High School, General Conference, & more

Why are Disney movies so fabulous? Like really, who writes these genius dialogues and beyond beautiful music? I only ask because I found "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" on Netflix and I'm making Lillian and Kellen watch it. Another good and genius movie is "The Tale of Despereaux" (I don't think this is Disney, though). ANYWAY...

HEY! Long time no write (four days?)! I've decided to write every Sunday, so not to over load my many many readers haha. So today seemed like a good day to start that! 

For those of you who don't know, today is "General Conference". For us crazy Mormons, it's a day where we listen to the leaders of the church talk to us about all kinds of talks. Sometimes it's about telling us to get our lives together. Often times it's about giving us hope to press forward, and it's, a lot of the time, about giving us instruction to become better and to help the church become better. And today was fantastic! Four hours of straight genius that I want to just soak in! I took a ton of notes, which is always awesome and fun. Anyone who knows me knows that I love taking notes. Plus, I was at the place where the conference is held two months ago so that's amazing to me. 

ON TO THE ACTUAL TOPIC OF THIS POST: 

Because I have the hardest time thinking of things to write about, I decided to take a poll. And as of right now, the poll's results lean towards the topic of High School. The people have spoken, and I've got to keep my promises. So here we go, embarking on the topic of High School and my thought's on the whole ordeal. 

As a senior, graduating in two months I think I have a little experience (only a little). 

I think it's often a socially acceptable outlook to absolutely hate High School. It's kinda one of those things where people just hear other people say it's a terrible thing and so they decide to hate it, too. Like being afraid of something! I learned in health last semester that no one is born with a fear of spiders, and often people don't develop the fear because of a traumatic event, but rather because they see their parents being scared of them so, as a survival thing, they start to be afraid of them, too. 

I'm not saying that High School is the greatest thing on the universe. AT ALL. I'm actually super glad it's coming to an end, but because it's coming to the end, I've realized some things I'm actually going to miss! 

1) I'm really going to miss the people. High School has it's fair share of mean, rude, not-the-smartest set of individuals in the world. On the other hand, I've met some of my favorite people on Earth there. So here's my advice: Make friends! It doesn't matter if you make two or fifty, make LASTING friends. I've seen a good amount of people make friends with people who really couldn't care less about their well being, which is so incredibly sad. And I'm glad to say that I've figured out who those people are, and associate with people who truly do love me. Of course, making lasting friends doesn't mean you won't lose some. High School is a confusing time and it's also a hard time, losing friends kinda comes with the package. I wish it didn't happen that way. No one is perfect and it happens. And that's okay, too! Don't dwell on it for too long. Apologize, do what you can, but have people in your life who make you happy. If a friend causes you nothing but heartache, they aren't a good friend. 

2) I'm going to miss the teachers. Does this sound crazy, or what? But hey, I'm sure everyone who is reading has had some teacher that have impacted their lives, for better or for worse. I've been lucky. I've had so many teachers that have shaped me into the student and person that I am today. One of those was Mr. Allen (Mr. A). Mr. A told me that I was a million bucks worth of talent, that I had actress eyes. He encouraged me out of my shyness as much as he could, opening me up to new people and a new me, really. He made me stand on a stage and scream! He was crazy, but I'll always take what he taught me and apply it to my life. I had a lot of teachers who did things like this for me, believed in me. It was awesome. So here's my advice: respect your dang teachers. Even if they are Satan, respect them. They have hard, sometimes thankless jobs, and they still believe in you (okay, not all of them actually care about you, but most do! hahaha)

3) I'm going to miss all the activities. I actually regret not going to more sporting events or things like that! I think, in my whole high school career, I went to four volleyball games, five football games, and 3 basketball games. I'm not even that involved in the sports, but the ones I went to were so fun! I wish I had gone to more. And the two play I was in sophomore year, I wish I had been in more of those, too! I also wish I had done choir. See? I promise you, even if you don't like to go to these things, you'll regret not going at a later date like I do. 

It was at the end of sophomore year when I found out I was moving. I honestly wasn't scared, or that sad. I figured I'd be talking to all my friends all day every day on the phone, coming down to visit every month. I figured I would make new friends quickly and have even more love in my life. 

A lot of these things have actually turned out to happen! I have made friends up here in Forest Grove that I can't imagine my life without now. But It was much harder than I anticipated and it took a long time for me to get these amazing friends. I also had to deal with the feeling of being forgotten. And replaced. I wasn't able to talk to all of my friends from Roseburg all day every day like I thought. Thinking about it now, I haven't talked to some of those friends since the last time I visited, and before then it was months. For a while that was really hard on me, because I thought that meant they didn't love me anymore, but that's not true. Communication is hard, and all of my super close friends still talk to me frequently. They are those good friends that I mentioned before (cough cough Fitzgerald). 

Another piece of advice for you is this: get good grades. Seriously. 95% of my stress as I have applied for college is that my grades aren't good enough to get me scholarships that I qualify for otherwise. People tell you that extra curricular activities effect you more, but in my experience, it's mostly about grades. Grades and community service. Oh, and the ACT/SAT (blah). So get on that, everyone! 

One last piece of advice: try to enjoy it. It goes by quickly, even though it doesn't seem like it while you're there. After you're done you're going to look back and be like, "Can I do some of those things again?" (While some things done in High School you never want to replay). But truly, enjoy it. It's a fun time in your life. I wish I had realized that earlier. 

Well, that was heavy hahaha. Sorry about that! Those are my thought's on High School. Hopefully it helped someone out there. 

Thank you for reading, it means more than you know. 

Signing off until next time, 

Ella