Tag: college

Time Out

kennyroo

People wonder why teenagers get sick so often, and I think I have found the answer.

We are constantly being run into the ground, overwhelmed with task after task.

I will use myself as an example. I go to school, do my homework, and go to volleyball. Everyday. No breaks in between.

You would think I would get used to it, and I do in some ways. But sometimes the lack of a break catches up to me.

Getting home at 10pm in need of a shower and a snack does not let the teen body get the rest that it needs to stay healthy.

At our age we are growing so much mentally and physically.

If we take the breaks that we need, we are scolded for being lazy or not trying hard enough – but if we do too much we are told that we need to “slow down”.

Confusing, right?

So much is asked of the high school or college student, and yet whenever I say that I can almost always hear an adult scoffing and making some snide remark about how “we have it so easy”.

And perhaps in a lot of ways we do.

I know that I don’t have to worry about paying the bills at the end of every month – and I am so grateful for that.

But I do have to worry about my grades, sports, getting into colleges, trying to maintain some kind of social life, and a lot of other factors that are major stressors.

So why is anyone surprised when 1/3 of the junior class gets a cold, or a fever?

Some of us get only three to five hours of sleep per night because of the work load that is put on us.

Everyone needs a break now and then, and when that break isn’t taken, the human body will find a way to take it.

Our systems are beaten to the ground. And while we may not have to same feats to overcome as some, we have our own.

https://i0.wp.com/static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2013/11/1/1383330388800/Boy-asleep-over-book-010.jpg
photo credit to: http://www.static.guim.co.uk

What would you do…

mushuooLeave a comment

… if your passion was so far away?

If the one thing you loved to do more than anything else was inaccessible?

I don’t really know either.

Since I was a toddler, I have been skiing. As soon as the season starts until the day the season ends, I have always taken every opportunity I get to drive up to the mountains. I feel at home on the mountain; I know there is no other place I would rather be.

This year, I have only had a week of ski time in Mammoth.

I guess living in Southern California is not the best place for an avid skier to live.

Photo Credits: statim.guo.uk.com

This brings me to my main point: where would an avid skier live? Aspen? Switzerland? Canada?

In about a year and a half I will be deciding which college to attend for the next four years of my life, which makes me question if I should move out of California and move somewhere I can ski on a regular basis.

But do I really want to move states or countries away from family and friends?

The decisions begin.

What is a future, and where can I get one?

lanative1Leave a comment

No but seriously – I’m very much lost when it comes to my future. Today, my mom asked me to come watch something in her room. Given the last thing she showed me was a video of a baby otter learning to swim, I was willing to submit. Instead, she showed me an ABC feature on college admissions.

My entire life has been geared towards my future, and more importantly, college. My parents sent me to a specific preschool because it had a high matriculation to the special elementary school I attended, which had an even higher matriculation to the prestigious middle and high school I then went to. This high school is world-renowned for its spectacular college matriculation – the reason my mother was so intent on me attending. I was so absorbed with college from a young age that I didn’t even think of what comes afterwards.

Now at a different kind of school, I am faced with a shocking change of attitude. Where I am now, college is not the main focus. It is mentioned occasionally during meetings, but the announcements are geared towards seniors, seldom juniors, and almost never sophomores or freshmen. Although I know this is the norm through most schools, I can’t help but feel lost, and even insecure.

When I went to my old school, all of the focus on college was basically done for me. College was a given – everyone thought about it all the time. It was such a recitation that I didn’t even really think about it. But here, I have to independently think about my own future without anyone prompting me. That’s the strange part that I am not used to, and it’s where the trepidation comes in.

Before now, I never thought about what I want to go to college for, and what I want to do after. It’s such a classic teenage cliché – “Where am I going, what am I doing?” I’ve never really thought about it until now, and I’m really at a loss. I have no idea what I want to do when I’m older – be a writer maybe, but of course, that’s a tough choice. Whenever I say this when people ask, they laugh in my face. I guess I don’t really know where I’m going.

All these new concerns have arisen now because someone very close to me is going through the college process, and is feeling a bit of what I’m feeling – second guessing their given goals and really thinking about the future. I want to get a head start on these decisions, so I’m not as stressed out later. But that is a curse as well as a blessing, because I am feeling the senior stress now as a sophomore.

I can masterfully edit a college essay so it fits exactly what a classic admissions officer is looking for, I can recite the top 10 schools in the world, and I can rattle off expected SAT scores and the times and number of questions in every section of the test. What I can’t do, however, is figure out what I want. And that’s something that I really should know by now. Maybe the constant college preparation hasn’t aided me, it has just brainwashed me. I can help everyone else think about college and prepare, but I can’t help myself.

 

Photo Credit: Wikimedia

Just a Practice Run?

kennyrooLeave a comment

That 89 percent that could have been a 90 percent is not going to matter to you in five years, believe it or not. I can’t even fathom how often the sentence “but it will look good for college apps,” is heard yearly on a high school campus. Are these four years what define us as humans? I sure hope that’s not the case because I’m so much more than a percentage.

High school is such a small portion of our lives when you really think about it. These four years are all that matter to you right now, but are they all that’s going to matter in ten? What about when our kids go to school? Will that B- you got in geometry matter then? We work so hard to be judged by our performance rather than our person.

What are schools teaching about being a good human? What about how to do our own taxes? Nope, sorry that’s not taught here. I can recite the Pythagorean theorem basically in my sleep, and tell you the difference between an acid and a base; but what about the values of honesty and kindness? Isn’t this all a practice run anyways? Aren’t we being trained for “The Real World”? I’ve only been told that exact statement once or a million times.

Kids these days are on anxiety medications for the amount of stress they’re put under. We run ourselves into the ground for what? To be judged some more? We are expected to put our education before personal health. It is not asked, but expected. We must do whatever it takes to succeed.

Photo from: http://lahaiseslair.com
Photo from: http://lahaiseslair.com

Colleges

Daphne PsaledakisLeave a comment

I’m at the end of my junior year, and along with all the other juniors in my school, I have begun the process of applying to college. Every time I talk to someone, and they find out I am a junior, they ask me if I know where I want to go to school.

The truth is, I have no clue. I have ideas, but how are you supposed to determine the atmosphere of a school from a website?

College seems like such a daunting prospect to me. I hear stories of people doing nothing but partying, but that’s not the type of environment I want to be in. I want to have fun.  I want to make friends. I want to have an internship. I want to learn about my major.

I am at an advantage, I think, because of my experience at boarding school. I am already fairly independent, and I am not afraid to be away from home.

And so begins the process of essays and filling out information, traveling to visit schools, and deciding where to spend the next four years of my life. Almost every junior and senior goes through this process. I just hope I am able to pick the right school for me.

Admissions

enternity1030Leave a comment

As far as our college applications go, I’m pretty sure that everyone is now stressed out and curious about how the college counselors would review our apps. It reminds me of a great movie I watched this summer – “Admission.”

“Admission” is a comedy directed by Academy Award nominee Paul Weitz, starring  Tina Fey and Paul Rudd.
Every spring, high school seniors anxiously await offers from college admissions. At Princeton University, admissions officer Portia Nathan is one of the counselors who evaluate thousands of applicants.

On her visit to New Quest, an alternative high school, she then meets with her former college classmate, idealistic teacher John Pressman – who has recently surmised that Jeremiah, a gifted yet very unconventional New Quest student, might well be the son that Portia secretly gave up for adoption years ago while at school. More importantly, Jeremiah is about to apply to Princeton.

Now Portia must re-evaluate her personal and professional existences, as she finds herself bending the admissions rules for Jeremiah. She recommends Jeremiah to all the officers who refuse to admit him. And the result does not change – he gets rejected. In the end, in order to get her son into Princeton, Portia steals Jeremiah’s folder and changes the decision into a “Yes.” Portia quits her job and starts a new life.

Even though the movie is mainly about love and family, I personal find it is also a fairly helpful movie for high school students to get more knowledge about the process of applying to college and more closely, about how the officers review our materials and make the final decisions.

If you haven’r watched it yet, I strongly recommend you to do so!
And also, good luck to all the seniors!

“There is no formula to get in. Just be yourself.”   – Portia

There’s Always Something

smackyjackjackLeave a comment

As everyone generally feels, junior year is the hardest year in high school. Well, they don’t tell you about senior year.

While it’s true that academically this has been by far my easiest year, applying to colleges has been one of the most stressful things I’ve had to do all high school long.

I figured I’d know where I’m going by the hard deadline most schools set of May 1st as a reply date.

Well I was wrong about that.

I just figured it out on Thursday, and that choice is Chapman University (or more specially Dodge College).

Okay, so now I’m done.

Well, no.

I still have to figure out housing, classes and worst of all…finances.

Applying for financial aid is an ordeal in itself. Because after grants and scholarships come the dreaded student loans. Those are going to stack up. All I can say is that I hope I have a damn good job when I leave college or those are going to stay with me for a while.

Finals-Honestly, kill me now

backinphillyLeave a comment

So now the end is near huh? The semester is ending and people are cramming like some hung over college kid for the bar exam. It’s chaos on the hill, and really it all begs the question, “Who are we kidding?”

There’s no way in hell that this weekend is enough to prepare a student for an exam based on an entire semester’s information. People think that studying this hard for an exam is going to help them.

I’ve got news for all of you. You’re better off not studying at all at this point rather than try and cram. You’re just going to confuse yourself with facts. There IS such a thing as too much studying.

Some guys have been holed up in their rooms this weekend in order to study, only coming out to use the bathroom. They even bring their books in the bathroom to study some more.

Dude, seriously you’re not gonna learn anymore by taking your textbook into the bathroom. Give yourself a minute and a half to use the toilet and go back if u wanna.

I just don’t get the obsession to study like a maniac.

My roommate just told me a saying that his region of China lives by.

“If you have a small test, have a little fun. If you have a big test, have a lot of fun.”

Words of Wisdom from OVS.

Everyone just needs some time off.

Worst Person #25-Colts Rush Defense

backinphillyLeave a comment

Ok, I can understand a defense having a bad day here and there against some top notch players. We saw the Eagles today with a few bumps here and there and the 49ers had some trouble containing the high-powered New York Giants. However, both of those offenses have elite, premier players.

Enter the New York Jets.

The only player on their starting roster right now worthy of any recognition is wide out Santonio Holmes, and he’s out for the season with injury. Despite this fact, the Jets were able to EXPLODE with a vicious rushing game today against the Indianapolis Colts, who just last week, were able to keep the Green Bay Packers in check.

The Packers are loaded with star power. The Jets? Not so much.

Enter Shonn Greene.

The running back burst out today with a 32 carry, 160 yard, 3 touchdown performance.

WOW!!!

I gotta point out that Greene, while not a terrible running back, is not a top 10 or even 20 back in this league. On a good day, he has potential to explode with talent. But most days, like when Rex Ryan and the Jets decide “Hey we drafted Mark Sanchez really high! Maybe he should throw the ball more,” Greene doesn’t get a chance to do much.

Sanchez ended the day with 89 yards passing on 18 attempts. Yes, that’s bad but not as bad as how easily the Colts defense was taken advantage of while the Jets ran the ball. It wasn’t even close.

Greene isn’t really a finesse player, but I guess the dude can play ball.

I also want to reiterate how relatively unknown Shonn Greene really is. I went on to google images to find this picture, and i had to go down a little bit before I found a picture that wasn’t either him in Jets training camp or in college. His pro career is very quiet. Maybe this will kick start him a little bit.

A week without running

thehungryrunnergirl1 Comment

… is killing me.

Track season ended so my college coach told me to take 10 days off of running. A lot of runners take a couple days off between the seasons to mentally and physically rest.

For the first 3 days, I was all down from the last race. After that, I was a little happy that I have more free time but today is my 7th day without running and it’s literally killing me. I’m getting stressed out and I don’t feel like I’m alive.

I can feel that I lost muscles. I have way less appetite from not working out. It’s just so strange; The last time I stopped running for a week was probably more than 4 years ago.

3 more days and I can run again!!! But I’m starting the workouts given from my college coach… I can’t believe the next race I’m running is a college cross country race… I will be the youngest and will be competing with college runners… Nervous but exciting. I have no idea what my next 4 years of running would be like.