Victoria, BC seems to be a drawcard for many people, not only from within Canada but other parts of the world as well. Like many Australians that now call Victoria, BC home, it was a long journey to get here but not as long as the journey my speech has taken me on and continues to do so.
Ask anyone and they’ll likely tell you that being thirteen is an incredibly difficult time. There is so much going on at that point in a kid's life. We are growing at a pace that's impossibly fast. The girls seem to be WAY ahead of the boys. Us boys are standing on the opposite side of the dance floor, teetering between growing tall and getting mustaches and not being able to talk without our voices cracking. Needless to say, things are a little socially awkward at this point in our lives.
When my mom told me that I was going to the Canadian Stuttering Association (CSA) conference, I wasn’t excited at all. I thought it would be one of those stereotypical conventions - just talking and boring games, but it wasn’t.
Christina Spicer
I knew something was different about me. No one wanted to tell me, but I knew I didn’t sound the same as everyone else. When I reflect back on my adolescence, I would describe it in one simple word: alone. I didn’t understand why I was different, how I could fix it, or why me? Despite the sincerity of my questions, I posed them to a silent audience, from an empty stage, in what felt like a dark room.
I've been attending and participating in Canadian and American stuttering conferences for seven years and was always eager to check out conferences in other countries. That opportunity came up when my friend, Anita Blom, told me about the Nordic Stuttering Seminar 2016 taking place in Finland from September 2 to the 4th, that included a trip to Estonia.
Graduation season is just around the corner and while graduating is a time of great enjoyment, accomplishment and celebration, it also marks a time a great change. This is the time when recent grads will put down their books, join the workforce and of course start paying back those student loans!