Crowded Foyer

Some people can’t handle big crowds, can you? Do you start to feel uncomfortable or claustrophobic when too many people get too close to you? Imagine you go to a school with 1,800 other people and they’re all trying to get to another classroom at the same time as you. This is what happens at least six times a day at Kennedy High School. Every passing time there are hundreds of people trying to get through the foyer at the same time as. A key factor in advoiding this huge traffic jam is to not stop in the middle of the foyer and talk to someone. This is when you hold everyone up behind you and they start to get mad and just push you out of their way.

If you don’t like big crowds, then this shoving in the foyer probably scares you. Kids get so annoyed, usually with underclassmen, when they stop in the middle where everyone is actually trying to get to their class. Some people are so annoyed and don’t want to fight the traffic anymore, so they just keeping walking, they will bump into anymore and they don’t care. So if you want to avoid this, your best option is to use the back stairways if you can, avoid going through the main foyer if possible. If you’re not afraid to get bumped in the hallway or pushed, then you will be fine if you go through the foyer, remember to just keep walking and don’t stop until you get to where you’re going and you’re out of everyone’s way. Typically it’s the smaller kids that don’t like going through the foyer during passing time, because a lot of the kids at this school are fairly big and kind of tower over the little freshman or the eighth graders that come to classes in the mornings. Walking through the foyer isn’t as bad as some people think, you will get used to it the more you walk through there.

Black Friday

Black Friday is the craziest shopping day of the year. People stand in lines hours and hours before stores open, just so they can be the first ones in. When the doors open u, the customers run as fast as they can to whatever they are looking for and then run to the checkout when they have everything they came for. A lot of the times, stores don’t even have that good of sales, but hundreds of people still wait in lines for hours trying to check out.

We’ve all heard crazy stories of people getting run over by huge crowds of people trying to get into the store, but for a lot of us teenagers, we’ve probably never actually experienced this Black Friday Madness. Personally, I know that the year one of my friends turned 16, we would go Black Friday shopping. We all wanted to see what it was like. My friends and I didn’t even really care about the deals because we didn’t really have any money to spend anyways. My parents never go Black Friday shopping because they, like most people, don’t want to fight the crowds. Since our parents never brought us, we thought we ought to experience the chaos for ourselves. I remember when I told my mom that some friends and I were going shopping and she was like why would you fight the crowd at a sore when there’s not very many good deals, and I said that I wanted to see what it was like, if it was really as crazy as everyone says it is.

The mall is not too crowded on Black Friday, only because it’s mostly because there’s only clothing stores there and they have sales going on all the time so that’s not a huge deal. Places like Target, Walmart, and Best Buy though, are ridiculous! There are so many people running around, carrying huge boxes of things like TV’s, gaming systems and otherwise expensive products. People have multiple carts filled with more items than you can image, and then they will stand in line forever waiting to check out. The great part about Black Friday, is Cyber Monday! You get all the same, if not better deals, online and the best part is, you can shop all day from the comfort of your own home. There’s no hassle or crowds because everything is online and I think Cyber Monday is more popular, for that very reason. So, if you don’t like being in a big store with hundreds of people, I would wait till Monday and shop on online without all the chaos.

College Visits

After high school, most kids go off to college before starting their lives in the “real world.” College is not for everyone and that’s ok. You will not be judged if you decide to take a year off or you join the army, navy, air force, etc…

For the kids who decide they want to go to college, junior and senior year are very important. These are the years you should be visiting colleges. Most kids, like myself, don’t have a clue what they want to major in, so we visit a bunch of schools. Few kids know what they want to do when they “grow up”, so they can kind of narrow down their college visits to the ones that offer their specific program(s). Most colleges offer the same programs, but some specialize in certain programs. Iowa State University specializes in engineering and The University of Iowa specializes in medicine.
In order to go on a college visit, you have to sign up on the college’s website. You register for the day you want to come. You can register to go with a group of people or you can do individual tours. The first time you visit a college, most kids do the group tour and then if you decide you like that school and you are considering enrolling there for your freshman year, you may want to go back and do an individual tour so you can get a better sense of the campus and ask as many questions as you can think of. You can also look at the more specific buildings on the campus if you are on an individual tour. The group tours just kind of pass by each building and they’ll tell you what classes are in that building, and you’ll move on to the next one.

It’s very import to visit many colleges even if you really liked the first one you visited. You could end up like the next ones just as much, if not more. You don’t want to settle for the first school, you need to explore the other colleges and see what they have to offer there. As you visit more and more colleges, you’ll learn the things you want and don’t want at your college. You’ll visit on a normal day when all classes are in session and you’ll get a sense of how a normal day would be at that certain college. You’ll get to experience that college atmosphere and all the people around you. It’s also very important that you visit small and large colleges, you might think you want to go to a big university but you might learn that that’s not for you, that a small private college might be more suitable for you. It’s important to visit all the colleges you can so you can choose the best one for you. You will be spending at least the next four years there!

Coaches

Having a coach you get along with is amazing! There's nothing better than do the thing you love and liking your coach at the same time. A coach is like a second parent to you, you're with them 24/7 and you have to listen to them, except they aren't your parent. If you have a close relationship with your coach, you can open up to them and talk to them about anything. There is always stuff you want to talk about but don't necessarily want to talk with your parents about and being able to talk to another adult about it is great!

When you have a good relationship with your coach you will learn to like that sport or activity even more. You’ll like coming to practice because you look forward to see and talking to your coach. You might even become better at what you’re doing too! If you like your coach, you’re going to be more willing to listen to their corrections and apply them which will be very beneficial to you. If you don’t like your coach you are going to hate what you’re doing, you will hate going to practice and you will not want to listen to them.

I personally love track, I had a terrible coach that I hated and it was sad because he kind of ruined track for me. I never listened to him because I didn’t like him. I don’t like being told what to do, as is, but I especially don’t like being told what to do from someone I don’t like.

 

So for that exact reason, you should do what you can to develop a good relationship with your coach or coaches. If for some reason you think your coach doesn’t like you, talk to them and work things out, I’m sure they don’t actually hate you. Ask what you can do to get better. Teachers and coaches tend to like and help their students and athletes who show effort and act like they care about what they’re doing. So if you just put forth a little effort and have a good attitude, you will go far, in that specific activity, and in life! You’re going to be more enjoyable to be around if you are positive, it makes everyone happier and it allows for teams to work well together!

Drinking & Drugs

Kids refer to drinking and drugs for many reasons. Some kids feel the need to do these things that are illegal, because they are depressed and doing these things makes them feel better. Others might feel like they are unwanted or they feel lost in this world so the result to drinking and doing drugs, because it makes them feel “alive”. This is not an excuse to turn to these activities though; these kids that are in this situation can be helped.

Most kids these days turn to drinking and drugs because it’s “cool”, because “everyone is doing it”. I’ve heard many kids say they will never do these things, that they are so against in, but the minute their friends start doing it and they feel left out, suddenly their opinion of it changes and they now think it’s ok.

The kids that get involved in these activities seem to think that the people that don’t do those things judge them and think they’re bad people, but in reality they are probably just against doing that stuff. These kids might always think that you’re not “cool” and not want to hang out with you unless you’re going to drink or smoke with them.

Parents probably would never know their kids were doing things like this, unless they have caught them, either with alcohol or drugs, or when they come home under the influence. Kids have gotten very good at hiding these things from their parents and lying about where they have been or where they are going or staying.

It’s so easy for underage kids to get alcohol too; a lot of kids know other kids that can get them alcohol if they give them the money for it.

The same goes for drugs, especially weed. Weed is illegal, no matter your age, but kids can still get their hands on it. We have drug dogs that go through our school hallways and even the parking lots sometimes searching for drugs. Kids have actually gotten caught with possession too.

I don’t understand why people have to be drinking or smoking all the time. Some people don’t understand that you don’t have to be drunk or high to have fun!

"bad" Boys

Boys complain about girls being confusing and crazy and me being a girl, I totally understand that

because I don’t even understand the reasons I do half the stuff I do myself. But I also don’t understand guys a lot of the time. In previous blogs of mine about teenage girls I talked about the ways we think and kind of why we are the way we are, we are completely different from boys. Girls don’t even understand why we do what we do, how are we supposed to know why guys do what they do. We don’t know or understand their thought process, so we have to guess, this is where us girls start assuming things, as I talked about earlier.

We don’t understand why guys act differently when you’re alone with them and then they act completely different when you are in front of their friends. Or why they talk differently when they’re with “the guys”. Is it not cool to be nice when you’re with ‘the guys”? This confuses us and makes us mad. We want you guys to be cute like you are when we’re alone, when we’re in front of your friends too! What’s so hard to understand about that?

Another thing I don’t understand is why guys think it’s cool/okay to jump from girl to girl all the time. But if girls were to hop from guy to guy like boys do girls, she’d get called names and be label as a “hoe” “slut” etc... How is this fair? This is hypocritical!

Sometimes I feel like guys do things just so they are “accepted” by their friends, so they’re “cool.” I know that guys know it’s wrong to use a girl, but why do so many guys still do it. I don’t get how you can do that to someone. Girls are sensitive and become attached quickly. We’ll believe a lot of things you tell us, this is why guys lie. Guys know that if they tell us what we want to hear, that if they make themselves seem like a “good guy”, that we’ll open up to them and they can take advantage.

Don’t get me wrong, I know not all guys are like this! I know there are genuinely good guys out there that know this stuff is wrong and would never do these things, but unfortunately there are guys out there like this. By all means, there are girls out there that do these same things to guys too.