Teenagers: Complaining

Personally as a teenager, I can say that I complain about a lot of things. I think both girls and boys complain a lot though, but girls probably more than guys.

 I complain about everything. I don’t understand why we complain about things. Complaining about something isn’t going to make it better or necessarily make it go away. I think we just complain about things when we’re bored. We think of things that we don’t really like or that we’d like to see improved, and we just complain about them.

For me, I complain about everything, I complain when my head hurts, I complain about being bored, about wanting to go home, about not wanting to do something. In a way, I think it makes me feel better about something, when I complain about it. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but now that I think about it, I’ll be thinking about something for quite so time, I’ll think about how I don’t like it, then I’ll complain to someone about it, and then I’ll forget about in. For example, when I’ve been working all day, I’ll stand there and think about how much my feet hurt and how much I just want to sit down, and then then next coworker that comes over, I’ll complain to them about how I’ve been working all day and I haven’t taken a break and that my feet hurt so bad, and they’ll walk away, and ill forget about it for a while, 20 minutes later I’ll think about it again and complain again.

 Our parents are always complaining about how much we complain, but take a second and think about all the times you complain in one day. All the times you complain about being hungry, how you just want to go home, about how much time is left in class. We complain a lot more than we realize, it’s become natural for us to complain about everything!

Nap Time

In elementary school, up until a certain grade, every day we would get nap time. There was a specific time in the day where we would get out our cots and the teachers would turn off the lights and we were supposed to take a nap. If you weren’t napping, you were supposed to be quite so those around you could nap if they wanted to. I’m pretty sure only a few kids actually napped during nap time; I know I was not one of those kids. Most of us just wanted to talk and play games, we didn’t want to lay there and be quite, and that was like punishment to us back then.

In elementary school, we just weren’t tired during the day, but as we got to middle school, we would start to get more and more tired, and now that high school rolls around, we wish we had nap time. Kids are falling asleep in class they’re so tired in high school. We’ll literally roll out of bed and come to school.

These young kids in preschool through about third grade are getting probably ten hours of sleep a night because they have a bed time, so they aren’t tired during the day, yet they get a nap time. Whereas high schoolers probably get anywhere from 4-7 hours of sleep, maybe 8 if you’re lucky. High schoolers just simply don’t get the required amount of sleep for our age, yet we don’t get a nap time at school? We stay up late to do our homework after we get home from practice and or work, we’re up till midnight sometimes later doing thing and then we have to get up early and do it all again the next day. It’s a constant cycle of not enough sleep.

I think the education system has it mixed up, I think the nap time school be built into the high school day, not the elementary school day. Nap time in high school would be beneficial to the students, being able to catch up on their sleep, and the teachers as well. Teachers always complain about things needed to be graded, give us nap time and you’ll have more time to grade papers.

We should require all high school to have at least a 45 minute “nap time” during the school day. I don’t think any student would oppose to this idea!

Teenage Girls: Over Thinking

Teenage girls have many talents, one being over thinking. If you’re a guy reading this, this might help you understand a girl’s thought process, but probably not.

Guys think that girls are very complicated, well that’s because guys decide things in about two seconds. It takes them like .02 seconds to decide on whether or not they like something, and it takes girls about 10 years (obvious that’s a little bit of an exaggeration) to decide something. Boys are just like yeah this stripped shirt is awesome, I’ll take it! Girls on the other hand think, “How much is it? Is that too much? Is it worth it? But I already know two other girls with the same shirt! What pants would I wear this shirt with? But I don’t have shoes to match this?” Girls think about everything when trying to buy something as simple as a shirt.

Boys if you think I’m exaggerating all the questions and thoughts that go through a girls head while shopping, you’re wrong!

Yeah deciding on what clothes to buy is a big deal for girls, but girls over think 10 times harder when it comes to boys. For some reason us girls just assume there’s something wrong with us, that we’re the problem, and we always assume that the boy we like doesn’t like us. For example, if a boy isn’t respond to our texts, thousands of thoughts run through our heads, “OMG what did I do? Is he ignoring me? Why is he ignoring me? Am I being annoying? Did I say something wrong? I want to text him again, but then he’ll really think I’m being annoying? Does he think I’m too clingy? Oh no, clingy is bad! NO one likes clingy!” when in reality the boy is just busy and can’t respond at the moment.

So boys, if you don’t want your girl to turn into a psychopath and give herself an anxiety attack, tell her you’re busy and you will text her in a bit, don’t just not reply.

I don’t know why us girls always just assume we did something wrong when a boy doesn’t respond to us, but we do. We start to second guess everything; we’ll go back and re-read the conversation to see if we said something questionable.

Girls, am I wrong? Please tell me I’m not the only girl that freaks out like this!?

Teenage Girls' Mood Swings

There are a lot of qualities to a teenage girl. Girls are like sour patch kids, one minute we can be sweet as can be and turn around a minute later and we’re worse than the devil. I don’t even know how to describe girls and I can’t even begin to explain why we are the way we are!

Most of the time we are pretty chill, we just do what we do every day. A lot of the time you can ask us to do something and we’ll do it, depending on how much effort it takes. If the task you’re asking us to preform requires too much effort we might say no just because we like to be lazy and just do our own thing, but if for some reason we’re in a good mood, we just might do it. If we’re in a bad mood, for whatever reason, you might just make us mad if you ask us to do something.

I can’t explain how girls work and for whatever reason our moods change all the time. Sometimes we’re just sitting there and all the sudden we think of something and we get really happy and then we’re in a really good mood for no reason and we want to just run around and hug random people and be super nice to everyone. In contrast though, sometimes we’ll think of something and we get really mad and we just want to punch a hole in the wall, again, for no reason. We’ll get mad at the people next to us for stupid reasons like, for breathing or even just them being next to us makes us mad. The person next to us could literally be doing nothing and all of the sudden we just get mad at them for being right there and we’ll freak out and be like, “why are you so close to me? Why do you have to breathe so loud? Get away from me!” And when we realize we’re mad, we’ll get madder because we don’t know why we’re mad.

Along with getting in good and bad moods for no reason, girls also get very sad for no reason. One thing just sets a spark in our heads and we just want to sit down and cry, then we being to think of all the sad things in our lives and we actually start crying. It’s like we bring these emotions upon ourselves, but can’t help it.

LOCKDOWN- School Shootings

Sadly, more and more school shootings have been happening. Thankfully none of them have been in Iowa. We can never be too careful though.

Schools are required to practice safety procedures as if a shooter were to come into our school.

Today at 9:00AM we had a lockdown drill. A staff member came on the intercom and repeated “lockdown” three times. At that time we knew we were supposed to lock and barricade the door, turn off the lights and computers, and hid in a part of the room that couldn’t be seen from the windows. I was in Sra. Perkins’ room and there is a door in her room that leads to the room where all the geothermal equipment is. This room is a lot bigger than we thought and actually has two floors to in. Our class went in there and we figured that all the Spanish classes in that part of the hallway could fit in there, along with classes from upstairs in the upper part of the room. Luckily for us there were doors in that room that led outside by the track. These doors can only be opened from the inside. We were told that if this were in fact not a drill, that we should immediately run straight out those doors, if it were safe to do so, and keep running and not look back.

This brought up the question “What are we supposed to do in here?” in my next class. Everyone had something to say about this. A lot of people said they would probably run to the nearest exit and run as fast as they could away from the school. Our teacher told us that we should only run if the shooter were on the opposite side of the building, but I was talking to some people and we said that if they were on the other side of the hallway, we wouldn’t want to hid in a room where they can shoot through the window and get in, then we are trapped in the room with no way to get out.

We figured that if we were in class we could figure out where to hide or where to run to, but then someone asked “What are we supposed to do if it’s passing time or SMART lunch?” At that point, we just assumed we’d all run as fast as we could to an exit.

 

RUN, FIGHT, HIDE, is what my teacher told us. I know I wouldn’t have a problem running away. I wonder if we were actually in a lockdown and someone had the chance to grab, fight, or throw something at the shooter, if they would, or if they would they be too scared. I think I would want to throw something at them to slow them down, but I don’t think I could actually do it. And with hiding, I wouldn’t want to just sit there and wait to be found, I would want to do something. I would be afraid they would get into the classroom and then I’m screwed, there’s nothing I could do at that point. I think a lot of people don’t know what they’d do if this situation were upon us, but I hope we never find out.

Cell Phones

Every time phones are brought up as a topic of discussion, there is always controversy. Parents complain all the time that their kids are always on their phones and that they don’t know how to communicate face to face. I agree with parents to an extent. Yes phones eliminate that face to face communication, but sometimes it’s easier to just shoot someone a text quickly, rather than just going  and asking them one little question. Just because we are on our phones a lot though doesn’t mean we don’t have good communication stills in person. These have no correlation, personally I am on my phone as much as possible, but I have very good social skills as well.

Us teenagers these days always find ourselves going through the same social media apps in a cycle, looking for new things to entertain us. We automatically pick up our phones when were bored, hoping that time will past faster when we’re on our phones. Phones are also a great way to avoid awkward situations. I know everyone who is reading this has pretended to be doing something on their phone to avoid just sitting there awkwardly! We all do it! When your friend is arguing with their parent, what do you do? You pick up your phone and you pretend to use it, or you go through your social media apps again even though you just checked them 3 times in the last ten minutes.

 Parents complain about kids ALWAYS being on their phones, but now that I think about it, that’s how kids are growing up these days. You see 3 and 4 year olds playing on their mom or dad’s phone or an iPad. Parents are getting their kids phones earlier and earlier too. I think it’s ridiculous that kids are getting phones in third grade now! No wonder kids are constantly on their phones, that’s how they’re growing up. I had to wait till sixth grade and my parents almost made me wait till later!

           
 It’s also kind of sad how much a lot of people rely on their phones though. When we aren’t allowed to have them out at school, people will sneak them under their desk because they can’t go without it for an hour. When I was at camp for a week, we weren’t allowed to even bring our phones, we had to leave them at home, and it really wasn’t that bad. We were always doing something and staying occupied, I didn’t even miss my phone. We should hang out with people more and do stuff, instead of sitting around on our phones, it’s more fun to actually go out and do something anyways!

Broken Dreams

I read John Nolan’s blog (http://thebestschoolspirit.blogspot.com/2015/10/senior.html) about not being able to play football anymore and how much he missed it and that gave me inspiration to write this blog. So thanks John!

 High school is the time where we find the things we’re good at, the things we love. For some people like me, we have been playing the same sports our whole lives and we would go crazy if we didn’t have them. The lucky ones make it their whole lives and never get seriously hurt to the point where they aren’t able to come back, but not all of us are that lucky.

At the end of the summer, August 1^st to be exact, I was working (at Sky Zone) an extremely long shift and my manager let me off early. A lot of employees like to jump after they get off, it’s a great way to get out energy and just kind of hang out, and well that’s what I did. Some friends had come to jump so I figured I would just stay there with them for an hour until we closed then I’d go home and go to bed. Me, being the show off that I am, I had to prove someone wrong and show them that I could do a flip off the wall, just like they did. I had never done a front flip off of the side wall before but I didn’t really think it would be that hard, so I went for it. Long story short I broke my left fibula and had to go to the emergency room that night. I was sitting in my room at the hospital waiting for my x-rays to come back, I was hoping I just had a bad sprain and it would take a week or two to heal, but when the doctor came back, she said I had a clean break. She basically told me that I wouldn’t be able to dance for quite a while and that I needed a lot of time to heal and recover. At this time, we thought that we were going to Nationals for dance team and I knew at that moment that I was not going to be competing at nationals. I was devastated! I thought that I was going to go all the way to Orlando for the national competition and I was going to have to sit there and watch my team compete without me.

Turns out we aren’t going to nationals this year anyway, but I still am not back to dancing. The dance team just competed at their first competition this past weekend and all I could do was watch from the stands as my team danced their hearts out and won two first place trophies. I would give anything to be dancing right now. I can’t believe that one little thing I did have an effect that would last months. There was no way I could have known that I was going to land that flip wrong and that I was going to break my ankle. It’s scary to think that anything we do could go bad and stop us from doing the things we love.

Jobs

Part of being in high is getting your drivers license. Finally being able to drive yourself where ever you want, you get that sense of freedom. The down side to driving is paying for the gas! Some kids are lucky, their parents pay for their gas, along with money for food and clothes and random stuff. Others have to pay for all of that stuff on their own, including me. How am I supposed to pay for all the clothes and food I want if I don't have any money? That’s right, a job!

This last year I decided that it would probably be a good idea for me to get a job because there was no way I had enough money for all of things I want, and I still don't, but at least I have some money now. Before my job, my parents would pay for my gas and give me money every once and awhile, but now that I have a job I have to pay for everything myself! My job is great, I love it. I don't have to wait on anyone or serve anyone, I get to watch little kids jump on trampolines all day. I don't really have to do much at my job; it's actually pretty easy, better than working at a restaurant or Hy-Vee! I get paid to basically do nothing!

Yeah working can suck sometimes, but when paid day comes around, I love having a job. It's so nice to have money and know that you can spend it on the things you want. My parents always tell me to save money too. They say "You don't need to spend that much money every month. You don’t need to eat out so much". I agree with my parents, I should save money for college, but sometimes it's hard, like you're really craving some pizza and you're like why not, it's only five dollars, but before you know it, all those little five dollar charges add up and before you know it you’re down to $20 and you still have a week left until you get paid.

Having a job has taught me great social skills. I am very comfortable talking to customers and answering questions, things I wasn't very comfortable with before. I think having a job benefits high schoolers more than just giving them money, there are more things you get out of having a job. You learn to collaborate and cooperate with coworkers and you learn how to talk to people other than your friends.

Cheating on Exams

We are all told that we have to go to school so we can learn things and get a good education because if we don't then we won't get into a good college and we won't get a good high paying job out in the real world, that "we'll be stuck working at McDonald's". And yes I understand that it is very important to learn things like social skills and cooperation, but I’m sorry when am I ever going to need to know how to graph Y=4+6sin(1/2(X-3))? NEVER! We are told that we have to go to school every day and that we need to learn something new every day, so we do. We all go to class and sit there and try and pay attention while the teacher is going way to fast in math class while standing in front of the board and you have no idea what is going on. We try and learn these "pointless" things so that way we'll do well on the chapter test when it comes around.

At least that’s how it used to be. We would try and learn these things, but now-a-days, more and more students are starting to cheat on tests. Yes, I know it is bad to cheat and you should never do it, so why are kids cheating on tests? It's because society is starting to care more and more about kids having "good" grades. Well as a result to thing, kids are cheating on tests so they get the right answers and they get the good grade.

Now I’m not saying that everybody cheats on tests, because I know a lot of people who study their butts off and get the good grades they deserve. I wonder if kids would be more apt to actually learning the material and asking questions when they don't understand something, if grades weren't so important. Would we be more willing to try, to put more effort in, than just relying on someone else’s answers to get good grades? I know a lot of parents expect good grades out of their children, and that is a lot of pressure. Maybe if our parents weren't always hounding us with the expectation of having A’s and B's we would actually learn things for ourselves.

Nowhere to practice

This blog ties into my last post about “dance not being a real sport”

Yes football is a sport with a lot of physical contact and people get hurt, but dance is just as hard on our bodies. Blood, sweat, and tears are shed at practices, literally!! Like I said in my last blog, we practice anywhere from 6-30 hours a week. We run and or do some sort of cardio before every practice to get ourselves warmed up, then we stretch and get down to business working on our routines.

For starters we do not have a formal place to practice at Kennedy. We practice in the hallways, the cafeteria, and sometimes the choir room. None of these places are meant for dancing, especially for 20 girls! You're probably wondering why we don't go practice in the gym, but that’s where basketball and volleyball practice and they have priority over us. Because we cannot use the gyms, we had to result mainly to the cafeteria. We spend up to twenty minutes stacking the chairs and moving the tables out of the way so we have a big enough space for all of us to dance. The main problem with all the places we practice is that they all have concrete or tiling flooring. If you’ve seen some of our dances, you know that we drop down to our knees quite a bit in each dance. This adds a great effect and surprise to the dance, but especially on hard surfaces, it is terrible on our knees. We constantly have bruises on our knees. Along with the floor being hard on our knees, they are hard on our feet, ankles, and shins especially. We do a ton of jumps in every dance and when we land our feet smack the hard ground. This is especially hard on me because I have bad shin splints and stress fractures so the pain doesn’t ever really go away.

Dance team has never really had a place to practice, so we’re used to dancing on the hard surfaces and yeah they hurt our bodies and leave bruises, but we’re used to it, we’ve accepted that these are the results of dancing where we practice. The gym isn’t so bad on our bodies and it’s enough space for all of the team. We try and get in there as much as we can but it’s a rare occasion. Sometime in the future I hope the team gets an actual place to practice or we can compromise on sharing the gyms, but for now we’re just going to keep on doing what we’re doing and hope for the best.

"Dance isn't a sport"

We always talk about sports like basketball, football, baseball, volleyball, etc., but when Dance is brought up, there seems to be some controversy over whether or not dance is considered a sport. I don't think there is a clear definition on what makes an activity a sport. Sports required strength, both physically and mentally, practice, stamina, all things that are involved in dance. Personally I consider dance a sport, but you might think that my opinion is bias because I am a dancer. Dance requires strength, we use muscles no other sport uses. We have to have mental strength as well. Our routines are up to two minutes long and they are anything but easy.

I hate when people think dance is easy and they say that because we "make it look easy" but that's because we have been doing this our whole lives, training our whole lives, we train to make it look easy. Dance Team spends numerous hours a week learning, changing, and perfecting dances. In a week we spend anywhere from 6-30 hours practicing two routines. Now you might ask how we could spend that long doing only two routines, but a lot more work goes into these dances then you might think. We spend hours "cleaning" people and parts so that everyone looks the EXACT same. Every arm, every leg, every head, every body angle has to be the same for every part of the dance, if you want to be the best. If one person doesn't match, they will stand out and throw off the whole "picture". We spend all this time being picky and making sure people match, because that is part of what we are judged on. If you were to take a picture in the middle of our dance, every single person should look the same and the spacing should all be even, but this is not always the case.

I wish we could have people come and watch out practices and see how much time and effort we put into making our dances look good. This past weekend, the dance team had their first competition at the Carver Hawkeye Area in Iowa city. This wasn't a huge competition, it was more like practice for state, but that doesn't mean we didn't take it seriously. The team went out there and gave it 110% and they killed it. We came out of the competition with a first place trophy for our pom and our jazz! All of our hard work paid off and the judges gave us great feedback and critiques that we will use and consider when preparing for state.

Dance team has all the qualities as any other sport; we compete just like any other sport. Dance team is just as hard as any other sport. If you don't believe me, then ask any other member of the dance team and I can guarantee you that they say the exact same thing.

Trying New Things

Most of us like to stay within in our comfort zone. We often do things that are normal for us. How often do you make dramatic changes? Do you ever think to yourself that you want to become a better version of yourself? I think a lot of us think about this, not because we are unhappy with ourselves, but because we think/know that we can be better. It's hard to change something as dramatic as your lifestyle and your happiness, so start with something smaller. Make small changes and build from there. You'll become the person you want to become, but you have to understand that it will take time.

High School students don't often know who they are or who they want to become, so they try new things. We go out of our comfort zone and try things we never imaged ourselves doing. These new things help us find out what we like and what we don't like. If you try something you like, that's great, but don't be discouraged if you try something new and you don't like it. It's just as good to find out that you don't like something because it helps you narrow down what you like to do.

Trying new things includes: job shadows, talking to new people, making new friends, trying new sports, activities, instruments, anything! Anything that is not "normal" to you is trying something new. You might find something you really enjoy doing, but you may never have discovered that if you hadn't tried it in the first place. You may meet someone you instantly click with and become best friends, but you would of new meet them if you didn't say "hi" first.

I know it's easier said than done, but we all try new things whether we realize it or not. All of these things shape us. They "add" to us and shape our personalities and us as people.

Stress

High school students are very busy. Athletes, musicians, and artists, all with busy schedules. A lot of students have full schedules with extracurricular activities on top of that. We have late practices every day. We're exhausted and still have to go home and do homework, but all we want to do is go home, eat, and go to bed. This same routine everyday gets really old for some people, like me, we like to change things up. For other people, they like the same routine, they like "normal."

We are getting to the age where we are all getting job on top of all these activities and responsibilities we already have. All of this "go, go, go" becomes very stressful and over whelming for high-schoolers. Personally I am involved in two school sports and I work at Sky Zone. I try to work as much as possible, the few days I don't have practice, and a lot on the weekends. This leaves me with almost no time to do homework and even less time to hang out with my friends. I know it's very hard to find the motivation to come home after a long practice and sit down and do an hour or so worth of homework.

School alone is very stressful. We get quite a bit of homework that we have to do every night, I don't mind the homework that will actually help you learn the thing you need to learn, like AP homework, but some homework for other classes is just busy work. I hate when teachers give their students "busy work", they have nothing else to teach for the rest of the class so they give us a worksheet that we have to do and there's usually no point to it.

The stress that comes from all these responsibilities is huge! Sometimes the stress gets to you and you totally shut down, you don't have any motivation to do your work, so you go and watch Netflix or something else unproductive. It's very hard to not let the stress get to you, to push through it and get things done. Some people are very good at this, and others, like me, struggle with this. I praise these people, they are very strong willed. They will get very far in life with this attitude and motivation. For those of you, we will have to work on this, we will get there, we just have to work a little bit harder and find our motivation.