snowboards

new year's reflection and goals

The year 2010 involved a lot of hard work and self-discovery. It provided experience that brought insight on how I should continue to live my life. It definitely has lessons I can carry through to the year 2011 in order to push myself to get where I want to be.

From the start of 2010 and it then being the “new year”, I worked to accomplish finishing my Grade 11 year with marks I can be proud of. I believe the hard work paid off. Although my math mark was the lowest, I am glad I accomplished passing the course as I was struggling in the class throughout the entire year. I realized that although I used to be great at math, I no longer had the patience and focus it took to do well. I was more into my creative classes such as graphic design, photography, animation, etc. My mind had officially changed gears in the way I implemented my education. I no longer could stand textbooks, but only visuals and hands on assignments. As this hindered me from concentrating on courses such as math, in the end I was still able to achieve balancing schoolwork, my part-time job and my social life.

Although I would have liked to enjoy a nice break before my final year of high school, I chose to accept a second year of working full time in the summer as a camp counselor. This seemed like a huge sacrifice of freedom, but I still managed to spend time for myself and with my friends and family. The past summer was a good opportunity for me to pursue personal gain in earning money, work ethic, balanced routine, and new friends while also having the time to relax.

There were moments in 2010 where I felt like giving up. Either the schoolwork was too hard or took up too much time, I was too tired from extra-curricular activities to have positive energy for my part-time job or I just wanted to unwind and be with friends. However, I learned that pushing myself to do more will get me places, if not just more experience, instead of remaining stagnant my whole life, uncertain and indecisive. I was aware that 2010 would also bring the beginning of Grade 12 for me, the most important year in high school and I would be forced to make life-altering decisions for myself. I was in for another year of hard work and indubitably discovering more of myself. The year 2010 taught me to take opportunities as they came, and as I should plan ahead, I should not plan too far ahead that I underestimate the work that needs to be done to get there.

Now that it is the New Year once again, 2011 has a lot in store for me. I want to achieve an acceptance from a university or college of my preference. There are many that I am applying to, but only a select few that I would actually settle for. I would rather take the next year off to work and build a portfolio than attend a school I am not 100% happy with. I plan to achieve this goal by keeping my grades up or better yet, improving them as much as possible. This will require me to really focus on completing every assignment to the best of my ability and making time for them instead of procrastinating. I also need to complete a portfolio for majority of the programs I am applying to so I have to gather the previous work I am proud of and continue to only create work I will be proud of. A second goal I want to achieve is saving money. I will apply for OSAP during university or college, but I want to continue saving money for school to make it easier for my parents and I to pay off in the end. I also would like to save for personal reasons and my future purchases. I plan to do this by picking up more hours in my part-time job now or finding a second job that will total my biweekly pay to more. I will begin to apply to other jobs at the end of January just in case my first option cannot be done. My third goal is to get more sleep. I tend to stay up really late and during the day, the lack of sleep hinders my ability to focus on work. If I work hard enough during each day, I will be able to get a good sleep each night.

The year 2011 will bring about a lot of changes for me. Although I may not be ready for all of them, by the end of this year will be when I become confident in myself to be able to meet the changes head on.