrived and to decide whether it showed a sign of a healthy or unhealthy relationship.  We then heard about Soroptimist International's Live Your Dream campaign and the Take Back the Tech! campaign.  

The event was a massive success – I'm not sure how many people attended, but I was told afterwards that somewhere between 60 and 100 people were turned away because there was no space in the room.  I'm so glad I didn't know that beforehand! 

The biggest thing I was most nervous about on this trip was how I would respond if anyone asked me questions – I always worried that I would stutter and say something stupid. But that didn't happen, and I felt really confident speaking as part of the panel, so that was a huge confidence-boost!  I talked about my amazing Brownie unit so much, I'm sure everyone at the UN is sick of hearing about this small group of young girls in Edinburgh, but I don't care.  Those girls were absolutely the inspiration I needed to keep me going when things got tough.  They also gave me great examples of why non-formal education is ACE!

Some Gender/ Equality MEPs

After this event, I went to an EU NGO meeting with some MEPs and a discussion session with one of the EU Negotiators.  At the first meeting, my challenge was to sit directly opposite the Chair and stare at him until he looked at me, and then not break eye contact.  I'm not entirely sure why I decided this was a good strategy, but it definitely got me noticed, and when it came to question time, my hand was up and I got the first question in. 

The session with the negotiator was really interesting, although I started to get really frustrated because the EU only refers to "violence against women" and doesn't mention girls.  When I asked about this (obviously I got the first question in again!), I was told the EU wouldn't be discussing girls seperately to women because there were existing agreements in place that relate to girls.  And here began the anger!

Some more Equality MEPs

My final session of the day was an EU Side Event (these are events run by member states or the UN) in the UN Headquarters called “Comprehensive Strategies to tackle Domestic Violence”, where six EU ministers spoke. The session was really interesting, but I had noticed that the EU only talks about violence against women and doesn't mention girls at all. I also noticed that they didn't say anything about tackling the root causes of domestic violence, one of which is adolescent dating violence. So I stood up and asked them why. The response was that they only recognise male and female, and not woman/girl or man/boy. They ignored my question about teen dating violence, and we later found out that this was because the EU is doing nothing tackle this issue. I got very angry and spent the rest of the evening being really frustrated! 

Apparently, this is something I'm pretty passionate about!

Four internet-free days

Sunday 24^th – Wednesday 27^th February 2013

So, it's been a while! I hope you are well – we have a lot of catching up to do!

I will miss things out, purely for your sanity (and my terrible memory), but here is a very brief overview of my first four days here in the Big Apple.

Me, terrified, at (nearly the top of) the Empire State Building!

Sunday was a totally manic day – we decided to go and explore the local area, our main objectives being to buy New York City Passes and to see Times Square. As it turned out, we achieved both of these things and more, all before 2pm (when we went back to the hotel and promptly fell asleep!) Due to some disastrous map-reading on my part (which is impressive considering NYC is built in straight lines), we completely bypassed Times Square and found ourselves at the south end of Central Park, having visited the Empire State Building, NY Public Library, the Chrysler Building AND Grand Central Station en route. Once we'd fought our way through the hordes of horse-drawn carriages and pigeons, we found a map and realised what we thought was Broadway was actually 6^th Avenue. Luckily we were close enough that we could walk back to the hotel along the right road, so we managed to visit Times Square before going to Macy's (that was particularly traumatic – whoever decided disco music, fluorescent lights and make-up counters was a good idea is just mean) for giant pizza and sugar-cinnamon bagels. After all the excitement, what we needed most was a trip up the Empire State building – I was traumatised enough, so the thought of being 86 storeys above ground level didn't faze me at all! I think in total today we walked about 8 miles, so I was glad to get back to the hotel for a lie down!

Me & Lady Liberty- my ears were cold

On Monday, we were hoping to visit Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty but these have been closed since Hurricane Sandy hit at the end of 2012, so instead we took a 2 hour cruise around the south of Manhattan, passing the Statue of Liberty, the Financial District, and turning at the UN Headquarters. I managed to position myself right at the front of the boat, so had the best view (which was awesome apart from the fact it was FREEZING!) After we'd warmed up with lunch at Subway, we went to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for a couple of hours. The art was great, but my favourite thing about MoMa was the Security Guards – they all seem to have a really wicked sense of humour – hiding behind installations and jumping out at each other, high-fiving small children and generally having fun! We walked home down 5^th Avenue and saw all the shops and a true representation of what NYC is like at rush hour!

LOOK!  NEW YORK!!

Tuesday, we had decided, would be a lazy day with a well-deserved lie-in. So of course I woke up at 4am. I gave up trying to sleep by 6am so instead enjoyed a couple of hours sitting in the hotel lobby working on a presentation I will be giving next week. After breakfast, we walked to Central Park where we visited the John Lennon memorial (Strawberry Fields) and then carried on to the American Museum of Natural History. We went to the planetarium and then wandered round the very random collection of installations – we liked the dinosaurs best. We left mid-afternoon to walk back through Central Park to the Rockefeller Center. Since I went up the Empire State Building, I didn't really have an excuse not to visit Top of the Rock, so after a Starbucks, we took the lift up 70-something storeys to the outdoor viewing platform. The views were incredible, and it was nice to be able to see Central Park as well as the Empire State Building. We walked up to the very top, which had even more amazing views but I didn't like because the fences were only waist-height. After some faffing around in the shop at the top, we walked back out onto the viewing platform to find that the sun was setting, so we hung around to see the lights of NYC – AMAZING!!

The lights of NYC

Alice In Wonderland - Central Park

Wednesday was the day I discovered my waterproof jacket is not waterproof. This was the day we walked 60 blocks to get to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met), so I spent half of the day dripping everywhere. The Met is HUGE – I am pretty sure no-one has ever actually seen the whole thing in one day. We spent about 1.5 hours in one section before realising a) we were hungry, b) the cafeteria was on the other side of the museum, and c) we'd only done one corner of one (of three) levels. While we were having lunch, we planned our strategy and decided the best approach would be to just visit the sculpture, weapons and Egyptian exhibitions. Even that took the best part of 5 hours, so we were glad when we left that it had stopped raining and we could walk home via the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park.

So, a very brief overview of four very manic few days in New York City.

Tomorrow – a taxi ride, a new hotel, meeting some wonderful people and the real reason I am in the Big Apple!

Rx

Packing

Something you should know about me - I really dislike packing.

I try to be organised.  I always have a list.  I do lots of research into wherever I'm visiting; I know what the weather will be like, I know where I can get food (having weird dietary requirements is a total pain!), I know how the transport system works, I know what currency I need and what the time difference will be...  So in theory, packing should be easy.  

But it's not.  This is what my bedroom floor looks like just now:

To pack...

You might say that looks quite organised, but it's been like that for the last 3 days.  And my rucksack isn't that big.   

Getting to this point has been pretty stressful.  Last week, one week before we travel, our washing machine decided to stop working.  We spent two days staring at it, surrounded by piles of clothes, willing it to start working.  Eventually, we realised that it's not going to fix itself and had to resign ourselves to the fact we were going to have to hand wash 2 weeks worth of clothes in the bath.  Fortunately, my lovely friend Angela and her working washing machine saved the day and have spent the last three days surrounded by my dirty laundry.  It's a good job we know each other well.

In 2010, I was involved in a Girlguiding UK GOLD (Guiding Overseas Linked with Development) project in Guyana, South America.  The rest of the team realised pretty quickly that I am really bad at packing.  I took just about everything except the kitchen sink (it wouldn't fit in my rucksack).  My personal favourite random and unnecessary item was the giant chalk.  To this day, I have no idea why I decided giant chalk was a good idea, but still I took some.  After three weeks of being ridiculed for taking giant chalk, I was determined to find a use for it...

Giant Chalk Challenge!

We made a giant board game to teach people about environmental issues!  So the giant chalk DID come in handy... 

Ok, I promise I won't take giant chalk to the UN.  But what *do* I take for two weeks in New York?  How do I fit it all into one rucksack?

Answers on a postcard please...

And yes, I do realise that in the time spent writing this post I could have packed my bag AND had a cup of tea.  That's how much I hate packing!

Rosyx