Looking at colleges, The Joy of being in high school!

     One of the many joys of being in high school is looking forward to college life. But first you have to decide what college to go to. When it comes to selecting a college you should first decide what you want to do for a living and/or what your going to major in. Once you have decided what your going to major in then start looking at schools with the best departments and programs for your field of study. Then look at the other things that are important to you, such as band programs, sports, nearby places and other things that you would like to go do while in college.

     As an example I will use myself. I want to be an astrophysicist so I would double major in physics and mathematics and minor in astronomy. Some of the best colleges for astrophysics are MIT, California Institute of Technology (CIT), Princeton, Stanford, Cambridge, Harvard and University of California (Berkeley and Santa Barbara). But personally I don't want to be on the east coast. So I will narrow down my choices to CIT, Stanford, University of California, University of Washington, or possibly Univeristy of Oregon (for chemistry and physics programs). But to make my college years most enjoyable I have 5 things that are a must.

Picture credited to The Atlantic

 1) The school must have a strong football team. But not because of the football games. Because schools with great football teams usually have a great marching band program. Marching band is one of my most favorite things I have ever done. 2) There must have many nearby places to go see local bands. Nothing is better than a good local band. 3) Must be within a 10 hour drive of a ski resort so that if an epic storm is coming in a I can head out and go skiing for a couple days. 4) Local coffee shops. Personally, I can do homework the best with a giant drink and being in a public place. Already when I am extremely stuck on an assignment or working on a large project I go to a coffee shop. 5) Not in the middle of nowhere. Preferably I would be able to get around either by bus, bike, or walking and with many places to go to away from school.

      So this is the joy of being in high school. Stressing about your future, dreaming about getting away from the house and starting your own life. But when looking at the big picture we have 3 more years until all of us freshmen will be going off to college and leave all of our friends and family. That is really scary, exciting and a little sad at the same. But I don't you but I am looking forward to college!!    

The Good, The Bad and The Improving.

My own pic. This is Brighton! I love this place!

So a couple weeks ago I wrote a 6 page essay on arranged marriage in Japan for my Honors English class. By the end of the paper I finally was able to spell 'arranged' correctly without the help of spellcheck! Let me tell you guys something, I am not a good writer. I am decent and I can get my work done plus I can articulate what I want to say and thats the important part. My spelling has been horrendous as long as I can remember and English class has always been my worst subject and I would normally much rather be doing Math or working on a science project than do an english project. By the way it might sound like I am hating on myself right now but I am not. All of us have something we are good at and something that we could improve on.
     Every single one of us in this world has something that we are extremely good at and love to do. For me that is skiing. We all also have something to work on. But the worst thing any of us could ever do would be is to stop improving. We all can improve at everything that we do, that is one of the joys of being human. For example I began to learn how to ski when I was two years old and when I was 6 I hit a wall in my improvement. I couldn't become any better, so to fix that and surpass my wall I joined Brighton Race Team. After 6 years of racing I hit a wall once more. So I started to free ski and train myself and this year I have started teaching skiing at Brighton. I am still improving at skiing and at english. No matter what you are working on you can always improve at everything you do.