User:Mbooth13

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[edit] My Name is Melanie Booth

I was born in Burlington, Ontario, Canada on August 24th, 1984. My parents, John and Mary, along with my two older brothers, Daniel and Geoffrey, welcomed me into the world. Both of my parents decided they would name me after one of my mothers sisters, her identical twin Melanie. Being named after my aunt was just one of the things that show how close my extended family was. Throughout my childhood years I was always surrounded by my grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, predominantly from my mothers’ side due to the relationship she has with her sisters.

My paternal great grandfather on my mother’s side George Howden, was an agriculture and live stock farmer in the small town of Blackie, Alberta. His parents had emigrated from Ireland in the late 19th century to Canada giving my family their partial Irish decent. His first wife of many years, died of graves disease leaving him with four adolescent children, one of them being my grandfather. Soon after her death, he remarried Margret, a women fifteen years younger then him. They went on to have a daughter to add to their already large family. When the great depression hit, at the age of 18, my grandfather, George Melvin Howden (known as Mel), moved out east to Ontario in search of employment to help supplement his families income out west. He settled in Burlington, where he stayed with his Uncle Harry Graham, the owner of a shoe store. My grandpa worked as an assistant in this shoe store until he was called into service for World War 2. He was posted to work in the Canadian artillery where he rose to the position of captain. While doing his service for Canada, he traveled through the various countries of Germany, France, and Holland. When the war finally ended in 1944 he returned back to Burlington, unharmed and ready to continue working in the shoe store. Soon after his return his uncle stepped away from the business leaving my grandpa with full ownership. He would continue working at this shoe store, renamed "Mel Howden Shoes", until he would retired at the age of 65.

A couple years after returning from the war, in 1946 my grandpa married my grandmother Louis Elaine Park, whom he had met through various social gatherings held around town. She worked in a small retail store called Steadman’s just down the street from my grandfathers’ store. Once she married my grandfather, she stopped working with the intent to raise a family. After five years of attempted and failed pregnancies, they adopted a child, a new born girl that they named Cathy. With this new baby and the decreased pressure to conceive, within a little over a year my grandma found herself pregnant with identical twin girls. My mother was one of these twins. The following year they had yet another daughter, proving their conceiving difficulties were no longer an issue. Raising four girls under the age of three proved to be a delight and yet eventually became sadly difficult for my grandmother. When my mother was entering her early school years, my grandmother developed serious depression. This depression, along with the added concerns of alcoholism, eventually culminated into her unfortunate drowning in her back yard swimming pool as a result of a seizure.

This accident took place when I was three years old. My immediate family, along with my numerous cousins, aunts, and uncles were all out at a movie when her death occurred; she had decided to stay home. It was a devastating event for us all, however due to the loving nature of my extended family and the strong relationships we hand with each other; we worked our way through it and welcomed a new grandmother into our family. Surprisingly enough, my grandfather and his new wife, known as Nana, had been dating for a mere three weeks before getting married. However, they were not strangers before this meeting; coincidently she had been one of his sweethearts prior to him serving in the war. When she married into our family, she brought with her three children from her previous marriage. We don't get to interact with them as much as they live in northern Ontario.

My father’s side of the family also has close family ties, but does not interact as often as with my mothers’ side. This could be in part because my father is the youngest of three children. The age gap between him and his other two siblings is five and ten year’s difference.

My fathers mom Bernice Lemon, was an only child who grew up on a market gardening farm where they commercial sold cantaloupe and tomatoes throughout Canada. While this farm eventually was sold and replaced by a strip mall plaza and nursing home, it is five minutes away from the home me and my family own now. My fathers dad, Robert Booth, was born in Blackpool England, a seaside resort best known for it’s illuminations and a tower that resembles the Eiffel Tower. Being from England with their national sport being futbol (soccer), he had a strong passion for the game. He is actually the only person in my family whom has played soccer, therefore I attribute my passion for soccer to him. He resided in England for 18 years before joining the Royal Air Force (RAF), where he was trained to be a navigator. They flew on many missions over continental Europe, India, and Africa before being reassigned to Canada to train young navigators in Burlington’s neighboring city Hamilton. While continuing to train his navigators in Hamilton, he also partook in many local social events. He actually is said to have been one of the people whom I get my partying mentality from as he was known to enjoy a good time. As was the case during that time, men in uniforms were much sought after by the local girls.

My grandma and grandpa met at a local dance and began to date shortly after. After a short time, on June 19th 1943, my grandma and grandpa were married. Shortly after their marriage my grandma became pregnant with her first son. My grandpa returned to England to fly on more missions leaving my grandma home alone to give birth to their first son, Robert. The two of them shortly after his birth traveled by boat to England to visit my grandpa, where they were accompanied by numerous other boats that escorted them, protecting them from German U-boats. All three of them eventually returned back to Canada, where my grandpa started to article to become an accountant. He worked in his uncles CA firm until receiving his Professional Accountant designation.

Five years after the birth of their first child, my grandma became pregnant again with a girl named Jane. At this point my grandpa became a partner in his uncles CA firm and would remain at this job until he retired. My grandma was also a women dedicated to raising her family as she left her job at a department store once her first son was born. Fast forward four more years, and my father, John Booth, was born. As the youngest child he was known for always smiling, being happy, and doing no wrong. The first five years of my fathers life were lived in Hamilton, before he eventually became a life long Burlington resident.

When my grandpa was in his mid forties he developed Parkinson’s disease which severely hampered his ability to write, talk, and walk. Over time his motor functionality decreased greatly. I don’t necessarily have any memories of my grandpa that I can remember as he died when I was only one. However I have often been told, that during a family picnic at the park, while sleeping in my baby carriage he lost his balance and trying to regain it grabbed a hold of the handle of my carriage causing me be catapulted through the air out of my buggy. While I remained unharmed, his was greatly shaken up by the incident. Shortly thereafter he lost his battle with Parkinson’s, leaving my grandma a widow. A number of years later, my grandma became reacquainted with a good friend from high school and shortly after they married. Thomas Burton, my new grandpa, brought with him two children from his previous marriage into our new family. He was a member of the Canadian Navy and also a member of the world renown brotherhood of the Masonic lodge. I didn’t realize he was a member of this brotherhood until he died of prostate cancer in 2004 and his fellow brothers attended his funeral to do their ceremonial rituals. Therefore, after outliving both her husbands, my grandmother now lives alone in a well run retirement building in Burlington.

As you can see my entire extended family ended up living in Burlington. I too have been brought up in Burlington my whole life, moving once when I was three, from a busy commercial part of town to a more relaxed, pretty lakefront neighborhood in a community called Aldershot. My elementary, middle, and high schools were all in walking distance and my parents made sure that we took full advantage of that. No matter the weather, and in Canada it could get nasty, we would walk to and from school every day. My parents liked to involve us in as much physical activity as possible, as we were pretty energetic children. Therefore my upbringing was surrounded by a lot of physical activities and sporting events. Both my parents were star athletes in high school; my dad a hockey, basketball, and track star, and my mom a talented runner. So they prepared us with their genes, and entered us in as many sports teams as they could. Having two older, competitive brothers and a neighborhood full of athletic boys made my childhood years one spent as a tomboy. My middle brother, Geoff, took to the more contact, competitive sports like baseball and hockey, while my oldest brother Dan was into more of the calmer sports like swimming. Therefore I grew up at the baseball diamond, hockey rink, and swimming pool. I played my share of sports during this time also. My mother tried to keep me in the more feminine sports at a young age because she “already had two boys.” Therefore I tried out gymnastics and dance to make her happy, even though I was not. What I really wanted to do was play team sports.

As pathetic and cliché as it may sound to some people, sports have defined me as a person thus far in my life. My brother Geoff was in really competitive hockey and baseball at a young age, so I was always being touted around to his events. Most of our family vacations involved sporting events or had to be scheduled around them because they were such a priority in our lives. We all ate dinner around the table as much as possible, but often times it would be in a tupperwear container on the car ride to a practice, game, or meeting instead. Since I was still young and couldn’t stay home alone I went along to all these events, and therefore this athletic atmosphere is what I was constantly exposed to. After being released from various teams, my brother eventually stopped playing competitive sports and decided to move on to other things. The chaos didn’t end there though because this was just when I started to get into serious competitive sports.

I started playing soccer at age 5, but only recreationally. At a young age, my parents and other various family friends commented on my athletic ability and always knew I had the potential to be a great athlete. I continued to play soccer throughout my childhood, choosing it because it involved the most running and physical activity. As a child I was shy but very energetic. My family nicknamed me “Melly Mc-boing-boing” because I could never just walk, I had to jump, bounce, hop, or run. I eventually used this energy to help me excel in many various sports. Over the years I played soccer, hockey, volleyball, basketball, and track; sometimes all at the same time. While I was simply using my athletic ability to help me excel in most of these, I truly stood out on the soccer field.

Throughout my elementary, junior high, and high school years I played club soccer with my cities traveling team. We were an extremely competitive and successful team that won almost everything we entered. I put this team before almost everything that I did, sacrificing my social life at school, free time for holidays and vacations, family gatherings, and sometimes my academics to train and compete with this team. I was exposed to a lot of life lessons by playing on this team. Small lessons about discipline, respect, and values were all taught to me through the sport of soccer. Some may disagree with my choice to put that much of my time and effort into sports, but it taught me a lot and benefited me in the long run.

One of the benefits that it brought to me was that at age 15 I was asked to play on my provincial team and represent them at a national tournament. While this is just a small accomplishment, it lead to me being recognized by the Canadian national soccer coaches. This in turn opened up the door to my participation with the Canadian National Soccer program. Going into grade ten, I began attending week long camps every month in various parts of Canada to train with the youth national team, which in turn took its toll on my academics. I had always been a strong, dedicated student, but when I began to miss so much school and relied on teaching myself the material, I began to get frustrated and soon lose interest. This was when my academics began to decline and my athletics sore.

I played on the Canadian youth national team for two years training to participate in the U-19 Youth World Cup. This meant that I missed five weeks of school each semester in order to prepare for this. These absences along with my continued participation with my cities soccer and hockey team, my high schools athletic teams, workouts with my personal trainer, and my academic load made me an extremely busy teenager. There was a point in my life when I would wake up for six a.m hockey practice, then go home after them to quickly shower before heading off to school. During my lunch break I would drive to the gym to fit in a workout with my trainer before returning back to school for afternoon classes. After school I would participate in my volleyball practice then rush home to pick up my bags for club soccer practice. After soccer practice I would rush off to the hockey rink for the second time that day for a game. Often returning home around 9:30, I would attempt to complete my homework before passing out. This hectic schedule was the structure of my life for most of my high school years.

Like I explained earlier, I missed a considerable amount of school traveling with the U-19 Canadian National team, in particular the 2002 school year. I traveled from the west to east coasts of Canada training with this team to prepare for the Youth world cup to be held in Edmonton, Alberta that summer. You would think that a group of teenaged girls would get no recognition for an event like this, especially in a country whose female soccer program wasn’t that well established. My team however, playing in a 60,000 seat football stadium, managed to fill the place to capacity and garner the second highest levels of television viewing for the national sports station, with our double overtime, silver medal performance in the finals against the USA. On route to the finals we defeated a number of well established soccer nations in Denmark, Nigeria, Japan, England, and an intense penalty kick shootout against Brazil.

My performance during the Youth World Cup opened up the door for many different opportunities. First of all, when I returned home from Edmonton I was basically treated as a mini celebrity in certain situations because of all the publicity the event was given. I was asked to speak at various school events, sign autographs, and run local clinics and practices for the younger players. At this time, I was also being heavily recruited by a number of various American universities and therefore was visiting as many schools as possible to help me narrow down my choices. On top of that I was called into training camp with the Senior National team to participate in a three week long tournament to help qualify them for the Women’s World Cup. This all took place within the first month and a half of school, which forced me to decrease my course load to one class to deal with all my absentees. My province at this time had an extra grade called OAC (Ontario Academic Credit), which made it mandatory for students to complete six OAC credits in order to attend a university within the province. Since I knew I was going to most likely be attending school in the US, all I needed was my OAC English class to complete my credit requirement and receive my high school diploma.

I ended up at the University of Florida solely because of soccer. I had been recruited by the coach when I was playing in a showcase tournament in Ohio with my club team. Of my three top choices of Nebraska, Penn State, and Florida, my visit to the school and the relationship I built with the coach are what won me over. I had researched each of the schools to see if it offered the program I was hoping to study, athletic training, and all three of them had, so I left it to my visits to make up my mind. Now in my junior year at college I have had success on the soccer field, but once again, my academics have not done so well. My first two years I was studying athletic training intending to follow in that path. Being surrounded by athletic injuries and having a number happen to me, I have always been fascinated by how the body works and the ways to treat them in the sports situations. Being a sports buff, I have also known that my job in some way has to involve athletics or a team atmosphere. So I felt like this major was the one that fit me the best. However, the major requires that you become a full time student trainer with a university athletic team following your sophomore year. After completing a practicum and the recommended observational hours amongst my athletic schedule, I came to the realization that this was not going to be something I could put all of my effort into right now in my life. The demands and time commitment revolving around my soccer team along with the responsibilities of working with and traveling with another team altogether overwhelmed me. I therefore decided that it would be best for me to change into a different major.

This is the point I am at in my life right now. I have changed my major numerous times since I decided to forgo athletic training, but have yet to find something that interests me. From having an idea of my intended career to this feeling of frustration surrounding my future plans has put me in a slump for my academic efforts. My GPA has been shot because of my lack of effort put forth in my academics because of my disinterest in the field I am studying along with my commitment and focus to soccer. I recently switched my major into Fitness and Wellness and hope to find something I can pursue my career in within this field.