Sky Profita, Period 8, 11/6/20 (Late), Day C

 11/05/2020

Sky Profita

PD 8 

Goal Setting and Growth

For the entirety of my high school experience, I have heard teachers reinforce a statement that can be roughly summarized to, “Make sure not to slack off second term senior year! It’ll seem like the hard part of senior year is over, but slacking off will get you nowhere!” As someone who considers themselves to have a decent sense of work ethic and scheduling, I knew that I wouldn’t be one to slack off, even if presented the opportunity. What I was more focused on was the fact that the beginning of senior year was depicted as this huge hurdle of stress and late nights. Why is everyone making it out to be such a big deal? Surely, it can’ be that bad, I thought to myself. How naive I was freshman year. 

Now, not to sound like a complainer, I will say that the process of balancing schoolwork, extracurriculars, and college applications is entirely doable. However, as someone who likes to always be ahead of the game, the late nights that were mentioned by the grades above me have certainly come into play. Coincidentally, I am writing this blog at 1:30 A.M., two days before it’s due, in an attempt to clear out my schedule for my college supplements and Science Olympiad tryout tests. Again, entirely doable, but it does take extra effort.

I have found, as I’m sure most of my peers have as well, that setting weekly, monthly, or even just general goals is quite helpful in organizing your time and concentrations. As for my goals right now, I have quite a few, which will all take various amounts of time and effort to complete.

My first set of goals, as expected of a classic tech kid, can be grouped under the academic category. My first priority and goal is to get all of my college applications started/ turned in as early as possible. I’d like to have 10 of 15 schools submitted by December 8th, and the last five shortly after. Again, I like to remain on top of my work at all times, so being able to submit my college applications fairly early is a weight lifted off of my shoulders. For the applications I’ve submitted so far, pressing the submit button gives me a great sense of relief, and being able to focus on my other work besides college applications is very useful to me. My next goal is more extracurricular, although it involves studying as well. This goal is to have a successful tryout test for all three of my prospective Science Olympiad events. This goal is something super important to me, because Science Olympiad has been one of my main extracurricular activities for the past few years. Science Olympiad has been a great way for me to make friends, bond with my existing ones, and work on projects I love. Last year, I was able to medal in all of my events at regionals, and even snagged first place for the plane I built, so it’s really important to me to continue the trend of upward growth. My last current goal is more oriented towards dance. Since SING has been postponed at the very least, and Dance Team has been as well, I haven’t been able to dedicate as much time to doing what I love. So, I set a goal to choreograph at least one new dance by the end of holiday break. Dance is something that has been so important to me since I was a child, and I don’t want to lose my flexibility or creativity. 

With any of these goals, my resilience is shown through the time I dedicate. For college applications, that means sitting down for hours on end, phone on Do Not Disturb, and writing many essays in a much shorter span of time than I’ve ever been used to. For Science Olympiad, that means attending and hosting a decent number of study sessions (which reminds me, I have one November 5th in the evening). It also means spending a n unhealthy amount of time researching oceanography and geology topics which I may never even get to use. For dance, it means doing my homework in the splits, or doing my stretching/ cardio while listening to my Forensics podcasts. By dedicating time and effort, I know I’m putting my best foot forward and giving myself the greatest chance at success. 

As we all know, the world around us, specifically the country we live in, is in a bit of turmoil right now. As I write this, the votes for the 2020 Presidential Election are still being counted, and I as well as many others am on the edge of my seat, hoping to hear the candidate I support announced as winner. I’m not going to go into my personal views, as I feel that is inappropriate for this time, and I am always open to private, civil conversation with teachers or peers about anything currently going on in the world. However, I will speak about how the current state of our country has put a negative damper on my perception and path to obtaining my goals, and hope that I seem as neutral as possible to anyone reading this. I am someone who is extremely environmentally conscious, and the current state of our environment is completely heartbreaking to me, as well as the fact that our government has done so little to combat these issues. On top of that, the recent protests, and talk of reopening a discussion on various topics such as women’s and LGBT+ rights has helped me come to terms with a lot of things that I do not like, that have me scared for my process of applying to and attending college, and that have just generally affected my mental health. The first is that so many people, no matter how book smart they may seem, are so politically and socially ignorant. This is not to say that we have to agree on things such as the economy, trade deals, or gun control, but it is to say that when discussing these topics, so many are blinded by lack of education and research on these topics. Another, more crucial factor of the current world that has affected us all lately, is the intense amount of hatred I have recognized over the course of recent events. This especially comes to play in the political world, which seems to be straying further and further away from an ideal government, and which seems to be unable to distinguish basic human rights from personal feelings. For instance, who’s to say that you cannot chose to have an abortion, just because they personally feel that it is wrong? Who’s to say that gay marriage should be a political debate, instead of letting everyone love who they love? Who’s to say that I should have to worry about receiving hateful, stereotypical comments because of the religion I practice? These are all topics that although they should be viewed as givens to be nice to everyone, are instead ones that are being debated like some trade deal by government and citizens all over. The amount of outright hatred I’ve witnessed, from those around me, from the world in general, is something that will always resonate with me, but not in a positive way. It has put a sort of cloud over my head, and some days I wake up too stressed about what’s going on in the news, what climate policy or women’s rights discussion is going on that could affect me in the future, to even think about school and college applications. This is not the way any good person deserves to feel, and I can only hope that with time those around me, those worldwide will become more loving of each other. Until then, it will remain a hindrance to my goals, a thought to sit on, but I have been and will continue to do my best to push down this negative mindset and follow through to my goals.