To Save Time is to Forget Procrastinating



When time is of the essence, work, not procrastination,
is key.  Time is of the essence.  Begin now to be safe.

Procrastination is not the answer – ever.  I am learning to do today what I would normally have put off until tomorrow.  I have to say, staying up past five-thirty in the morning doing projects is teaching me that putting them off is not good.  I was up one night last year doing a project for English.  I didn’t go to sleep until seventh period, my science class, where I was out like a light because we kind of had the day off.  My friend spent like five minutes shaking me, trying to wake me up.  I thought that part was hilarious once he was telling me about it, but I was terrified of driving home from the bus stop that afternoon.  I was fine, though.  I found out that day that I am capable of staying awake while behind the wheel, so I have no worries about that.  I did fall asleep as soon as I got home, though, and that prevented me from doing other important things I had to do.  I know the project did not even get a good grade, which is really no surprise.

It is for this reason that I know procrastinating is one of the worst ways to live life, and I try to do it as little as possible.  In school, procrastination is bad, but in the rest of life it is worse.  Though it is easy to do, I know for a fact procrastinating will lead to most undesirable results in all situations.  I know it best to quit this bad habit, and it shall be done.

No Volleyball? On to Plan "B"



Swimming was my plan "B" and has
become my brilliant plan "A".



There’s always another plan.  This past summer I went to volleyball conditioning to keep up my practice for the season.  Tryouts came two weeks before school started, and I gave it all I had.  I wanted to help out my school in the sport I was best at; that’s what kept me shoving forward in conditioning and tryouts.  At the end of the two-days of tryouts is when the team is announced, and we were all anxious.  I didn’t make it.  It was devastating to me that I could not help my team, could not call myself a part of that team anymore.  I couldn’t help it, I cried, before I even left the building.  My dad was there, though.  He gave me a super pep talk before we got in the car, and that got me in higher spirits.  My dad told me, ‘It’s alright.  It really is.  You gave it your best shot.  Now you know you have an opening for joining the swim team.  Didn’t you want to do that?’  In fact, I had planned much earlier to see if I could try out for volleyball, and if I didn’t make it, I’d do swim.  My mom told me the same thing when we got home from eating chocolate ice cream at Sonic.  I was a little sick of getting told that, to be frank, but I really needed to hear it.  I then went to swim practice, did the paperwork, bought a new suit, and was off swimming.  It turns out that was the best decision I’d made in all of my high school life.  I love the team, and swimming for my school is one of my favorite things.

As it turns out, I got exactly what I’d been so pumped up to do in volleyball tryouts:  I got to help my team in the sport I was best at. Through this experience, I found that there is always another plan.  A lot of the time, this plan ‘B’ is better than the original plan.  When the plan doesn’t work out so well, I learned it is important to follow an alternate path, and follow it fully so that it is known what a good idea is for the future as well as the present.

Friends Don't Fight

I want to keep friends close because
life is just too short and precious
for hate to coexist with me.

Everyone takes U-turns, so talking behind someone’s back is the least constructive way of saying something mean right in his face.  There was one time in my life, a few years ago, that I got into a big argument with one of my best friends.  The only thing that kept the fight going was the fact that we talked about each other to other people because each of us didn’t like something about the other.  It went on for weeks, our arguing.  Somehow, neither of us wanted to make up or admit we were wrong.  If we had only gone up to one another and just stated what we had on our minds instead of spreading it to the world, humiliating the other, all would have been well between us.  We could have worked everything out, fixed our problems, and remained friends rather than what really happened.  She and I are really good friends now, and I wouldn’t change that for the world.

From this little seventh grade argument I learned that it is never good to talk behind someone’s back, especially if the desired result is not letting them find out and argue over it.  This kind of thing is a terrible excuse for shouting and using hateful words, so I now try my absolute best not to do it.  If I have some kind of issue with something specific, I will take the person aside and calmly let him know what is bothering me, and we can talk it out.  This is a much more constructive way of solving things, I have found.

Life is too short to do many things, but there is no waste of time like hatred of anyone, especially friends.  Therefore, if there is a problem with anything concerning anyone, it is best to talk it out and work it out than creating a void problem in addition to the one already present.  There is nothing this accomplishes, and it is caused by going behind a person's back.  I always try to avoid tention in any of my relationships, and if any hapens to rise anyway, it nags me until it is fixed.  I then proceed to attemp to mend the issue since it is such a waste of my life to have negative feelings toward a friend.

Everything a Miracle

Nature is a miracle in itself, and I enjoy
recognizing that once in a while.

Everything is a miracle, if allowed to be presented that way.  There are many situations I can use to demonstrate the miracles in my life.  One of the things that often both baffles and interests me is the perfect organization the world is in.  Everything fits together so that everything can work upon everything else, in perfect unison.  Just one example is this:  bees rely on honey, which relies on bees to be manufactured.  In order for bees to do this, they rely on flowers to provide nectar.  At the same time, the flowers rely on bees for pollination so that a new generation can grow to continue the life of flowers.  This process goes further, into the lives and income of florists and bee farmers.  The cycle of just one particular crop is of magnificent importance in the ecosystem.  There are also so many things that rely on each other in the world, meaning that in order for these things to work, or even exist, there must be a perfect harmony.  To me, this phenomenon is simply and complexly amazing.  Just letting my mind wander into this kind of thinking teaches me of all of the wonderful miracles in life.  Little kids are more little miracles.  The imagination on my little sister, for example, is extraordinary.  She comes home from PATS with sketches, paintings, cards, boxes, abstract things, designs, and even some sculptures that show just how cool everything can be.  She gives me a new perspective of things with her art, letting me see how she sees things and what she can do to put them in a visual form for all to see.  My sister will cartwheel, flip, dance, and all sorts of other things relating to exerting her child-like joy.  She makes me smile and laugh all the time by just being who she always has been, and that is something she has shown that is a great thing to do every day, at any given time.  I think, because of her, that it is a good thing to spread joy to everyone, and on a random basis, just to keep people on their toes.

Lesson in Algebra




A symbol of one of my favorite teachers
of all time is this collection of
algebraic equations.

  There is one day in my algebra class in eighth grade that I remember quite clearly.  My teacher was speaking in terms of numbers and variables, as algebra teachers do, in the front of the room.  I was not paying an ounce of attention, sitting in the front of the room, doodling the letters "LSU" on my calender in gold and purple, and chewing gum, the worst offense of all in this class.  When it became noticed that I was actively ignoring the lesson and munching away on my forbidden piece of gum, I was told to spit it out - my warning for the day, for the second time I would have gum in one class period I was punished by getting my one-fifth of a refferal to the dean called a "step."  I rolled my eyes when he told me to spit it out, but did it anyway.  When I sat back down, I - rather stupidly - took out another piece of gum and began chewing it, and I continued my doodling.  I chewed that gum and ignored the lesson some more, and eventually, I got what was coming to me.  My teacher stormed over to my desk, batted the calender with my LSU doodle into the wall, and said, "Spit out your gum, put your name in my book, and quit drawing in my class."  My eyes, I tell you, were saucers, for I'd never seen him lose his temper before.  I slowly got up, face red and almost in tears from being yelled at, and did as I was told.  However, though I was ashamed of the way I'd treated my teacher, I tried my hardest to create the illusion that I was majorly annoyed by the whole thing.  Ha!  I'm sure that the effect was not as close as I would have liked at the time for my fellow students.  Everyone was staring at either me or my teacher.  I did what he wanted after that; I did my work and said not a word.  What sets this particular man apart from other teachers was what he did later.  Before we left algebra class, my teacher addressed me once more.  He formally and sincerely apologized for what he did, in front of the entire class.  Wow.  I mean, this was totally unexpected.  Most teachers that I'd seen yell or lose their temper would just leave it be, leaving us corrected and in line.  This man did not.  When he apologized, it brought him to a level that exposed him as just another human being, not an authoratative figure.

His doing all of this taught me through example that we should always recognize when we mess up, and if we mess up publicly, to apologize publicly.  This is precisely what he did, and looking back at that day now, I see a great role model who stands out in my past like a bright blue gem in the midst of grey monotonous dust that is society.  Always be sincere.  Always apologize, no matter when or where or in front of whom.  Doing so rather raises the opinion of others on one's charachter, and it also helps relationships with friends and family stay strong and good.