Week 15

  Well...I think this is the last blog. What a ride it has been. Honestly, I did really improve in all my virtues from the start of the school year and it was fun keeping track of them. This week my moderation was pretty good. I was able to keep myself out of my phone for really long periods of time while I did my homework. I also used my phone for less time than usual. My confidence has also been pretty good. The cold weather has made me a little less productive because it's been making me sick but oh well. I've been more self-assuring of myself and have been more positive. In addition, my assertiveness this week has been better as I've participated more in multiple classes. Overall, the past weeks I've had many ups and downs regarding my virtues but overall I've improved. I'm a much better person than I was.

Week 14

         This week has been alright. I had some days that were super bad and others where I was very happy. My confidence this week started off lacking because of the fact that I was very tired therefore very negative. I started talking to this friend again and he helped me with my confidence. He told me to just block out the negative thoughts and just think of the positive of the day. That usually never works but it helped me having someone tell me. It's nice when other people help boost your confidence--makes it much easier. As for my moderation, it improved towards the end of the week. I have been going to sleep pretty late for me since I can't balance the amount of time I spend on my phone. After I finish homework, I always go to sleep late talking to the same two people. I get very distracted and I'm too stubborn to end the conversation. This has only slightly improved as I got one of my friends to tell me to go to sleep when she knows I'm still awake. Appreciate the effort. As for homework....it's been alright. I have been doing a lot of my homework though, and it hasn't taken as long as it used to. This week I was very exhausted and I didn't feel better till today because I actually slept.
Well, till next week!

Week 13

   This week hasn't been very productive. I thought my moderation was going well but it appears it wasn't. I left an assignment till last minute and it pushed me behind schedule; I went to sleep very late last night. Secondly, my confidence hasn't improved at all. In soccer I have just been frustrated with myself because I feel like I haven't been doing very good. This has made me very bad with my confident. I just keep putting myself down instead of being positive. I'm not sure at this point how to stop being negative but I just hope I stop being frustrated with myself. I think maybe I should just relax when I get frustrated. I probably should really start working on my virtues again and I hope that I keep improving. 

Week 12

     This week has been pretty stressful so far. My moderation was extremely bad this Sunday. I left all my Lord of the Flies questions for Sunday night (except chapter 2-5). It caused me to go to sleep very late as I also got distracted along the way. I think the only good moderation I've had this weekend was the fact that I didn't eat all my Halloween candy at once and that I still have. Although, I will say my assertiveness is improving a little bit. I've been doing pretty bad in my geometry class regarding participation. I've been so tired that I haven't participated a lot but I talked to my friend yesterday and he reminded me of how I shouldn't be afraid of participating even if I might get the answer wrong. That has helped me a little as to how I should be doing good in class. Now, for confidence... I have been improving my confidence with the ball when I'm playing soccer. I'm still not very good at controlling it but my defense is getting better because I'm not as afraid of pressuring my opponent. I hope to keep improving.

Week 11

     Wow....this week my moderation has been real bad. Even my blog is late. I usually do my blog in the middle of the week not on Fridays. I also need to do the journal for My Sister's Keeper. Wow, I even got distracted right now. A couple minutes ago, I just spent like 5 minutes on my phone. I was doing pretty good but now everything seems to be going down hill. I started soccer so it's making me really tired. I don't want to quit because (1) I just started and (2) I like it. I'm afraid that it'll affect my grades too much. I really hope not. I haven't really had a chance to work on my confidence this week. I'm not sure what I have been doing this week. Next week I need to be more active while working on my virtues.

Week 10

     This week has been very tiring. I am very tired. Spirit week has been decently fun. The only fun thing was Halloween. I was pretty confident yesterday. I was Moana for Halloween and I was kind of nervous because of the costume. I'm pretty shy when it comes to wearing certain things. I didn't shy away and wore my costume decently confidently. In addition, my assertiveness has been good. In soccer I am being assertive. When I play as defense I have to go for the ball and that requires a certain amount of assertiveness. I still ned to improve on that because I'm still not very confident in playing soccer. My moderation has been pretty good. Except Monday night, since I wanted to get my costume ready and did it all last minute, I went to sleep very late getting the costume ready. I shouldn't have procrastinated and gotten my costume ready in the weekend. For next time, I now know that I shouldn't leave things for last minute.

Week 9

    This week was pretty stressful since it's the last week before the grading period ends. My moderation was pretty good this week as I found myself having some extra time after finishing my homework. Yesterday I didn't have any homework and had to study for two tests that I had today. I studied a little bit even though I should've studied more. On Sunday I went and watched a  movie called "Victoria and Abdul" for extra credit in AP World. I wrote the paper for it Monday during school (in the periods where I had free time) and it was really productive. I've been trying to use my time wisely. In addition, my assertiveness has been pretty good. During lunch I sit with a new group of people. I don't usually talk with them but during lunch I sit with them and I guess we're friends now. Other than that I guess my confidence has been pretty decent. Honestly, bless you, my friend who makes me feel good about myself. She is such a confidence booster that I don't criticize my looks and the way I speak as much. already thank her for doing that voluntarily but I should do more to thank her. I should say I haven't improved very much in my confidence. I will say I'm more outspoken than I was at the beginning of this year. Well, that's it for this week. 

Week 8

   This week my moderation was trash. I left homework that I knew was going to be due this week for last minute. We got the homework assigned, practically, the first week of school. I didn't lose as much sleep as others but I had to finish a book in two days, which I did successfully. Yet, I did everything last minute and I have to study a lot for tomorrow since I didn't manage my time correctly. Now, for my confidence, I was decently confident. I talked to a couple of new people. Oh, actually on Friday I had talked to people I hadn't talked to before. It was cool because I always saw them around but never really seemed to approach them. I think I'm slowly improving but everything good. I just need to get back in schedule. Now, my assertiveness hasn't been exactly on point. In class, I haven't been participating a lot. I don't know, I guess this week I've been so tired my usual motivation is gone. I need to start participating again because if not my grades will go down.

Week 7

        I was about to say this week was uneventful just like any other week but I had forgotten it was student government campaign week. Considering that, this week I was really confident and assertive. First off, when I said my speech in front of all the ninth graders---I felt like I was going to die, I was nervous the entire morning. Afterwards, though, people told me I did really good. I spoke with confidence even if I was really nervous (shout-out to Diya and Wyatt for helping me practice). Of course only my really close friend noticed that I was shaking my head too much and that I was, in fact, extremely nervous on stage. Nevertheless, I presented my speech with confidence and I didn't collapse!!! Yay!! Honestly, I was nervous about mentioning my hair in my speech but I'm glad I did— apparently, it made it memorable— it was good. I also spoke with new kids that I had never spoken with before, which was pretty assertive of me, during lunch. I definitely got their vote. I think I am actually making real progress and I'm glad I have the blog to keep track of it. I also talk to my swimming team more than before and also I'm pretty sure I made a new friend this week. I've seen him around since middle school and this year we're in the same class, and it's good that we actually talk now. Hope I keep making progress!

Week 6

My moderation this week has been really good. I have been going to sleep before 12 am -- a real improvement!! I haven't fallen asleep in any class at all so that means I've been doing good at how long it takes for me to do homework. Although, I will say that I have been getting home late so unfortunately I haven't been finishing homework as quickly as I would hope. In addition, I have been pretty assertive lately. I have talked to more people than I would usually talk to. Also, in Mr. Timpilis class I'm not failing in participation. Honestly, most of the time I probably know the answer but I'm too scared to say the wrong proof but he knows I know so he just picks on me even if I don't want to participate. Pretty good system. I usually get 100s in participation in his class so that's good. Finally, in Ethics today I raised my hand! Honestly, pretty rare. I said what I thought of the argument and I thought I had a good point. But, when I said doing a good deed unintentionally doesn't make you a good person, I pretty much got attacked. I couldn't care less though, I knew what I said and the most important part was that I participated. Of course, if what I said had been a mistake, I would've cared but I hadn't said anything wrong.
*That's not actually me in class, but it seems like it.

Week 5

       This week was really a workload.  I will say though that I was pretty assertive. I usually don’t talk to a lot of new people... ok that’s a lie, I talk to quite a few people and have made friends that I’ve never really met before but in school it’s different. Anyway, I talked to some new kids in school. That was pretty assertive of me as I’m too shy to ever insert myself into a conversation. I made a friend and I’m glad to have talked to her since we do have multiple classes together. In addition, this week I was confident about myself and dived when I went to this swim meet on Tuesday. It was my first time in a meet this year and I was nervous, but I did it. I was happy even if I wasn’t the fastest. I did put myself down afterwards for being so slow but I’m working on it. I also talked to some of my swim mates more, exercising my assertiveness. But my moderation was actually really good!! I've been getting good at managing my time. I also learned how to study now. With like the millions of quizzes we had today, I had to study my butt off last night. I prioritized, studying AP world first 'cause it's an AP class, then Greek, then English because it's not that hard. This worked out well and I got an A in all my quizzes. I'm glad that I've improved this and my motivation to do work a long with it, even though I still don't feel like doing anything. Well that’s it.
*accurate representation of me below

Week 3/4

               This week has been a pleasant week? I don't really know, the hurricane Irma stuff is pretty much over. Anyway, my moderation this week was actually pretty good. In the weekend, I actually did my homework. Since I had nothing to do, I did my English homework in about an hour. I only got distracted a couple of times but I controlled myself. After that, I helped my mom with the third party inventory. She kept getting confused which was sort of annoying. Anyway, I finished my homework in only two hours. I had done the ethics blogpost for week two that Wednesday that we got off from school which was also very productive. I also started reading My Sister's Keeper and the world history book. I usually don't read the assigned books so early but I did. Anyway, moderation was alright this week. Although, I will say, my confidence was pretty bad. It was so bad that when I was talking to someone they told me I shouldn't have such low self-esteem. I mean I am trying. 

Week 2

         Well, this week has been pretty boring.... except Hurricane Irma is coming and I'm freaking out. Anyways, virtues. Well, I think this week my confidence was pretty good. I went swimming on Sunday to practice and learned how to dive! Ok this sounds extremely pathetic, but it's always been extremely hard for me to dive. You may laugh as pretty much anyone I tell laughs about it (<-- whoops shouldn't even say that - gotta work on that confidence boosting). Anyway, Sunday i finally did it, after encouraging myself after much time. This boosted my confidence and now I'm not as afraid. Now, I did go driving before that with my dad. It was my first time ever so I was sorta scared. Right before we started I kept saying "Vamos a chocar! Vamos a chocar!" and while I was driving too. That was not very good in part with my confidence... I at least, actually, did not crash so my turns did get smoother. Well, anyway, my moderation this weekend sucked. Thursday I said "Oh I'll work on my homework Saturday, get it done." But yet came Monday and I was doing 90% of the homework that afternoon. It wasn't that bad but still. I gotta work on it. Well, gotta go start "evacuating."

Week 1 - My virtues

Well, to start off, honestly, I picked the virtues I thought I obviously need to work on. I hope I  have enough time to even make worthy progress but I'm working on managing my time for all this My first virtue is moderation. Probably a lot of us have this as one of our virtues. Moderation is having a healthy balance in life. You don’t play too much, you don’t work too much, and you don’t overdo certain things you like. It’s pretty much having self-discipline. When we live in the age of technology, phones, social media, etc. it’s extremely hard not to get distracted when doing homework. I try, I really do, but not enough. I need to start organizing my life, get my act together, and really try to control how long I take doing certain things—discipline myself to say when I’ve had enough of something. I already do try to control myself and my time-management but it’s going ok. If I improved this virtue I’d probably do my homework twice as fast. I’d count how much time I waste when “doing” homework but that’s too much math to do right now, and this is not math class. I plan to get better in my moderation by turning off my phone and shoving it in a drawer when I get home (I’m not even joking about this—it’s the only way), tracking how much time I take while doing my work, and getting my family to help by telling me to stop being distracted and such; even though they do that already but I’ll try hard to listen to them now.

My second virtue is assertiveness. I am an extremely shy person—especially in the classroom. This virtue is very important because to be heard, loud and clear, you need to be assertive. Assertiveness is the quality of being positive and confident; you express your ideas to others and think worthy of yourself. In the world, I think it’s important to be assertive and especially now in school. I mean it’s always been important to participate in school but now it’s really getting stuff. I mean in Greek geometry if I don’t participate, I’ll fail the class. I’m already certain I’m probably going to fail—my participation history isn’t exactly the greatest. It’s not that I am too lazy to participate, for me it’s just a scary thing to speak up and say what you think, especially in class. I fear looking ridiculous, or saying the wrong answer. Outside of class I am a little bit more assertive but mostly with people I know really, really well or I’m comfortable with, and that isn’t a lot. As assertive as I want to be, it’s hard. I’m going to start little by little, first by participating a little more in classes, and then by always raising my hand. Most of the time, I probably know the answer to what the teacher is asking and I’m too much of a wimp to say but I’ll start trying now. After all that, I’ll move on to speaking with other people more confidently and improving my public speaking.

Lastly, I’m going to work on my confidence/courage. Confidence is more about yourself. Confidence is when you have no self-doubt, you rely in others, you feel sure of yourself, and have faith. I plan to focus on my self-confidence—which is not the best. I want to work on the confidence I show and have on myself. Confidence is really important because it’s not only what you look like to others, but how you feel about yourself. I think having confidence really affects your outlook on life and what kind of energy you radiate (I sound like a hippy saying this but like I don’t how else to say it). I also want to have courage since I feel like it ties into confidence but it's more about taking a chance. I want to have less fears than I do now and doing things I think I can't do but I can. The more confident I can get, the better I can perform. Since I have very little confidence, I think less of myself, therefore believe I can achieve little or have no determination to try new things. I want to boost my confidence by talking good about myself (instead of insulting myself whenever I get the chance); believing I can do certain things even when I’m not so positive about them; and being confident by taking chances and trying new things. I will also get help from my friends so when I am not so confident, they boost it or tell me to stop being so negative about what I can do.  

Me reassuring myself I did this correctly: