AF: Roger Ebert and his wife, Chaz

Value of Life

Now that football season has come to a close for our team I have reached a questionable milestone in my life. All my life I have played football and, quite frankly am no way ready to give it up. The question is will i be able to continue to play it in college on a scholarship? Will i continue to keep in good contact with my brothers? What am I supposed to do now!? Well i know im going to continue to work hard in school. Now that season is over I can focus more in school but, that lingering feeling of emptiness will be there; until maybe December. Playing at the next level would be a great honor. Right now with football gone I'm questioning the Value ofLife. Not talking suicide or anything but it hurts. Its the only thing I know outside of school. Playing football is my life and, if its all over whats my Value on the Earth until I find my career. Its a rugged stepping stone but everything will work out for the better I'm sure of it.

AF: TEDYouth

Kids, read this, and look at the bottom where it says,

Not able to make it to TEDYouth in person? Totally fine. The event will be webcast on Saturday, November 16, from 11am to 6pm CDT. Or find a TEDxYouthDay event near you. They are happening all over the world, in the 48-hour period surrounding TEDYouth.

Value of Life

The value of life is something important that we must realize we should do. When I think about valuing life its more about appreciating and thinking about how valuable life is to you right now whether you know it or not. It makes me sad that sometimes there's people that just take advantage of life and don't appreciate the little things that come our way. I've met little kids in the hospital that have cancer and they would tell me 'I would love to be in your shoes or be out there in the world walking, laughing at the little things, and just make my life fun".Its different when you hear that one person telling you value your life or to appreciate the little things. The hard part is actually thinking and acting towards it. People out there in this world will kill to be in your shoes or just be in your life for 1 day. People just need to value everything that comes there way. Whether it will be a little kiss on the check by your mom or brother or something that makes you smile.People shouldn't take advantage of their life because life is more important than you may think.You gatta notice the little things.Life is a precious thing that we must value and notice in life. Life is.good in many ways. Some things that make life good is the way thr leaves blow through the tress, the way that special someone can make you smile, the way your brother or sister can say something so dorky that will make you giggle a little bit, those friends you look forward to seeing the next day, those dates to the mall, the christmas atmosphere, the way everyone hugs eachother during new years and yelling "HAPPY NEW YEARRRRR!!!!!",and those days you  just want to stay home under the warm blankets and watch movies. Just all the little thing that we go through in life that we dont sit down and realize how life is good and valuable.

Life Gives You Struggles

LIFE LIFE LIFE!! :( In life you will have that short or long period of time where its just the worst part of your life.Hamlets background states that he went through a lot because his own father got murdered by his own uncle. People in life go through the most worst stuff in life that they have to somehow go through. I feel that sometimes stuff happen because to make you a better and stronger person in life. Right now in class we are focusing on values of life. I feel that people should value life whether it is bad or good because people don't get to have you do. Sometimes in life you need a little bump on the road because how do you expect to become stronger or know how to handle a rough or bad situation when it come your way. I think that people that are struggling or that is in a rough situation to take a deep breath and remember and the end of it all it will only make you a better person and it will all  be better at the end of it. Don't ever think that your not the only one and saying "why me, why me?' because everyone will go through something whether we like it or not.There will be struggles in life about anything you can think of. So don'y ever think that you are the only one in life that is going through the rough times. Life just sucks that way but its for the best

AF: What's good?

The Orange
—Wendy Cope

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange —
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment.  It's new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I'm glad I exist.

"Roger Ebert: The Essential Man" by Chris Jones ... Intro

For the 281st time in the last ten months, Roger Ebert is sitting down to watch a movie in the Lake Street Screening Room, on the sixteenth floor of what used to pass for a skyscraper in the Loop. Ebert’s been coming to it for nearly thirty years, along with the rest of Chicago’s increasingly venerable collection of movie critics. More than a dozen of them are here this afternoon, sitting together in the dark. Some of them look as though they plan on camping out, with their coats, blankets, lunches, and laptops spread out on the seats around them.

The critics might watch three or four movies in a single day, and they have rules and rituals along with their lunches to make it through. The small, fabric-walled room has forty-nine purple seats in it; Ebert always occupies the aisle seat in the last row, closest to the door. His wife, Chaz, in her capacity as vice-president of the Ebert Company, sits two seats over, closer to the middle, next to a little table. She’s sitting there now, drinking from a tall paper cup. Michael Phillips, Ebert’s bearded, bespectacled replacement on At the Movies, is on the other side of the room, one row down. The guy who used to write under the name Capone for Ain’t It Cool News leans against the far wall. Jonathan Rosenbaum and Peter Sobczynski, dressed in black, are down front.

“Too close for me,” Ebert writes in his small spiral notebook.

Today, Ebert’s decided he has the time and energy to watch only one film, Pedro Almodóvar’s new Spanish-language movie, Broken Embraces. It stars Penélope Cruz. Steve Kraus, the house projectionist, is busy pulling seven reels out of a cardboard box and threading them through twin Simplex projectors.

Unlike the others, Ebert, sixty-seven, hasn’t brought much survival gear with him: a small bottle of Evian moisturizing spray with a pink cap; some Kleenex; his spiral notebook and a blue fine-tip pen. He’s wearing jeans that are falling off him at the waist, a pair of New Balance sneakers, and a blue cardigan zipped up over the bandages around his neck. His seat is worn soft and reclines a little, which he likes. He likes, too, for the seat in front of him to remain empty, so that he can prop his left foot onto its armrest; otherwise his back and shoulders 

can’t take the strain of a feature-length sitting anymore.

The lights go down. Kraus starts the movie. Subtitles run along the bottom of the screen. The movie is about a film director, Harry Caine, who has lost his sight. Caine reads and makes love by touch, and he writes and edits his films by sound. “Films have to be finished, even if you do it blindly,” someone in the movie says. It’s a quirky, complex, beautiful little film, and Ebert loves it. He radiates kid joy. Throughout the screening, he takes excited notes—references to other movies, snatches of dialogue, meditations on Almodóvar’s symbolism and his use of the color red. Ebert scribbles constantly, his pen digging into page after page, and then he tears the pages out of his notebook and drops them to the floor around him. Maybe twenty or thirty times, the sound of paper being torn from a spiral rises from the aisle seat in the last row.

The lights come back on. Ebert stays in his chair, savoring, surrounded by his notes. It looks as though he’s sitting on top of a cloud of paper. He watches the credits, lifts himself up, and kicks his notes into a small pile with his feet. He slowly bends down to pick them up and walks with Chaz back out to the elevators. They hold hands, but they don’t say anything to each other. They spend a lot of time like that.

Just reading that introduction of "Roger Ebert: The Essential Man" by Chris Jones, you would have never guessed that Roger looked like that man in the picture. It is not until the body paragraphs that you start to realize he could not talk. It gives a few hints in the intro about Roger having a disability...but not enough to know what he looked like. He is a man who has certain habits that cannot get away from him, such as the worn out seat, and even the way he and his wife react with each other after a movie review. Same routines. I believe that kid joy in paragraph 6 means that he lets go all of his burdens during that movie and just stays happy and filled with hope. It just amazes me about how strong he is.

AF: Success on TED Radio

This was a great little moment on the radio this morning:  an hour devoted to different ideas about success.  I'm going to go back and listen to the entire show, but this short segment (13:17) by Alain de Botton* is really very good.  Play it in the background while you are doing something else, like folding your laundry.

Why I thought of you:  because you are trying to figure out what your major will be; it feels urgent to you that you figure this out, and soon.  Why?  Because our identities are tied up so closely with our work.  But honestly,  how can someone who is just 17 or 18 years old know who they are or what they will be?  You are just on the cusp.

Don't worry about WHAT you are.  Worry instead about getting a good education.  Become well educated.  Study everything. For most of us, it is mistake to look at college from such a narrow, careerist point of view.  I'm not saying that NO ONE knows what they want to be when they grow up, but I am saying that most don't, and that's fine.

*If you're trying to figure out why this guy sounds familiar...he wrote The Architecture of Happiness, a book that figured prominently in the movie, 500 Days of Summer.

Senior Year Stress

I know that I am not the only senior of our 550 student class that is in this particular situation... but wow. This has been the hardest year of my life so far. I don't know what it is. I mean, I have family, work, school, and, for now, tennis on my plate. It's nothing new. I've been balancing sports and school since freshmen year. I've been employed since sophomore year. Lol, and I've always had a family... what changed?

Something in me is just exhausted. I feel as if I've lost all motivation to be who I used to be. I used to be happy and on top of things, but now I'm always feeling bad for myself. I've missed multiple deadlines, lost a couple tennis matches over stupid mistakes, and even accepted a 43% on an econ quiz because I didn't want to read for freaking 30 minutes one night. That doesn't mean that I've given up on school. I would never do that. I still do all of my homework, but some days I just would rather catch up on sleep. Another thing that sucks is that I never have time to spend time with friends. I'm starting to think they don't even like me anymore.
 I need help. I only have myself to blame for this. I should be mature, and I should definitely not feel bad for myself. There are so many students that are employed that still keep their prorities in mind. I know I'm just going through a begining-senior-year-crisis. Now that I got the SAT over with this Saturday, I think I'll be a little less stressed. I'll just hope I did better than last time. UGH... stress.

2 Important Steps:::Scrolling through books

If your scrolling through a book just to look for a summary, here are two main things to do. I have learned this in my Bible Study group, but you can also put this in action for short novels, novels, poems, etc....:

1. Sometimes an author may want to direct your attention to only a portion of a Bible verse. Look for the story behind the verse, and the story after the verse. This is how most false teachings occur.
2. Do not be discouraged when you first start reading. Soon enough you will get the hang of reading the Bible, and you will soon learn where each book is located.

Just a book

               This is a book I'm currently reading. I recommend it to anyone who loves romance. I started reading it today but I've got pretty far and its really interesting in its on way. At first it starts off slow but then it starts getting to the point. I'm reading this because most of my friends read it and they said it was a good read and I'm trying to read for the"enjoyment". I wasnt sure at first but i gave it a try and can't seem to put it down.

SUCCESS IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER

"There are three rules for success: The first is go on. The second is go on. The third is go on."-Frank Crone'

                 This quote really inspires me not just because it's simple and easy to understand, but because I'm a senior, in fact we're all seniors and the world is not knocking at our door. We've all heard the stories of how hard it is to get into college or how hard it is to get a job but I feel like if this quote just says forget about what the people are saying. Just keep going in life no matter how hard the struggle may be because the outcome is worth waiting for. I'm sure all of us wants to be success in life. I know i do, but I also know that it isn't going to be easy and i know there are some like myself who gets discouraged at times and may want to quit or feels like the work our teachers gives us is pointless, but what good will it do us if we don't at least make an effort. We have to be at school anyway so we might as well get something out it. Even if you feel like the classes you take has nothing to do with what you want to do in life. There is something school has taught us whether its dealing with academics or with relationships. Either way we have learned something at school we can take in the real world and use it productively. So never give up, be successful.

LEAVES OF GRASS AND MECHANISMS OF THE WORLD: Quotes to live by!

There are times when I run out of inspiration and ambition. Sometimes, when this happens, I read some of my favorite quotes from movies, songs, books, etc. These are but a FEW of them. ENJOY!

 HUGO (the movie):

"I'd imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured, if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn't be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too."

"Maybe that's why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn't able to do what it was meant to do... Maybe it's the same with people. If you lose your purpose... it's like you're broken."

"I enjoy the poetry of Christina Georgina Rossetti. She wrote, "My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a watered shoot; My heart is like an apple-tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit."'

I AM THE MESSENGER (by Markus Zusak)

"It's impeccable how brutal the truth can be at times. You can only admire it. Usually, walk around constantly believing ourselves. "I'm okay," we say. "I'm alright." But sometimes the truth arrives on you, and you can't get it off. That's when you realize that sometimes it isn't even an answer---it's a question. Even now, I wonder how much of my life is convinced..."

"I'm not the messenger at all. I'm the message."

"I stood us and walked down the steps. I'd rather chase the sun than wait for it..."

TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE (by Mitch Albom)

 "Take any emotion---love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I'm going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions---if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them---you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.

But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, 'All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.'

I know you think this is just about dying, but it's like I keep telling you. When you learn how to die, you learn how to live."


 "Love is the only rational act."


"Maybe death is the great equalizer, the one big thing that can finally make strangers shed a tear for one another."


 "Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too, even when you're in the dark. Even when you're falling."


  "So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning."


 "But there still seemed to be no clear answers. Do you take care of others or take care of your inner child? Return to traditional values or reject tradition as useless? Seek success or seek simplicity? Just say No or Just Do It?"


WHITE OLEANDER (by Janet Fitch)

 "People didn't fit in slots---prostitute, housewife, saint---like sorting the mail. We were so mutable, fluid with fear and desire, ideas and angles, changeable as water."

1984 (by George Orwell)  

 "He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth
that nobody would ever hear. But so long as he uttered it,
in some obscure way the continuity was not broken. It was
not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you
carried on the human heritage. He went back to the table,
dipped his pen, and wrote."

 SPEAK (by Laurie Halse Anderson)

 "I have survived. I am here. Confused, screwed up, but here. So, how can I find my way? Is there a chain saw of the soul, an ax I can take to my memories or fears? I dig my fingers into the dirt and squeeze. A small, clean part of me waits to warm and burst through the surface. Some quiet girl I haven't seen in months. That is the seed I will care for."

 
 

The struggle

ERW has been a lot harder than I expected it to be. When I first came into ERW I thought it would be pretty easy and that I could get the job done, but it has been truly a big struggle for me. Lots of people tolde that it would be a lot of writing and I kinda just ignored them because I thought that It wouldn't be that hard because I'm off to college next year it's probably gonna help me out with writing problems that I have not conquered. So when I started off ERW class this year I predicted it to be hard bit also easy, but it ended up being much harder and it just made me unprepared for what was coming. All the things we do in class make me learn something everyday and start to make my writing processes easier. The struggle will probably keep coming but I will keep capatilizing and staying on feet. 

The Tree

     My favorite book as a child was The Giving Tree, back then I didn't really understand the entire message of the story besides the fact that a tree raised a child and gave him everything he needed. Now and then I still ponder about this novel, compare it to myself and find new messages - I hadn't realized how my favorite childhood novel had such a subconscious impact.
     The true story with this novel is that a tree loved its child so much that it watched him grow and gave every ounce of love till its death for the child's success. Aren't our parents doing that now? It's obviously different for everyone but for me, my mother is my giving tree. She raised me and my siblings as a single parent and did her best to give me everything she could, all she wants is the best for us. Like the tree, my mom became both mother and father, fed me with her apples of both wisdom and nourishment and most importantly showed me her love and compassion.
      The thing is, my life will not be the story of The Giving Tree. Though my mother is my giving tree, I will absolutely do my best to be her best apple that not only becomes successful but gives back to her. She truly doesn't understand how much I love her and appreciate her being by my side.

     
    

Airpilot

     Every day is a struggle that we constantly endure. Some of us may be lost in this battle and some of us know exactly where they're headed, but for me, I'm just going with the flow. In the beginning of my senior year, my wish was to make sure it wasn't as stressful and difficult as my junior year -  when I was constantly bombarded with essays, assignments, obligations and promises. Truthfully, I hated my junior year, I wasn't myself most of the time and balance was my worst characteristic. I tended to make sure things I could get done right at the moment was finished but on the other hand, responsibilities that had deadlines I somehow procrastinated. I went into class, did my best to actually stay awake and pay attention day after day after day. It was my autopilot.
     Lets start it off like this, autopilot and Mr. Nguyen do NOT go together. The amount of workload was no joke. I still can't believe Juan Ramirez (graduated last year) had wrestling, Mr. Nguyen and other APs but still made sure he had good grades. He's a stud muffin.
     Here's some advice if you're on your auto pilot. You need to grab the wheel and take responsibility of your own life, see the seriousness of situations and ultimately guide and inspire yourself.
     I started off my senior year expecting everything to be easy. Then I soon realized nothing is easy. Everything takes a stepping stone and a beginning, its how you choose to act on your beginning for the best possible outcome. The beginning of this year was definitely an eye-opener. I hadn't realized how much people cared for me and how I took their friendship for granted. Though I sometimes can't escape from this autopilot, I've realized its time to put in work, focus and be successful.
My high school career has just begun and I'm preparing for college, thinking about future aspirations, what I'm going to do after I graduate and the list continues but the one thing I know definitely is that this is going to be my best year.
What are your goals for this year?

Heart Attack in Front of the Class

Well that's what it feels like anyway. On the inside I’m dying. I want to go back to my seat, my palms are sweating. But the strange thing is I am smiling. I need to tell myself everyone is doing it and they are fine. But then again if they jumped off a cliff and lived then I can go ahead and jump. Right? So it makes me believe that what if I stutter, forget what I am going to say or worse throw up or pass out? No thanks Teachers I think I would rather take that F. But where is that going to take me? I know that I have to get it done. I need the grade and I can't just go jump in front of a moving car! Really Jessica? You can handle spiders and living in a third world country but presenting? So putting my big girl pants on and walked up to the front of the class and presented.

I opened my mouth and blurred my eyes, anything to not see the eyes on me. I relaxed and I talked. I loved the topic anyway. Peter Elbow knew is stuff. So I just thought how about I think that I’m telling my friends about this writing process. And it worked. Most of all of third period are my friends anyway. So breathe Jessica. Talk and don’t forget. Soon enough it was over. That simple. I can now smile and forget. My terror is done with. I know why it was so simple, the audience. It has always been them. I know the topic, I know the words but why must they scary me so much? I have always had this problem. While presenting has never stopped me, I always get anxious. But being a senior, I have improved so much. I can have a smile on my face without faking it so much, and I can speak in continues sentences. While I have gotten better, it still terrifies me. I know I’m not the only one but while someone else is up there we can tell when they are shaking or they are pros. Ad it terrifies to know that they know about me to. This does not help me when I’m up there. Presenting Peter Elbow was easier than what I have to do in other classes. It satisfies me when I know that I am not the only one but wish I wasn’t one.

Baggage, The Blank Slate, and the Words of Whitman

          From kindergarten up until a year or two ago, I was set on going to Stanford and becoming a successful lawyer. I was keen on dominating the court room and becoming passionate in the inter-workings of people, words and powerful ideas.
         
         The past few years, though, life hit me hard, and I came to look at myself harshly, deeming myself unworthy for things of greatness of any sort. I thought myself ignorant, slow, unqualified, unmotivated, ugly, and worst of all, insignificant... even, at times, non-existent.
         
          I crashed and burned and folded in on myself. I read and wrote and sang, but more often than not, I could be found in the dark in some corner of my room: knees folded, arms encircling them, head tucked in between, bawling over my lack of use.
         
          I felt such great sadness for the prospect of not being able to give back to the world, for not having anything to show for the gifts bestowed upon me. I even acknowledged the fact that my crying was a show of weakness, a lack of proper respect for TIME and the fact that I was wasting it, and a LOT of it. I felt anxious. Fast, I had to move fast. I couldn't. I was stuck. I was sick all the time from stress and ill thought and lack of sleep imposed on myself BY myself. I would lend out a helping hand to the ones I loved, be it to watch my brothers or help a friend with a paper, or to exist as an open heart and listening ear. I was weak, though, but I was too ashamed to admit it. I denied defeat even though my parents and my friends and my teachers could see glimmers here and there of my drowning in my own pool of self-doubt and pity and emotional wreckage.

          I would like to say that one day I woke up and the sun shone and that everything was okay, but it wasn't. It was a series of days and weeks and months that required a living, breathing effort. It was a process, like that of writing. It was the transformation not only of an attitude and a supposed "truth", but a mind. The beauty in the breakdown was that anything could be sprung up in such rubble. New bridges and connections and aspirations and ideas of what happiness and purpose really meant.

          "Transformation, not Transaction." "It's not always about the destination, but the journey." That sort of thing.

          Nowadays, life is as crazy and busy as before, but through experience and full-fledged effort in being self-aware, through the reading of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman and Tess of D'Urbervilles and Speaker For The Dead and White Oleander and many many many other books, through the watching of hundreds upon hundreds of films, through the composition and immersion of thousands of songs, I have grown more appreciative and, hopefully, more optimistic than ever before. Without denying the darkness of the world, I recognize the points of light that peak out here and there, the people that are beautiful and whole. I have learned what it is to be whole, what it truly means to be WHOLESOME.

          A blank slate is what college will be for me, a new life away from the one I have thus far lived. Much like my personal statement, I was a baby. Then, I was a child. Then, I was a teenager. I do not pretend to be an adult. I am still a child. A child I am, but not for long. I look forward to putting myself to good use, to letting in all the light of others through the cracks that are my glorious faults!

       
 ~As my next post, I will quote what I deem to be beautifully useful and relate-able lines from various authors (:

COMMENT DOWN BELOW YOU WONDERFUL PEOPLE!

          

It's Just life

After many all these years at High School I thought was armed with everything I needed to conquer the working world, knowledge of what to expect, an understanding of what’s ahead and the ability to get by. While all of that got me here, I don’t think it prepare me for life. Now I wish I just listened. You know that old saying, "Keep it safe” Well it sucks. Applying myself to colleges has shown that you have to get of your comfort zone. And it frustrating been tron apart by staying safe away from failure and going out there and stepping in to life. Buts its best of we do. I starting to learn it doesn't matter how you get your foot in the door, it only matters what you do with the opportunity when it happens. But unfortunately life is not always fair. You may not always get what you want. It’s hard to know you may not get into college. It’s terrifying how hard it can be to try so hard and then lose.

One thing that can literally save you is money. Each dream that you want can happen with money. While money is not everything, it can get you into college. You have to be prepared to waste money. Something I am not too happy with. A good reason/excuse why I start to think community is better for me. I don’t see or my family financially stable for me to go to 4-year. Because of all this stress we all need to remember to relax. Make sure that in your downtime, at home, we aren’t stressing about colleges constantly. Yes it’s stress full, but it has to be done. Just don’t kill yourself over it. One thing I need to do it stay on track about is to not lose heart, just push on. I need to not become distracted with what everyone else is doing, stay focused on my own goals, stick to my lane and the rest will sort itself out. Hopefully.

Elbow's Revising with Feedback

In the past, when I'd seek someone to revise my paper I mainly had in mind for them to make grammatical corrections and reply with things like "oh this sentence sound a little awkward" or "maybe you could move this sentence here". Those were the main responses I expected when would pass my paper to someone to be revised. However, while studying the chapter "Revising with Feedback", I came to realize the importance of the comments from my peers not regarding the flow or my grammar, comments I often times looked over and didn't really consider. Elbow explains how when someone else is reading your paper, you should be more interested in the revisers opinion and thoughts rather than your message you where trying to deliver in you essay.

 I know it sound strange not to focus on you focal message when that is the purpose of writing, but by listening to others opinions you will be able to understand how outsiders may disagree and that way you can better construct your paper to defend your message. When righting a paper, you are not only sending a message or making a statement. You are defending that this idea and the reasons behind it are comprehendible and true.

I Don't Know

For a while I was sure of what I wanted to do as my career. Until I was questioned about it and I was not content with what my answers had been. So I was stuck and I decided to ask for advice from the people who I deem as wise. I received wonderful advice from our lovely teacher Ms. Fletcher and others who were or are currently in the college proccess. A lot of it was very helpful, especially the short and simple "don't mess up." But I have come to a realization that no matter how much advice I get, no one is going to know what the best major for me is or what I should do with my life. All anyone can really do it just speak from their own experiences and hope that they help someone else. As for me I have to go with the flow and do what I think I want to do and even though I am not sure about what I want I have the freedom to experiment with my life. I want to try new things, go to different places, but most of all I want to be independent. I was able to come to this obvious conclusion with the help of Elbow's writing without thinking. I really can say that these presentations benifited me. I know that with time everything will all fall into place and things will be good, thanks fletch.

Blind read-arounds

            I remember the first time that I heard Ms. Fletcher say the words blind read-around.  You know where people in the class sit and read what you have written (in this case our personal statements).  Freaking out I remember looking at everyone sitting at my table with this oh no she did not just say that look.  I was already freaking out with the people sitting at my desk read my personal statement now other people were going to read it. I know I’m not the only one who remembers it I’m pretty sure there where others out there who felt the same way that I felt. 

I remember thinking great people are going to sit around and judge my writing, what if it sucks, what if I make no sense. There were so many things going through my head at that moment.  I thought that I was going to dread the times that we had to have blind read-arounds.   

Now I have no problems with blind read-arounds.  I see them as an advantage; they help me out a lot.  Blind read-arounds help me out a lot.  They help me to see what it is that I need to do to improve my writing.  I get feedback on what I need to add, take out, grammar errors, or anything else that needs to be fixed.  Not only does it help me on making improvements I receive complements on my writing.  People that read my writing were telling me that I had great details in my writing and that it helped them to read my writing more clearly.  I’m glad that we had these blind read-arounds for our personal statements because to me they helped a lot. 

AF: Common App Glitches

Here is an article about the glitches in the Common App this year!

F for F***

And if you are one of those people who is reading this just because there was a four letter word in the title that started with the letter F then shame on you, although that was my purpose. Tee hee. Well, F actually stands for five; five things to think about when going or applying to college/university. 1. Do not procrastinate! Procrastination seems to have become a growing epidemic. It is the most bitter sweet thing you could ever do. 2. Do not stress out about your major. If you are not sure apply with undecided. You will have time to thinks things through as we approach the end of the year and you can always change it. 3. Don't overwhelm yourself! Take on projects or deadlines that you can meet. The struggle should not be real.

4. Have a positive outlook. Do not let yourself be taken over by pessimist ideas or thoughts. If you think you will fail a test or not get into your dream school then it can really affect your mood, learning process, and over all personality by lowering your self confidence. But then again don't become an extreme optimist because that can cause you to become lazy and believe that everything will always work out in your favor.

5. Be good to yourself! Do not deprive yourself of sleep, food, and leisure. Incorporate the right amounts of work and me time. You learn best when you have a full stomach and enough sleep. Do not over do it. Find a balance and keep it that way. Composure is key.

10 Rules For Going To College When Nobody Really Expected You To

I really liked this this passage I read because it was very simple and I could easily figure out whatbitvwanted to tell me and help me out with. My favorite rule was 10 because it made a lot of sense when it says be a total student. I liked this rule most if all because being a total student in college can be very streesful but seems like it will help a lot. When I go to college I plan on being a total student because I want to work very hard at something I'm gonna be doing for the rest of my life. That's how I look at college; as something that's gonna give me my future and make life a lot easier with having a career that I love to do and not just a job that I don't enjoy being at and only being there for the money. I also like rule 5 because it talked about missing home and how you shouldn't go home because you miss it. Another thing it talks about is questioning yourself about being at the school. I really like this rule because I feel like when I go to college if I'm far away I'm gonna question myself and want to go home. He says that you shouldn't do this  if your at a small college or elite college because either way it's all gonna count towards your future in the end it's not worth it. This is some of the things that I liked about this passage that I read 

The beauty of it

At this point in our lives and, being a senior in the class of 2014 we've all had our fair share of stressful events. This is not the point I want to make though. I believe its time to actually take action against the stress. Today in ERW we have kind of had time to reflect and, hangout and listen to one of Ms.Fletchers selected virtual speakers. Days like this a must in a typical high schoolers life. The whole class period I sat and uncontroably shook my leg thinking what do I have to do in this class. I shook Keith's hand and look at him and said nothing. Ms.Fletcher generously gives us plenty of time to work on papers in class and, all she asks in return is too me her deadlines. Thats not hard to do in theory yet, I always find something thats more important than getting her work done. This is not living stress free. I want to apologize to the people in our class for not meeting my essay deadlines. I'm not helping you become a better editor and, you're not helping me become a better writer. Heading into the second quarter lets all take stress free actions.