Fears

Is it just me or am I not alone in this interminable cycle of un-productivity. I get home and become subjected into this state of sluggishness where I take my time to do what needs to be done. I don't know whether it is due to the fact that it is senior year, or that I have so much to do that my brain is on overdrive and gave out. College apps, personal statements, math homework, chemistry test, English vocabulary, SATs, extracurricular activities--- everything is just compacted into a span of three months and I feel so overwhelmed. 

Everything seems so crucial to the success of my future. I'm actually terrified at this point in time. I feel like I'm playing Tumble Tower and one small mistake can result in all my hard work crashing and burning. 

Hopefully I'm not the only one that is constrained by this apprehension, but reading all the articles in the packet Ms. Fletcher gave us only made me more confused about the current situation. 

The Opportunist

   At this time, all that is going through our heads is one thing: college. Some look at college as a necessary extension after high school, and some simply see it as job training. The problem is that neither of these views are accurate. College is an Opportunity. 

  My dad is someone who does not take no for an answer. So when he told 9 year old Isabella that she was going to college soon, I didn't question it. Now that I am older, it has become the most frequent topic that we talk about and one thing he said to me stuck with me ever since. 

   He told me, "College is not school, it's an opportunity".

 I thought about it for a while and just thought, okay he means it not forced on us but we should go. But it has come to mean so much more than that. What I've noticed is that college, in the mind of teenagers, is depicted in two ways:

1. You have to go. There are no other options. 

2. Don't worry about it, I'll figure something out on graduation day.

The problem is that not many see college as an opportunity. Our education is given to us, up until the 12th grade. School is forced on us and we cannot wait to get out of the never ending cycle of early mornings and annoying teachers. So, once we graduate, most see it as freedom, and anything else that is being taught to us after that is just an obstacle in the way. That's the problem.

Yes, we have to pay to go to college. And yes, we have to put most, if not all, of our time into it. But what most fail to see is that it is only going to benefit us. College is not just money wasted, or time consumed, or stacks of loans waiting to be paid. College is the opportunity that most of us need to get us started in this huge world that we are about to be aimlessly thrown into. It will be hard, and it will most likely be expensive. But, when you do whats hard, life is easy. But if you do whats easy, life is hard. 

Take the opportunity to get your education now, so we can get our lives started.   

Second Personal Statement

My second personal statement was more difficult to me because I thought the prompt meant to describe the world around you. Not describe how the world around you has affected you. So I wrote a lot about my parents and their childhoods and the struggle they went through. I didn't say though how all of that has made me the person I am today. I didn't say how their sacrifices for me or my siblings has affected everything I am today. Ms. Fletcher helped me out a lot by editing it and making me notice that my PERSONAL statement wasn't about me at all. So I have been making some changes to it and hopefully it turns out to be all about me and the man I am today.

Peter Elbow Presentations

For me, free-writing has been the most helpful method so far. I have never used the free-writing method before. It helped me a lot especially when I'm writing an essay and I don't know exactly what to write about. It helped me write my second personal statement. I had trouble writing the second personal statement because I could not decide which prompt I want to write about. I mean, I had an idea but I wasn't sure if it will be on point. So I got a piece of paper and wrote down whatever comes to mind. I ignored the prompts for a second and just write for at least 15 minutes. I also tried not to think about grammar and just focused on getting all the good ideas out. I didn't think about how I will write the essay, I just wrote down all the things that had happened to me in the past. I also remember from the presentation that it is all about the process and not the product. After I free-wrote, I read it, looked back at the list of all the prompts and finally made up my mind. When I finally started typing my personal statement, I had the free-writing paper to guide me so it didn't take me that long to write it. Free-writing is very convenient and I will most likely use it to write essays for other classes. So, is there anyone else who find free-writing very useful? If not, what other methods do you think was the most helpful so far?

The quarter coming to an end: Our grades

Am I the only one who is a little scared about the quarter coming to an end? I sort of have a good idea about my grade but then again I could be completely off. My grade changed from a 64 percent to a 100 percent in one day. This was because Ms Fletcher accidentally graded my test wrong. To me that is a little unstable, one test should not change my grade 36 percent. I understand that the class is graded on participation and that is hard to grade, but I would feel a little better if we got an estimation on our grade a little bit before the quarter ended so we would be able to try to change it. 

Don't get me wrong, I like that the class is graded mostly on participation. It is a different format than the usual but I would like to know my grade on a week to week basis. A good idea would maybe be to collect our notebooks every Friday and check what we have written. That way Ms. Fletcher can see our progress and participation a lot before the quarter and we could get an accurate estimate on our grade. I feel like that would take a lot of stress off of her because she is doing a little bit of work every week. I personally only want to know my grade a little bit beforehand because if I get a bad grade on my progress report or quarter or especially the semester grade, I will not see day light for a long time.

SAVE and Invest in your OWN Retirement

Hey period 4! I apologize for this lengthy read, but I hope all of you read it. It is about saving money for our future. Now that we are headed to college and crossing into the life of independence and full responsibility, we need to be aware that starting early does matter. Thanks to my mom for discussing finances with me. :)

According to Walter Hamilton of Los Angeles Times and new studies, "The average millennial (people in their 20s or early 30s) graduating from college today will not retire until age 73 because heavy student-loan debt will prevent him or her from saving enough money for an earlier retirement...by the time the college bills are paid, the average millennial will be 33 years old and have only $2,466 saved for retirement...student debt will cost the average millennial $115,096 in "lost" retirement savings."  We haven't reached the stage of student loans or graduating from college yet, but be aware! Save, save, save. As soon as you get a job start putting money away to build up your retirement. If the company you work for has a retirement plan you need to understand how it works and contribute the maximum that you can afford. Every time that you get a salary increase, add more to your retirement so you are paying yourself. If there is no retirement plan then you need to open up a ROTH IRA (individual retirement account). The earlier you start saving the more money you will have for retirement.
http://www.irs.gov/Retirement-Plans/Plan-Sponsor/Types-of-Retirement-Plans-1

Don't carry any credit card debt. Pay it every month and always pay on time!

A Millionaire’s Best Friend

One awesome thing that you can take advantage of is compound interest. It may sound like an intimidating term, but it really isn’t once you know what it means. Here’s a little secret: compound interest is a millionaire’s best friend. It's really free money. Seriously. But don’t take our word for it. Just check out this story of Ben and Arthur to understand the power of compound interest.
Ben and Arthur were friends who grew up together. They both knew that they needed to start thinking about the future. At age 19, Ben decided to invest $2,000 every year for eight years. He picked investment funds that averaged a 12% interest rate. Then, at age 26, Ben stopped putting money into his investments. So he put a total of $16,000 into his investment funds.
Now Arthur didn’t start investing until age 27. Just like Ben, he put $2,000 into his investment funds every year until he turned 65. He got the same 12% interest rate as Ben, but he invested 23 more years than Ben did. So Arthur invested a total of $78,000 over 39 years.
When both Ben and Arthur turned 65, they decided to compare their investment accounts. Who do you think had more? Ben, with his total of $16,000 invested over eight years, or Arthur, who invested $78,000 over 39 years?

Believe it or not, Ben came out ahead … $700,000 ahead! Arthur had a total of $1,532,166, while Ben had a total of $2,288,996. How did he do it? Starting early is the key. He put in less money but started eight years earlier. That’s compound interest for you! It turns $16,000 into almost $2.3 million! Since Ben invested earlier, the interest kicked in sooner.

Here is the link: http://www.daveramsey.com/article/how-teens-can-become-millionaires/lifeandmoney_kidsandmoney/

It is Negative to Think it is Negative

Failure and not going to college is ideas that our society seems to look down upon, but should we really think these ideas to be so negative? The answer is no. While I was reading the articles assigned to us, I took interest in two articles from the packet and the two are: “Want to Get into College? Learn to Fail” and “Not Going to College is a Viable Option”. These two articles take a contradicting point of view on the topics that the public eye think so poorly about and find so negative.
The first article “Want to Get into College? Learn to Fail” expresses that colleges and university admission officers find that a person who learns to fail is more likely to be accepted than someone who portrays himself or herself as a perfect person. Honestly, when I reading this article I was thinking to myself how awesome the article is for talking about such topic. I believe that failure is a positive aspect in our life. Perez states in the article, “The lessons of failure can’t be taught in a classroom; they are experienced and reflected upon.” This is so true, our flaws and mistakes allow each and every person to grow and learn. It is what “makes” a person. As humans we should make mistakes because we learn from them and we can use these experiences as references in the future. Lastly, I enjoy the fact that Perez states, “Failure is about growth, learning, and overcoming, and moving on.” Something I think we should take from this article is that failure is good and people shouldn’t allow misery to take control of their life because of a failure. Failure something we grow and learn from and all we have to do is overcome our failure and move on realizing that the failure strengthened our character.
The second article “Not going to College is a Viable Option” conveys the idea that not all students have to go to college to be “successful”. The article mentions multiple jobs that don’t need four-year degree and even alternative choice instead of going to college.  I was raised upon the idea that college is the only choice after graduating high school, which is what I have and still am striving to accomplish. I like the fact that this article mentions the alternative choices for it is helpful to some people because they don’t really have a clue on what to do for the next step, causing the person to think college is their next step. This article should be shared to all seniors because it allows the seniors to think if college is really their next step. I think that if a person chooses that college is not fit for them, it should not be frowned upon.  All that matters is that a person has a clue on what he or she wants to do in the future and strives to attain the success he or she wants in their life. Think deeply if college is really meant for you because it is better realizing it now than realizing it isn’t later causing you to waste so much money and time on something you aren’t happy doing.