Throughout my first three years of Junior High, I only associated with the people that I already know. Most of my fellow classmates had friends from other grade levels – but not me. I liked the comfort of only having the people that I trust around me. Occasionally, I socialized with other students as needed, like during school activities or during volleyball trainings. I really thought I was going to end my Junior High School life that way, but God had other plans. On my last year as a Junior High student, my friends persuaded me to run as a student council officer. Of course, at first I was reluctant. Being a candidate would mean making speeches, promoting your party’s platforms and the like. But because most of the people from my party are close friends of mine, I decided to give it a try. For me, the scariest thing that I experienced during the candidacy period was delivering a speech in front of the whole school. That was my first time to do something with everyone watching. There was a constant fear of mumbling my words or being boring. I must admit, I don’t think I did a great job on that speech, but it was enough for people to believe that I was worthy of their votes. After acquiring the position that I sought for, I became more confident and more sociable. By the end of the school year, I had friends from different levels. …show more content…
As the months passed by, I started to feel the pressure and the burden of my workload. My time was divided between my studies and extra-curricular activities. Volleyball training already takes up two hours of my time after school for four days a week. The remaining day was reserved for Student Council sessions with our guidance counselor. At a really young age, I have learned how to work with a really tight schedule. Not to mention, I still have clubs on Thursdays and Scout meetings every
Earlier this year, I was selected as my local chapter’s delegate to the American Legion Jersey Boys State. This was a new experience for me as this was the first time I was away from home with no one I knew. The main focus of that weeklong seminar was elections and although I knew I was competing against some of the best students in the state, I wanted to see what I could do. So I ran to be my floor’s ward leader, and won. Then I ran for my city council member, and won. Then I ran to by my county Vice-chair, and won. Then I ran to be my county senator, and lost. This was by far the most disappointing moment of the week. I had worked hard to climb up the mock political ladder and even had started imagining making it to the top. However, the
At a young age, I quickly adjusted my lifestyle to juggle softball with school and a social life. As I grew up, I had to take on more responsibilities, and my experience with time
Up till middle school, it seemed like I fit in pretty well at school. I was decent at sports and I had a good amount of friends. Life was pretty good at the time and I was enjoying it. Once high school started, I could see a shift in my life. I had lost most friends from prior years, and I was not good at sports; I struggled to fit in.
I had decided to dismiss playing volleyball so I could focus on my studies, with more time on my hands I was able to start volunteering my time in the community and I had more capability to do my homework. I worked hard and watched as my grades skyrocketed to the best they had been since middle school, I was settled into a routine and by the end of the first semester I had all A’s. Track season started and I felt like a leader more than anything. My sophomore year was my fourth year on Varsity and I enjoyed running with the new girls and teaching them to long jump or start out of the starting blocks. Track is one of my favorite things in the world and I love helping younger girls pursue a passion. I began setting goals for myself, including graduating in the top ten in the class of 2018 and being a member of the National Honor Society like my grandmother and my great grandmother. At the end of the 2015-2016 school year, I had a 3.8 GPA for the year and 3.5 cumulative GPA, also finishing the year on the A Honor
I finally agreed to run for office and prepared a speech, as once I put my mind to it, I was determined to get the position. During my speech I was extremely nervous. As I looked into the sea of students, I felt that each one a shark, eager to tear me apart with any mistake I made. However, I made it though by focusing on the students I had formed bonds with. When the results finally came in, I ended up winning the election.
I also started participating in extracurricular activities like sports, NHS, Junior council, and NJROTC. Along with homework and my brothers, I used more of my time after school. Instead of getting home at 2:15 with 6 hours for everything I needed to do, I now got home at 5:30 with around 3 hours. While participating in these activities and completing my coursework, I also had to balance it with my household duties. At first, it was extremely challenging because I was overwhelmed and it seemed as though I didn't have time for anything. I would either forget to do my homework or miss an event or practice. eventually, I learned to deal with it without stressing myself out by prioritizing and creating a schedule. By organizing my time, I managed helping my mother take care of my brothers with schoolwork. This experience displays resiliency because although I had a lot on my plate, I was able to focus and do it all. I overcame the stress of not having enough time and proved that I could do it. I learned that if you believe you can do it you can with effort and to never give up without doing everything physically
During these years I spent most of my time at home. If I finished my schoolwork early, I would go play outside with my siblings. I spent most of my evenings going to my activities such as football, baseball, or taekwondo. I also went to many homeschooling group meetings where I got to meet and talk to many other kids. Even though I spent so much time outside, going to activities with other kids I felt that I had very little amount of friends. Even though after all this time spending with other kids and I never fully knew them. My activities offered very little time to actually talk to the other kids making it difficult to make friends. Since I barely got to talk to these kids I felt awkward when I went back to public
This longitudinal perspective opens up the possibility that the peer social environment is one that is dynamic. Friendships can be added and terminated resulting in the number of friends reported changes from childhood into and through adolescence. Children moving from intimate elementary classroom settings into a broader age range of adolescents in junior high and high school increases the potential for developing friendships with older adolescents. At the same time, the quality of the relationships with these friends may also be changing. Adolescent relationships are becoming more intimate than those of childhood with the sharing of intimate feelings and being aware of the needs of others becoming a prominent feature of friendship during adolescence.
A few months after the start of freshman year, I had finally gotten used to having who I thought to be my friends, ignore me, and not knowing anyone else in the school. I found people who accepted my strong Catholic beliefs.
Entertainment media are contributing to the emergence of new and novel forms of spiritual and religious phenomena in our contemporary (and past) culture. The essays in this issue explore diverse facets of the morphing relationship between entertainment, spirituality and culture. Over the last century, the cinema has played a vital role in the expression and representation of Judeo-Christian religious practices and beliefs. Early cinema told the life of Christ in the Passion Play and Cecil B DeMille produced two spectacular versions of The Ten Commandments in 1923 and 1956. While cinema represented religious themes and figures, religious institutions also shaped the emergence of this moving image technology and its role within Western society; the wondrous moving image provided by the cinematrographe could open the viewer’s eyes to the work of God or, somewhat paradoxically, do the Devil's work by deceiving them with its illusionary spectacles.
Through these fun and challenging times each one of us has built strong relationships. Whether it was with friends or a teacher, we have developed connections and memories that will be with us forever, even if we lose contact with those individuals. Some students have discovered they have a passion for writing through a creative writing class or want to have a career in business from taking Mr. Ide’s inspirational marketing classes. Others have participated in CLIP or summer school to catch up and make it possible for them to be here today. I went to Heights Elementary and have spent the last 12 years with the same group of people. Attending school with the people I’ve known since elementary and middle school, and making homecoming posters with them for four years in a row, has given me a chance to get to know the people around me better than I ever thought I would.
In high school I had a few close friends. I was never someone to really go out of my way or to be the "popular one" I had three best friends and I was fine with that. I had often been quiet, reserved and never the center of attention. I enjoyed keeping to myself often avoiding loud crowds of people. Honestly my favorite thing to do was
I didn’t have that many close friends in high school. I always was just kind of there. I was no one important. Everyone seems to have his or her place in this world of high school and it seemed that my place was on the outside that I didn’t fit into this puzzle. I think that that experiences in high school pretty much defines much of my life. It definitely affects my writing. You are supposed to find security in high school, but those four years leave me feeling pretty empty and alone. I have very little self-esteem and am constantly feeling not good enough. These are the feelings that I have hid from the world. I can’t let people see the pain inside of me for fear that I will be even less accepted than I am now. I think a lot of my feelings of aloneness and semi-depression come from losing a few friends of mine who used to be really close to me. You learn to trust people, and when they leave and they are no longer there for you than their being in your life could cause more harm than good.
As I reach the seemingly boring age of 19, I am able to look back and reflect on how my choices in the past have gotten me to where I am today. One of the most significant decisions I have made in my life was to minimize my friend group. Now, losing friends is something you hear about before you even hit junior high. The common phrase is repeated over and over again, when referring to high school, “You find out who your real friends are.” As a scrawny little freshman, with no sense of reality, I refused to believe that that phrase would ever apply to my life. The end of my sophomore year is when my then, sixteen-year-old self, realized that that overused phrase was more relevant to my life than I wanted it to be. So I did something about it.
Throughout high school, I had my same friend group that I had since middle school and elementary school. I always tried to make new friends, and join groups when I could, but I learned that the group of friend’s I had were a great group. My friends and I were in many of the same clubs, which made it more fun being in those clubs, and knowing people.