Hello!
My name is Jessica. I’m 15 years old in grade 10 at École Dr. Charles Best Secondary in Coquitlam, BC. In school, I am enrolled in the French Immersion program (Which means classes such as Gym, Career Life Education and Social Studies are classes I take in French), my favourite subjects are English, Science and Drama, and I take an extra class which is a band course, where I play Trumpet.
Here is a picture of me!
In my family, our greatest values are based on kindness, loyalty, generosity and community. Our family is very close, where we are almost always in contact with one another even with very distant relations! (We stay in close contact with everyone in my family, from siblings, to cousins, to even 3rd cousins and family in other parts of the world!). The majority of my family is either here (British Columbia) or in Ireland, where my grandmother immigrated to British Columbia from. I love going back and visiting family to reconnect rather than just online or through social media. Another family value (the most important) is our Christianity, and staying closely connected to our religion. My family has been raised through Catholic teachings, but as time goes on we have grown to follow more directly the general Christian beliefs (Catholicism is a more specific subsection of Christianity, so although we do follow those teachings, we don’t follow everything exactly, which means that we are more of an open Christian family.)
Here is a picture of my family.
One thing that is interesting about me which is also my passion is that I really enjoy the performing arts and everything that goes along with it. I have been dancing since the age of 3, (Ballet, Modern, Hip Hop, Tap, Contemporary, Stage, and most recently; Jazz.). I dance competitively with a studio called “Encore Dance Academy” where we meet with other studios and compete against one another. I also enjoy theatre (musical and just general productions). I started acting when I was in elementary school, where I would act in school plays as characters, like “Rudolph” in “Melton the Warm Hearted Snowman”, “The Little Mermaid”, “Lucy” from “A Charlie Brown Christmas”, “Fairy Godmother” from “Twinderella”, “Scary Uncle Vladimir” from “Dear Edwina” and many others. In addition to theatre, I also have experience in acting in films, where I have acted as an extra in movies and films such as “Wonder”,“Full House” and others. When I was 11, I actually travelled to New York where I studied for a week in a full-week-seminar called “Beginnings Workshop”, where I was able to enhance my skills in the performing arts, finishing by performing in an off-broadway showcase. In addition to this, I enjoy singing, whereas I would sing in school choirs, as well as an association called “BC Girls Choir”. Finally, I really enjoy public speaking. Ever since I was younger I would participate in school speech competitions, and in grade 7 I was able to compete regionally for a speech I wrote discussing the future and technology. Most recently, I received 3rd place in a poetry competition called “Poetry in Voice”, where I then competed Regionally and helped to represent my school with two others from Charles Best, where we won second place.
Here are some pictures of me from my different performances.
I first heard about the Butterfly Effect quite recently when my teacher suggested for me to enrol myself into the course where I could work in a community with other students that enjoy learning. In Butterfly, I really look forward to learning more about others and different cultures, communities and values. I hope that by the end of the course I will feel that I have learned a lot more about others and overall togetherness of culture and community, because I feel that Butterfly has a lot to offer to show the real meaning of working together with others to all come together as one in an accepting and safe environment.
My strongest attribute or trait is that I am someone who is very outgoing, positive and friendly. I enjoy communicating with others and I will always find the best in the worst situations. People will usually tell me that I am someone who is very optimistic, that even being around me just gives them a more positive spirit. I will always try to make others feel included and involved, and I always do my best to make others feel good. I find that one of the most important things in life is happiness. Worrying is like paying a debt you may never even owe, and I just see every day as a ticket, by the end of the day you can’t get that ticket back, so spend every second you can being happy. If something is going wrong: there’s only two ways to look at it: Can you do something about it? If yes, then there isn’t any need to worry about it if you can fix it. If not, then there’s nothing you can do about it and you might as well not spend any time worrying or being upset if there isn’t anything you can do. I feel that these are some of the reasons why it is so easy for me to be happy all the time. Positivity is one of the most important values in my life, and I think that this is why optimism is one of my most strongest attributes.
I would say that I am gifted in dancing and performing in general, as I have written a couple of paragraphs earlier, you can see that I have taken a lot of training and practices, so it’s not necessarily a natural gift, but rather an earned one. I would believe that I could tell someone that I am gifted in dancing and performing, because now after all of the practice I have, it is possible for me to express myself openly, with more elaborated communication skills and performance qualities. I have been practicing and involving myself in the performing arts for many years, and since it is a passion of mine, I would also like to say that it is my gift: performing and communicating with others.
To me, community means togetherness. Being inclusive, collaborating and caring for each other in a safe and open place means that it is in a community. This could be in many different spaces; my school is a community, my dance studio is a community, my family is a community, my church is a community, and it goes on. As long as you work all together inclusively I believe that that is what a community is. For myself, my place in the community is usually a leader-type role. I am someone who is really enthusiastic and likes to take initiative with a positive attitude, and in groups, mainly in school, I am usually the one to spark motivation and involve others. To me, global community is fairly similar to community as a whole, but on some aspects is a harder goal to achieve. A global community in my eyes is where everyone is able to collaborate and share ideas, opinions and values while feeling included and safe. It is an ideal worldly goal to achieve, where everyone is at peace and are able to fully unite as a global community. If I could solve any global problem I would want to be able to fix the health circumstances around the world: proper medicinal systems for everyone, availability to aid and health authorities. From there, people could build off of health, to education, opportunities, etc. Overall, personally I think that health is the most important of all of these so that they could then branch out. If I could have any job right now, I would either want to be able to work successfully as an actress, because I have always been passionate about the performing arts, or else I would want to work in a job where I could help other people around the world and truly make an impact on the earth for the better good. In my free time I really enjoy spending time with friends and family, reading, being involved in learning experiences and seminars, dancing, acting and travelling. To relax, I will usually sleep or read, because in both I am able to take myself out of this world and transport myself into (what feels like) a completely different life or world. The perfect best friend is someone who is supportive of what I do, is loyal, has the same level of positivity and enthusiasm as I have, and the friendship is helping the both of us to develop and grow positively into the people who we will become in the future. One of my heroes in my world is my mom. She is my inspiration and is the person who has really helped me to grow into the person I am today. She has taught me my values of life and a lot of people say that personality-wise, I am very much like her. We are both very positive and look at the best in everything. She has done so much for me and for this she is one of my greatest heroes. If I were on a team, I think I would want to be the best player on the worst team. If I was the worst player on the best team, then there would be a lot of people looking down upon me, or having low expectations of me, leaving me behind or would rather work with the better players, but if I was the best player on the worst team, I would be able to share with ALL the other players that it doesn’t matter how good you are, the important thing is that we are a team that works together, grows together and stays together. I would be able to enforce better team values if I was the best and humbled myself rather than if I was at the worst and didn’t have any followers myself.
Out of all of the three prongs of the Butterfly Effect, I am most intrigued by Action. I really want to be able to be involved and help make a difference in the community. There needs to be change, and it seems that Butterfly is a great way to address global issues and volunteer to get involved in making that change happen.
That is all for right now, I hope you were able to learn a bit about me!
Jessica O’Brien-Visbisky