Month: January 2019

The speaker talked about how she got diagnosed with an invisible disability called ulcerative colitis. She was diagnosed with it when she was in 9th grade. She is now in 11th grade but its already getting better. She started showing the symptoms in 8th grade. Those symptoms are stomach swole, losing weight and not having that much energy. She lived in Myanmar in 9th grade and the healthcare there wasn’t great, so she had to go to Bangkok every weekend to be treated. She said that none of her friends in school really knew she had this disease. It was getting so bad that she had to start using steroid which made her tired more easily. She also had to change her diet. She could only eat rice, fish, chicken, and potatoes. Listening to her speak was interesting and she told us how she got through some things in her life while having this disease.

Listening to this speaker talk about her experience of fostering children was very interesting as well because she was telling us how it was very hard to foster children. The speaker told us a story where once she and her husband fostered a young boy. His mother was a drug addict and going through rehab so he had to stay with someone. The speaker said fostering this boy was the toughest because his behavior was pretty hard to control. The speaker said that the school often called them because of his behavior. He did a lot of bad stuff such as stealing which he probably learned from his mother. So his mother is the root of all his bad behavior. Although the boy was very hard to foster, the speaker said she and her husband still really loved him. They were really sad when they had to let him go to go back to his mother.

I think listening to this speaker talk about how outdoor activities saving him be able to get a job since he wasn’t doing very well academically was very interesting. I find it interesting because maybe it could help the people listening to the speaker to make a living of doing outdoor activities as well if some people were to not really do well academically. So the speaker spoke to us how he was able to make a living out of doing the outdoor activities that we liked, and the speaker’s outdoor activity was surfing and other water sports. He was able to find jobs all around the world. One of his jobs was he became a surfing teacher. So listening to this speaker was very interesting because it could possibly help us in the future.