May 9, 2013 – A fantastic day in Victoria ….

Today was awesome. The plane ride to Victoria was short and sweet.  15 minutes to fly from Victoria to Vancouver.  That is definitely the way to travel.   The weather was fabulous.  And the view from Lake Shawnigan was so pretty.  I loved being there.  And all the kids and staff were great too. I arrived in time to see some group activities and to have lunch.  Sat through a spectacular presentation.  And then there was me …  Talking about Amanda is still hard I am finding.  Especially when it is front of so many kids that are her age.  I did ramble on for an hour and 10 minutes.  And I was so worried that I wouldn’t have enough to say.  I don’t think I said it all.  My ADHD kind of presentation was all over.  Yes, I cried and got emotional.  Remember that pictures do that for me and I had a PPT done up.  Also showed the Wonder Woman video and that always gets me going.

My major message for the youth was basically that treating people with kindness and respect would eventually reduce the bullying type behaviours that exist.  I told parts about Amanda’s story, her life when she was young, her life as a teenager, internet stuff, etc.  It was varied and mixed with emotion and laughter.  Darn .. didn’t realize i had talked for that long.  I did manage to get many comments from the kids on how they would change government legislation and laws if they had the chance.   I plan to type them up and I will post them in bits and pieces.

I am off to Winnipeg tomorrow and I still have to pack. 😦

So here is a poem that someone sent me …  so fitting for today and the upcoming date of May 10th.  I will write tomorrow from Winnipeg.