By Carly Illston

I, Carly

My name is Carly. I always thought it was quite an unusual name, based purely off the fact that I could never find my name on one of those key chains. I have actually never met another Carly either. Because of this, it has kind of always felt like Carly is only my name. I know there’s, Carly Simon, Carly Rae Jepson, iCarly (funnily enough, my name is carly i) but celebrities never quite feel like real people unless you’ve seen them in person.

But anyway, enough about my name. 

This feels like one of those first days of class where the teacher asks you to say 3 things about yourself, and suddenly you forget everything interesting that has ever happened to you.

I guess I should start by saying that I’m from Bermuda. I wanted to get that out of the way first because it’s fair to say that being from Bermuda is probably the most interesting thing about me. 

I was born and raised on an island that measures 24 miles x 2. If you’re thinking that sounds incredibly small, it is. Island Fever is a real thing. There is absolutely nothing to do on a rainy day other than going to one of the obscenely expensive cinemas, or brave the rain to take a swim. After all, the water does feel warmer once you’re in it. 

Being from Bermuda definitely is a personally trait. It’s like being someone who’s studied abroad, or a horse girl (although hopefully not nearly as annoying). If I meet someone from Bermuda, I can make a pretty accurate judgement of their character, or render a mental picture of what their childhood probably looked like. After all, we all did grow up in the same 3 schools, with the same friends and role models and after school activities. 

Uniqueness is not celebrated in Bermuda. It was not considered good to be different when I was growing up. If you were different then you didn’t get to play hide and seek at lunch, or get invited to sleepovers on the weekend. So it really has taken me a few years to realise that I am not the same as the other 60,000 people on this rock. I have a different outlook to you and that’s perfectly okay. In fact, it’s more than okay, it should be celebrated.

My next “interesting thing” is that I have gone to 7 schools in my lifetime. You would think that would make me really good at making friends, but I get as much anxiety on the first day of school as the next person. 

I’ve experienced it all; brown uniforms with knee length skirts, the uncanny comparison between the East High Wildcats and the Canadian ice hockey boys, field trips to go whale watching for the afternoon, being the only one without a degree in a class full of post-grads, the war zone that is an all girls school, puppets preaching the word of god, mandatory army cadets, going from every second of my day scheduled to none of it at all, not fitting in because I’m not quite British but not quite North American either. 

No school has filled me with excitement and intimidated me to the core quite like SCA has. I am intrigued and apprehensive. Impatient to start, and wishing that September would come around slowly. But fingers crossed, this will be my last school, and I can actually settle down in one city, which fills me with more excitement than anything else.

And for my third “thing” I decided to list of bunch of my favourite “things”:

mom jeans, aperol spritz, Brooklyn 99, scrunchies, cotton candy sunsets, peppermint tea, marvel movies, Glossier, old fashioned pyjamas, the seaside, chocolate chip ice cream, leopard print, rainy days, hunter wellies, picnics, peanut butter cups, chunky cardigans, green smoothies, LUSH face masks, pink buildings, bonfires, seeing a city from an airplane at night, peonies, tin lunch boxes, Pinterest, rosemary, gin and tonics, turtleshell sunglasses, white subway tile, star wars…

carlyi signing off.