Journal #39 - Spring Break

My spring break was rather enjoyable - though I would not consider it the most exciting week of my life. The first half of break was pretty much full of dread and misery and suffering similar to that which one experiences in an average school day - only at my house. You see, I have no problem with school. I understand its benefits and support that, but that does not make it any more enjoyable. No offense to any of the teachers, its just a bitter truth. Nonetheless, the reason why I was filled with such dread is that despite the lacking of school for one week, I was still burdened with a large sum of homework. I get summer homework. It makes sense. Over the summer, one loses so much of the information they obtained over the school year - HOWEVER - I do not fully understand the point of a spring break if all some of my teachers are going to do is assign hours upon hours upon days (5 page essay) of homework and expect me to "enjoy myself". Yeah, okay, I'll just do that. Despite my bitterness and often passive aggressiveness about this, I still did have a satisfactory second half of my break. Usually, I put of my homework until the last day (or hours) of break. This time, I decided to get everything done within the first half, so that I could truly enjoy my second half. Thankfully, that worked out well and fine and I had a great second half of my break. I spent a lot of time with my friends, playing video games and running around at the park. I even kept myself relatively productive by helping out my college friends on their stage painting and set building for their production that I cannot currently remember the name of. I also went to Cherry Berry quite a few times for some frozen yogurt and I enjoyed every bite. Then, in the late hours of the night, I found myself doodling on my art tablet, which was very contenting. Unfortunately, this break has come to an end and I can only find myself craving summer vacation all the more. I have had a taste and I just want to be able to relax and draw, but I suppose I can wait. With all of the tests I have to take in the incoming weeks, I need to get my game face on. I suppose it is only seven more weeks until school is out. That is not awful, but I bet it will go by very slowly. We'll see, I guess. ---

Journal #38 - Job Shadowing

I have always considered the culinary arts for my potential career. Of course, my first choice will always be anything in the two dimensional arts - specifically digital art and animation - but I like to cook nonetheless. However, when I went to the St. John's Hospital cafeteria, I did not know what to expect. I guess I thought that maybe I would be cooking or just watching people cook the entire time. Truthfully, that is what I would have liked the most, seeing as though my evenings usually consist of watching the food network. When I arrived, they immediately made me put on a chef's jacket - which was rather exciting; I felt so important - and a hairnet. I was not too big of a fan of the hair net, considering it took me about half an hour to successfully get it to cover ALL of my hair, but I suppose I knew it was required. I kind of wanted a chefs hat.... Nonetheless, I got to follow around this man named Eric. He was very nice and he explained very well how he got into the field and what his job every day consists of. We made this simple yet tasty pasta from bowtie noodles, garlic, olive oil, pine nuts, and broccoli. In fact, I had it for lunch that day. It was nice. Eric allowed me to prepare the dish with his careful guidance, and then dish it out to customers. It was an okay experience, but it was not lifechanging. After about an hour and a half of this, I was then taken to go work on an assortment of parfaits that they serve in the cafeteria. Anything from jello and whipped cream to pudding to fruit and yogurt - I made it. That was pretty fun, but I could not help but think it was rather boring. I also got to prepare other containers of snacks. After lunch, my main task was grueling, but it was actually pretty fun. "Make 150 sandwiches," they told me. Great. So they prepared one for me and I got to work. It took a really long time, but I am a master at making those sandwiches now. In the end, I had an okay time, but it was not anything I would choose for my full time career. I can definitely see it in my future as maybe a summer job or a parttime job of some sort, but I would not like to be stuck doing the same thing every day. It could have been the fact that it was a cafeteria and not a 5-star restaurant that brought down my experience, but its just not for me. I like to cook, but the repetitive nature made the experience not a 10/10 in my book. More like a 6-7/10. 

Journal #37 - Our Musical Vision

We have begun listening to the song "Blue Monk" by the Thelonious Monk Quartet. It is a very jazzy tune with some fun piano and sax solos. Usually whenever I listen to jazz music, I envision a black and white silent film with the music telling the story. The story I am envisioning now goes as follows : There is a man. He is currently sitting at the counter of some saloon or tavern, sipping some drink (of course not alcoholic; milk or something) with his friends around him. He is obviously a cool kid. He is the highlight of the town, the idol. He is laughing and generally just being his cool kid self. Also, by kid I do not specifically mean he is a kid. He is most likely not a kid - especially with his hearty non-alcoholic drink of milk. Let's say he is about twenty two to twenty four years old. His buddies are around the same age. Suddenly, he spins around on his bar stool, which is of course a spinny chair. He tells the pianist to jazz it up a bit and he slides off his chair. He starts to snap and bounce step over to the dance floor. People start to join him. He is dancing around and showing off his insane moves. Everyone is awed by his talents. He scans his eyes around the room, looking for the lucky lady he is going to ask to dance with him. He locks eyes with a woman he finds appealing and grins, bouncing over to her (by which I mean he is bounce stepping). She looks up with him, taking a sip of her drink. He asks her to dance, and she says something snarky like, "Not with you, pretty boy." The man laughs and becomes determined to get her to dance with him. He starts showing her his moves. With a smirk, she is amused by his efforts, but continues to reject him. He keeps at it and still he gets the same reaction. After a while, the woman stands up and pushes the man aside, to which he laughs and watches. She goes to the dance floor and shows off her equally talented moves and the man tries to dance with her. She continues to push him away, but soon it becomes a lighthearted battle. Eventually the man is able to dance with her, and then with the end of the song, the man offers to buy the woman a drink, to which she happily complies. --- That's what I envisioned.

Journal #36 - Being Yourself

Have you ever had that friend whose personality changes depending on who they are with? Most people do. If you do not, then there is a possibility that you are that person. Anywho, those people probably have difficulty being themselves. This unfortunately is true of a lot of people. Most people, unless you are a perfect person, act differently around their parents or grandparents than they do around their friends and peers. It is just how it works. It is a sad truth though. When you think about yourself, you are able to picture who you know you are truly like, whether you at that way or not. Would it not be great if we could all just be ourselves to everyone? We would never have to fear that we were acting differently than we normally do because we'd always be the same! It is extremely important that we, as human beings, show who we really are to those around us. What is the point in living a lie? If we were able to be ourselves and let our true colors shine, we would most likely be more happy than if we fake our behavior. I will not start talking about how God made us all perfect since not everyone is of the Christian faith, but I will say that however you were made, you were made for a reason. Everyone is unique and I am a strong believer in having that uniqueness shine through. Being yourself brings more joy and accomplishment to your life. It can make you feel like you have a purpose in life. You. Your unique personality that it probably going to be loved no matter what at least by some people in the world. So, whenever you are with people that you like, be sure to be yourself. You are a special person, made for a reason, and if you choose to hide that, you will never feel truly fulfilled in this world.

Journal #35 - Comparing My Writing

Today the journal is based around how my writing has changed since the beginning of the year. Seeing as though it was half a year ago that I wrote the five hundred word essay on the Declaration of Independence, one could imagine that I have changed a great deal in how my literary styles are arranged. Looking at the essay now,  I see that I obviously could not fathom the concept of a five paragraph essay. Seeing as though I wrote roughly a million of them over the summer for AP United States History, you would think I would understand that. My essay from before had exactly three paragraphs and, while they were of decent length and provided a lot of information, that would just not cut it. Nowadays, my essays all contain at least five paragraphs, which is very helpful for the future. Now that I have read through the essay, I am appalled at my foolishness. What was I thinking? I put one quote in the essay. One. There was not even a second citation. I just flat out quoted the Declaration at one point and talked around it. Now I looked over at the essay I wrote last night on Walt Whitman and his search for self - I have a nice, decently lengthed essay with five paragraphs and six citations, unless I miscounted. Around each quote or reference is a detailed explanation as to why it is important to my writing. That is obviously something that I did not understand five months ago. My writing has changed a lot since the beginning of the school year. I can now elaborate my thoughts in a more detailed fashion, accurately portraying my ideas among the facts I gathered from whatever we were analyzing and the literary criticisms online. Thankfully, my writing in general - the actual sound of my sentences - has improved a lot more. Instead of sounding like a simple high school student, I am starting to sound like more of an advanced placement or honors student. For these reasons and the ones above, I have improved a lot since the beginning of the year.

Journal #34 - Describe Myself?

Well, sure! In one word, I can tell you that I'm weird. I'm strange. I use humor in response to anything unless something or someone died. I get overly excited whilst explaining things to people that I really want to explain things to and even then-!... I am very quiet. However, I am getting over this chronic silence. As my self esteem rises for whatever reason that will never be explained, I am gradually getting more sociable to those I rarely chat with. Believe me; I am anything but quiet when you are my friend. I am the chatter box of your life and you probably want nothing more than to get rid of me. Nonetheless-! I tend to enjoy being quiet more of the time. Observing others and how they act really entertains me, so it works out! After having the actual description of the journal given, I now have to talk about my spiritual self. If I was thinking of this in a simple way, I would say, "Well, I am an evangelical Lutheran and I attend church every Sunday." However, I am pretty sure I was supposed to discuss it on a more deep level. So, I will try that. I like to consider myself a good moral-ed person. I try to help whoever I can and in most cases I succeed. I stay away from things that could potentially harm me, such as drugs or alcohol, and I have good intentions in life. I want to go to college, get a degree, get a job, get married, and have a family until I finally die hopefully a quiet, peaceful death in my sleep in my late eighties or early nineties. That is pretty much all I have got. I am well off spiritually. I get constant guidance from great family and friends and my consistent visits to church. Because of this, I, in a completely non-boastful way, consider myself a good person.

Journal #33 - Stress Relief

We all have our ways of dealing with stress. We have to. Stress is a naturally occurring force that has the ability to overcome all aspects of our poor poor lives. Because it affects all of us, we form ways of reducing our stress and connecting with ourselves in order to achieve optimum happiness. Such things vary depending on the person. Some people eat comfort foods from their childhood. Some watch television or play video games. Some people envelope themselves within the confines of a specific hobby that takes up obnoxious amounts of their lives. I, for one, have a very specific list of things that I do when I am overly stressed with things that usually derive from the pains of Junior year. Nonetheless, this list has never ceased to make me happy when I am down and so I will forever continue to use it. First of all, there is nothing better to ease my stress after a hard school day than a strawberry and banana smoothie with nilla wafers on the side - sorry to be so specific. It is literally the reason for any happiness that I have ever experienced in my life. Okay, that is a lie. However, I still seriously love that after school snack. It has the power to increase my happiness levels from 30% or 40% to 60%-80%, depending on how much sugar I add. In addition to this, I also like to spend a lot of my time playing video games and watching television, as I stated earlier. Though, I have noticed that I do not go to television as much as video games, unless there is something I seriously want to watch. A night of video games can bring my spirits up to 100% as long as I don't die or I make something seriously spectacular on Minecraft. Then, there's always taking a nap, but I don't always have time for that. At school, I frequently get stressed out of my mind. In order to fix that, at least before my last class in PACE, I draw. I draw everywhere. Mostly in my notebooks. Drawing is my way of expressing myself and being happy. It is an extreme stress reliever for me. In the end, many things can make me happy and help me connect with myself, and due to my constantly rising stress levels, I really need them.