"Ambitions" by Victoria H.

Have you ever longed for something so badly it just drove you crazy? I know it sounds a bit cheesy but really, how could you not want something so bad you’d go half insane just thinking about it? Whether it’d be to visit a different country, see an old friend, become wealthy and live a luxurious life, or even get accepted into college (which I know is the struggle for most of us). Truth is we all have something we want more than anything and I feel like that’s what keeps a person sane. To have a sense of desire gives us a purpose- It gives us a goal to reach and a mission to pursue. 

My mission is to become a teacher for elementary school children, to travel the world, and to make my family proud. To set out a plan for myself and actually achieve everything I want to accomplish will be the greatest form of happiness I can come across. I’m sure many things await me In my lifetime and maybe I’ll change my mind about my goals and ambitions but as long as I set out to be what I dream of I know I’ll be fine.

Whether making that destination takes us one try or a hundred tries, as long as we make it is all that should matter. There will be though times along the road but it’s important to know that it’ll only make you not only stronger as a person but it’ll teach you a lesson of determination. Nothing can get in the way of what you want to do besides yourself. Sometimes tough trials tend to lead to greater things if you let them anyway. I tend to look at the optimistic side of things but that’s where I think it balances out- a bad situation and a positive mindset only leads to lessons learned. A failure in one aspect only gets you closer to where you’re striving to be by learning from mistakes and making tougher, and effective attempts. If you really yearn for something make sure you chase it without restraints and if you mess up just try harder.

We all have purpose in this world and I believe we’ll all find it and figure out where we belong as long as we chase what makes us happy. Everything we desire is what leads to true bliss and contentment if we contribute an effort to get there. 

"Discovering Fire" by Michael D.

        35,000 BC searching around, scavenging for any thing to fill my stomach. Traveling with my brothers to make the trip less agonizing to bring food back to our village. It's been days without the love from my wife and children which hurts me deeply. I continue to pray for the loyalty of my woman, while she is the most praised at our village. During the winter, the snow floods the entire hemisphere and the breeze is brutal. Finding shelter for all of our men is vital for our survival. As we look for plants and berries to collect, we spot a cave a mile north east. It brings us joy to have an opportunity to rest and gather our thoughts. As we enter the cave, the smell of dampness and coco butter fills our nose. I analyze the cave lit up with red luminescent lights. The walls are filled up with pictures of a young man. We continue to be puzzled as we search the rest of the cave for clues for these preposterous images. Until we see "Trapsoul" written on a rock. I pick it up and a sound of beauty fills my ears as our whole pack falls deep into their feelings. We are amused by such a greatness that is being projected from the rock, we bring it back to our village. As we arrive with this gift of life, the whole village is awoken and starts to cry tears of happiness. It was as if the great sound had solved our problem of hunger. Soon other villages travel from far and wide to feast their ears on such greatness. Our tribe continues to prosper, while gifts of food and diamonds are given in exchange for listening to the magical sound. The days and nights were filled with the beautiful sound, but soon it started to get out of hand. Soon the village began to die out, as I was the only one left listening to it. Until I finally realized my soul was trapped.

"Grind Time" By Salman A.

     When i was younger i used to be the only one home with my babysitter. The only thing i wanted to do when i was alone was watch tv, but i didnt no how to change the channels. Thus, whenever i turned on the tv the only channel would be playing was ESPN’s Basketball Classics. I was really intrigued by the the intensity of how the basketball players played. The way they emphatically complained when they missed simple shots always amused me. I would go hours and hours watching basketball and soon enough when i went to Toys R i begged for my parents to buy me a Fisher Price junior basketball set. My parents eventually did buy me that and that's when the dream of becoming an NBA player began. Every Day for almost every hour, i would bounce my mini basketball around the house imitating the intensity of how the players on tv dribbled the ball. My mother would scream at me as i would just bounce the ball around the house breaking anything in my site, but my inner five year old self knew the ball was going to take me places.

      I would go to my neighborhood park and practice playing basketball with my elementary peers. I felt that everything i had watched on tv was starting to become a reality. A Lot of years passed and i found myself in high school. I finally got a pass to 24 Hour Fitness and i was really jovial about getting to play basketball their. I remember stepping on the court and seeing the all the men playing basketball. I thought to myself, wow these guys all have beards and tattoos, and i'm just a mere kid. I felt worried and almost didn't want to play, but i got trapped when someone picked me on their team. As we played everything that i had imagined would happen did not happen. I air balled my first shot and i lost the ball as soon as someone passed it to me. Every Time I ran back and forth across the court, i felt as if my confidence was depleting, and it almost felt as if i had never played basketball. I remember hearing what one of my teammates had to say about me. “Man this guy ****** sucks!” As soon as the game was over i sat on the bench and waited for a whole hour. No one gave me another chance to play again that day.

      I laid on my bed and tried to think what went wrong. I turned on the TV and found myself to ironically turn to ESPN’s Basketball Classics. This time the whole segment was based on Kobe Bryant. I watched the tapes and studied vigorously how Kobe Bryant, a 17 year old at the time, was competing against veterans. This was then followed by an interview, in which Kobe was asked the same question that i had. “Kobe how is a kid like you who just came out of high school able to step on the court and play against people who have been in the league for more than 10 years.?” And with no emotion, Kobe simply replied, “Because I'm the best.” I felt as if everything i had been taught was a lie. How could a simple self assertion make one feel so astronomical? I realized that it must’ve worked because look how far it got Kobe. Thus i started to use that assertion in my everyday life. I used it at school and most importantly when i played basketball.

      The next time i stepped on the basketball court at 24 Hour Fitness, i felt different. I kept on repeating in my mind how i was the best and nobody in the world is better than me. When i got the chance to play i made sure that i was going to make this remarkable. As i got the ball i stared in my defender’s eyes and shot the ball from so far. And thank God the shot went. I continued to play at an optimum rate and was doing all the moves that i had studied when i was younger. And because i was playing so good, i ended up staying at the gym later than usual because everyone wanted to play with me. Even the same people who used to say i would never be good, were in shock

     Confidence is everything. With self confidence you can achieve anything. There will always be people who will tell you how you can do this or that, but they're wrong because only you know what you achieve. As high schoolers, we face many stressful situations. But, Just remember to instill confidence because you can do anything you set your mind to!

"Rock climbing 101" by Karina B.

 Most of you probably assume there's no more to rock climbing than heights, ropes, and falls. This is where you learn you’re wrong. The rock climbing community has rapidly grown over the past few years. With this growing community of rock climbers, you may not know that there are climbing teams to join and even competitions for ages 7 years and older. So let me teach all the basics.

 Rock Climbing 101
There are two different forms of rock climbing, which are typically referred to as “sport climbing” and “bouldering”. “Sport climbing” or routes involves the use of a rope, a harness, chalk, shoes and well a rock. There is more needed, but this is rock climbing 101 so we’ll keep it simple. “Bouldering” is when you use nothing but shoes, chalk, and a crash pad. The grade setup, or difficulty of a climb, for “routes” begins at 5.0, which is the easiest grade and is like climbing a ladder. The grades gradually increase and climbers advance quickly past 5.0. When using a rope, 5.5 is the most common grade. If you are a brand new climber going for the first time, you will probably stay within the 5.5 to 5.8 range. As you begin to get better, you work your way up. Once you reach 5.10, letters are added, such as 5.10a, 5.10b, 5.10c, and 5.10d, as the difficulty increases. This can continue forever. However, the hardest sport climb ever completed is a 5.15c, which is extremely hard. The grades for “bouldering” are anywhere from vB to v16. VB means for beginners then the scaling goes to numbers such as v0 and higher, the hardest bouldering grade ever done is v16, which again, is super hard.To put that in to perspective there has been more people on the moon then people who have climbed v16! When bouldering outdoors climbers commonly bring a crash pad, which is pretty much a portable mattress. A crash pad is a better option. Instead of hitting solid dirt or sharp rocks, you fall on a cushioned pad!

Youth Teams
Kids will usually meet twice a week to practice at an indoor rock climbing gym. At team, which is a climber’s way of saying practice, we learn the fundamentals of rock climbing. We usually start off practice with traversing, which means, instead of going up and down, we go left to right or vice versa. We also warm up on the easiest of rock climbs known as v0 or v1. If a climber begins to climb without warming up it can seriously injure them. For example, you can’t just expect to do a marathon without at least stretching beforehand. After warming up for 1530 minutes we work on technique such as exact foot placement. This helps us in the long run to not burn energy while working harder climbs. About half way through practice the team has core, which is a climber’s personal work out. The team is put through 30 minutes of intense exercises from lunges and situps to pullups and pushups. After core we usually will project, which means we pick a climb we can’t do and work out the beta, or moves to get to the top of the climb. Depending on the youth team, you will be assigned homework. Homework is usually learning more about a famous rock climber or a popular rock climb in the outdoors. This is to expand the knowledge of the youth team members.

 Competitions
When competing you are placed into a category. The category you are placed in depends on your age. For example if you are 11 or younger you are placed in division D. If you are 12 or 13 you are in division C, and so on. There are two different types of climbing competition formats which can be used with boulder or rope (route) competitions. One of the two is a “redpoint” where you can choose which climbs to try and take however many falls you would like. You will record the number of falls and the climbs you complete on a score card. After you finish a climb you must get it signed off by another parent, coach, competitor, etc. who actually saw your entire climb. Your goal is to get the highest point climbs, so the harder the climb the more points you get. After three hours you turn in your score card with your top five climbs added up. It’s usually an hour before you know where you placed at the comp. The other competition format is onsight, where you have 56 minutes to look at the climb for the first time, read the beta, start and finish it. Then 5'6 minutes of rest before moving onto the next problem. The gym who’s sponsoring the comp will set five specific problems according to the division you are in. If you do fall on the designated climb you may try again as long as there is still time remaining. By now you are probably either asking your self whats the point of climbing? (And i don't blame you considering it is the hardest way to get nowhere.) Or your telling yourself you would really like to try rock climbing out sometime! Either way i hope you learned something new and valuable. And will give rock climbing a chance!

"Almost, But Not Quite" by Ariel F.

They slowly come to a stop at the light. All she can hear is his laughter that fills the car.  She recollects all the memories they have growing up together to this point. She thinks to herself, ‘ How’d I get so lucky? I’m in love with my best friend and he’s in love with me.’  She’s content with the life she was given. The light turns green and as they cross the intersection, someone’s headlights shine from his side in the passenger seat and a forceful impact consumes the car. She yells for him and sees his hand which is attached to his body as she crawls out of the turned over car. She screams his name begging him to wake up as she grasps his hand for dear life. Then it all fades to blur.

She wakes up in a hospital and sees her parents, they’re sleeping. She tries to speak but her parched throat wont allow it, ‘what am I doing here? Why do my parents look like this is the first time they got to sleep? ‘She thinks to herself. She looks to find something to show her family or the nurses that she’s awake, but she sees a button that says nurse and she presses it. A nurse comes rushing in to see her awake and thanks the heavens the poor child was saved. The nurse wakes up her parents and her parents realize their baby girl is awake. They start crying and tell her they are so lucky that she’s alive and that it was so hard to hear what happened. All the girl can do is look utterly confused as to what her parents are talking about. She reaches for water and once her thirst is quenched she faintly asks what happened. Her parents tell her that a drunk driver hit her and the car had flipped over, she’s been sleeping for 2 days because of the impact of the collision and the amount of blood she lost. Images replay in her head and she remembers her boyfriend and grasping his hand. Her parents tell her he had been flung out of the car and that he is still in ICU, but it doesn’t look too good.

She fights the nurses to let her in his room and they reluctantly give in, she goes in and sits at his bed in ICU, she grabs his hand and cries. Praying, hoping that he will make it. She continuously goes over and over how she can’t loose him; he’s been in her life too long to leave now. She starts to talk to him going over the best moments they’ve shared together which is every moment she got to be with him, she does this for 30 minutes until the nurse comes in and tell her she needs to rest. The girl reluctantly gets up and before she leaves she faintly touches his cheek and says, “you’re the strongest person I know, you can get through this, I love you.” As she reaches her hospital bed, she clings to her mother and desperately asks for a miracle. “Mom I can’t live without him,” she looses all feeling at the thought of not seeing him again. All her mother can do is stroke her daughter’s hair and calmly tell her everything will fall into line soon.

Days pass by and she was released within a day and a half of waking up, but she’s been at the hospital everyday in his room, not leaving his side until the nurses have to physically take her out. She’s always prompt to be at the hospital when the visitor hours begin so she can spend the whole day hoping for a miracle. She doesn’t sleep because she fears that when she does, something will happen. Out of pure sleep deprivation and exhaustion she fell asleep for the first time in what seems like days. Unluckily she forgot to set an alarm and when she woke four hours after visitor hours began she rushed out of the house, still in her PJs and sped through all the traffic, not even bothering about a ticket and parking in a red zone. She runs through the doors and runs to his room only when she gets there, he’s not there. She goes to the nurse’s desk and hysterically cries while asking where they had taken him and the nurse says he woke up in the middle of the night, and his parents wanted to take him home. the hospital reluctantly allowed it. As the nurse was trying to finish what she was telling her the girl bolted back to her car and continuously sped through traffic to make it to his house. She thinks to herself, ‘this can’t be happening, thank you for saving him.’ She doesn’t realize she’s still crying, but now it’s out of happiness.

She pulls up to his house and runs to the door furiously knocking, begging someone to answer. His parents open the door, doe eyed and redness consuming their face, they try to tell her something, but again she runs to his room. When she reaches his room she stops and takes a breath, as she steps in she sees him watching TV, she runs to him and hugs him while speaking incoherent words to him. She realizes he’s not hugging back and looks up at him and realizes something’s off when he pushes her off.

They meet each other’s eyes and he’s the first to speak up and say, “Who are you?”

"Untitled" by Emmanuel W.

     Bruce’s goal in life was to have the fastest and cleanest car in the world. However there was a problem, he didn’t have the money to fund this dream but was still very lucky to drive his dream car but needed some work that was coming along a little slower then he hoped. This didn’t stop him though from showing it off and making it a big part of his life. One night he took it to a meet with his friend. They were just chilling, looking at some cars when it happened. Someone called them out asking for a race for pinks. Bruce never would have thought he would ever race for pinks because he loved his car too much and never wanted to risk it for anything. However Bruce was extremely frustrated on the disrespect that he received, for what was in his opinion an awesome build, yet nobody appreciated it or understood what he did to get this car with only the money he had. He was tired of these loud mouths claiming their cars were better. Bruce looks over at the guy and says "pinks in hand?" And the guy holds it up taunting him. Bruce says “ok I’m down.” Bruce’s friend tries to stop him saying don’t do it Bruce that car probably has over a hundred grand in repairs under the hood. Bruce laughs and says I got this.  The guy gets in his ricer mustang and they lineup at the starting point. The rules are simple you race half a mile down the strip first one to cross the finish line wins the other person's car. Not yet racing with his new set up Bruce didn't know what to expect but he had faith in his car. The light starts red then yellow then green and they're gone. He takes off but the ricer hits the Nos and starts to pass him and right when he's about to win the turbos kick in and Bruce's car starts to soar and leave the ricer behind him. As Bruce is excited and happy that he just won a new car but before he can his car starts to change and do something different it seems as if his car is kind of getting smaller on the inside it seems that his face is been pushed back by the GeForce as an effect of how fast is going. It seems that the finish line has turned into a bright light as there's no way of stopping his momentum of flying through it. On the other side Bruce find some himself in mid-day light on a regular street. Very confused he looks around and can't believe what he sees; everywhere he is surrounded by the cars that he likes. As he starts driving down the street everybody notices his car and stops, looks and talks about it. Everybody wants to talk to Bruce about his car but he is so shocked that he's in a whole other world. He finally asked where he was and they are responded this is “Nissan Ville.” Bruce could not believe his ears, it's almost like he's dreaming. He is surrounded by people that share all the same interest, love the same things and just love talking about cars, they are just like him. As Bruce goes on throughout the next couple of days he’s having the time of his life just day in day out talking 24/7 about cars and especially the ones that he loves. He's always helping people work on their cars and do stuff to his car. It was the same routine every day, wake up, eat, and work on cars all day. Literally "eat sleep car." The best part is they would go on drives and there were no speed limits. A couple weeks later as Bruce’s supposedly lifelong project of his car seemed practically done because that's all he's been doing along with the rest of the town. This is not a sad thing for Bruce as he knows you can never be finished but it is kind of a wakeup call maybe he has been spending too much time on his car. He tried to look to the other people whose cars are already finished for advice of what they think he should do. However all the responses were the same? “Dude JDM life stance nation bro how could you say that!?” Bruce says “yea I still think that but isn’t there something else you guys want to talk about besides cars?” It seemed as the whole town stopped and looked at Bruce as an outcast and questioned him. Why do you have this car if you don't want it to become your life? As Bruce try to explain that there's more to life than just cars they just laughed and took it as a joke because they knew no other way of life. However Bruce did and still remembered what it was like in the world he grew up in and knew he had to go back. One night during Bruce snuck out of the meet and took off and nobody knew where he was going. As Bruce accelerated his car began to top out he was traveling down the same road which led him here and then all the sudden the car became a little bit smaller there was a light that appeared. When Bruce was on the other side he was sitting at the finish line in his car as people ran up to the side of his car cheering and telling him he won. It appeared as if they didn’t see anything what Bruce just experienced the ricer got out of the car, “Here.” As he tried to give Bruce the keys, Bruce looked up at him smiling, “you can keep it man it was a valuable lesson.” The ricer was puzzled as he walked away confused. Bruce’s close friend asks him, “Why did you do that!  You could have easily taken that and got more car parts.” However as the crowd dispersed Bruce walked his friend over to the hood and popped it, “Honestly I've learned that everybody’s unique. We all have our own interests and there's nothing wrong with becoming the best at what you are interested in but that's what makes us who we are.” “Plus I don't need any car parts!” as Bruce popped his hood all the modifications were still there. 

"Differing Cultures" by Leslie R.

            Life gets hard for everyone. We see the lives of others and compare theirs to ours.  As much as we may appreciate what we are fortunate enough to have, we often get sidetracked and find it hard to remain content and strive to get more. This is due to the society we have been lucky enough to live in, but unfortunately there are many people who aren’t so lucky.

This past summer the idea of other people living with a different mindset became very real to me. I went to visit my family in Nicaragua for the first time since I was two years old. When we landed, I was shocked to see the amount of bright green trees lining the streets and breathe in the fresh, non-polluted air. As I traveled through the country I saw all the beauty the country had. There were dense forests and white sand beaches along the coast. While I was there I saw active volcanoes and waterfalls and was in awe at the beauty of the architecture of the monuments in the capital. It truly felt like paradise where joy and laughter were constant. The people there added to the landscapes and brought them to life even more with their happy personalities and obvious pride in their mesmerizing country. I became infatuated with everything Nicaragua had to offer and couldn’t wait to explore as much as I could in the two weeks I was there.

            

However, all the beauty the country was filled with wasn’t the full story. Life there seemed to move at a different pace than it did in the U.S. All the people I met were proud of the jobs they had and worked hard but never stressed the importance of attaining more materialistic things. Rather, it seemed that no matter what, family was the most important aspect of life and sharing laughs and talking about your day at a dinner table was a daily occurrence. This was surprising to me because most of the time my family ate together and talked but usually we all had to do something else and our interactions rarely lasted an hour at a time.

            On top of the different speeds at which our countries moved, there was a very different lifestyle in Nicaragua. Homes were much smaller than they are in the U.S. and most didn’t have the commodities of washing machines and dryers, or air conditioning. Most people only had a few fans to deal with the extreme heat in Nicaragua unless they were government officials or they had family in the U.S. that sent money to help them pay for such luxuries. Often times, families were dependent on one income and sometimes had more than one family living in one house due to the high level of poverty in the country. People have very low income in Nicaragua and that made it much harder to have things like insurance or proper health care. Old age in Nicaragua was extremely hard because although people are given government pensions, the amount of money they get isn’t nearly enough to pay for all their medicines and bills. Most of the elderly have to work to have enough money unless they have children who give them money or are part of the government, in which case they can retire easily without worrying how they are going to get their next meal. Public hospitals are stocked with very few supplies, have no air conditioning, and charge high prices for medicine and vaccines.

            This was eye opening to me because of course I was aware that people in other countries had less than we did but I had never actually seen it in person. I became frustrated with myself because I took time to get used to the different life style in Nicaragua. I realized how dependent I had been on all the luxuries that we have all the time and when they were gone, it took me some time to figure out what to do with such limited resources. The lack of medical attention in the country and the hardships people had to go through to take care of their families was shocking. I find it interesting how different my life is from that of my family in Nicaragua and how while my family doesn’t struggle as much, there are people who don’t know where they are going to find money to pay for medicine or food and I spend my time worrying about having enough to buy a new pair of shoes. My trip to Nicaragua really opened my eyes to see all the blessings I had in my life and how grateful I am to live in the U.S. and I learned how we should all appreciate the simple things we take for granted because many people in the world don’t have such luxuries available to them.