I’m a family-oriented budding journalist, I regularly read past my bedtime, can’t refrain from buying new books even though I have a to-read pile, and my friends call me Meg.
Those friends are split between five separate countries. Some have moved away from where I met them, but mostly I was the one moving. I’ve spent most of my life on visas, living and serving as an international student of some variety.
Born in Calgary, my family moved to Phoenix when I was seven for my dad’s work. I completed elementary, junior, and senior high school in Arizona, and enrolled in courses at college.
I moved back to Calgary 13 years later for a year while awaiting response from my university applications. Namely, I had applied to study journalism in England, which I was thankfully accepted into my university of choice.
I moved to England on a gut-instinct, having never been outside of North America before. International moves were something I was well familiar with, but this was the first time I had ever done one entirely on my own.
The past few years in England were some of the most rewarding and challenging of my life, and pushed me to establish who I was in the world. I learned so many lessons that can, in my opinion, only be learned through complete independence.
However, after several years of Skype calls to my family, home was the one calling in the end. I finished my degree, packed up my belongings and headed back to my roots.
With my new job at the Western Wheel and applying to graduate programs to study as a non-international student for the first time since I was seven, I am excited for what the future holds.
I am so excited to become part of and contribute to the Okotoks community as I start this next chapter of my life in my home country.
