9 - Blu M: On My Own

When I was younger, I was often called mature and an “old soul” by adults who knew me. Teachers, my mom's colleagues, grandpas golf buddies, and family of course. Everyone was impressed by my grown nature at such a young age. I thought it was cool and played it off naturally. In fact, around the ages of 5-8, I didn’t really understand what these grown ups were going for. But after years have passed, I’ve finally realized why I was so mature! I glorified my independence.

As many know, I am an only child raised by a single mother. Of course, my other family members were there to raise me, but because their lifestyle differed from mine so greatly at times, I learned how to get things done in my own. I didn’t know anybody my age prior to school, and I didn’t get to know my classmates the best. So in order to entertain myself, I would take things into my own action. Watching tutorials on how to draw, pushing myself to be successful in school with many independent programs, and more. I love the sense of being able to do things all by myself, like I was a “big girl!”. 

Things were great, but that doesn’t mean there was any negative. Being so independent from a young age, I lost out on so many opportunities of experiencing true youth. Now, let me explain; of course I did childish things like watching cartoons, running around on the grass, playing on play structures, you name it. I just wasn’t able to experience these to their full potential. My brain developed to be self reliant, resulting in me not having fun with people my age. Every recess at school, I’d basically be all alone (for several years at least), trying to enjoy my time. And I did, but without anyone else.

I wouldn’t say I regret becoming independent so soon, but I wish I got to experience more when I was little. Of course, I can’t take a Time Machine back, but if I could even for a day I would. Just so I can experience that carefree youth. Just so I could have some wholesome fun. Just so I can be free. Just so I can forget about being independent for a few minutes.

Independence is great, but don’t rush into it too soon. Trust me on that one.

Word Count: 400

9 - Grace B. The Journey

    Stairs to others may seem like an awful amount of work to get to a destination. Why would anyone possibly like to take stairs when there is an escalator not too far away? Well let me share some wisdom with you, stairs are fun. You can run up them and get on your bottom and slide right back down. You can skip steps and set challenges for yourself. Or you can simply walk up the stairs, and think or maybe have a conversation with the person next to you. This moment will last longer than it would have if you had gone another way. 

    Personally, I’m a stair walker. I enjoy the journey it takes to get to my ultimate destination. I enjoy taking in the moment and having the opportunity to make it last longer. I enjoy the small conversations and the challenges of “who could do it better.” I enjoy the panting at the end of a long staircase joking with someone about how I should probably “hit the gym.” The process of getting there is just as exciting as reaching the end.

    Now applying this to life, I still try to be that stair walker. I try to enjoy the journey. There are times when the journey is too difficult to overcome and you want to hop on that escalator, but the hard times are what makes me stronger. If I get too busy looking at my potential and worrying about where I’ll be 5 years ahead, I’ll miss the greatness right in front of me. The struggles are what you talk about and what you remember once you reach your success. 

    So walk up that staircase. Keep going, your legs may hurt and you're out of breath, but take in the moment. Make a positive outlook on it. Enjoy the journey. 

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Tyler B. 9- Then Vs. Now

 

As a kid I watched a lot of tv, because when no one wanted to hang out with me what else was I going to do? Therefore I found a love for a lot of characters in the shows I watched, and I want to go through some of them and explain how my love of them has changed as I’ve gotten older. Lets start with a series that most people know, Star Wars, but not the movies or the Disney Plus shows (obviously) but it’s one cartoon show made by Cartoon Network, that being Start Wars the Clone Wars: The Animated Series. The show follows the Jedi, mainly Anakin and Obi-Wan, but I’m not going to talk about either of them, yes the show helps develop both of their characters, with Anakin with emotional conflicts that the Jedi claim he should not have, and how the show reinforces Obi-Wans commitment to the order by showing us he was in love and had the chance to run away with his said lover, but chose not to, staying true to the Jedi order. But one of my favorite characters from this show is a person they chose to bring back after 9 years of everyone think him dead, Darth Maul, or just Maul by the time we see him, as a kid I just liked him because his design was cool, his new robot legs were cool and he had a cool voice. But as I have gotten older, I have realized that Maul was a complex character whose life was driven by revenge and abandonment, wanting to kill The Emperor for leaving him for dead and later killing his brother, and hunting down Obi-Wan for cutting him in half by killing Obi-Wans once lover but eventually dying at Obi-Wans hands. Plus, after the release of the final season, and his fight scene with Ashoka on Mandalore, he’s just very cool.

Moving on to a very different character, Marceline from Adventure Time was hands down my favorite character in the whole show, as a kid it was because she was a vampire and a musician, and I also used to think that her character existed to make Princess Bubblegum jealous of her relationship with Finn. But now that I’m older and more educated on things, and after spending around 3-4 months binge watching the whole show during quarantine, I have grown a new love for her character. Now, I like her for her surprisingly complex backstory, which is littered with reoccurring events of abandonment, making her more closed off when we first meet her, and how her relationship with Bubblegum changes over the series, with hints to their ex-romantic relationship changing to a confusing friendship, then coming back around and getting together again. I also still like her because she’s a vampire and a musician, and a lot of her music in the show is very good, if only her songs weren’t so short or always getting cut off, plus vampires are my favorite kind of monster.

I could go on forever about characters I loved as a kid and still love now, Ash from Pokemon, or Soka and Zuko from Avatar The Last Airbender, I could go on forever about this. But as this is already getting too long I’ll leave it off here, for now at least.  

Word count: 558

Tyler B. 8-Alexis Rose and how she inspired me

 

Alexis Rose is a character in the show Schitts Creek, were a rich family has all their money and assets stolen and have to move to the small and dingey little town of Schitts Creek, but this town ends up changing them for the better, it takes these 4 rich idiots and turns them into people who learn to care and function as normal people in the normal world. Alexis Rose is the younger of the 2 siblings, she lived her life the way she wanted, she dropped out of high school traveled everywhere with random people, she dated random people, there are multiple incidents were she brings up something about going to Mexico and getting kiddnapped and her parents having no clue this happened. But I’m here to talk about how Schitts Creek changed her and turned her into a character that I admire and look up to. She starts out as a very childish person, who by the end of the first season, manages to get engaged to someone she doesn’t (at the moment) have a thing for and proceeds to cheat on him with someone else. So she is kind of a bad person, and does some dumb things, but she gets better.

She goes back to high school and graduates, then to community college and starts her own social management business. She even grows in a romantic way, learning how to have a healthy relationship and when to admit she made a mistake. In the end of the show, Alexis plans to move to New York with her brother, David, but after finding out that he’s staying in Schitts Creek, she decides to go to New York on her own. This to me shows huge growth, comparing her at the start and end of the show you really see how much she grows, at the start her longest relationship was probably 3 weeks with some random DJ guy, but by the end the only thing that makes her end her relationship with her boyfriend is when she realizes that, with him going to an island to study bugs for 6 months, she realizes that their relationship is stopping him from following his dreams. And so by doing what is probably the most selfless thing she does in the show, her and her boyfriend agree to break up together. Back to her going to New York on her own, at the start of the she absolutely would have either begged her brother to come with her or go to Cali and live with her parents. But by the end, she has grown and become more adult than she’s ever been, so she makes the adult decison to go out and make it on her own, by herself, for the first time.

Alexis Rose has greatly inspired me, her growth seems greater than the rest of the Rose family. She is proof that people can go back to school and still succeed. She starts her own business, thus proving more so that people that can achieve anything if they work hard and push through. She is one of the few characters that have truely affected me, she inspired me so much that she is the inspiration for my name change after I transition in the future, and she is someone that I want to be like, independent, proud, and understanding by the end of the show. That is someone I want to be like, truly.

9 - Lilly T.: Let Me Sleep

 

Sleep is something that a lot of teenagers, like me, lack. In his TEDTalk, Matt Walker talks about 6 tips that will help you get better sleep. I agree with his tips for the most part.

 

The first two tips he talks about are regularity and temperature, which I completely agree with. My regular sleep schedule is from 12-1 A.M. to 7 A.M. It’s not the best sleep schedule, but it works. The second tip, room temperature, varies from person to person. For me, I like to sleep while my room is cold. Others may like to go to sleep when their room is warmer. 

The next two tips are darkness and to walk it out. These two tips can vary greatly from person to person. Personally, I can sleep anywhere and anywhere if I’m tired enough. This would be the majority of the time. ‘Walking it out’ to wake up is something that I can relate to a lot because I like sleeping in on the weekends, but when I do that I feel more tired throughout the day. I’m sure I’m not the only one with this problem. 

Lastly, the fifth and sixth tips are all about what you consume before sleeping and how you go to sleep. The fifth tip is quite an obvious one, as you shouldn’t be consuming anything right before you sleep, anyways. Specifically caffeine or alcohol, but caffeine doesn’t have any effect on me in small amounts and it’s illegal for me to consume alcohol. How a person goes to sleep is the real question here. Some people like to do activities to make themselves tired before sleeping, while others relax to fall asleep. I tend to do my homework late at night, and that’s what makes me sleepy.

If you don’t have a sleep schedule, I highly encourage you to do so. I used to have a really bad sleep schedule, but now that I sort of have one I feel a little less tired than I was previously. Sleep well, and let the bedbugs bite. That was a joke. Word Count: 346

9. Kaiyue Li - Changes Starts Today

We've all had moments late at night where we laid upside down in our beds, wondering how different our lives could be if we have done things another way. Maybe it was a past argument you wish you had better comebacks to, or a relationship that wasted your time, we just never seem to be satisfied with where we are currently.

Our lives are ongoing stories in which every one of us is the main character. Unfortunately, we can’t hit a rewind button and start over. There are chapters in the past that we simply can’t change. They may include rejection, sorrow, and pain. Those chapters do not determine how your story ends, or who you are as a person. The ending has a lot to do with your choices today.

There's nothing you can do now to change what has already happened. If you spend the majority of your time worrying about it, you'll lose sight of the present. Does it mean that you should forget about your past? No, but you need to learn from the mistakes which you have committed and make sure that they are not repeated. Humans don’t have the power to reverse our lives. It's not under your control but what you can control is this very moment, and the years ahead of you.  

The pen is in your hand, make sure you write the end that you want. Just remember "you can’t go back and change the beginning but you can start now and change the end", and it's never too late to start striving for your goal.

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9 - Alejandro M: Humans and Mistakes

 

Let’s say that we are little kids again. You did something bad, like maybe hit your younger sibling. We get scolded by our parents and now what’s the next thing we do? We probably behave for a while until your parents forgive you, and then you go back to being a little kid again. This is just an analogy for times where a person starts where they are and changes the ending. It’s a very toned-down version of the quote “You can’t go back and change the beginning. But you can start where you are and change the ending.” but it works and helps you get an idea of what the quote means.

We are humans. Everybody makes mistakes and everyone regrets things they’ve done in the past. We made the mistake of not making too many friends or making too many friends. We made the mistake of not studying too hard for school or studying way too hard for school. We made the mistake of not having fun in your childhood or having a little too much fun. We made the mistake of not being with certain people or being with certain unpleasant people.

But those things are in the past. You can’t go back. Those things have been done and the only thing you can do now is do what's best from there. Learning from mistakes, moving on, and improving is the best thing you can do once those mistakes have been made. Don’t hurt yourself even more for something you have already done and can’t change. The best thing to do is just do what’s best for you in the future after you’ve committed your mistakes. You’ll feel so much better if you change the ending to something that you wanted to, and not something that you never gave your best effort towards.

Word Count: 307