My name is Azzura Naser

Chapter 1 - Identity

Living in Australia, my high school is scattered with students from all over the world. I've spotted multiple fellow egyptians from my church walking around the courtyard at lunch and recess, many of whom I wasn't thrilled to see there. 

School for me is a different world than my life at home and at church. It feels like a part of "the outside world", a breath of fresh air compared to my community and family. Nobody at school is focused on the will of God, how to avoid sin, and what we can and can't do religiously. There are no standards other than how we wear our uniforms and treating the other students respectfully. I feel like a different person here, although I would be lying if I said I could truly be myself. 

I don't actually know what 'being myself' looks like or even feels like. Both at home and at school or with friends, I'm living a lie. I can't be entirely honest with anybody at home, not about my feelings or my opinions or my life. At school so much about me is hidden from everyone. 

I'm not like everyone else, and they don't understand why I do the things I do. 

It doesn't make sense to them that I go to church on Friday nights with people my age for 'Sunday school', or why I wake up early on Sunday mornings and skip breakfast to go to a 2-hour mass every week.  

My friends and I grew up entirely differently, so even though it seems like we aren't that different when we talk to each other about the boys we're talking to and go together to parties or hangouts, I have never truly fit in. 

That's just how I feel though, it's not like I get excluded from anything and no one has ever made any comments about me being different because on the surface I don't seem that much different. So, my whole personality is never present. It's divided between different realities, separate masks that are designated for the different people in my life. 

It's for this reason that I always have a best friend, someone who belongs to neither world and is their own individual part of my life with whom I can share everything with. 

Jessica Said understands having an arab family at home and 'regular' friends everywhere else. She doesn't pressure me religiously or to do anything I'm not comfortable with at parties. I'm just myself and that has always been enough for her. She doesn't go to church like my family does, but she's in my homeroom and therefore in most of my classes as well, and she is my absolute rock and is still able to understand my home dynamic. 

We have a sort of group at school, Jess and I. Two other girls sit with us in class and during breaks for the most part - Helena and Jasmine. 

Helena sometimes spends time with other groups of girls that she's known for longer, which we're ok with of course. Jasmine takes a lot of days off, especially when she's tired and doesn't want to come to school. As far as I'm aware, her parents don't have an issue with her low attendance as long as she can stay above the compulsory attendance rate to graduate to the next year's level, so there's no issue there either. 

Jess and I have gotten caught up in conversations with general and mutual friends sometimes in our breaks, but otherwise, if Helena and Jasmine aren't at school, the two of us are comfortable being on our own.  

I'm in year 10 at West Parkwood Grammar School in Mildura, where we're preparing for VCE next year and needing to take school more seriously. It's difficult but I am motivated enough to do it and have my parents in the background who'll pressure me back into it if I can't keep up myself. 

They have their own expectations of me, but I don't want to do well for them, my motivation comes from myself and for myself. I make that known as much as possible when they talk to me about my grades, which are safely above the required standards for my grade. Next week I'm starting Term 2 of Semester 1, and I feel ready.