Tag: school

Conscience

indigoshell1 Comment

It’s a butterfly. It’s black, all black, with misty, soft, glowy, fuzzy edges, like the edges of a shadow.

You can’t really hear it, it’s there. You begin to let your guard down, it’s there. You let your mind wander, it’s there.

It speaks to you. Stop trying, it says, you don’t need to be with others. Just go, it says, just go alone, sit alone, eat alone.

So you go alone. You sit alone, You eat alone. Then you leave alone.

It flies next to you. You don’t need to look up, it’s just there. It grows. It always grows. It lands on your shoulder, your head, your chest. It’s heavy, too heavy. Don’t fall, you tell yourself, don’t fall. Just fall, it replies, just fall.

It’s a heavy load, it is. In class it keeps your head down. In walking it keeps your shoulders hunched. In sleep it keeps your body curled.

The others, they try to keep it away. They fight, claws, fangs, hooves, venom, they fight hard. It keeps coming back. It keeps speaking.

You’re not good at this, it says, you’re not good at that. You’re good at being bad, it says, that’s a better way to think about it.

It still grows, it’s still there. It covers you with it’s wings, it pushes you down. You can get back up but it pushes you down harder. Stay down, just stay down, it says, stay down, stay low, then you can’t get any lower.

You can still get lower, but man, it doesn’t know that.

My Trip to Belize

Daphne PsaledakisLeave a comment

In sixth grade, my school led a trip with a handful of students to Belize. We were to spend the first week of our trip building a cafeteria for a school, and the second week touring the beautiful country. Before leaving, I was very nervous. I was traveling to a different country without my parents. Not only was that scary, but the thought of building a cafeteria was daunting as well. The trip turned out to be amazing.

We all met at the airport and did the usual, going through security, catching our plane, and flying to Belize. The minute we stepped off the plane, I was hit by the humidity. It was so hot. Nonetheless, we collected our bags and got on the bus to where we were staying.

The first week, we mainly focused our energy on building the cafeteria. We worked in shifts – half of us would build while the other half spent time with the kids from the school, either in classrooms or on the playground (which was really more of a field of dry dirt).

The builders mixed cement and set the cinderblocks to make up the foundation of the cafeteria. It was grueling work, especially in the heat of the day. The group that was resting and spending time with the students from the school would get a chance to know an amazing group of kids, until it was again their turn to start building.

Despite the hardship and poverty that the students at the school lived in, they were happy. They had fun learning how to do handsprings across the field of dirt, or just sitting and talking with us.  They were unbelievably appreciative of what we were doing for them. It’s not as if we were building a state-of-the-art cafeteria. It was made up of three foot walls of cinderblock and poles that held a rood up above it. But to them, it was beautiful. I have never met anyone as appreciative as they were, especially at their age.

The second week was spent touring the country. We first drove up to a small lodge up in the mountains, and spent a couple days exploring the rainforest and caves around us. We then drove down to the coast and took a boat to a tiny island, where we explored and went on prolonged snorkeling excursions.

After the amazing couple of days we spent at the island, we packed up our bags – for good this time – and headed back to the airport. The trip was amazing. It was fun, educational, and rewarding all at once. The experience will remain with me for a long, long time.

Endings

displacedlocalLeave a comment

So it is essentially the end of the school year at this point and a lot has changed over the last year. I have lived a year of new experiences.

At the beginning I was excited, but fear always gripped the back of my throat. Over time that feeling faded after acquiring new friends and finding a real home at OVS.

Writing these blogs and journalism in general has helped me more than I would have liked to admit. I am entering a lot of projects this summer pertaining to writing and I fell like a much more confident writer.

I have learned incredible things this year and I want to use this opportunity to thank everyone that helped me this year.

End of the year work

callmemaybe321 Comment

Most people would think that as the school winds down, so would the work load.

Umm, that is a negative.

Quite the opposite has happened to me.

I feel like right now is the most work I have had in a while.

It could be that I am suffer from pre senioritis, which is an issue because I’m a junior….

Well whatever.

Message to teachers.

Stop it!

I want to be relaxing and studying for finals, not doing projects and writing essays, that was what most of the year was for, now please let me relax and ride out the rest of the year.

I would like to imagine my last weeks of junior year with myself on a tropical beach, soaking up sun, drinking something with a tiny umbrella in it, and watching cute girls in bikinis walk by.

Not sitting in a classroom, doing busy work so that we feel like we’ve accomplished more, when really we’re doing the same old stuff.

If I didn’t care about my grades so much and how that effected my future I would go on strike.

And also what is this going to school on Memorial Day.

I feel that it is un American and as an American I should have the opportunity to opt out of school on this day sans consequence, but whatever.

I will be in class bright in early while others are at the beach or BBQing enjoying the day.

Colleges start with ME.

eternity1030Leave a comment

As my junior year is coming to an end, my English class recently began to focus on the college stuff.

Ms. Boismenue came to my English class yesterday to introduce all of us a scary thing called “college essay.” Although I’ve heard how important it is for the application process of colleges, I could still feel the power of it which made me feel nervous and of course, stressful. 

However, as Ms.Boismenue and our English teacher Ms.Wilson explained to us more details about the process, I felt it was the most important process but also the most interesting part of the colleges applications.

Ms.Boismenue then handed to us a list of some traditional and creative essay topics from some colleges the past few years, and asked us to actually pick one of them and plan to write. There were about ten topics and this one caught me eyes – “It has been said in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes. Describe your fifteen minutes. ” (from NYU, 2007)

We were told that for all the college essays, they want to know a real “YOU” from your writing which shows them how their school fits you the most and why you are different from other numerous applicants.

Read More »

It’s a Whole New Year

Daphne PsaledakisLeave a comment

Most people measure their years beginning and ending at New Year’s Eve. But when you’re in school, Summer marks the beginning of a new year. You have three months off, to relax, sleep, recuperate from the endless studies and homework. Then in the fall, you go back to school and you start a new year.

Some people never want the year to end. They want to stay near their friends, and they don’t want things to change.

For me, it’s different.

At the beginning of every year I’m excited for what it will bring. For the new friends I will make, and the new things that I’ll learn. But a couple months in, I start getting tired. Tired of school, and of a lot of the people at school.

Read More »

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.

Too Far Away

Daphne PsaledakisLeave a comment

One of the downsides of going to a boarding school so far from home is that sometimes you feel that you’ve been left out of the family. Sometimes when I’m talking to my dad or brothers on the phone they talk about things they’ve done, and I get to feeling a little bit left out.

I realize that it comes with living away from home. I would not trade my amazing life here at OVS for going to the punchbowl or Smash Burger back home. But hearing about it does make me miss it.

Another thing I miss is making decisions with the family. Over the past four years we have moved three times, and all three times I have not been able to choose my room, or the furniture that goes into it. The result? Home doesn’t feel like home.

I know that I am far away, and that I have another life here at school. And it’s a life that I love and would not trade. But I do miss home. I miss being able to relax all the time. I miss designing my own room and being excited about where we are moving. I miss my family. I miss my dogs. I miss not being there to watch my little brothers grow up. And sometimes it all makes me feel like I am too far away.

Read More »

Math.

eternity1030Leave a comment

Actually I am not a great math student, and math is not my favorite subject to study. I mean math is gonna be very useful in our future careers, but what I don’t like about math is that math is just confusing sometimes and I hate the feeling when all of those numbers are stuck in my head.

Tests have to be performed in education, I totally understand that and I’ve been taking so many tests as I grow up so I dont have any problems about tests or I should say students just have to take tests.

Read More »

Picture Perfect

Daphne PsaledakisLeave a comment

I recently wrote a story about the bike ride our school took. They left on Superbowl Sunday, and rode about 25 miles from the campus to the beach.

I was very proud of my story. I had fun with it, and in my opinion at least, the writing was pretty good. But then came the art…

Every story needs a picture to go with it, some sort of visual. And in our Journalism class we don’t stage or photoshop photos. This would be awesome if it didn’t complicate things so much.

I started out on my mission to get a picture of the group that went on the bike ride by asking the teacher who led the trip to make an announcement at morning meeting. He did, asking all the students who went to meet up with him and I quickly after the meeting.

Since I don’t have my own camera, and have absolutely no idea how to shoot good photos, my classmate helped me out. We had the group stand in a couple different places in the courtyard, then behind the Spanish room as well.

Unfortunately, in all the photos we took the lighting was absolutely terrible. Somehow the background behind the students ended up completely white.

Read More »