Week #17 - 2019 and more to come...

Winter Break is finally here! 2018 has been such a long year, my god. It was only back in JUNE that we went on the Greece field trip. It's felt like it's been foreverrrrrrrrrrrrr

This is also my last blog post, rip ToT. It's been a blast and while I don't really think I've progressed my virtues a lot, I did have fun and I tried to make the most of it. 

See y'all in 2019 ;P

Week #16 - Nothing exciting really but...

Winter Break is in two weeks! Heck yeah! Only have to get through physics, Greek geometry, and Galouka's class, and then it's vacation time for two weeks.

Time to snuggle with a blanket, warm clothing, a nice book, and some tea :D

Anyways, I haven't really had much to practice my virtues this week. MUN is put on hold until March, so it's long nights of sleep now hopefully. Anyways, I hope y'all are doing well and having a wonderful day!

Week #15 - Hard Work Paid Off

So last week I had a conference, right? Well, remember how I've said that these conferences can be a guide to practicing my virtues because they encompass all three of them? Yeah, it's finally paid off and I'm grateful for it.

Essentially what had happened was that even though the entire committee was against the Archie group and our resolution had failed, I kept my cool, spoke a great number of times, wasn't arrive to call people out on what they've said and done, kept trying even though we know something else was going on (the rest of the committee's eventual betrayal), and I ended up with Most Improved Delegate.

And I'm damn proud of it. 

Let this be an example for how hard work pays off because even though it won't happen quickly, it WILL happen and you just have to give it time. 

Week #14 - Time for a freaking crusade (I've changed this title like three times, titles are the bane of my existence I swear)

We all know how we're all failing physics. Ain't it just great? I recently also failed and at first, it was disheartening. However, know I have taken it as a sign of doing better, or not giving up.

Yay, inspiration story for ya'll or something, I don't know.

Anyways, I also have a MUN conference this Saturday so it's time for a freaking crusade, my dudes.  See ya.

Week #12

This week has been good! Though I'm not sure I can say that I've developed my virtues much. More like, I just had a good week but it has been a little stressful (looking at you Greek class) so I haven't been able to think about how to become virtuous and such.

How have ya'll been though? Hopefully good <3

Week #11

This week was actually pretty good! Well, except for Tuesday but let's not get into that ;)

(ONE PERCENT, I SWEAR TO GOD, WE ONLY NEEDED ONE PERCENT)

Anyways, yeah, good week. I had MUN today and my god, the committee was so dramatic at the end, it was super funny. I practiced my excellence virtue by trying every day to do my research better and better, and then my tenacity by not giving up on super long stuff like Merino's homework (which I was really extra with, why am I like this). I guess my courage as well actually because today was my first time in a committee with more than a 100 people (it was 108 people, 54 countries) and jesus it was hectic.

Anyways, how's yall's day?

Week #10

Where to begin with this week?

That probably sounds like I'm gonna continue ranting like I have for these past couple of weeks BUT GUESS WHAT B

N O P E

My week has been amazing! My family from Colombia is over because of my birthday, my house is a hotel essentially, and I've been able to practice some of my virtues. For example, my courage and excellence. I've been striving to be better every day this week, from MUN to my friends to my family to myself. I'ts been a blast.

I've also been more courageous. I don't really like to talk to people like family too much because I dunno, it just doesn't interest me I suppose. But I've been really social this week and I'm living for it, even if my baby cousins and their parents like to mess with me a lot lol.

Actual Week #9

Okay no, serious talk here, folks!

Nothing really eventful actually did happen. I mean, I guess some friend drama? I know how hungry ya'll are for chisme. And I guess that drama helped me practice tenacity. I think. It was complicated and usually I'm the go-to person for them but this time I was at a loss so that didn't really help.

Friendly reminder to ya'll: if you guys are going through problems, PLEASE seek help. It doesn't have to be announced to the world or anything, just tell your parents, a friend, a doctor, anyone who can help.

Week #8

This week... let’s call it interesting.

First, we started off with some nice drama from some friends that left the school. If you thought you’re getting the chisme out of me, good luck with that.

Then, I had to cram to both study, do homework, and read a book I have a paper to write about on. Thank god Ms Merino decided to extend the due date to Monday, oof. Anyways, then we had like a lot of greek homework and stuff and I was not having it.

I probably sound like I’m just ranting at this point but honestly, I haven’t been able to practice much out of my virtues. It seems as the weeks progress it’s slightly harder to be virtuous because so many things take priority first.

I dunno, hopefully y’all are having better weeks!

Week #7

Not gonna lie, the week started a little bad but I suppose it progressively got better? I may or may not have procrastinated too much over the weekend but things worked out I guess. I didn't exactly practice much of my virtues but ya know, I made it to the end of the week!

And I've got a MUN conference this weekend in Punta Gorda and I'm carpooling with Grace so it'll be fun!

To all my debate teammates, hope ya'll do excellent this weekend! Go Archie!

Week #6

I know all my other posts have been about courage and while I have been slowly developing that in the background, I'd like to talk about excellence now.

I defined excellence as doing better than you did yesterday, essentially learning from my mistakes or from others' mistakes. If you don't know, I am in the Debate team and last weekend we had a conference at American Heritage Plantation. It was great! I really liked it a lot and it was completely different from middle school MUN conferences.

It was two days. One the first day, I was very intimidated by the high level of skills in my committee and didn't exactly know what was going on most of the time. By the time the second day came, I knew exactly what I wanted to do that day and actually managed to greatly affect the outcome of the committee. I practiced excellence and I felt really happy and proud of myself, something that's a little rare.

But also shoutout to Claudia for being my partner-in-not-knowing-what-was-going-on-at-all :D Thank god for the "filing typo" that helped us save Europe, Mr. Roper! (We were in a crisis committee about F. D. Roosevelt's cabinet in the Great Depression.)

Week #5

Nothing eventful happened this week, really. I kind of just chilled this week, preparing for debate stuff that's gonna come up in the future. It's a little stressful but I won't panic until later, so no need to freak out now.

I haven't really practiced any of my virtues since last week and stuff. Let me just be happy for once honestly.

Week #4

For any of you who sent to AMC, you'll know the overhanging fear factor used by most of the faculty and the principal. That is not to necessarily say our teachers were either horrible or excellent but the fear factor was evident and obvious.

I would always see kids casually convincing teachers to change their grades, make up assignments, and ask to postpone exams/quizzes. To me, that was a bizarre concept. I've grown up all my life fearing authority to a fault. I was scared of just talking to teachers. But I've found that AUC is different.

In AUC, I've found that the teachers are so much more relaxed than those compared to the middle school or any school I've ever been to. They look at us like adults, not as toddlers, and understand our concerns with patience. They understand that these are the years usually marked as "your development time."

In AUC, I've been comfortable talking to teachers, faculty, etc. It's only been a month. This entire week, I've noticed that I've been asking Mrs Morgante everything and anything I was curious about or had trouble with in regards to Debate. Before high school, I would only ask my friends for help in things related to school.

I know I have three virtues I want to work on, but honestly, I find that courage is my most important one. Self-esteem and self-confidence are big factors on my life and I always tend to have a very little amount of them.

I dunno, I just really want to be more sure of myself.

Week #3

Ask anyone who knows me. Go ahead, go ask anyone who hangs out with me. Go and ask them what I bother them the most with. They'll probably respond with musicals. Or they'll respond with YouTube and that's what I want to talk about right now.

Specifically about Jacksepticeye: if you don't know him, he's loud, Irish, and extremely genuine and caring. Last year, 2017, was a horrible year for him mentally. You know what he did? He started a whole movement this year called Positive Mental Attitude (PMA). If you haven't figured it out yet, I'd say my hardest virtue to practice is courage. (I think I mentioned that last week.) I'm usually a very shy person, very humble and okay with just about anything, whether I go last or if I go first in something, or if I'm assigned to a group with people I don't normally work or not. It doesn't matter all that much. I think I need to change that. 

But anyways, to my main point: I really like YouTube. I'm not talking about vloggers or the typical things people associate YT with. I'm talking about the small part of YouTube that's full of genuine creators, people like Jacksepticeye or Markiplier or Thomas Sanders. I'm in love with the stories they've created and the characters they've made. I'm a sucker for good things like that.

It's inspired 20 million people and even more. Recently, he came out with merch for this movement, to spread the message of healthy mental states. I, in love with the message, really wanted a pin for it (the hoodie was too expensive :I) but my parents absolutely hate YT. I was scared to even talk about what I like to them. They always seem to judge me.

Yesterday, I took a deep breath and I asked my mother if I could buy one of the pins. I explained to her about PMA, really hoping she won't try to shoot me down, and surprise! She really like the idea of it and told me that if it doesn't cost too much, I can buy the pin for my birthday (a gift from myself to myself lol). I opened up more about Jack and she seemed to like him, especially when I mentioned all the charity work he does.

I know gaining courage is gonna be a long process, but ya know what? I'm ready for it.

Week #2

I'm going to be quite honest: I did not necessarily practice any of my aforementioned virtues. However, I do have a little story that I think is helpful and relates a lot to one of the virtues I want to work on: courage.

So, if you may not know, I am in the Debate team. The thing is that all the freshmen had to fight for their spots on the team because there were so many people and they couldn't have so many. So, they made us prove our worth by doing the MUN (Model United Nations) work we normally would do in a month but we had to do in about 4-5 days. Long story short, I did not do the very best in one part of that assignment because I had given up, I had lost my tenacity. I knew it did that part horribly but at the time, I only wanted to submit something. 

I did very well on the other parts, however, and got in. But my mother had recommended that I ask the teacher what I did wrong and how to improve upon it.

I didn't ask. That was two weeks ago. 

Then, today, as we left from a Debate parent meeting, my parents told me of how a friend of mine had thought of the same thing-- to ask the teacher about the assignment what he did wrong. The difference is that he had to gut to ask, he had the courage I didn't have. I admire that very much. 

So why am I saying this? Because don't do what I did and shy away. Get out there and show the world exactly who you are. Don't be afraid. 

Because if you're shy, or timid, or scared, life will pass you by. You need to take the chance when your given the opportunity. Stand your ground. 

And this is exactly what I intend to do from now on. That's how I'll find my courage. 

Week #1

In order to strengthen myself as a good person, I want to be able to first strengthen these three virtues I find that I lack in:

➤Excellence is when you dedicate yourself to be better than the day before, whether with personal goals or with the people around you. This virtue is something I want to work on because I’m the type of person who says “good enough” and doesn’t try to do it better either because of frustration, laziness, or because I don’t care. This habit of saying “good enough” isn’t something I consider very good because I know for a fact that if I tried and really put myself out there, I can do better. In order to practice this habit, I want to reorganize my time and dedicate enough time to each thing I need to do. That is, I want to be ahead of my things so that I have time to revise them and make them better. I want to reflect on what I did the day before so I can learn from my mistakes and do it better next time. To put it short, my exact plan is that I want to make an agenda of sorts or a diary, and create this checklist where I can review my day and think about how I can improve the next time.

➤Courage is when you can suck it up and get yourself out there. What this means is that when you have courage, you’re able to accomplish things in life that if you were shy or scared, you wouldn’t have been able to do. This does not mean to jump off a cliff or something because you want to face your faces. It means having confidence in yourself so that you can get things done. I often find myself unable to talk to people because I’m afraid of not knowing what to say or if what I say is rude or somehow offending. I want to be able to practice the social aspect of courage as well as the inner-self aspect of it. I love a great many things and I find joy in those things but I never have the confidence or courage to do them comfortably. In order to be courageous, I want to use every opportunity I can find to either be able to talk to someone I don’t normally talk to. I want to do the things I love, talk about the things I love, without having fear of being judged. Because there are many new people in high school, I want to find the courage to talk to them and make possible friends.

➤Tenacity is when you never give up, whether on someone or something. It’s when you keep going when life gets tough, when you keep driving even though the road is bumpy. This virtue is very important when in regards to my personal mental health. Admittedly, I am very pessimistic and I know that’s not something I should be but things just happen sometimes. I give up very easily when I can’t do something on the first try or if it takes a long time for me to do said thing. This pessimistic attitude on life is both bad for me and the people I love because it can pass onto them. After all, you treat others as you would treat yourself, and if you treat yourself badly, you treat others badly. Therefore, I plan to put reminders in my room so that I remember never to give up. I will try my best to catch myself whenever I find myself trying to give up. I will communicate with my friends so that they can motivate me. I will list reasons why I shouldn’t give up and what happens if I do, and I will put it up my room.

New Blog?? New Blog!!

Because this blog will tackle morality and my development as a good person, I wanted to first clarify what I mean when I say "a good person" and who I am.

My Definition of A “Good Person”:
To me, a good person is someone who treats everyone with respect and always tries their best not to harm

anyone, whether physically, emotionally, or mentally. These people are honest, genuine, humble or confident when they need to be, and always do their best to apologize when they realize they did or said something wrong. These people are also virtuous (as per Aristotle) in that they try to be the best they can be and try to bring out the best in people when they can. Someone who is a bad person does not care for anyone other than themselves and do not care how they affect the people around them. In order to be a good person, you need to find that healthy balance between selfishness and selflessness, which is very difficult to do. However, you just need to remember that the right amount of selfishness is always relating to your personal problems and how you handle them or how you care for yourself, and the right amount of selflessness is when you just try to do whatever little act of kindness you can.

My Moral Strengths:

I am typically very humble but I do like to take pride in things I know I did well, such as a project or
small accomplishment in something I like. I always try to be as honest as I can with both myself and with
other people. I always try my best in whatever I do, whether a test or assignment or just a hobby I have. I
also pride myself in always trying to be there for my friends and I listen to whatever they have to say. I
give them advice that hopefully makes them the best they can be, but obviously I’m not a professional
therapist, I just like to help people with their problems. Respect is also a big thing in my life. Without
respect, it’s hard to be a good person, because then you don’t care about the people around you and you
only ever do things for yourself with no care of how it affects everyone else.

My Moral Weaknesses:
Admittedly, I don’t have much patience. Neither do I have much optimism in things. Even though I help

my friends with their problems, it always seems like a mask I use because I’m not a very optimistic person. To me, you need the right amount of happiness to function but also the right amount of realism to acknowledge things don’t always work out. I also have a knack for being on my phone too much, which essentially makes me ignore people around me and it makes my family angry. I also procrastinate a lot, which I feel like makes me like a fake because I say that I studied but then I cram the next morning before the test/quiz. Essentially, I’m really lazy. I’m lazy to exercise and I’m lazy to do anything I don’t immediately get or like. This isn’t the best I can be; I can be better than this.