from me to you (729)

      A year ago around this time, I remember being so infatuated with someone that i would've done anything for them. I loved them more than I loved myself and that is terrifying to think about. I am living without the one person I thought I could never live without, thriving actually. You always think that things will go the way that they are planned and that is how I was. I was never emotionally ready for anything thrown my way because I was so dependent on this person to be there and be my rock.

So then what happens when your rock decides one day that they don't love you anymore? What then?

      That is what my journey was about. I hit rock bottom after that day because I thought that things would never get better and that something as "great" as us would never happen again (hopeless romantic, I know). I could've sat around hating the world and making sure that the other person got the satisfaction of seeing me down but that is not what I wanted. I found out that day that I am way stronger than I thought. I saved myself, for myself and not for the other person this time. I thought over and over and over and over and over multiple times what had happened and what I could've done to keep that person. I thought I wasn't good enough or that I wasn't deserving of what he gave me, but that is all wrong. If some one can lie to your face saying that they care about you and then completely drop you, they are in the wrong sweetheart. No matter how loyal you are, how forgiving you are, how compassionate you are, there is no way in hell you can change someone's bad habits no matter how many times they promise not to do it again. I realized that I am deserving of the type of love that I so willingly give to everybody else. I learned that you can not love someone into loving you and i asked myself why i was holding on to someone who so easily let go. You can love an old version of someone as much as you want, but it will not bring them back. It will not inspire them to treat you as their old self did. Times change as people do too and that is the first step in learning to love yourself. I realized that the past was in the past for a reason so why let it touch me? I can't remember how many ice cream cups I ate that weekend to be honest. I took it upon myself to make that month a month of special transformation in to the new person I wanted to be. I no longer wanted to be a girl that was hung up over a boy or the girl who depended on someone else so I decided to change for the benefit of myself. I gave more of my free time to my family and friends, I cooked more, I started to do things again that i don't even know why i stopped. I didn't go out and throw myself around at other guys or jump into a relationship at first because I wanted to heal myself. I will never not wear my heart on my sleeve because love that fails should not make you bitter. I realized that the person you want is the person you are sometimes better off without! I learned that you can love the old version of someone and still realize that they are different now. I looked at the whole situation as something I would never get over at first. Now, half a year later I am glad that it did happen and I am happy that this person showed me their true colors because I learned a love that is greater than any love you can have for some one else: self love.

      To any girl going through a situation like this: please keep going! Do not think it is the end of the world because things do get better. One day you just wake up and realize that you are perfectly okay with out someone that you thought you would never get over. Keep your head up and pass the time by learning to love yourself :)

Summer Fun (233)

As summer approaches and is currently inching closer and closer, we have so much time on our hands to do anything we want to. Sadly, a majority of teenagers use the time to sleep in and not enjoy the warm weather because they don't know everything that is available in Cedar Rapids.

-You can go downtown to the ampitheater for a summer concert. The schedule is available online to see when your favorite artist is available.
-The down town farmers market is a good way to connect with friends and your local businesses as they sell produce and home made goods
-Go to the pool! This might sound lame because the pool is where little kids hang out but if you are with a couple of your friends it can actually be a pretty fun time.
-Go to the beach! My favorite is McBride because there are so many fun things for everybody. You can rent a paddle boat or even kayaks. You can also just chill out on the beach for the day and catch some rays.
- Check out the cool festivals such as the freedom festival in July or Hog Wild Days in June!
- Catch up with some friends over a delicious fruit-zen sno-cone.

There are so many other things to do this summer instead of sitting inside and watching another episode of netflix so get out there and have fun!

Time (273)

    Time. As teenagers, we run through life always living off the hands on the clock. We have a schedule every day that we plan out accordingly and rush and rush and rush through the day just waiting to get home. We don't ever just stop and look around us to enjoy the life that we were given. There is always a homework assignment to be done, an appointment that needs to be gotten to, or a job that we must be at for a certain amount of time.

  24 Hours.

    That is how much time we have in a day to make it a great day. We go to school, wait to come home, and then are busy the whole night. We live off of a clock and are always wishing that we had just a little bit more time to fit every thing in the day. With there being little time in a day and staying busy, there is not time for us to enjoy what we should out of life. We think that we live off of a clock but in reality it is only a ticking time bomb on the wall awaiting our death and by that time we will regret not doing certain things because we always took the time to check the time or meet a deadline. Go to the park with your friends, meet for a dinner date, make time to see your family and actually spend time with them. So much time is wasted waiting for the clock to run out to leave, but what about when it runs out for good? Will you be satisfied?

When too much is just too much. (210)

      Warmer weather. This has been on the minds of every student at Kennedy High School for the past couple weeks. As the weather gets warmer, it is necessary to wear less clothes to be comfortable in school. Students comply to this by wearing shorts, tank tops, dress, etc. A dress code is put in place at our school to help distractions from learning because of distracting clothing. I do believe that the dress code is used to the wrong people, but some girls really do push it. I think it is okay to be able to wear shorts or show a little bit of your stomach, but please don't wear bra and underwear to school. Some girls comply to the fashions of movie stars and models and walk to streets of high fashion cities, not the hallways of a public school. In my opinion, the dress code is a little harsh, but it needs to target the right people. A girl should not be called down to the office for showing skin but another girl flaunts her belly button. It just isn't right to me. This spring let us change the dress code inequality so everyone has an equal chance to wear what they want while still being not distracting.

Incoming freshmen (726)

Dear incoming freshmen,
       It's scary thinking about high school, isn't it? Next year you will be spiraled into a school full of kids that are older and wiser and yet again you will be the baby of the school. I'm just going to tell you straight up that high school is probably not what you think. Once you enter freshmen year, the idea that you are too "cool" for anything will soon be washed away. Your best friend group won't stick together. I can guarantee that everything will be different. You will soon come to be thankful for your study halls because the homework load increases dramatically. Speaking of classes and homework, sign up for something different and please challenge yourself don't go through high school trying to take the easy way out because you will not get the entirety of Kennedy's opportunities. I signed up for sculpting freshman year and it ended up being my favorite class of the entire day. I have also never had a free period or study hall because I have jam packed my schedule of a variety of classes because our school is so awesome in offering classes for different levels in intellectuals. You will soon learn to pursue your passions. Kennedy is so very diverse with something for everybody. Choosing from activities like sports, show choirs, or even knitting club it is important to find your niche and stick with it so you have something to escape to when things get hard. You will always learn about the drama which is the equivalent of middle school drama magnified by one hundred times. There are ways to make sure to avoid these problems, though, and that is with the biggest lesson you should learn while you are here. You should not care about whats others think about you, only about what makes you happy. You will become thankful for the attendance ladies because who do you think writes the thousands of passes to call you out because your parents so kindly called you out of school. The teachers at Kennedy are phenomenal. They put in several more hours then they are required to because they actually care about your academic success which is something i don't think could be found anywhere else. You will soon become thankful for the longer lunch that got blessed to us from the district Gods because it is what allows the athletes, the writers, the artists, and the hard workers a chance to get their homework done or to get extra help. The classes offered at this school are by far the best that you will get the opportunity to take. The artists get their art classes, the athletes get gym, the social studies lovers can load up on different classes in that area. When I tell you that your friend group changes, please do not take that lightly. It will guaranteed. This is not a bad thing at all either! When you enter high school there are so many different directions that you can take to fit where you belong and your eight beloved friends will not have the same interests and that is okay! You meet new friends that share your interests and you may or may not lose the girls you spent your middle school years with, and this is all just a part of growing up and is perfectly normal. Another thing i want to touch on is relationships. They are not like the movies and expecting them to be like that is just one cause of failure. Your high school boyfriend, if you chose to get in to a relationship, will most likely not buy you designer hand bags or diamond rings, but that does not make him a bad boyfriend! Be happy if he takes time out of his day to get you your favorite ice cream, it's the little things that matter anyways. I personally recommend no relationships so you can just have fun with your high school years. I was in a relationship for over two years which ended this year and girl let me tell you it has been the best year of my life figuring out who i am! The choice is yours for the next four years to find out who you are and who you want to be, so make it great :)

Fad Diets (287)

While recently scrolling through my Facebook feed i came upon the "GM Diet". This diet consists of eating one type of food a day for 7 days and at the end of the week, you are supposedly going to be 10 pounds lighter. I like fruit and i like vegetables so i thought why not try this? I was looking to shed off some winter weight and this looked like a good idea for quick weight loss and on top of that i work out nearly every day. On the first day, i strictly ate pineapple and cantaloupe. The cravings were quickly diminished and i thought i was doing pretty good. The next day i started with the baked potato and i was supposed to eat vegetables all day. I went to workout on the second day and i was completely exhausted. I couldn't do anything that i could do before because i was pretty much starving myself! This is not a healthy way to shed the pounds and please let me be an example to all not to try this. I felt so tired and weak only on the second day that i couldn't imagine how i would feel on the last few days. It's scary to think that girls do this so much to meet society's idea of what people should weigh. A more healthy and realistic diet plan should include enough fruits, veggies, and protein to get you through the day and still be able to work out to build the muscle that is necessary to lose body fat. With fad diets, the weight gets packed back on when the person begins to eat like normal so it's just like torturing yourself for nothing.

Promposals (71)

       Prom is write around the corner! With it being so close, promposal season is in full swing. If you are trying to figure out a way to ask your significant other, it can be hard because you want to make it perfect! What you should do is just find what that special someone likes and incorporate it into the question and make sure it is a surprise because girls love that!

Rules for Kennedy (237)

        I have called Kennedy my home for almost 3 whole years now and through each crazy school day, I feel as though there are some things that freshmen should know before they come to school here.
1. Never eat school meals. Rice krispies and pop tarts are acceptable but everything else is disgusting.
2. Get a locker even if you don't think you will use it a lot. When you don't have to carry around 3 bags a day you will thank me.
3. Don't take the easy way out, take some AP classes and fill your free periods with classes. It will help you in the long run.
4. Don't pay your parking tickets. It's really not that serious, and yes you will still graduate.
5. Make friends in all your classes. Don't be the stuck up girl that just sits on her phone and doesn't talk to people.
6. The door by the west gym isn't blocked for SMART lunch, you're welcome.
7. Take AP pysch with Mrs. Melone but drop if you get Corey
8. Use the teacher avoidance list during registration towards your advantage.
9. Avoid AP seminar at all costs
10. Don't walk .84759 mph in the foyer. Thanks :)
11. It isn't cute to make out with your boyfriend under the stairs. Keep that shit at home please.
12. Actually do your homework it's not that hard to pass a class

social revolution (827)

Bullying has always been an issue with adolescents. The introduction of technology and the shows depicting “mean girls” warped the minds of the youth to think that this behavior is okay. Adolescents are so vulnerable during their teenager years that it is easy to make someone feel low. Girls and boys pick and tear at their peers until they have no other choice but to end it all. This sickens me as I watch people around me make fun of others for something they can’t change, but what also bothers me is the way the adults in our lives handle this. Instead of a whole school assembly to teach us to be “kind”, we are in need of a huge social revolution if we want to create a better society to eliminate bullying and suicide.

                Social media was the catalyst and we were the chemicals. Introduction of social media was meant to connect with others, share ideas, and know what’s going on in the world around us. Adolescents use it in a satanic way; bashing others with words typed by fingers because they think they are protected by a screen. They do it to get likes or favorites, anything to get people laughing and gain followers. What no one really thinks about is the person on the other side of the screen. It is fairly easy to type out “You’re ugly” and hit send without batting an eye. If you were face to face with this person, though, would you still hurl nasty words at them? Probably not. Hurting feelings is the last thing on people’s minds when throwing mean words at a screen. These people are cowards; they have enough power and strength to type out words thinking that they have the false protection of the electronics’ screen. I will not act like I am innocent, I have too fallen victim to the false satisfaction of saying mean words through social media, but I have never been so hurtful to another individual that they feel like their only way out is to take their own life. Wake up, people! Do we not see the problem with being so lenient on the adolescents that chose to use hate speech for fun on social media? This past month we have lost one of our own. Another face eliminated from the hallway, another person eliminated from the football game crowd, another friend eliminated from the slumber parties.  There are positives to social media, as it connects the whole world, but the exposure and freedom that adolescents have on these sites without consequences is astonishing.

                When something bad happens, adults feel as though we need an intervention. They host assemblies and try buckling down on bullying to preach kindness, but the affect is limited. If these reactions worked, why is the suicide rate still counting and the average age for suicides getting lower? A few words scolding us to be kind to everybody won’t help, we need complete social destruction so we can build a better us. Schools are not taking this issue as serious as is needed to prevent and that in its own also needs a makeover. No more mean words, no more hitting, no more body shaming, no more exclusion. There are harassment signs hung up around the school that state that there are always people here willing to help you. Although this may be good to know, we are not being picked on by a bully at recess anymore. It is the laughing. It is the gossiping. It is the way other’s look at you at school. It is walking the halls alone because you have no one. All of this is built up on an individual until they can’t take it anymore. Instead of preaching kindness, the administration needs to teach it. In a certain way that hits home to all to stop this massacre by words. It is always preached that we need to leave a better earth for our children, but what about leaving better children for our earth.

                You never know what someone is going through so why be an extra problem for a person to worry about. Adolescents need to start worrying about what people think of their character rather than appearance because beauty gets you a long way but character keeps you there. A beautiful face without a beautiful personality is a masterpiece painted on a napkin. We must teach our kids to be kind and start it from the home. Teach them that personality always comes first. Parents need to teach their children earlier how to respect one another so they can grow off of love instead of hate. It should be planted in the home and blossomed through our peers and teachers. One thing my mother taught me that I will never forget is that the homecoming queen is never the one with the pretty appearance, it is the girl who was beautiful to everybody inside and out. 

The unknown (123)

     We all know the feeling of not knowing where to go when going out to eat with friends, family, or significant other. What people usually settle on is the basic pancheros, panera, or another food chain. There are so many cute and unique places in cedar rapids that have yet been discovered and are way better than a chain tortilla. So instead of going to the regular joint, take some time to pick a small business and support local!

the end (673)

It is April 3^rd, 2016. For the class of 2016 that makes only about a month left of walking the halls of Kennedy. For our class it means that our senior year is nearly approaching and soon we will have to make a ton of decisions about what we want to do with our futures. Will we go to college? Will we go in to the air force? Will we take a year off? All of us will go in completely different directions and we may never see each other again. We are being pushed off in to the deep end with our parents and friends as our floats for support. It is still so terrifying knowing that in just a few months I will be writing essay’s to the administration offices of colleges I would like to attend and next year I will be leaving Kennedy behind? Why does it feel like just yesterday I was getting ready for freshman orientation?

                Senior year will be filled with a bunch of unwanted goodbyes. We will have to say goodbye to our favorite teachers that we spent every SMART lunch with because they became more like friends to us. We will have to say goodbye to team mates and coaches who were there every step of the way. We will have senior night’s that seem to go by in a flash. We will have the last performances and the last games. We will have to say goodbye to the locker that volunteered to hold all of our crap for the last four years. We will have to say goodbye to the crowded foyer during passing time, and we will miss this even though we dread it now. We will also have to say goodbye to our best friends and peers that have been with us from the start. No more cram sessions, no more going to your best friend’s house when you need a home away from home, and no more seeing your friends every single day in your circle. It all ends next year and I can honestly admit that I am not one bit ready for that next step.

                From the first day of school, we get it drilled into our minds that high school goes by fast but I never really understood that until today I realized that I am almost a senior. The long classes we spent counting down the clock have passed quickly and nobody ever really stops to take in the time. Now, we start writing our application essays and we start getting ready for our futures wherever that might be. Next year we will experience all of the “lasts” that will be embedded in our heads forever as memories. The last first day of school where your mom cries more than you do. The last football game at Kingston where we’ve spent the last four years cheering our team on through the freezing cold or boiling heat. The last Christmas and Thanksgiving breaks at home where you get to put up the tree and spend time around the table with family and friends. Your last finals and last cram sessions at Coffeesmith’s the night before. The last spring break where a bunch of friends take a trip somewhere to try to stretch it out as long as possible. And then right after spring break comes what is called the beginning of them end. In a flash prom, graduation, and the last day of school all come and go so quickly that you don’t know how you got into summer. All of this is on the horizon for us next year and in all honestly I am not ready for one part of it.

                Kennedy has become a home for me from the best friends that walk the hall to the amazing faculty that actually cares. It will be extremely hard to say goodbye and I can’t even imagine what the seniors are feeling as they spend their last few months in the best high school in Iowa.