Trust Me

I have had to convince many people of many different things in my life. Sometimes I have been wrong, and sometimes I have been right. My favorite instance of being right occurred a couple of years ago at Cedar Point. I was at the park with my friend named Brad and his family. Although they had been to Cedar Point quite a few times before, Brad had not ridden a lot of the taller and faster rides. As we were walking through the park, I mentioned that we should ride Millenium Force. Millenium Force is my all time favorite ride at Cedar Point. Everyone in the group agreed that we should ride except for Brad. After a bit of "pep talk" from his family and I, we at least convinced him to stand in line with us until we got to the station. Unfortunately, it was a busy summer day at the park, so there was a two hour wait. We ended up waiting that time, which was actually three hours after some mechanical issues. Once we got to the station, Brad was determined that he was not going to ride. We talked to him, and after a bit of force (his dad literally picked him up and put him in the ride seat), we were ready to ride. Although it was Brad's first time riding, it was at least my 100th. The ride went smooth with a lot of screaming from Brad, but once we pulled back into the station, he had the look on his face. Anyone who has ridden Millenium Force knows what look I am talking about. The wide eyes, fast heartbeat, messed up hair, and the smirk. All of these were signs that he enjoyed the ride. Now, Millenium Force is Brad's favorite ride. His family bought passes the following year, and Brad rode more rides that he was previously scared of. Today, Cedar Point is Brad's favorite place as well as mine.

3rd Quarter Essay Preview

Along with any great feat is struggles. These obstacles can be seen as negative or positive things. I like to see them as positive because I learn from them. One of the struggles that I am facing is organization and planning. Many of my classes occur in different buildings, but my locker is always in one place. I am trying to figure out a way of making as minimum of a number of stops at my locker as possible. The main reason for this is that there is only five minutes between periods. Although I want to stop at my locker as few times as possible, I also do not want to carry many items. This whole situation has many factors in it, and I have not figured out the best solution yet. Another struggle that I am facing is time for homework. I have a very busy schedule, and have a problem of not completing my homework when it would be most convenient. On almost every school day, I do not leave school until 5PM. On top of that, I could have hours of homework or studying to do that night. Both of these struggles are problems I still have to solve.

OGT Testing

The OGT that I feel the least prepared for is the Writing OGT. Writing has never been my strong suit. Do not misinterpret what I mean by this though. I am prepared to take all 5 OGT Tests this March, but writing is the one I worry the most about.

I plan on changing my nervous feelings by working on my diction. One way that I plan on impressing the people who grade the tests is by using better diction on the writing test. I plan on using more educational words instead of simpler words. I also plan on working on my structure of paragraphs and papers. I write well, but the order I write in does not make sense sometimes. I could use tools such as graphic organizers, webs, and lists when planning the essays I am writing. Overall, I feel that I am mostly prepared for the OGT Tests this March, but I will practice all of them because I can only get better. 

Cold Days

On cold days like today, one thing I do to stay warm is not getting out of bed. My bed is the warmest thing in the house when I wake up. Conveniently, I am already right there, so I just stay there. I will usually reach for my phone and go on Facebook or iFunny. The only time I will exit my bed is when it is time to eat.

Unfortunately, my way of staying warm does not work on five of the days out of the week. I have to drag myself out of bed, and then get ready for school. On those days, I will usually wear my warm Early College hoodie. I will also try to walk indoors whenever I can. Luckily, I can walk upstairs in the tunnels from most buildings to get to my classes.

Staying warm is one of the hardest things to do in the winter. Boy Scouts has taught me that once someone gets cold, they will stay cold. One major thing to avoid in the cold weather is being too warm. If someone is too warm, they will begin to sweat. Sweating is bad because it is the body's way of cooling down. Once someone is wet with sweat, they will get cold, and then stay cold. It is important to dress warm, but not too warm.

Unusual Weekend

One unusual thing that I did over the weekend was I went winter camping. During the camp, we did quite a few activities. Some of those included hiking, games, merit badge training, and my favorite, cooking and eating food.

During the camp, we had a total of seven campers. That is an unusually small number for my troop, which usually sends out 15-20 scouts per event. Even though we had a small amount of people attending, we still had a great time. I personally believe that this was the best campout of 2013.

One thing that we do every year at this campout is cook a Thanksgiving dinner. Along with our delicious deep fried turkey, we had some mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, and 3 whole pies. This was the ultimate campout dinner. The turkey was so juicy and delicious that just the seven of us almost ate all of it! I will definitely be going back to this campout next year!

Johnny Cupcakes

The most influential aspect of Johnny Cupcakes' presentation was the fact that he never gave up on his dreams. As he went through each one of this life phases, he never gave up on what he wanted to do. Even though his goal or vision changed a few times, he never gave up.

On top of him never giving up, he has another aspect that is very aspiring to me. That is the fact that he wanted to give every customer the best experience possible. Many companies today do not care about their customers. The companies goal is to create profit, and to reduce expenses in as many ways as possible. This is not the way Johnny Cupcakes operates. Johnny wants every customer to have a great experience buying his shirts. Johnny spends extra money and time to package the shirts in unique ways to ship it the customers. I do not know many companies who do that today.

If I was to open a company, I would want it to be like Johnny Cupcakes. He loves what he does, and cares about his products. He spends extra time to make sure that they are packaged nice and are of the best quality, and even takes time out if his day to write personal messages to customers. He also does many promotions for people, and goes and gives lectures about his life. I was lucky enough to attend one of those lectures, and I will not be forgetting what he taught me anytime soon.

Something New

If I could do something that I have never done before, it would be doing a weeklong trek at Philmont. Philmont is the premier high adventure base of the BSA. A person spends 7-21 days out at the beautiful 400,000 acre camp in Nevada. I would like to visit Philmont at least once in my life.

I would visit the camp for two reasons. One, all of the high ranking officials have visited the four camps, and one day I want to be one of those people. Two, everyone who has visited the camp before said that they had a great time. I would spend the week walking around and viewing the great wilderness. It would be nice to return to an area where nature still has control.

Philmont is by far the largest camp the Boy Scouts own. A person could literally spend a whole year there and not do everything they have to offer. The camp is open year round since it is always warm in Nevada. If I make multiple trips to this camp, I would like to do all four of the seasons treks. Each is different and offers a whole new experience. As there are many mountains in the camp, I could be walking on dry ground one minute, and snow the next. This is the ultimate experience for a scout.