April brings along Spring!

My Biggest Accomplishment Thus Far?

This has nothing to do with spring, except that it is written in the season of Spring 😃

Accomplishments. What ARE accomplishments? Let me tell you...An accomplishment is something that is admirable or a talent worth something. An accomplishment is a deed, it’s an achievement.

Everyone is proud of something that they can do, something that other people admire. I’m proud many things I can do. There are many things that other people admire (or maybe envy) of me. And those things are being able to draw very well (I got a first prize in a contest twice!), being a good organizer (most of the time), being able to play the piano, doing well in academics(especially Math), and many more things but most of all I’m proud of getting a gold medal in a Math Olympiad!

The Math Olympiad was a test I gave in India, 4th grade, and obviously it was all about math, I had won 1st prize, statewide, and had gone to the second level math Olympiad. I came 8th in the second level but that’s not what we are talking about. I was really happy that all my hard work and sweat had paid off! My parents were REALLY glad, they showered me with compliments for 2 weeks straight! Winning the gold medal was totally unexpected, but I’m really glad it happened.

After winning the first prize I had a lot of confidence in my math skills.

This confidence was once gone, when I moved to a new country, at the end of 4th grade. Everything was so different, the teaching style, the communication style, the food. When I had started school, I had really bad grades because I didn’t understand anything, I had started in the middle of a school year so the teacher didn't explain things in detail. I had no idea what a math box was (it’s a worksheet in a math book), or what I was suppose to do in a text page, I didn’t know that  I wasn’t supposed to write in the textbooks, it was all different. After 4th grade was over, I was sure that I wasn’t good at math anymore. During the summer break, I had studied the 4th grade books that my teacher allowed me to take home. When I started 5th grade I had no friends I didn’t know anyone, and I was really nervous, too.

Actually, I was wrong about 5th grade, it had gone really well. I always got 100s on the tests, plus I had gotten recommended for Honors math! That’s when my confidence started to come back, I was really glad that I was qualified to give the test, that was a real boost for me. Although, Honors Math was really difficult for me at the beginning of the year, I got some partially proficient grades plus, it was a lot of hard work! I wasn’t sure if I could do this. But towards the end of the year everything was back to normal I was getting several of 100s again, I had gotten into GnT with all my friends and I was happy with all my skills/ talents.

In conclusion, my biggest accomplishment in life thus far is getting a Gold medal in a math olympiad. I am really proud of this achievement/ accomplishment because I had worked really hard for it and I have made my parents really proud. I was really happy that I could represent my school and go to the second level olympiad, but in life you don’t always have to be the best of all the others. Just a few words of wisdom before I leave- “Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try,” and you should always remember to try your best.

MARCH! Again? (it's my birthday month :P )

MARCH okay, so this isn't actually posted in March, but I wrote it in March so it still counts!

I know, I know there has been 2 reaction to quotes already, and here is yet another!! But hey, I switched it up in my last blog post..!

Every morning while getting ready, every time while playing a video game, you will probably find yourself saying “later” or “two minutes please” but that never happens! You will always end up extending these things and postponing other important tasks sometimes even to the next day. “Do it now! Sometimes, ‘Later’ becomes ‘Never’” This quote is so relatable and is basically the definition of procrastination, and this is something that probably everyone does, especially teenagers! According to google, “Procrastination is the avoidance of doing a task which needs to be accomplished. It is the practice of doing more pleasurable things in place of less pleasurable ones… thus putting off impending tasks to a later time. Sometimes, procrastination takes place until the "last minute" before a deadline.” Sounds familiar? Well, it is much like what some of us will be doing for most of our blogs. We leave our blog to the last minute and always end up frustrated and stressed and always rushing to do the blogs. Instead if we do it now, when we are obligated to do it, we will be much happier and healthier!

Most of us may think that they have all the time in the world, and don't do things when they have to be done. However, the cold truth is that you don’t always have the time of your life! You have do things when you are supposed to do them! We should always do things when they are obligated to be done, if it is too late, your ‘later’ will eventually become a ‘never’, you run out of time. We are already lucky enough to get the time to do so many things, that we don’t realize some people don’t even get HALF that time. Doing things when they need to be done saves so much of your time, it allows you to catch more opportunities whereas not doing things when they are supposed to be done just takes away your time and it also adds to your missed opportunities! You have only limited time on earth and you should make the most out of it! You don’t want to be stressed your entire life, and then at the last moment you are even more stressed rushing to get your work done before the deadline!

If you do your work and your tasks beforehand, you are going to have more than enough time to have fun, and with that you are  going to be even happier than procrastinating to have fun before work. When you do your tasks beforehand, it leaves you with the rest of your time to have fun when you finish your tasks you wouldn’t want to extend them longer so you SOOO much time to have fun. But when you have fun before doing your work, you would always want to extend it more and more, and then you would be left with minimal time to do your work! Do you really want that!? Would you want unlimited time for fun but also not to have to worry about work? It’s easy, just “do it now, sometimes ‘later’ becomes ‘never’”.

MARCH- Character traits of a Human AKA me!

MARCH I know, I'm a little behind in posting 😅

Favorite Personality Trait?😮

Every human being has a personality, and that personality is made of personality traits or character traits. Some examples of character traits are openness, confidence, shyness, adventurous and there are many more. It's hard to choose my favorite personality trait but if I HAVE to choose, it would be my ability to be friendly and outgoing with everyone. I love to meet new people every day. I love to make new friends every once in awhile. I love to play outside with my friends, and talk them about all the exciting things that might be happening in my life and it's the best thing ever!!

My friends say that my favorite/best personality trait should be forgetfulness because apparently, I forget a lot of things a lot of times. Now that I think about it they may be right, I am forgetful. For example, on March 24, 2016 I forgot that I have to go to the nurse, plus I had misplaced my nurse pass (everyone gets one nurse pass every year and getting a nurse pass means that you go to the nurse's office and the nurse does a normal check up on you). Although I’m forgetful that flaw in me doesn't get me in trouble. One of my friend says that I have a lucky charm. I had forgotten to go to the nurse but my sister had gotten the nurse pass on the same when she went there the nurse wasn’t there and our visit was rescheduled! I felt so relieved. Another time I had forgotten to do my health homework because we had a long  weekend break and it totally had slipped off my mind! When the teacher asked to go to our groups and discuss our we collected, I hadn’t collected a fact I had forgotten, an announcement was made over loudspeaker just after we got in our groups and the announcement meant it was time to go home. Our group didn’t get time to discuss the facts and I was safe from being yelled at plus I was very very lucky!

That Lucky charm doesn’t always work, especially for math. For example, I had forgotten my math homework at home one day and when the teacher said “pass up your homework” my face red I was about to cry that was my first time ever I had forgotten my homework and gotten a PINK SLIP! Then I had a math test and I was so shaken by the pink slip that I couldn’t concentrate on my test and the next day when I got to know my grade it was a 77%! I had cried on that day, it was a horrible feeling, that day may have been THE worst day of my middle school life! But at the moment I can’t remember any other moments when my lucky charm didn’t work so I think Lucky charms are real, and also the next day she had ripped my pink slip because I did my missing homework in lunch and handed it to her right before 3rd block the same day I got the pink slip, so my homework wasn’t late!

Anyway, back on topic, my favorite personality trait if I HAVE to choose is my ability to be friendly and outgoing. It’s my favorite personality trait because, it is the ability to be able to make new friends. Because of that personality trait I can make friends and be friendly. I can go out and enjoy the fresh air. I know most of the blog was about me being forgetful and I might or might not  have forgotten that this blog was about my favorite personality trait and not my flaw but still I love the way I am and I am never going to change.

February

The following quote, “Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid NOT to try,” is a quote everyone should keep in mind. There are a lot of things this is applicable to. When your parents are forcing you to do something or when you are at a function and everyone is trying to make you perform, you should keep this quote in mind! Imagine this, you are being forced to give a performance, but you just get mad at everybody for not understanding your emotions. Then, your archnemesis blows everyone’s mind with her dancing skills which aren’t even that good. You just lost the chance of becoming the center of attention. By not trying you are saying goodbye to potential opportunities and possibilities.

People are always afraid to embarrass themselves, they don’t want to try because if they fail, they feel they will never be able to face that obstacle again. People are afraid to fail because that one thing they have failed at is going to haunt them their entire life. So, what is the solution they come up with? Simply just not to try so there won’t be any chance to fail. But if Mark Zuckerberg didn’t try there would be no Facebook! Or if Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn didn’t try there wouldn’t have been internet! Imagine your life without either of these things, it is difficult isn’t it? Now, imagine what you have been missing on by simply choosing not to try?

Teenagers, including me, always fear what other people think about us. We teenagers will only try things that our peers are trying, we don’t want to be the odd one out. We won’t do things that our parents will tell us because we don’t realize they know the best for us and we also think of those things as silly. Kids will not try things for the stupidest reasons! For instance, when I was about 9, my parent were making me eat bottle gourd, I wouldn’t eat it just because it’s color was a weird green and I strongly disliked it! I told them I wouldn’t eat it until and unless the color was changed. Now that I look back at that memory, I just laugh at myself. After I try it I know it isn’t as bad as it looks to me. I just had to try it to start liking it.

By not trying you are not only saying goodbye to potential opportunities and possibilities, you aren’t learning. Remember last month, we had to expand on the quote by Neil Gaiman about making new mistakes? Well, it plays role here, too. It is like science, after you have performed an experiment and possibly failed the first time, you try again but this time around you are careful not to make the same mistake, you make new mistakes along the way but you learn from them and finally, you have succeeded in that experiment. You had to try hard and learn from your both old and new mistakes.

Apply this quote to your life, try everything, or later you might hear yourself saying these words of regret, “I wish..” or “Why didn’t I...” Grab the opportunity when you have it. Try your best, but most importantly “Don’t be Afraid to Fail. Be Afraid NOT to try.

January Blog: Quote of the Month by Neil Gaiman

Firstly HAPPY NEW YEAR! And secondly go check out our School Blog, there are a lot of interesting posts there! Now!

JANUARY (REACT)   

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself. And almost half a decade ago I said, ...I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind. And for this year, my wish for each of us is small and very simple. And it's this. I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something. So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life. Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever."

- Neil Gaiman

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Everyone said that 2016 was so bad, and that 2017 is going to be awesome, so we need to make it awesome. I’m not saying that every single one of us has to make a new year’s resolution and achieve, it’s only one month into the year and I have failed, so need to try another way. We need to fill it ‘with magic and dreams and good madness.’ I know you can’t always control how things turn out, but you can keep in mind your previous decisions to make new ones. To make 2017 awesome keep in mind 2016. For this New Year, I am going to take these lines by Neil Gaiman into consideration especially the part where he encourages us to ‘make mistakes, next year and forever. I also like that he encouraged us to dream, to be creative, and to overcome fears. This line ‘you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return,’ basically sums up life for me. Creating new things, making mistakes, being with your loved ones and not forgetting to dream, this basic makes a perfect life.

‘...Make mistakes nobody's ever made before,’ this quote can just be an excuse to make mistakes, you can simply just say, “Well, that quote did tell me to make mistakes this year,” but think about it another way, think about it as learning from you mistakes and improving every single time. Making mistakes will only make you normal. ‘...don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect...’ because no one is perfect. At the start of every Year I will say to myself, “This year is going to be perfect!” but I forget that it’s the mistake that make it perfect. The new, glorious, and amazing mistakes. We are going to make this year perfect by doing whatever it is we are afraid of, because that gives us experience, it gives us room to make mistakes, it gives us room to make this year awesome and perfect. I totally agree with Mr. Gaiman when he says ‘if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world.’ I am really into art and when I make a mistake in it, I just make it look like abstract art and even if it was a mistake, now it is a pretty mistake that I am not regretful of. Mistakes give me opportunities to create something of my own, something unique and new, something that didn’t exist before I made it.

‘somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.’ I think I always surprise myself, recently I got a 102 on my math test, and just 2 days before that, my dad and I were talking, and he said, “we have already seen that we aren’t perfect you always miss the mark by 2-3 points so you have to make it up by doing things that include extra effort.” After that I thought I couldn’t get a perfect score, but, hey there, I surprised myself! One time I surprised myself when I tried to burp purposely, I actually did it, but only that one time. Surprising yourself gives you a special feeling, I usually get a sense of accomplishment and happiness, unless of course, I have surprised myself by doing something wrong. Then I get a sense of regret, guilt, sadness and anger all at the same time. I have high expectations from myself and then I forget that it was just a mistake, I get mad at myself.

But leaving all the regret behind, I hope that you surprise yourself and that you make mistakes, but also learn from them. I hope that you never stop dreaming, never stop learning or trying new things. I hope that I never stop learning or trying new things, I hope that I create new things. I hope the we make this year, 2017 awesome, and we keep room for improvement so together we can make 2018 even better.