Fear

This year we students class of 2015 are facing a life turning moment. Graduation. I am going to be very honest and express my fear of graduating. I am absolutely terrified of graduating. I understand why everyone is excited because you are supposed to be and it makes perfect sense to be, but I also think it's okay for everyone to be a little scared too. I am terrified because it is already October and I still have no idea what it is I want to even be. If i have no idea what it is I even want to be then how can I be truthful and honest to myself and make all my options available if I am already enrolling in a community college just to be on the safe side. I am so glad that in this class I read about the annotated articles on college. It really boosted my confidence and doesn't make me so scared anymore. I feel that ever since that I am now able to feel liberated. More often than not many kids have no idea what they even want to be in college. It's okay not to know. Kids also go into college thinking that they know their career, but they will eventually veer away from that also.I learned that I can traditionally take a gap year just to travel and figure out my life for that extended year. I also learned that I can do other careers that are well paying without the degree. I can go into the military or the Peace Corps. I was able to turn that fear into new found confidence.Everybody should be able to be confident about life after high school but not everyone is aware of these things and feel forced to go into college. The majority of kids who go into college with unsure minds may eventually just quit and realize it isn't for them. For example, the last year in a half everyone within my life has been telling me to go to nursing school because they have great benefits and pay well and there is always work within the medical field. I perfectly agree that it is a smart decision and that is something I truly considered as a life career but was unable to agree. I could not ever do that because I have NO INTEREST. I do not care to learn of veins and check on people. I could not be kind to those who are rude to me. I sure as hell can not wear that lime green scrub that they consider uniform eiither. I just can not. Now I do no have to either. I am able to be whatever it is I want to be. This is great because it takes away my fear. I am no longer scared of the future. I am content for now. I will go to a community just to figure myself out and take the next step from there. I learned that everything has to be one step at a time.

Gap year

I feel gap years can be very much necessary, so I definitely don't disagree with them, but I do believe that it is very hard to stop going to school and then suddenly want to go back. But of course if you really want something, then you'll do whatever that it takes to get it, in this case, a college degree. A gap year is something is a time period that initially lasts for about a year, or maybe even longer, where students study what they want to be in the future so they know how everything works or they procrastinate and do whatever they want. Personally for me, I wouldn't be able to take a gap year because I wouldn't be motivated to go back to school. But if I skip taking a gap year and just go straight to school after high school I'd be used to it so it wouldn't make much of a difference. In Europe, after high school most students do gap years, choose what they're interested in, and try their career out before they go to college so that they're certain of what they want to do, then they go back to college and study that profession. By the sounds of it, it seems smarter taking a gap year so you can know for sure what you want to do in life and then study it so you can get the actual job for sure, but in reality, at least for me, it wouldn't work taking a gap year. I would just lag on studying the profession that interests me and then I still wouldn't know what to do with my life afterwards. People say that you save a lot of money, time, and stress when you do a gap year because of the whole "finding yourself" part of the gap year. It's weird that people that take gap years are mostly the students that have high SAT scores and a high GPA, which is interesting because how can you take a break from something and just go back to doing it like nothing and expect to do good like how you did the whole year before? It's just weird to me, but very interesting that some people have the ability to do so. 

procrastination

Procrastination is something most kids our age end up doing, yet almost all of us wish we hadn't. Waiting until the last minute to finish a homework assignment or knocking out all of your chores can put a lot of stress on your bodies and negatively affect your mind. But why not start your homework a couple hours earlier or your projects a couple days sooner? Personally, practicing after school for sometimes two or three hours, I get home and i am just tired from the day, so i lay down maybe watch some netflix and relax. I feel too slumped to start any kind of mental training like a personal essay or cladogram worksheet. So i end up not starting my homework until 8 or 9 oclock, with the everlonging yet highly avoidable distractions such as twitter and other social media sites.I either end up having to cram it all in that night or decrease my oh-so-needed beauty rest. My brain sometimes tends to go off onto a tangent, especially when i am not one hundred percent focused on my task, and i believe new technologies contribute to this. Any turn ups for tonight?
                        -CV

Senior Year.

Its senior year and all I hear is people talking about universities their going to or applying to, makes me feel like an outcast. I'm going to a local city college right after high school. Now I'm not saying community college is a bad place to go to after high school but I wanted to go to a UC after graduating. All of my cousins attended really great schools ad I wanted to do the same. My parents expect the same thing from me, every time my parents ask me what I'm going to do right after high school, and it gets me very nervous. It always gets me thinking on what I'm going to do with my life. Hearing people talk about going to a UC reminds me of why I didn't do good through our high school. Why didn't I care about my grades the way I do now. I didn't care about doing my homework or anything now it's different, but it's to late to go back. Lately I've been really nervous just thinking about how we are all going to start a new chapter in our lives once we start college. Once I starting thinking about it, I see myself not being able to succeed at anything I want to do with my life. I always feel like I'm going to be that one person who fails at anything they want to accomplish. Seeing my friends living a happy life, then I'll just be there failing and I don't know why my mind is set to that. Senior year is suppose to be easy and fun, people in the past said it was. Honestly they got the fun part right but I personally don't think senior year is easy, all this homework teachers assign is crazy and I don't see how it's easy. Hopefully I pass all my classes,graduate and most importantly being able to succeed once I start college. With all that being said its now senior year and I'm going to tell myself that it's going to be a great year and that everything is going to be ok after high school.

Sleep, good grades, social life. Choose 3

If you were forced to choose two of the three out of sleep, good grades, and social life, which would you choose? Each of the three possibilities each hold certain benefits that the others don't. Sleep and good grades would allow you to focus more on your schoolwork and allow you to get into a good university, and you will probably succeed very much in life. Good grades and social life would allow you to enjoy life while also doing well in school;furthermore, college is still a very viable option if one were to choose this combination. Lastly, with sleep and social life as the main priorities, one could live a more relaxing lifestyle with the least amount of commitment or responsibility. 

However, you can't have your cake and eat it too, so to speak. Although there are many positive reasons to choose each of the three combinations, there are negative reasons as well. Social life and sleep would most likely make you very lazy and unsuccessful in a long term view. Grades and Social life would put a lot of stress on you which could be difficult to cope with. With grades and sleep you would miss out on the more enjoyable parts of high school.

Overall, I believe that good grades and social life is what I would choose due to the fact that i believe in the importance of college but also in making the most out of this year. And although that is the one I think is best, it doesn't mean that everyone has to think that too. It's a personal opinion, so there is no real answer to which is best.

Which would you choose?

difficult decisions

Now that college applications for Cal States are almost due I've never felt so pressured before as I do now. I'm so stressed because I never really have much time in the day to sit on my computer for a couple of hours and works on applications because of homework and projects assigned etc. I opened up an application and noticed I had to put what major I'm interested in and realized I wasn't so sure. I took an ROP Health Occupations class to see if i would be interested in the medical field and i was. I was interested in becoming a neonatalogist (doctor for premature,ill babies) because well.. I love babies and just the thought of being able to save a newborns life would be so incredible. If I do choose that route, I would major in Biology or any science major. But then ever since I was about 8 years old I've always been that "crafty, creative person" you can say. I loved the thought of being able to come up with new ideas and making them my own. That still hasn't changed about myself, so another interest I would like to major in is designing. I'm still looking more into it. So should I major with a BS or BA? Both are totally opposite careers but they are both careers I would really love. The downside of Neonatalogist would be the fact that babies wont make it and I know that will devastate me. The downside for designing would be it doesn't make as much of a high salary as a doctor does. I spoke to a friend about this complicated decision and their automatic response was to become a doctor. They said I wont be as successful if I major in designing. I felt really offended because that response basically told me "Don't do what you love, you will fail." They obviously don't know the famous designers. I'm not saying in any way i'll be "famous" but its a way of saying that nothing is impossible to achieve a goal and becoming successful in life. Should I double major? or would that be a waste of my time? I feel as myself only being a 16 year old, I feel so pressured to know exactly what I want to major in and my career option in so little time. Then I feel if i'm pressured, I will make a mistake and waste more time. I still have about a 10-11 months until I start college and feel as if I must have a response and decision this very second. Any advice?

Beginning a new chapter in life

It saddens me to think that we're almost done with high school and we're about to begin a new chapter in our life. We're coming to an end with our high school years and we are going to have start being more responsible and doing things for ourselves and not relying on anyone else. I always rely on my mom to pick me up and drop me off at places and now i know that I'm going to have to rely on myself to get me to places. However our parents can still help us with things, but just don't rely on them. I remember starting ninth grade as if it was yesterday I see where I was at at this time of the year in ninth grade and its completely different I would've never imagined it. in this time of the year i bet its very stressful for seniors including me we"re taking our SATs, trying to do our college applications because there due in a month for most schools and also trying to do our regular assignments for our classes. But either way we have to remain positive and see the best of things and know that some things are meant to be and some are not. The first quarter is about to end and then we have three quarters left we still have to pay attention in school and remain content. After all of us graduate a new chapter will begin and we will all go our separate ways either go to a community college or a four year university or the peace corps or start working or many other things that's out there, everyone has their different interests and that's what makes each of us different. there can also be problems at home that can delay us from doing what we want to do but just hang in there and stay strong and things will start to go the way you want it as long as you remain positive and won't give up.