Trust me, just not on cliffs.

A time I had to convince someone of something was when I convinced my cousin, Brittney, to trust me on a camping trip. It was the summer before 9th grade and we were at a family reunion in Wisconsin. While on the family reunion we decided to take a small camping trip. This was the average camping trip, with bonfires, hikes and of course, swimming in the lake. It just so happened that there was a small cliff at the camp site we were staying at that rose right over the lake. People dove off this cliff into the water occasionally, and the people that owned the camping grounds assured us it was safe to jump off of, so I decided to do a little joke. I convinced Brittney that I had a surprise for her, she was slightly skeptical but I convinced her to trust me. I told her that we would go on a hike and maybe a swim, just the two of us. The next day me and Brittney set out on an all day hike.  I walked her along multiple trails and confusing paths to make sure that she had no idea where I was really talking her. When we got closer to the cliff I told her to close her eyes, she refused, but I once again convinced her to trust me. I led her over to the cliff and turned her backwards, I positioned her right at the edge until I was satisfied with where she was placed. I told her to open her eyes and asked her if she knew how to swim, she said yes and I simply smiled before proceeding to push her off the cliff. She landed in the water and surfaced perfectly fine, of course screaming about how much of a horrible person I am. She still trusts me, even after the incident, just not around cliffs. The best part of the story has to be how she got payback. She could not push me off the cliff in return due to the fact that I do not know how to swim, so instead she locked me out of the tent one night, during a thunderstorm.

Struggles

In my Sophomore year I was met with many difficulties, some of them being unorganization, no motivation  and procrastination. I went into my Sophomore year with the mindset of a Freshman, thinking I could easily pass my classes with my previous bad habits. This, however, was  not the case. I immediately learned that my old habits would have to stop, and I would have to grow up. I could no longer have a messy locker and folder, with papers spilling out and being easily lost. I learned that I would have to motivate myself if I wanted to get any work done, because I was now a 10th grader and was not expected to have a teacher push me, I had to learn to push myself. The most important thing I learned from these struggles however, was that my extreme procrastination was the habit I had to diminish the most. The beginning of 10th grade year I thought I could push my assignments off until the very last moment and wait to do them, and as anyone knows, you can not do that. Beating this habit was by far the hardest struggle. I was so used to putting things off for the next day that I found it extremely hard to force myself to do it in a timely manner. I eventually did learn how to stop my procrastination and now begin assignments and projects the day they are assigned. Despite the fact that these difficulties pushed me back, they never stopped me from reaching achievements in my Sophomore year.

Uh-Oh GTs

The OGT that I feel most nervous about would be math. I've always been pretty bad at math, and I hardly ever do well on tests, so a math OGT is a little nerve racking. However, to change these feelings I plan to take online practice tests, study and have friends help me. I always have done better when I have my friends study with me, it makes me feel less self conscious about the material I don't understand and allows me to relax, simply because I know them well. I won't push myself into a stressful frenzy but I will study enough that I'll feel confident that I can get a good grade on the test. Another thing I do to get positive feelings for a test is to wake up early, study, take a break in the afternoon and study at night. This makes me feel like I'm letting the information set in while I'm relaxing in the afternoon, so the night time studying is a form of review. If my feelings towards the math OGT don't change after taking practice test, studying and even receiving help from my friends then I will seek help from one of the tutors or Mr. Vasi himself. My main goal is to restore confidence in this test, and to receive a good grade, I just hope my usual study methods are able to do that.