Its unbelievable how much time has passed; it seems just like yesterday that I was in Middle School thinking about how tall the Seniors were. In a blur, 2014 has ended. Personally, I have grown and experienced to an extent I had never believed possible.
I don't want this to end up as a cliché "New Year, New Me" or "It's Time to Change" blog post right after New Year's Eve, but I am going to set one goal: to keep on growing and experiencing the ups and downs in life. When we were introduced to the Presentations of Learning, I first wanted to talk about experience and how much growth and value it can leave on a person. Somehow, my presentation ended up taking another path and I still have that desire to talk about that. Here it goes.
The start of 2014 was different from what it had always been. Instead of staying the two months enjoying the beach, I had the opportunity to go on a Skiing Winter Camp at Verbier, Switzerland. This, as expected, brought up amazing experiences for me. I was introduced to independence and self management as I stopped having the luxuries I was used to back at home. I came to understand how thankful I should be towards what I have. Returning, I had a few weeks to relax and then we were back in school.
I have to admit that the February - June 2014 semester was the most negative semester in my life. This is in regard to my personal life as well as my school life. I lost myself to the "negative" side of being a teenager. I became self conscious in many, if not all, aspects one can be self conscious about as a 15 year old. I lost complete interest on my hobbies, passions and work. I started being mediocre in every sense of the word. I lost everything that was important for me and I thought that it didn't matter. It did.
Then came Mindset. The Carol Dweck book made me realise about my fixed-mindedness and reflect on my mediocre attitude in the past half of the year. I was encouraged to change as a person. Mid-August, Good to Great came as well and by then I had stopped being mediocre. As most people after reading that book I wanted to work my way up to greatness. The way I just phrased that makes me seem completely and utterly, power-hungry but I can assure you that was the least likely attitude I was encouraged to show. I wanted to become a great person by the means greatness was described in the Jim Collins book. I'm still on my way.
Mindset and Good to Great condensed into me wanting to grow and be proud of the work I was creating. I made sure I was doing that at the Innovation Academy. Being the Layout Designer for Breakthrough Magazine has been the definition of growth through experience for me. I learned so much about the job itself as I did about myself and about time-management. I stopped procrastinating! How many students can tell you that they don't procrastinate? I started caring about what I was doing and I enjoyed hard-work. I learned about balance between rest time and work time. I started doing things for the learning experience and not for the grade. As I said on my POL, I created myself, someone who was willing to work hard, someone that was creating work they were proud of. All of that, just through experience.
In this run-through of few of my most important experiences this past year, I can finally say that I have not only grown. I have been transformed by myself (and with the help of a few individuals I would like to thank personally). I want to take this chance to restate the goal I set at the start of the post: to keep on growing and experiencing the ups and downs in life. I want to keep on improving myself and I want to continue achieving great things.
I don't want this to end up as a cliché "New Year, New Me" or "It's Time to Change" blog post right after New Year's Eve, but I am going to set one goal: to keep on growing and experiencing the ups and downs in life. When we were introduced to the Presentations of Learning, I first wanted to talk about experience and how much growth and value it can leave on a person. Somehow, my presentation ended up taking another path and I still have that desire to talk about that. Here it goes.
The start of 2014 was different from what it had always been. Instead of staying the two months enjoying the beach, I had the opportunity to go on a Skiing Winter Camp at Verbier, Switzerland. This, as expected, brought up amazing experiences for me. I was introduced to independence and self management as I stopped having the luxuries I was used to back at home. I came to understand how thankful I should be towards what I have. Returning, I had a few weeks to relax and then we were back in school.
I have to admit that the February - June 2014 semester was the most negative semester in my life. This is in regard to my personal life as well as my school life. I lost myself to the "negative" side of being a teenager. I became self conscious in many, if not all, aspects one can be self conscious about as a 15 year old. I lost complete interest on my hobbies, passions and work. I started being mediocre in every sense of the word. I lost everything that was important for me and I thought that it didn't matter. It did.
Then came Mindset. The Carol Dweck book made me realise about my fixed-mindedness and reflect on my mediocre attitude in the past half of the year. I was encouraged to change as a person. Mid-August, Good to Great came as well and by then I had stopped being mediocre. As most people after reading that book I wanted to work my way up to greatness. The way I just phrased that makes me seem completely and utterly, power-hungry but I can assure you that was the least likely attitude I was encouraged to show. I wanted to become a great person by the means greatness was described in the Jim Collins book. I'm still on my way.
Mindset and Good to Great condensed into me wanting to grow and be proud of the work I was creating. I made sure I was doing that at the Innovation Academy. Being the Layout Designer for Breakthrough Magazine has been the definition of growth through experience for me. I learned so much about the job itself as I did about myself and about time-management. I stopped procrastinating! How many students can tell you that they don't procrastinate? I started caring about what I was doing and I enjoyed hard-work. I learned about balance between rest time and work time. I started doing things for the learning experience and not for the grade. As I said on my POL, I created myself, someone who was willing to work hard, someone that was creating work they were proud of. All of that, just through experience.
In this run-through of few of my most important experiences this past year, I can finally say that I have not only grown. I have been transformed by myself (and with the help of a few individuals I would like to thank personally). I want to take this chance to restate the goal I set at the start of the post: to keep on growing and experiencing the ups and downs in life. I want to keep on improving myself and I want to continue achieving great things.