This weekend I went to Starbucks and Wendy’s. I feel like I have been spending too much money lately and need to be stopped. I had to go out for dinner because I was driving back to boarding school with my friend. our first stop was McDonalds. All I wanted was a shamrock shake. It should be like a dollar or two. It was almost five dollars. Like if I wanted to spend five dollars on a drink I would’ve gone to Starbucks. I was already triggered but by the time I pulled up to Wendy’s, I felt better. My friend and I had twenty-eight dollars in total. I ordered the Bacanator and my friend ordered a Chicken Sandwich. We thought the total would be thirteen dollars or something but no. It was twenty-eight dollars. Since when did fast food restaurants think it was okay to raise their prices so high? There was no good reasoning. Fast food restaurants already make so much money. They are getting too greedy. My Bacanator was immaculate but I was flabbergasted.
When I was younger, just a few years ago, I hated to remember things from when I was younger. If it were a song that I used to listen to, a movie I had watched, a picture of me from years before, or even just a memory – I hated it. I couldn’t stand the thought of it. It gave me this unexplainable icky feeling. Over the past couple of years I’ve grown to miss all of the times that I used to not like thinking about for some reason. I never thought I was a really sentimental person until I started missing all of these things. If you know me, you’d probably pick up on me often saying, “when I was younger…blahblahbla” and I understand that is probably really annoying, and I’m sorry LOL. Maybe it’s because there wasn’t too much I felt like I needed to worry about back then, but I think about what life used to be like every day. I am happy that I can look back on those memories as happy ones now, even though I still don’t understand why I had such negative feelings about what once was.
This week, my quarter grades will be released, and I’m feeling scared. I’ve never received a C before, but now I have one in Chemistry and I don’t know how my parents will react. In the past, my brothers have had mediocre grades but I’ve only received one B in middle school and two B’s in my freshman year. This year my older brother has been doing well in school and it’s frustrating when my parents compare our grades. When I try to explain that high school is challenging they respond by saying that my brother is doing fine even though he takes much easier classes than I do. It may sound strange but math and chemistry are my hardest classes while English Honors and AP World are much easier for me. AP World is only challenging when I procrastinate doing my notes, but the material is pretty easy to comprehend and the tests aren’t bad. Anyway I hope my parents don’t overreact, but all I can do now is pray.
This week, I have put off organizing and cleaning my room. It has been horrific and I couldn’t even walk in it without stepping on it. For me to clean I need a particular mindset. If not, it takes me forever and I dread it. My side table was filled with its drawers overflowing. My bed was covered in clothes. My desk had stuff falling off of it because of how full it was. I could not get ready without having to dig into whatever I needed. The drawers of my desk had stuff hanging out of it. My wardrobe was overflowing with stuff. My floor was covered with my things. Today, I was finally inspired to clean. I started with folding all of my laundry, which took me forever. I then began putting all of my makeup back into my desk. Then I cleared all my things on my desk and wiped them down. I placed everything back in their place. I then took any trash out of my side table. (I’m not disgusting, it was just the packaging of things, not food and anything gross.) I then wiped down my side table and put everything that wasn’t supposed to be on it back. Then, I checked under my bed to see if anything had fallen. I put all my work and pencils back into my backpack. I finally put my shoes back onto my shoe rack and after three hours of work, I am finally done.
I’m sorry, Elizabeth, that you have to read this crappy blog. It’s the last block on the last Friday of the Quarter and I have 20 minutes to fill the blank excel column on your computer that says: “Bohdan Cherkai – Blog #n, missing.” Pardon me, Mr. Westcott, for not paying a blip of attention to whatever today’s Computer Science lesson is about – I have got to meet my deadlines. Taking APs, saying “Yes” to every single camping trip and trying to get your life together is like juggling people’s opinions of you. There will be a moment when you have to throw one of them out so that the rest can stay in the air, at least for another instant.
You are in the class. The all school has already taken 10 minutes off the clock; you are having a quick chat with your buddy; the teacher has to scan through their notes and wait for the class to quiet down. The majority of students is finally paying enough attention for the class to start. As your attention jumps from the lecture, to talking, to checking your email, half the period has lapsed. You know you can cut out some extra time using the Swiss Knife of your tricks, “May I use the bathroom, please?” you ask. When outside the classroom, you can kill some time on your phone, stare in the mirror for a little bit, and have a quick chat with a passerby. By the time you return, the class is almost over. You beg the teacher to let you get in the lunch-line early successfully shaving the final 5 minutes off the class.
This sort of chaos, present in almost every classroom, turns 55 minutes of alleged “studying” into, at best, 15 minutes of purposeful attention. It’s absurd how inefficient education is, and how much time is wasted.
From my experience, sacrificing quantity over quality is the most straightforward solution. Replace six 55-minutes classes with two that are triple their size. The increase in class length will account for the time necessary for the students to enter the flow state and stay in it for a meaningfully long period.
Focusing on one task for an extended amount of time is more efficient than jumping between multiple ones without putting much attention or effort into any of them.
Everything will work out. It’s a funny phrase if you think about it because you’re never really sure. No matter how much you prepare for something you never really know. I didn’t even get to finish my intro when Ben literally summed up what I was trying to say in one phrase.
Man makes plans and God laughs.
I think it’s now my favorite quote. I think it’s one of the most honest things said. It works for anything you believe in God, the universe, Jah whatever you believe they laugh at your attempts to control everything.
I don’t believe humans were ever meant to control everything no matter how hard we try it’s not the reason we are here. The people who try the most I think are often the saddest, because they try too hard and it doesn’t end up working. On the contrary, those who roll with the punches and let the wind carry them wherever it pleases are genuinely happier. At least that’s what most movies tell me.
I know everything will work out. I guess what I really mean is I was so unhappy trying to control everything, that now I’m doing a bit better. I’m letting them leave, letting go, not listening to what they say.
I really hope everything will work. I really really hope God, the universe, the higher power helps me out a little.
Man makes plans and God laughs, but I really hope he smiles instead.
Now, I don’t mean that in a “pick-me” way, but I truly feel so much of the emotions around me, to a point where it controls my life. Or at least it used to be that way.
Bubblegum, Rainbow Sherbet, Rocky Road. These are pretty common favorites when it comes to ice cream flavors, especially when you’re a kid. When I was a kid though, and my mom allowed me to get ice cream(which was a once in a blue-moon type of occurrence), I would always end up getting the most obscure flavors like toasted coconut or black sesame, which was far too refined for my palate.
I opted for these flavors, not because I wanted to “try something new,” or anything like that, but because I felt bad. I felt bad for the pints of ice cream that always got looked over. I felt bad for the ice cream flavors that remain untouched. I opted for such unique flavors because I pitied these ice cream flavors that just wanted to be loved and enjoyed like the damn Bubblegums, Rainbow Sherbets, and Rocky Roads. To me, these flavors were the popular trifecta, or the “mean girls,” per say, and the ones I always picked out were the underdogs wanting to be chosen. And I guess I related to that as a kid.
Now that I look at it, I can’t help but laugh about how I used to empathize with ice cream flavors. ICE CREAM FLAVORS!? I probably ended up wasting a lot of money anyways, because I’d leave the pint of black sesame ice cream untouched after the first couple of bites.
It wasn’t just ice cream though. I empathize with the book that was never checked out, or an elderly person eating at a cafe by themselves, as if they were my own feelings.
To whoever’s reading this, I would like to reassure you that I do not think like this anymore. Though I do feel like I sometimes carry the weight of everyone’s emotions when it’s not even necessary, I’ve learnt to not let it control my life. It’s funny, because now, people view me as “nonchalant,” and even “cold,” when I was everything but that as a kid.
I now get Mint Chip Ice cream every time, without paying a second thought on the neglected Kraft Mac and Cheese Ice Cream flavor that sits untouched.
When faced with this dreaded icebreaker on the first day of a summer program or school orientation, I would always respond with the same answer: How to Train Your Dragon.
The thing is, I could not tell you what this movie is about or why I like it. All I remember is that it was about a boy named Burp? or something and it was about… training dragons. I first watched it on the plane ride to Japan a few years ago, and when I finished the movie, I remember feeling like I could just jump out of the plane, hop on a dragon, and go conquer the world.
In fact, you could ask me about any movie I’ve ever seen, and my mind would probably draw blank. It’s terrible. I sit in a movie theater for two and a half hours and walk out, forgetting the main character’s name. It’s especially frustrating when people ask me questions like “If it’s your favorite movie, who’s your favorite character?” or “Which movie in the series is your favorite?” I would just stand there, trying to come up with an answer, while a smug smile would appear on the other person’s face, as if they were thinking, “what a fake fan.”
For example, I’ve watched and rewatched the Harry Potter, Hunger Games, and Maze Runner Series an EMBARRASSING number of times, but it would still take me a minute to give a plot summary. My inability to remember a movie’s plot and/or characters have always frustrated me, but I now feel like I partly understand why my memory is horrendous when it comes to movies.
I think it’s because with every movie I watch, I don’t just sit there, passively observing the lives of the main character, but I become a part of the movie. I get so hyper-invested in the lives of the characters, to a point that I forget to eat my popcorn, or I start speaking like the character after watching the movie(this was especially bad after watching Harry Potter).
Like how humans often forget their happiest memories or most traumatic memories, I too, forget when I navigated a mind-bending world of dreams within dreams in Inception, or when I sprinted with my life on the line through a dystopian wasteland in Maze Runner.
It’s through movies that I’ve lived a million lives; I’ve lived as a mobster, a romantic, a talking race car, a beautiful, swampy, green ogre. It’s through movies that I’ve seen the world, from the bleak streets of Gotham City, to the scenic backdrop of Mamma Mia!, Skopelos, Greece.
In fact, I’ll sacrifice a top-notch memory if it means that I can watch the same movie hundreds of times, and relive it without ever getting bored.
I saw someone say that we are right around the time of the four-year anniversary of the start of quarantine in the U.S., and I was just in shock. The fact that it has been four entire years since the start of it all is actually wild. For me, I was halfway through my 7th-grade year when it all started and we got the notice that we would have to spend two weeks at home. Then, the two weeks turned into two months, and two months turned into the next year, for my school at least. Looking back on who I was during these times, now being almost a senior in high school, is genuinely just wild. I do not think any person changed as much as I did from the start of quarantine to now. Since then, I graduated middle school, moved to a different state, and started high school almost 500 miles away from the house I called home for my entire life beforehand. I have found out so much of who I am through experiences, new faces, and recognition of personal growth. Some of the people I look back on quarantine with talk about how much they miss it and how it was one of the best times of their lives. For me, it could not be more opposite. It was probably one of my lowest if not my lowest point ever. I have never really struggled with depression, and I never got a certain diagnosis, but I do believe I was not in a good place during quarantine. When I was younger, I always hated being alone. It was probably one of the worst things on the planet, which is highly ironic considering my “close family” of parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and siblings consists of a whopping four people. I don’t have any siblings, and I only live with one adult, considering my dad passed away when I was younger. My mom, however, during quarantine, still had to work – as she was a nurse. Typically, her long work hours and time away from home were no big deal, considering I was always in school and able to see my friends. During quarantine, however, I was subject to being entirely alone from the moment I woke up to about 6pm for the entire work week. Remember how I said I hated being alone? Well, I think you can imagine how that went. Being the only form of connection with the outside world we were offered, I became addicted to screens and calling my friends while goofing off and playing video games. My grades started to slip for the first time in a long time, and I entirely stopped taking care of myself. All I would do throughout the day was lock myself in my room and stare at a screen. As you can imagine, my lack of fresh air and human interaction really took a toll on my mental as well as physical health. To the credit of my mom, she tried to help me out of my insane slump by offering to get outside together and spend time in the house together, too, but I was entirely uncompliant and depressed. Looking back, for the longest time, I always wished I could do it all over again and do things differently. I would have focused my extra time on myself and bettering myself in numerous different senses. However, I am glad I went through that slump because it taught me that behaving like that is not something to be desired and not something even remotely healthy to strive for. Anyway, I highkey just wrote an entire essay on my quarantine experience, but I just thought it would be nice and timely to debrief at the four-year mark.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(539x0:541x2)/kraft-mac-cheese-ice-cream-1-101623-6f0ae5a6914647fc847c2ab1a1f6f53d.jpg)
OVS Journalism Blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.