Gemma – Howick / Australia
“My name is Gemma. I’m actually from Australia – I call Australia home, but when I come back here and I come to Howick I feel like this is home as well.
So I’ve got two homes. To my 11 year old self I would probably say that everything always ends up okay, no matter how worried you are about things, any curve balls you get; it all ends up being okay in the end.
My Nan; she is still alive. She’s 90 this year actually, and she’s actually coming back to New Zealand for her 90th. She has always said that to us – and it always sort of sticks in my head when things are really bad – “it’ll always end up being okay in the end, so don’t worry too much about it.”
I grew up in Howick. We sort of travelled around. Dad used to work on farms and things and then we ended up in Howick and I went to Macleans College in third form. I went to BBI and then I did a year at Macleans and then my parents horribly took me to Australia. I hated them for awhile for that. I thought I’d cried all my tears and there were no more tears left, and then we ended up having a great life in Australia and actually just literally as we were coming here, Mum said, would you want to come back to New Zealand or are you good in Australia?
And I’m like, I think it was a good choice to move to Australia but I’ve got lots of friends here. We’ve actually just come back for a wedding on Waiheke Island on Saturday. So I’ve still got that same group of friends from BBI and from Macleans, and it was like one big reunion. So that was great, and now I have met my partner in Australia and we have a nine month old who’s with me right now. So it’s her first overseas trip.
I’m a teacher. I think it would be beneficial for young people to spend more time with the elderly. I’m not quite sure how that would look, but I think that would be really good for the community.
I’ve always loved kids. I worked in an afterschool care and vacation care program when I was about 14 or 15 and yeah I just always loved kids. I really do actually love being an educator. I felt like I always wanted to do that – if I wasn’t a teacher, the only other thing I could think about doing was to be a police officer, and now I definitely wouldn’t do that. I must like jobs where I have to be bossy or something, or to boss people around, because I do love being a teacher. It’s a great job, and I usually teach 11 – 10 year olds.
I think we need to start talking about 11 year olds, like how to communicate effectively with people. Learning how to manage stress and everything like that, but I think it starts early and it’s quite hard to break the cycle sometimes. I know teachers are working really hard in their classrooms to try and do that. I think females, we sometimes don’t really communicate effectively with our partners, so I feel like if we could all learn to just talk nicely, manage stress a bit better, breathe more often, along those lines.”
