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‘When I was 15, a lady came to our school and spoke about exchange programs so I went and spent a year in Costa Rica. I did my year 10 in Costa Rica and learnt to speak Spanish and lived with a local family there. We lived in the mountains surrounded by coffee fields. Before I went, I didn’t speak Spanish or anything so I didn’t really know what was going on. It was a poor school – 3,000 students with just a couple of teachers and none of them would turn up. No one really cared.
‘There was one teacher; she was a biology teacher, and she really cared that I understood what was going on and that I actually learnt. She told me to go and buy some rope and some paint and she taught me to make a really thick rope – like macramé. She was teaching us about DNA so it looked like a DNA thing. So I made a really big one – she taught me how to make it – and she told me to paint this knot blue and this knot green and I did everything she said and at the end she was able to explain all the parts of the DNA. To this day, I still only know them in Spanish.
‘Then she told me to go buy some smaller string so I could make bracelets for my friends and family. This is the jewellery I make and sell now.’

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‘My philosophy in life is to live life to the fullest, to love and be empathetic and to spread that.’
Can you tell me about a time when you’ve found it difficult to be empathetic?

‘Recently I was on a train and I was in a lot of physical pain – I had a bad injury to my leg. I sat down in the area for disabled people and someone was actually racing me to the seat. I ended up getting there first b…ut they got very angry with me. The way that they talked to me was very sad. Looking at me, you couldn’t tell that I was injured and that person wouldn’t know. To be understanding of their anger as well while still feeling my pain and not lashing out at them was really difficult.’

What kind of message would you give to someone like that?

‘Think twice. There might be a reason as to why someone is doing something. Sometimes you don’t need to question them just go with it.’

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‘When our kids were young, I tended to be the bad cop and he was the good cop but then it swapped when they were teenagers and he became the bad cop and I became the good cop.’

‘I think social media and the internet has put so much extra pressure on kids growing up. There is too much happening and there is too much opportunity for bullying and that kind of thing. Life’s just getting so complicate…d really. I found that daunting. And I think kids are under more pressure these days. Everyone’s got to achieve so highly. Where’s the old playing outside kind of lifestyle?’

Is that something you try to instil in your students?

‘I try to but it’s virtually impossible. I teach at a selective school and the kids are highly motivated and pressured by their parents. They’ve been going to coaching college since they were about five. So a voice against all of that pressure is pretty weak really but I try.’

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‘It’s a form of escape for me. I really love baking – it’s my passion. I work with ATMs during the week so it’s completely different.

“t started as a form of stress relief when I was at Uni. Whenever I would bring cupcakes in, my friends would ask if I was stressed again. When I’m stressed, I make cupcakes at 3am.

”I also bring them in to work and my colleagues know that I’ve been stressed. It’s the creative part of baking that de-stresses me.

When they smell nice that’s when I know that I’ve done well. When they’re all gone by the end of Saturday, I know that I’ve made it!”