Maddison's Musings

You've seen the movies. You've read it in books. Before you get to high school, everyone has an idea of how it will be. Whether you imagine fights, the different classes, finding yourself, High School Musical, parties, etc, everyone's imagined what high school is like. Even if you hear what it's like from a person in the high school you're going to attend, you still can't imagine it until you're actually there. It's some weird phenomenon that comes with high school.

Although you're only getting my point of view of high school in this post, it's better than nothing. Plus, I've attended to VERY different high schools across the country from each other, so that also adds some insight. Now before I actually start, I feel like you should know how I work at school. I'm a very intellectual student who takes all of the higher/harder classes. I love to be challenged. I'm definitely not "popular" by any means, but I try to be a decent human being.

High school isn't an easy time. Not only do you have to worry about grades, school, college, and where your life is heading (as if that isn't bad enough), but you also have personal things going on in your life. Whatever it is, be it crushes, family problems, personal problems, health issues, anything can throw you off of your game. The key to beating this is to simply find something that your enjoy and submerge yourself fully into it. Do whatever you can to make yourself happy and healthy. That's really all that matters.

When it comes to the people in high school, some are great and some are awful. Just like with the entire human population. Some are wonderful, some are horrible. High school doesn't have to be filled with tons of drama. Honestly, I  haven't dealt with tons drama/bullies/gossip in my school career. I just don't associate with that kind of stuff. Sure, you might not be totally up to date with everything happening in the school, but that's perfectly okay, especially when that kind of stuff just hurts people. Something that is super helpful with people is to not care about what they think of you. Your self worth is not based on how others perceive you. It might take some work, but if you can learn to not care about how others think of you, you feel so much better. Most people are too worried about themselves to even think about your flaws for too long. You're great just the way you are, trust me on this.

One thing I can tell you that applies to every high school ever, is the fact that High School Musical was a movie, and not based on an actual high school experience. Nobody breaks out into unrehearsed song and dance and knows exactly what to do. Unless you're in a dance/ music class. Then you will sing and dance. But it's usually rehearsed. Anyways, don't expect magical song and dance numbers during passing periods because it's not happening.

Those are a few little insights on what high school is really like, for me at least. Maybe I'll do a part two on this topic for a future blog post, but maybe not, it all depends really.

~Maddison

In my last blog post, I wrote about how excited I was about the future and things. I'm so super excited for this summer that sometimes I forget that it's still a few months away. I was re-watching was of Troye Sivan's videos, "Dear Future Me" and it got me thinking. I don't make New Year's Resolutions, but instead, I make New Year's goals. I've been doing this for quite a while actually, but I usually keep it private and to myself. But this year, I feel like sharing some of my goals with you guys, just as an extra push to complete them and and as a way to look back next year and see how much I accomplished. And yes, I know that it's February already, but it's never to late to share your goals, and I've had them written down since New Year's, so yeah.

2015 Goals

1. Get a passport

I dream of traveling the world one day, but in order to do that, I need a passport. And I want one just to have one. To say that I could go to a different country whenever I want.

2. Read more

I used to absolutely love reading, but over the last few years, I've read less and less due to having lots of homework and no extra time and then the extra time I did have I didn't want to read, but I really want to change that this year. I don't care how many books I read, but at least one every month.

3. Write more

I love writing. I've been doing it for as long as I can remember, and I still have a few stories that I've written from first and second grade. Writing is amazing, it really truly is one of my favorite things. This year, I want to do more creative writing than I did last year. I want to work on more short stories and things like that.

4. Find joy in the little things

As someone who struggles with mental illness, this is really important to me. I don't want to focus on all of the bad things. I really want to try to be more positive by finding joy in the small things. Instead of absolutely hating everything and being annoyed all of the time, I want to try to think about the few things that I do enjoy and that make me happy.

5. Take more pictures

I bought a camera recently, and I absolutely love it. It's so much fun to play with and figure how it works. This year, I want to take more pictures to have more memories. Whether I take pictures of a flower or my family, I just want something besides my blogs and journals to look back on. I want to remember the way things look/are, not just how they felt.

6. Save more
I'm actually a pretty decent saver of my money. I tend to take any money that I make and put it directly into my savings account and not to transfer too much into my checking account. That being said, I do tend to buy things a lot. And when I buy things, it's usually not the smallest and cheapest purchases. For example, I bought my own camera, my own Vidcon ticket, most of my own merch, etc etc. So I really do save a lot, but I tend to spend too. This year, I want to save more.

Those are just a few of my main goals for 2015. I hope that I can look back on this post next year and say, "You know what? 2015 was a great year. I accomplished a lot of my goals." I'm not saying I will achieve every single goal that I wrote (because there's a ton more), but I'm saying that I hope to complete most of them. I really hope that 2015 is one of my best years yet.

~Maddison