A Moment of Silence

Sitting still and in silence is not a very easy task for me to do.  I can't stand sitting still and not having any noise around me.  When I do my homework, I have to have some sort of noise around me.  Having to sit still for 5 minutes was very hard, but I did it.  My mind wandered and I thought about literally everything that had happened today and even earlier in the week.  When I think about things that have happened, I also start to think about the "what ifs".  Like, what if this had happened differently or what if that had happened at a different time.  As my mind started to wander, I felt as though those few minutes of silence hadn't really helped me reflect on my day at all because I couldn't stay on topic.

Civil Disobedience

1. "I heartily accept the motto, 'That government is best which governs least;' and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically."
2. "The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right."
3. "For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever."
4. "Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence."
5. "A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight."
One quote that I really agree with is #4.  If you're going to go for something you have to put your all in it.  You can't be only partially into what you're doing.  People will look at you and think you don't really know if you believe in the cause or not if you aren't all in.  An issue in America that needs to be fixed it presidential elections.  The presidential candidates change their speech depending on where they are and who is listening.  You never know exactly what they stand for until they're in office.  A great president would be one who flat out tells you what he wants and why and puts his all into it and getting people to agree with him.
 

Mentor

I would probably consider my mentor to be one of my Young Life leaders and cheer coaches, Lindsay.  She is so easy to talk to and she doesn't judge me no matter what I tell her.  She gives really good advice on how to deal with situations too that I never would have thought of.  We have super similar personalities so she always knows what to say to make life make sense.  I admire her because she is nice to absolutely everyone, even if they have completely different beliefs than her.  The fact that she doesn't judge people is a trait I truly wish I had because that is something I struggle with.  Also, she is a really strong Christian and knows how to explain why she believes in God which is something I look forward to learning from her. Three significant lessons you can learn from a mentor would be how to deal with people you dont necessarily like, how to stand up for what you believe in, and good work ethic and morals.

Schedule

5-6 AM: woke up and got ready for school.  No one was up yet so I couldn't talk to anyone:/
6-7 AM: ate breakfast and talked to my mom.  I was at school in Mrs. Meador's room by 6:45.  She gave us partners and I was paired with Tessie.  We made a personality quiz and I found out she has a really unique sense of humor that made working together really fun.
7-8 AM: we finished our quiz and I went to the cafeteria for advisory where I talked to Amanda, Zack, Dominick, and Johnathon. After advisory, I went to show choir where we ended up in the auditorium running our show.
8-9 AM: Show choir was rough and we have our first performance tomorrow....then I went to Steg's class.  We learned about Thoreau. 
9-10 AM:  Finished up in Steg's class and went to Pre-Calc. It was Mr. K's last day and Mr. Knull wasn't there so we worked on a worksheet. I talked to Desiree, Brad, Dillon, and a few others.
10-11 AM: Went to lunch.  Talked to Kelly, Johnathon, Miles, Amanda, and Bethany.  Not very eventful.
11-12AM/PM: women's ensemble with Ms. Lettieri.  We got a life lesson at the beginning of class.  It was about how to treat people who don't respect your opinion and shut you down when you try to tell them about it.  We sang the rest of the class because we have a show tonight.
12-1 PM: Environmental Science. Brad told me he wrote about me in his blog.  We went over a worksheet we had done a few days before(POINTLESS).
1-2 PM: Guided study hall. Talked to Tyler, Travis, and Johnathon.  Worked on this blog(:
2-3 PM: spanish with Mrs. Stewart :/  That class is never very good.
3-4 PM: tutoring after school for extra credit in AP US History.  Fun times(:
4-5 PM: supposed to go to cheer but since my shoulder was hurting i went home and slept and did some homework.
5-6 PM: Got ready for the performance and came back to school.
6-7 PM: I had to drive some of the girls to the venue.
7-8 PM: We sang to the women's group at a church.
8-9 PM: drove the girls back to the school and went home to finish homework.
9-10 PM: Homework...
10-11 PM: SLEEP. zzzzzzzzzzz
Altogether the day wasn't that great.  There wasn't really any time that was wasted though because I was learning things even at lunch.  Lunch and women's ensemble were the most educational part of my day, because even though I didn't learn anything that is related to school, some people's true colors showed through and I learned what they were really like.

Daily Routine

Routine can be something that's difficult to change, only because you are so used to doing things a certain way and you physically have to make yourself do things differently.  Doing something like going a different way to a class or 2 wouldn't seem like a very hard thing, but you have to force yourself to make the change.  When you go a different way to class you can see a wider variety of friends and make conversation with new people you might run into.  Change can be refreshing and it's something we all should do every once in awhile.

Yoda says "Unlearn"

When we are young, we are very easily influenced, so society teach us things that might be considered "common sense".  One example of this is that your gender determines what you can and can't do in life.  Girls are expected to do sports such as cheerleading, dance and gymnastics and leave the contact sports like soccer and football to the guys.  Girls are also expected to be stay at home moms and do all the cooking, cleaning, and taking after the kids.  Men are the ones who go to a 9-5 job and "bring home the bacon" so to say.  Jobs that are considered a female profession now, like nursing and teaching? Yea, those used to be stereotypically a man's job.
As you grow older, you realize that these stereotypes can be completely wrong for some people.  Some girls enjoy sports like soccer and football more than prancing around in skirts all day with pom poms in their hands, and some guys would rather cheer than play football!  Some men would rather stay at home with their kids and do the cooking and cleaning, and the woman would rather be out working.  As time goes on, these stereotypes will continue to evolve, but they will never truely label everyone.

Ideology of Nature

Commodity-Everyone on earth depends on nature. We depend on nature for food to give us energy.  We depend on mud and rocks to make our homes out of.  The circle of life is important, too, because it keeps nature balanced.

Beauty-The beauty of the natural world will never be able to be captured through art of any form.  To get the true feeling of beauty, you have to experience the sounds, the smells, and the physical feel of the world around you.  The most beautiful moments in nature are a once in a lifetime kinda thing.

Language-A lot of moments in life can be compared to moments in nature.
"The caterpillar does the graft but the butterfly gets all the publicity."

"The berry represents wholeness. Every tiny seed that makes up the

berry is necessary for it to be.

Each particle containing a seed of the berry holds a piece of the whole.

Even if each particle is ripped off, no matter how separate each piece is,

they still contain within them the trace of the whole, the essence of the Essence. "

Discipline-Sometime in life, nature defies its own laws.  And humans feel the need to find a logical explanation as to why the laws were defied.  One example is the bee.  Its anatomy would say that it couldn't fly, yet you see it buzzing around from flower to flower, pollinating them.

Marrow

There comes a moment in everyone's life that changes you, whether it be for the better or for the worse.  Whichever way it changes, your life will never again be the same.  In my life, that moment is when a very close friend came to me with serious problems.  The problems that this person was telling me about made mine feel like little pebbles compared to a giant boulder that they had to deal with on a daily basis.  I never realized just how good I had it until someone came to me with worse problems.  I now look up to this person as a symbol of strength and determination.  The tragedies they have had to go through in their lifetime like losing their parents, being separated from siblings, and constantly being put down by their foster parents and still being able to have a genuine smile on their face amazes me.  My problems go away relatively quickly while they live with theirs for a long time.  This is the marrow of my life.

Noncomformist

"Whosoever would be a man must be a nonconformist."-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Being a noncomformist is  refusing to follow what people tell you and try to figure out why things are how they are.  If you only do what people tell you to do or if you let them persuade you, you aren't really your own person.  For instance: Tyler and Travis couldn't come up with their own names for these blogs so they used what Ms. Stegman said multiple times today during the rap battle: Turn on the Faucett.  Get more creative guys! That was cool when Stegman said it but it's a little overused now that BOTH of you stole it.
I find Emerson's quote to be true.  Life is no fun when you copy everyone else and follow all the rules.  Yea, there's rules you need to follow, but sometimes you have to rebel to help distinguish the person you're going to become.  When you conform to society, you lose your individuality.