Sophomore year. A year of growth and change. This year I have learned so much, not only about myself but, about other people. I have gained so much knowledge that I will keep with me for the rest of my life. I always thought I was ready for the “real world” but I realized there was, and still is, so much more for me to learn. I am proud of my essays this year because I put so much time and effort into them. I am not so proud of my blog posts though because I definitely turned a few of them in late. Since I am headed into junior year, there are many things I want to improve on. First off, I want to improve my quality of work, not only in english, but in all aspects of school. I would rather take the time to do it perfectly then be stressed the next day knowing I didn’t fully prepare myself for success. I also need to begin studying for my tests. I normally do the review and glance at my notes and make an A or B and an occasional C when I think i know it but I don’t . However, if I really apply myself to studying then I think that my grades can get even higher.

This year has been pretty good overall. I have made many new friends and continued to grow bonds with long time friends. School hasn’t been unbearable and most of my teachers seem to have a passion to be there everyday. Mentally, sophomore year has been pretty crappy. In February, I lost all motivation. I stopped doing my work completely. Luckily, my grades stayed all A’s through it all. For a week in February, I felt like I was at rock bottom. It obviously wasn’t rock bottom because life can always be worse. This paragraph is supposed to be about bragging about yourself, but there isn’t much to brag about. I quit my dance team this year, I didn’t care about school this year, But it did get a job.

Cellphones are a very controversial topic. I never realized how toxic phones can be until I found out about my screen time. In the last week, I have spent five hours on my phone daily on average. I have spent 8.5 hours on snapchat, 8 hours on instagram, and 4 hours on youtube in the last seven days alone. However, this past week has been very busy for me. I was on a retreat from Friday to Sunday so My phone usage is down 46% from what it was last week. Meaning last week I spent roughly 9 or 10 hours on my phone. This is what I mean by toxic. I have received over 1,000 notifications on snapchat alone. I have over 1,000 followers on instagram, but I find myself feeling alone. Why? Because my generation spends their time looking down, texting on group chats instead of hanging out in groups, and worrying about what the internet thinks of their actions. I hate my phone because it takes away my time.

At school, I use my cellphone to escape. I escape from awkward situations where I don’t know anybody, when I get mad, or when I don’t want to deal with my teacher. I also get on it accidentally and 10 minutes later I realize I missed a whole page of notes. I believe that teachers need to put breaks in the notes to help with kid’s attention spans. Kids can have a few minutes to check their phone and respond to friends and then focus back in on the teacher.

Since Blog number fifteen is four paragraphs long, I am making each paragraph a different topic. The first paragraph being about people who annoy me at school and the pet peeves that I have. First of all, please do not walk slow in the hallway. Everybody has places to be and walking slow does nothing but back the hallways up and make them more crowded. Also, do not stop and talk to your friend or significant other in the middle of the hallway. Make sure you don’t stop abruptly in the middle either because that is even more aggravating. By fixing these problems I think the halls of our school can be much more efficient and can help students get to where they need to go on time.

This week is the week of the drill team spring show and I could not be happier. We have worked for ten months of the year and it all leads up to Friday and Saturday night. We have four more practices left for the year and, for me, only four more practices ever. We have an hour and a half long show planned full of excitement and performance. We cannot wait to show our growth and improvement. We even have some special guests coming to dance with us. It will be a show you will not want to miss.

I cannot wait until summer. I want to relax by the pool and hangout with my friends. I am going to create a summer bucket list this year because I always have a lot of ambition but I end up sitting inside all day or sleeping in late. I want to take a trip with my friends to a town nearby and visit the silos, I want to go to a concert ( I already have tickets to see Khalid), and I want to have sleepovers that provide too much laughter to the point where your abs hurt. This will be the first summer where almost all of my friends can drive and I am super excited to see what that brings to the table.

The last thing I want to talk about is my million dollar idea of the month. Every month or so, my dad or I comes up with a million dollar Idea that would make our town a better place. The one that has been on my mind recently is a drive in movie theatre. Since all of my friends drive now, I think it would be an exciting new experience. There is a flea market that is about five minutes away from my house. My dad and I thought about talking to the guy and actually making it happen. The flea market is open on sundays which means saturday nights are available and the lot just sits there when it could be producing lots of money. I want to make it happen!

15 April 2019

Nature blog #4

This nature unit has been one beast of a project but I truly enjoyed spending time outside throughout the unit. I would recommend keeping this unit for future classes because it teaches students about the importance of loving our amazing earth while we can. One suggestion I have for the improvement of this project would be to have class outside 2-3 times a week. Another suggestion I have is to not only find an area untouched by man, but find an area that needs help due  to impact made by people. Throughout the period, students can form teams to clean up litter or clean up leaves to make our town more respectable and clean.

The nature field trip was a day of relaxation that all of the sophomores needed. After hiking for an hour, my friends set up five hammocks and sat there for the remainder of the time. My friend Allie kept falling out of her hammock due to the fact that it was a kid sized hammock for a fifteen year old. We would all be sitting peacefully and you would hear FWOOMP and Allie would be giggling on the ground.

I felt at peace each time I went out to my nature spot. This 5th six weeks has made me really appreciate nature and pay attention more to the details that God created for us. Luckily, each time I went out to y spot, the weather was pretty nice. This unit showed me that it can be extremely beneficial to take time away from electronics and focus in on relaxing and observing nature.

March 31, 2019

Time: 12:30pm

temperature:  49 degrees

As I walked to my spot, the breeze caused my hair to get caught in the chapstick I had just put on. Thanks to texas weather, you never know what the weather will be that day. Having sprinkled rain the day before, the ground was soft, but thankfully not muddy. Since I didn’t have my paper out, I made mental notes about all of the trees blooming thick forests of green and how the trail just seemed more alive than the past few time I had visited. The sun was hidden behind clouds but was still beaming warm rays, so I found a spot where the sun hit and sat down there. This time, I didn’t bring a blanket to sit on so when I sat on the dirt it was cool, despite being in the sun. I took a moment to quiet my mind (and my phone) and I was ready to be one with nature and begin writing.

Reflecting back on the past month and our nature unit, I realized how I overlooked nature. I never used to take time to focus on the little things that God created in nature such as a bird perched on a tall tree, tweeting to its friend from afar. Osho once said, “ Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars… and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful. Everything is simply happy. Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to be rich and they will never have any bank balance. Look at the flowers – for no reason. It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are”. This quote shows that nature can be a best friend. Nature doesn’t care about how much money you have in the bank and nature can be your secret keeper. Nature can be a form of therapy because the liveliness can be so uplifting. I grew closer to nature, and I hope you will too.

Date: March 17th, 2019

Time: 2:30pm

Temp:67 degrees

Nature blog #2

As I walk back to my spot twelve days later, I noticed that everything seemed greener. The leaves were vibrant and green, there was pollen on the trail and grass was growing thicker. My heart began beating rapidly because the amazing weather made me think of summer. The once thin forest of trees now seemed much thicker and more alive. I thought back to the damp grass that I sat on the first time I came to my spot. The damp grass was now much drier, less mossy, and much greener. After I sat and calmed my mind in my spot, I began to get curious and I decided to pack up walk around to take in the sights of nature around me.

As I rounded the corner of the trail I came across a group of trees that were much larger than the others surrounding them. Every single one of those trees is growing vertically besides one. One of the trees started growing to the side and was swaying droopily in the slight breeze. It was easy to realize that the tree had a long life and definitely stuck out from the rest, but in the most beautiful way. Aristotle once stated, “In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous”. In my opinion, that tree was what was marvelous in nature today. The tree can also be a metaphor to the Christian life and what Christ calls people to do. Sometimes God may call you to take a different path in life that pulls you away from your friends and tests your faith, but the result can be just as beautiful.

Date: Wednesday, March 6th, 2019

Time: 5pm

Temp:54 degrees

Nature Blog #1

My place is located in the back of my neighborhood that has not been expanded to yet. The only influences made by man is a large abandoned trailer covered in graffiti and worn down, muddy trails. The trails remind me of bridge to Terabithia. A bare forest with some small ponds and puddles. A rope swing sways in the breeze and the trees rustle as the wind whispers through them.

As I sat surrounded by nature, I got to thinking about my life and my to do list for when I get home and I reached for my phone, it wasn’t there. I find it extremely hard for my brain to stop thinking. As I made another mental list I came to the conclusion that my life is pretty chaotic at the moment. My room is a mess, I haven’t done laundry in three weeks, and I am on my phone way too much. Pam Brown once stated, “ I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order”. As I left my trails, I had a sense of relief and calmness. Nature can be a great therapist.

When I was a newborn I had to stay in the NICU due to fluids in my lungs. My dad called me ‘bad seed’ infront of my mom and she almost divorced him on the spot. That was my first of many nicknames. I love all of my nicknames. My mom calls me ‘Catie bug’, ‘bugly’, or ‘bug of love’ and my dad calls me ‘pumpkin’ and ‘kiddo’. My birth name is Catherine, but most people call me Cate. Only my close friends have the privilege of calling me Catherine. My coaches call me ‘KB’ which is a portion of my last name scrunched together, or they just call me by my last name. I get called ‘long body’ by my closest friends due to my height.  

Family reunions are not so fun. I am one of 16 grandchildren and when my grandpa is one of nine kids, there are a lot of names I get called that are not mine. At the last reunion over the summer, my great Uncle Pat, My Grandpa’s brother, called me Caitlin. Now it could’ve been a hearing problem, but his wife called me Caitlin too! I’ve come to realize that in a sea of people, the name Cate isn’t exotic or special. It’s the nicknames behind my name is what makes it special. All of my friends, family, and teachers have their own name they call me.

Death always seems like a far off thought because most people die in their eighties but what most people don’t realize, is that there is death all around us. Car crashes cause thousands of deaths each year. Yesterday alone, I drove about 50 miles around town, that’s 50 miles for a car to run through a red light and t-bone you or run into the back of you because they were not paying attention. School shootings happen weekly and I am there 8+ hours of my day. As a Christian, Im not scared of death because I know I am going to heaven. I’m proud to have made it this far honestly. However, death shouldn’t be taken lightly.

What would I die for? I would die for my parents because they gave me life and if i had to die so they could live, I would be repaying the favor. I would die for my brother, He has been my number one best friend since 2004 and I couldn’t imagine my life without him. I would die for my closest friends, because they fulfilled me with so much joy and happiness and been there for me at my worst, as well as celebrate with me at my best.

Around the time I was ten, I began to ponder the idea of who I was, and what made me who I am. After a quick dinner conversation with my parents, I found out who I am and where I come from. My mom is 50% Italian and 50% Irish meaning that I am 25% Italian and 25% Irish. My dad considers himself a mutt because he doesn’t really know much about his family background. He knows he has some German, Polish and Canadian in him but he doesn’t know what percentages of each heritage like my mom does.

My grandma, my mom’s mom, is 100% Italian and every year I look forward to going to her house knowing that I will leave three pounds heavier and three pounds happier. She always has the largest variety of food and I swear sometimes I think her fridge is a bottomless pit. However, you have to double check expiration dates because that woman saves everything! I have a distinct memory of my mom and my aunts working as a team to throw out bad food while my grandma’s back was turned, it was quite the sight to see. All four Canning women in the same kitchen just like it used to be before they all grew up and moved out.

My parents moved from Houston to College Station two months before I was born due to my dad’s job. We lived here for twelve years and then we moved to Zionsville, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis, for my mom’s job. After we spent 20 months living in Indiana, we realized that there was no place like College Station and we moved back home before my freshman year of highschool. I love living here and it will take a lot of convincing to make me live anywhere else.