Grief--Jada

 

Failure--Ronin

 

One day, I arrived at my dad’s car, silent and disappointed. Once I entered the car, I looked

straight ahead at the view in front of me and said nothing. I tried to hide my feelings by keeping

a straight face, but my dad saw right through me and knew that something was up. He asked

me, “What’s wrong, kiddo?” I answered back, “I scored low on my test today.” After some

back-and-forth talks between my dad and me, I followed up with this question, “What’s

happening right now? Why are they doing this to me? Why do they have to make this so

extremely difficult?” “They’re trying to teach you something, kiddo,” my dad answered. “Teach

me what? That my best is not good enough?” I replied. “To teach you that as good as you think

you are as an AP student, you still have much to learn. Every person will fail or make a mistake

every now and then. Don’t dwell on it, learn from it. Don’t complain about it, do something about

it.” Once we arrived home, I decided to go to my room and reflect on my lack of success or what

many people are familiar with: failure.

There’s an old saying that “no one has a perfect life. Everybody has something that he or she

wishes was not the way it is,” and throughout my entire life, I’ve encountered failure not just

within school, but almost everywhere I went, when playing video games, trying new things, and

even having simple life lesson conversations with my parents. Every time I try to enjoy my day

or give something my absolute best, failure just knocks on the door and spoils the entire day.

The way I viewed these shortcomings back then has only fueled my anger and reduced my

self-confidence, forcing me to compare myself with the peers that surround me and question my

abilities and skills within certain work fields. Failure to me back then was nothing more than a

poison, a curse, and my greatest enemy. Now here I am in high school, 17 years old, taking AP

courses with very little time to rest. Am I still having to deal with failures? Yes, but has my

viewpoint of them changed? It certainly has. It finally dawned on me that failure is not the

opposite of success and that success is never built on success; failure is part of success and it

is what success is built on. When I reflect on what I’ve achieved and gained in the past few

years of my life, I question myself: “How could you have done any of that if it wasn’t for the

mistakes and failures that you’ve made?” I only got better at scoring higher on tests and

acquiring new skills because I learned from my failures and had to improve and change the way

I perform certain tasks. As one can’t have happiness without sadness, one can’t achieve

success without accepting failure in their lives. A person can’t grow or change if they refuse to

learn from their past mistakes and failures; it doesn’t do them any good if they dwell on their

failures and have it only fuel their insecurities.

No one likes to be a failure because deep down in ourselves it’s not who we are, but how can

one achieve great success without accepting that failure is inevitable? As I have referred to

earlier, there are things in my past that I am not proud of, but sometimes I can never be upset at

them. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be where I am today. For a long time, I’ve viewed my past failures

as my enemy as great as time. They were never easy to get over, but now that I’ve realized that

my past failures were never meant to define who I am, they will help me in the future to adapt to

new environments and pave the way for success. Soon I will thank them for helping me become

the person that I’ve grown to be and for becoming my greatest adversary in my life.

Stan Lee Quote:

https://quotefancy.com/quote/1291151/Stan-Lee-No-one-has-a-perfect-life-Everybody-has-some

thing-that-he-wishes-was-not-the-way

ACL--Thevan

 

Soccer has played a huge role in my life since I was a kid. It brought me so much joy and

freedom. But that freedom was crushed the day I tore my ACL. The beautiful game of soccer

has so many ups and downs; this injury had me in one of the darkest places I've ever been for a

long time. It was hard to deal with the fact that I couldn't play for almost a year and try to cope

with the fact that I would miss out on some of the most important months of my life to get a

chance to take soccer to a higher level. College soccer was a dream of mine but this injury had

a major setback in my playing career.

After a couple of days of trying to process the news of my injury, I tried to find a way to get my

mind off it and just take everything day by day because I knew I would be back, better and

stronger than I left. I took 3 months off to let the swelling of my knee go down before I

proceeded to get surgery on my left knee. Those 3 months were some of the toughest times of

my life where I wasn't really doing much but just sitting on my bed and thinking about what I

would do when I came back.

In February 2023, I had my surgery. The first 3 days after my surgery were the worst and

longest days I've ever had. I had to walk on crutches and my leg felt like 300 pounds. I had to

drag it everywhere I went because it was so heavy. Walking became a big challenge for me.

Even relatively simple things like going up and down stairs became very difficult. It felt like there

were obstacles in everything I did. It was difficult to deal with and the added stress of having to

adjust to these new limitations. It seemed as though a number of different obstacles had

replaced my everyday lifestyle.

It became really difficult for me to deal with the reality that my body wasn't working the way it

usually did and to stop worrying about mistakes. But in the middle of all of these challenges, I

developed a strong mindset to keep going through the difficult times and concentrate on what

my future would look like.

After I hit the 2-month mark, that's when things started to click, simple tasks became much

easier and I gained more confidence in my recovery. It took a lot of hard work to go to my

physical therapist twice a week trying to gain a full range of motion in my knee. But something

that gave me the utmost confidence was when they told me that my recovery was one of the

most promising they've seen in a while because I was doing exercises that people would be

doing at least in the 5-month mark and I was doing it in a 2-3 month span. After 6 months of

doing physical therapy, I got full range of motion and had almost equaled the size of my right

leg.

I was given the choice to either continue doing physical therapy for 1 more month or start doing

light training on the field. For me it was a no-brainer, I wanted to go on the field the moment I got

the news, but my parents had a different thought because they read so many stories of people

going back too soon and regretting their choices. I knew that there was a risk factor in the

decision to go back, but I knew I didn't have enough time to really get settled before my Senior

season started. I took the risk and got to the point where my left knee felt as normal as it used

to.

We have just won the semi-final of CIF, and I hope you guys get to witness Etiwanda Boys

Soccer in the final of CIF playing for our first CIF championship in Etiwanda History. By the time

you read this, I hope we played and won our final. LETS GO ETIWANDA VAMMMOOOOSSS.

Home--Avnit

 

Change--Manveer

 

Motivation--Garret

 

January Collection

 

Our January Collection has arrived!

In this month's collection we have a total of 11 original pieces written by our students writers.  Please read all!  Choose three to leave kind, helpful, constructive feedback.  Your comments are due Monday, February 12.  Leave your comments on the Canvas Discussion Board.

Make sure to respond thoughtfully to the pieces.

Have a great week.   

I will see you in class!

Hugs,

Mrs. Solano