It's a strange feeling to be told that you've made an impact and that you're well known in a place of the past. On one hand, you feel honoured and flattered that people remember you and that the work you put into something gave you a good reputation, but on the other hand, there's a sense of confusion and disbelief because you can't quite fathom how it's possible or how you unintentionally made an impact on someone else. In the end, you still feel quite ordinary and you were just doing something for yourself rather than for the attention it might have generated.

It brings us back to the age old question of "What does [someone] think of me? How do they see me?" which can never be answered truthfully as you can never experience life through someone else's perspective - only the illusion of it through their words and actions. But we're humans, and curiosity always kills the cat.

The other day I went to visit my high school by dropping my sister off and briefly crashed their musical rehearsal, and that night my sister tells me that a lot of people started calling her "Sarah" because I was her sister and I had "a reputation or something". I really didn't expect this to happen and it puzzles me that the Year 9s remember me, because I only knew a few through peer support. If anyone's experienced something similar and felt the same way (or not!) let me know in the comments below.

But it goes to show that as an older grade and hence role models in a school environment, the juniors really do look up to you - just like how we used to look up to the seniors and know their names and they generally wouldn't remember us (although I've been proved wrong by someone I reconnected with at uni).

Role models are important. They help you shape your goals and your values, and honestly they're the reasons I did what I did in high school - and now in uni. It's so easy to get lost when you don't have anyone to look up to, no one to aspire to be like.

We are role models whether we like it or not, and we can never truly understand how much influence we have over someone's actions and values. Be good people, friends, because people may look up to you whether you know it or not.

With love, Sarah x