THE JOURNEY LEADING UP TO OTARG 2013

It was towards the end of the year last year that we were approached by our lecturer to think about submitting an abstract to OTARG. OTARG was explained to us and we were already excited at the prospect of going. Looking back now, almost a year later I cannot believe that I sit at my laptop now and it is all over. Where almost a year ago, we had no idea of the growth and experience Zim would actually hold for us. I love thinking like this, because looking back, we had no idea what was in store for us then. NO idea. Every little thing that has happened between then and now has happened, and life is good. Between then and now, life has actually been tough. I went through a lot in my family, and I never thought I could get through one of the hardest times of my life, but I did. And here I am. It gives me hope and it gives me hope for the saying of hope that I live by... We have this hope as an anchor for our souls. I will hold onto Hope. It has got me here. And I will hold onto perseverance. Perseverance has got us here today. I say “we” because if it wasn’t for my partner in crime, Megan, I might have given up in coming to OTARG. She kept me grounded when I just didn’t want to bother with all the admin and politics anymore, where I was giving up in our dream to go to Zim, but Megz wouldn’t let us give up. Our abstract was accepted and we were over the moon. We were being given the chance to share our blogging journey with people we actually had no idea we were going to meet and inspire. I LOVE that I can blog and reflect back to that stage where our abstract was accepted, because flip we have come a long way! So we faced barrier after barrier in coming to Zim, I won’t go into too much detail but basically not receiving funds because we had only accessed one source for funding and I completely understand that at an undergrad level, there are other people who would be priority. So first barrier, and this was averted by deciding to fundraise. My mom is the most incredible woman and pulled out all the stops to make sure my dream came true of going to Zim. She did not have to do that, but she did. And the fundraising response was unbelievable. Anonymous payments were made to the account, people from overseas such as Australia sent through money. I was completely and utterly humbled and heart warmed by the generosity of people. They were allowing me to make the Zim dream come true. I know not everyone will read this, but I just wish everyone could know how incredibly grateful I am. You have no idea the opportunity that you gave me. I didn’t even know then how expansive and special this opportunity and experience would be, but my goodness, you all allowed me to grow in ways I never thought possible. Who thought my OT passion could get even bigger, my heart humbled so incredibly and my heart touched by the generosity of people who helped me and the amazing people I met in Zim. So grateful. So thank you!! Our next barrier faced was missing prac and just general politics. I won’t go into this, but I am just grateful that we stood our ground, and against all odds, we decided that we would go. We had worked too hard for this to let this go. We decided that we knew what we were doing, and we had faith that the Zim experience would far outweigh the cons of going. We did not know for sure that this would be the case; yes we took a huge chance in deciding to go not knowing if the experience was really worth the cons, but that faith paid off. It was worth every single sleepless night of worry and every tear shed! So Megz and I worked hard at our presentation, spending hours deliberating over blog posts and putting our experience into the best way that we possibly could. We did it. And now it’s all over, and I sit here with passion in my heart as I reflect on our Zim journey.