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.