Dear Self

Lorain County Community College

1005 North Abbe Road Elyria, OH

Elyria, OH 44035


June 2, 2013


 
Ambra Rhoads


Early College High School 


Elyria, OH 44035

Dear Samantha Sarvas:

Where are you now? How are you? How is school going? I hope school is going well. Remember when our family was stuggling financially? I hope you do, because that should be a place where you never want to go back to and that is why you need to keep your grades up and continue with your education. When you get out of school, you will do great things. You will be living the dream in LA and being as successful as you can be and you will be making Mom proud. You can do it.

One thing that I always want you to remember, is always try your best and never give up. Things will be hard. They will be harder than anything you have had to go through in your life before. Even though people in your life will want to try to bring you down and tell you that dreams do not come true, you know you are stronger than to believe them and prove them wrong. Go after your dreams.

One of the last pieces of advice I can give you, is always have fun! If you are not having fun with your life and the path your are going down, you are wasting your time. Meet as many people as you can and spread your love with everyone you meet. Always be kind and friendly, which I know that will not be hard and always continue doing what you love! Always have fun doing what you love.

Love,
Samantha Sarvas

Love

     Love is an extremely important concept to have. Without love, what is there? Love is an affection you have for someone or something. When someone loves someone or something, they get this feeling of comfort  and belonging whenever they are around. That is an extremely important reason to have love or feel love. Another reason why it is important to have love is for someone and for them to have mutual feelings so each other have a companion. Someone who they can talk to without being judged and someone to just support each other no matter what they may encounter. One more reason why it is important to have love is so everyone has a friend, someone who we can be our complete selves around. We can be silly, goofy and laugh about nothing and be happy just being in each others presence. Without love, we have no emotional connection and no emotional relationship. Love is the answer for all of our problems. 

REJECTION

     When someone gets rejected, they may feel a wave of loneliness pass over them. They may feel like people do not like them or they are not good enough. Everyone should have a chance and no one should ever be rejected. Someone never knows someone else s full story and it may bring up past events. Everyone should have a chance.

Responsibility

Sometimes, understanding who should take responsibility for a situation is hard to determine. Sometimes more than one person may have to take the responsibility for the mistake. One day my sister and I were watching my brother for my mom and he fell down the steps. He hurt his elbow and we were all terrified for more than one reason. We were not only afraid that he had gotten hurt but also that we would get in trouble with our mom. Instead of only one of us taking the blame for the accident we decided to just both take responsibility for what had happened.We both agreed that since we were both in charge and involved in what had happened, we should both take responsibility because it was the right thing to do. I think it was the right thing to do.

Who dat girl

     About two years ago, my friend Abby and I had the ambition to make a music video. Were were just two thirteen year old girls with a camera and a computer. We both had always been interested in music and cameras. When I say cameras, our areas of interest were anywhere from normal photography to videos with a green screen. One day we were bored so we searched through some of our favorite songs and found a fun and up beat song. We ended up filming for about an hour and got about forty five seconds of decent footage. One of the most difficult tasks we encountered was cutting and trimming our clips well enough to fit the audio clips and be in sync. It took us about an hour and a half and we finally had a finished product. It took some extreme time and effort, but we kept our minds to our project and ended up with a miny music video that we were both proud of.

Travelers

     One very famous explorer was Christopher Columbus. He made a very large impact in society. He traveled from Europe across the Atlantic ocean to later discover America (although Native Americans had already been here). Think about how the world would be if he had not explored and found America. It would be quite different. Maybe we would not even be here. It is hard to imagine it, but it was an important step in our development as a world.

     Some people may have devoted their lives to discovery because they may want to be different and live differently than the normal way. Some may be bored of living the same day over and over. When someone travels and make discoveries, every day is different and exciting because they never know what will happen, what they will see or what the next day hold. It must be about excitement. That would be the reason I would travel.

     Though traveling and making discoveries may be made out to to be fun and games, it is also hard because  one will have to make sacrifices. A main sacrifice would be leaving your family and friends behind as you leave. Although it depends on how long one may be leaving for. Sometimes, one could miss major times in their loved ones lives while they are out doing what they want. If it is something that someone wants enough, they should look over what they have to sacrifice and look at the positive outcomes.

Rights

     Why should people be aloud to take something that is not theirs? Well, they should not be able to by any means. I do not agree with one person taking something that does not belong to them and I think it is completely unacceptable. How would someone feel if another person came in and took something that is rightfully theirs? It would be crazy insane. I can not even fathom it, though sometimes their may be exceptions. For example, if someone is renting a house and have not paid the rent in the past four months and they have been warned about being evicted, that is different. Actually, the people renting the house would be taking money from the landlord by not paying them. So, there may be exceptions, but for a majority of the time, it is not right to take things that are not yours. We are all human and we can not have everything that is not ours. Instead of stealing, we must work for what we want and earn what we want to be rightfully ours.

Lying

I do not think there should ever be a point and time in life for it to be acceptable to lie. Chances are, everyone has been in a situation like this, but one lie will always lead to another and escalate into something that was never intended to have such gratitude. A situation could be, a girl has plans to go to the mall with her girlfriends. Her parents had a set list of chores for her to do, but she forgot to do anything! When she realized her parents would be home in 10 minutes, she shoved everything that was on her bedroom floor under her bed and hid all of the laundry that she was sopossed to do. When her parents got home, they asked if her chores were done and she said, "yes." Her parents later found out she was lying and they thought it would be fair to ground her. If she would have told the truth, she could have worked something out. Instead, she lied when she could have gotten her way in both situations if she had just told the truth. I know this is just a pety example, but it is also relatable and true. No one should lie because the consequences could turn out worse than expected.

High School.... So far.

                An important part of high school to me is learning what my academic struggles are, what my academic accomplishments are, and what my academic aspirations are and grow from them. This is my positive approach to help me throughout the rest of my high school career. Everything I thought of inspires me to do better every day. Just like many other kids my age, I do not let myself fall with my struggles. Instead, I let my accomplishments and aspirations lift me up and prosper.

Just like many other high school students, I have a few academic struggles. My first and foremost struggle is my ability to focus. I get distracted rather easily and it can make learning a struggle at times. Another struggle of mine is my study habits. I have failed to find a comfortable and effective study routine. Therefore, I am still in search of an effective study routine. One more of my academic struggles are my motivation. I do not know how to motivate myself to do homework on time, study for tests and finish my work with my full ability and show my full potential. All of these struggles are my tasks that I get to look forward to correct. 

I am proud to say that I have a few awesome academic accomplishments. The first is being accepted into Early College. It was such an awesome opportunity and I would be crazy not to accept it. Another accomplishment is attaining a 3.9 college grade point average. This is incredible due to the fact that my college grade point average is higher than my high school grade point average. One last academic accomplishment of mine is participating in a telecommunications class all by self and receiving a B in the class. All of these accomplishments have been achieved throughout a year and a half of my high school experience.

I have many academic aspirations. My first being, I want to raise my high school grade point average to a 3.5. This is very important to me due to the fact that I need a decent grade point average if I want to receive any sort of scholarship to continue on with my college career. Another academic aspiration of mine is to maintain my 3.9 college grade point average. This is also very important for my scholarship opportunities. One more of my academic aspirations are to graduate from Early College and Lorain County Community College with my high school diploma and my associate’s degree in applied science. These aspirations give me something to reach for and have academic standards for myself to I stay on a well off academic road.

I see a bright future for myself. My aspirations are what I am reaching for, my accomplishments push me closer and closer to my dreams and goals every day, and my struggles show me and let me know what I do not want to see the next day. I think this is an awesome strategy for teenagers my age because this is the time when we are thinking about how we are going to spend the rest of our lives in terms of what motivates us and making goals for ourselves. All of my struggles, accomplishments and aspirations are and will drive me to whatever I want to do in my life. I will not fall, but learn and rise up from the first year and a half of high school.

Cyber Bullying

Cyber bullying, it is a popular topic. Ask anyone. They will probably tell you that they have heard of it. I do not like it. I do not understand why people do it. Then again, we are probably all guilty of it. I know I am. I think back on how it made me feel when people bullied me over MySpace. Yes, I said MySpace. It started in 5^th grade. The people that were my so called, “friends” would say the meanest things to me. The one thing I remember the best is when this boy named Lance messaged me on online and told me that I should be in the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest walk whale in the world. Like I said, I was in 5^th grade. Another incident was when I was in 6^th grade, so “friend” Eileen would tell me every day online that I was fat, pathetic, a waste of space, no one loves me and no one would ever love me. I felt terrible. I let the ones who put me down get the best of me and I sunk. I sunk so low. No one knows this about me because I have never told anyone. Not even my family. That is that I sunk into this dark place that I would never wish upon anyone. A place of sadness, darkness, numbness, loneliness, a place they call depression. I had thoughts that tear me apart on the inside when I think about it, thoughts that no one should ever have run through their heads. I would lay in bed at night and wonder what the world would be like if I was not there anymore. Would people even care? Would they be happy? Would they not even notice? I would cry myself to sleep every night. The things people would tell me started to grow on me. I started to believe every word they said. Then, I just let it keep happening. I wish I would have gone to someone about it, but I did not know who to go to are how to tell them. Everything that was said to me was online. When these people saw me in school, they acted like they didn’t do anything. I started to recognize everything going on around me as life. I thought it was normal. I wish someone had noticed something was wrong. But the question is, why do people bully online? I am forced to believe it is because they are insecure about themselves. I know that is vague, but I firmly believe it. That is why I did it. I will not even lie. I thought that if I put someone else down, they would see themselves as a lower value as me and make me feel superior to them. That is why I believe that. Another thought is, do you think someone would be more likely to take a stand online or in real life? Other people, I think would be more likely to take a stand online because they can hide behind the computer screen and maybe they think that no body to take them seriously and not judge them. For myself personally, I would take a stand either way. If I see someone who is being bullied, I will stand up for them. I know how it feels and no one should feel like they are ever alone in any situation. They are not alone by any means. Someone will always be there even if they do not see it their self, there are. If I ever saw someone being bullied, I would step up and say something. I would step in and make every effort of mine to stop it. When someone says that’s words do not hurt them, I am sure they are lying. Words do hurt. Sometimes they pierce at our souls and the bully does not even see it. People should think about what they say before they say it. Everyone was blessed differently than the person next to them. Nobody is perfect nor should anyone strive to be. We are all unique in our own ways. We need to take a stand and make a point in our society. We are the generation that can fix this problem if we just put our minds to it and never lose hope. We cannot break down, we cannot fall short of our goals and that will not if we just stick together and make a stand. All of us, together, we can make a difference. Not tomorrow, now. So what are we waiting for? It is simple. Just smile and be nice to everyone. We can do this. Together. 

Who knows.

    In many cases, a person can be one to think of themselves and only themselves. In other cases, they may always put everyone else before themselves. Why is this? I believe that in life threatening cases, one could have a mindset of doing what is right, no matter what the consequences may be. Possibly they could realize that with the right steps and delicate hands, one may be able to survive and save another precious life. Now what about the people who would walk away when they are faced with a difficult challenge? Could it be that they are afraid of what they do not know? Maybe they do not realize how precious life truly is. They do not know that both lives can be spared. It is important to always try. Who cares if one gets a few bumps and bruises along the way, as long as they tried. Never pass up an opportunity to help someone in need. Who knows what the outcome may possibly be? Maybe it will be more that what it was thought to be.

If i could meet anyone....

     If I could meet anyone, I would meet Justin Bieber. I know that sounds very fan girlish, but it would be awesome to meet him. He always loved music and was told that his dreams would never come true. I can relate to him in several ways. The main reason is, as I was growing up, my dad always told me I would never go anywhere in life and I should just give up and quit. It was hard. I never let that bring me down, just like Bieber. I am pursuing my dreams of making it big in my life by going to Early College. When we lived together, he looked down on me because he did not like LCCC and thought it was a crap school and that I still did not deserve to be here. Basically, he would always put me down and my dreams. Because of Bieber, I know that if I believe in myself, anything is possible. If I could meet him, I would want to go out to eat with him and talk to him about his experience. I would ask him for advice on how to push the haters aside and move on. I think it would be awesome just to talk to someone who is so successful and get advice from them.  If I could meet anyone, I would meet Justin Bieber. Who would you meet?

Winter Break

     Over break, I spent most of my time with my family, which I honestly could not ask for anything more. One of the activities was going to see the musical that was made into a movie, Les Miserables. When I say “we”, I am referring to my mother, my sister, my brother, my Aunt Lynne, my Aunt Kathy, my Uncle Ryan and myself. I have always loved musicals, and so has the rest of my family. We always take time to see musicals together. Getting back to Le Mis, which is the abbreviated title, was beyond amazing. I actually had never heard of this musical until the movie came out. The story line was quite intense but I think that is an important key for a movie to be so intriguing that you can last watching one as long as Le Mis, which was about three hours. It certainly did not feel like it was that long. I think this mainly has to be due to the fact that there was little to no dialogue since it was a musical. I would recommend this movie to anyone. This was just one event in my short, exciting vacation with my family and friends.