What relevant words or phrases best describe the stories and speakers you have met?

We listened to six speakers during writers fortnight: Ms. Wiseman, a cancer survivor; Mr. Hunter, a tsunami survivor; Mr. Huntington, an ex-worker at a prison; Al Hornsby, a nature photographer; Mr. Suarez, an ex-teacher at a prison; and Grahm Rawle, an author. These speakers shared their captivating stories, teaching us, the listeners, big lessons.

A word to describe the cancer survival story would be ‘vulnerability’, as Ms. Wiseman talked about how she faces vulnerability on a day to day basis, and how she embraced it as she has faced death once. A phrase to describe the tsunami survival story would be ‘played by luck’, as Mr. Hunter and his family were definitely played by luck on the day the tsunami hit. A word to describe the ex-prison worker’s story would be ‘observant’ and Mr. Huntington shared that he observed lots of discrimination in the prison that he worked in. A word to describe the nature photographer’s story would be ‘passion’ as you could sense the deep passion Al Hornsby has for what he does. A word to describe the ex-prison teacher’s story would be ‘learning’, as Mr. Suarez told us about how he learned from the prisoners he taught, and how he learned multiple life lessons from them. A word to describe Grahm Rawle’s story would be ‘patient’, as you could tell that he has so much patience to write a book by finding words from magazines, cutting it out, and forming new sentences with them.

What patterns do you find emerging and why?

An emerging pattern from all these stories is that all the speakers said how the situation/job affected them and what they learned from it. I think that the main reason why the speakers included a lesson in their stories is because we all are students and we all are in our prime stage of learning, so including a lesson in one’s story would result in the student learning from the story instead of simply knowing the situation.

What words or phrases have you heard that were particularly striking? Discuss.

A phrase that was really striking was “just a big wave” from Mr. Hunter’s story of surviving the Asian Tsunami. I find this really striking as it shows how calm he was during the time of this huge natural disaster. His calm state of mind was contradicting the events happening around him, and that really struck me, how someone can stay that calm during such a life-changing event.

What ideas were discussed that has continued to stay in your mind?

From the stories that I heard, two ideas were stuck in my head:

1. Everyone learns from one another – from Mr. Suarez
2. Vulnerability is a key emotion that we all have to embrace – Ms. Wiseman

The reason why the first idea stuck with me is because I find it interesting to know that in school, both student and teachers are learning from one another. I find this very interesting because I find it hard to fathom teacher’s learning from us students as well.

The reason why the second idea has continued to stay in my mind is because knowing that you are vulnerable and that you could die any second now gives you a completely different mindset. It makes out cherish life even more and live life to the fullest. Embracing vulnerability makes one stronger and more powerful in a sense because they know that would’ve lived their best life, even if death comes very unexpectedly.

What new ideas, thoughts or feeling have you encountered?

As I discussed above, the main idea that I have encountered is the idea of vulnerability and embracing it, embracing the fact that we are not immortal, and that any second could be our last.

If we could do the week again, what would you like to spend more time doing? Why?

I would like to spend more time listening to Ms. Wiseman and Mr. Hunter’s stories as they both told their stories on how they survived an event that ended up impacting them. I find survival stories very interesting as I enjoy listening to how people faced an issue, how they were affected by it, and how they overcame it. I feel if I listened to Ms. Wiseman’s and Mr. Hunter’s stories, I would’ve definitely learned a lot more from their experiences.

What have you realised about the process of writing and telling stories?

From Writer’s Fortnight, I learned that the process of writing is a very long one that takes up a lot of time and effort and that stories can be written from any experiences that one has experienced. I also learned that everyone has stories to share, and the way that someone presents their story is what makes it interesting.

What activities has inspired you to write stories? What stories would you like to write?

In my case, reading has really inspired me to write stories as I read a lot and I get a lot of different ideas from the books that I’ve read. I would like to write fictions stories or biographies as I find others’ stories very interesting.