Debate Club part one

As the title explains, I participated in my very first debate tournament of my life. At my previous school, debate was not a priority. I joined it anyways yet we spent our lunches just going through rounds of improvisation. Nothing was exactly legitimate  We are given the resolution weeks beforehand and no one would prepare. It was just another mainstream club that involved nothing but a good label on a resume. Of course, my perspective of the debate club changed after attending the first information meeting at my new school. This information meeting covered everything from tournaments, to admission fees, to the tough application process.

The application process was the challenging part. You would fill in a google document and then submit your available interview times. They would piece together a schedule indicating your debate audition schedule. Within this audition, they may ask you questions regarding why you wanted to join and other cliche questions. The plot-twister, was the audition itself. They gave you a resolution, indicated whether you were proposition or opposition, then gave you 30 seconds to prepare. Afterwards, you were to elaborate on a 2 minute speech.

My audition topic was "THW ban zoos." I said the usual points: animals are trapped, they are exposed to human behavior  and it is bad for future evolution of the species. Frankly, my audition was terrible. I stuttered, I panicked. My face was red. My confidence was questionable. When I was notified that I was accepted into the debate club, I was extremely surprised.

The debate club was considered a prestigious club. It was either Debate or DECA. If you were in both, you were considered to be at the top of the well-rounded students level.

You may be wondering how this story is relevant to school tips. It's very straightforward.

• Never. Look. Back
• Always continue
• Thrive for your best
• and always look forward 

This has been part one out of two of my debate experience.

Commute

Honestly, the worst part of school is not the workload, rather the amount of time used to get there. As the school year goes by, the value of time increases, and thus the value of the time wasted can be a great burden. I spend 40 minutes every day to travel to school and back. It gets exhausting as the amount of workload begins to accumulate. Not only does travel take 40 minutes, but waiting for the public transportation to arrive can also be challenging. Sometimes the bus is 10 minutes early, and sometimes the bus is 10 minutes late. My bus is an uncommonly used route, and it comes every half and hour or so. In the case where I miss the bus, I have to use up another 30 minutes to wait for the next one. I am always pressured to arrive early for the bus. At least ten minutes early or else I have to risk waiting another 30 minutes. I constantly ask myself, is it worth it? Using up 10 minutes everyday so I wouldn't have to waste 30 minutes occasionally?

Commute is always troublesome. The price for the tickets can be very hefty too. Especially for the commute in my area, the prices are phenomenally more expensive than the region we are next to. Listen to me when I say, that if you are ever deciding between which school to go to, always consider commute as a priority. And if the school you do want to go to is far, always consider living in that area. These are big decisions and sacrifices you have to make, but for education, it's all worth it.

I used 50 minutes everyday on commute. There are 200 days in a school year. That totals to an outstanding 10 000 minutes every year on transportation. 10,000 minutes used. 10,000 minutes wasted.

Extra-Curricular Activities

Many people always criticize me for the intense work schedule I have. I have at least one extra curricular activity after school every weekday as well as off-school classes I attend to enrich myself further in learning. I also volunteer from time to time as well as catch up with the latest episodes of my favorite television shows. This semester features most of my open courses, resulting in a more relaxed time table. Consequently, I participate  in more extra curricular activities to use up spare time. At the student activity council fair in the beginning of year, I signed up to be on the mailing list of many clubs and teams that fulfill my interests. This consists of: medicine club, law club, glee club, engineering club, computer club, free the children, science club, astronomy club, DECA, debate club,  math club, chess club, model UN, and so on and so forth. Unfortunately, I do not enough time to participate and commit to these activities. In addition, the clubs I was most intrigued were all clubs that required an application process. Once the rejections from these clubs started to accumulate, a schedule of my extra curricular a began to take shape. It was not long before I started taking part in these extracurricular activities. At first I felt like I did not belong to this open group of people. Hoards of students, both big and small, crowded the tiny classrooms. I felt like I would not o much at these clubs so I decided to leave some and try others.

I highly encourage everyone to take part in as many extracurriculars as you can. It is a great experience and it opens new doors to life changing opportunities. Join councils outside of school too. Make a difference in this world. Ask yourself everyday, what can I do today to make sure I go to sleep in a more improved manner?

Even with extracurriculars, it is still very important to prioritize school work. Make sure you are completing your work and just go from there. I hope all student readers will have a safe, happy and enjoyable school year! :)

Until next time,

Motivating Songs

Hello Readers,

I don't know about you, but for me, I need to listen to music when I work. I am going to make this post short and simple so you have more time to listen too the five following wonderful selections of Work Songs.

1. Koji Kondo's The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword Theme

2. Mozart's Symphony no. 25 in G minor

3. Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries

4. Final Fantasy 7 Crisis Core's The Cost of Dreams and Pride

5. Beethoven's Choral Symphony no. 9 

Enjoy :)

Coping with Failure

Failure is a part of life and is completely inevitable. There is no special formula or magic potion that can all of a sudden erase failure from your life. No one is perfect, and at some point of life, failure will hit you in the head. Depending at your level of vulnerability, it will take time to recover from the void as a result to failure. Most people are at maximum level of vulnerability when arrogance and achievements become habitual. When you win every game, are successful in an application, or perfect each test, this streak will end. In order to deal with failure, you must be aware that you got to lose to know how to win.

Just remember, that no one is perfect. But in order to achieve near-perfection is by failing. Failing is both a good thing and a bad thing. It has negative reviews because it is an obstacle in life. No humans like the failing.Being happy about failure simply isn't part of human nature. However, if you are a person with good intentions, failure can be converted into complete success. Failure is just another way to improve and get better. It is one of the biggest innovators of dreams and goals.

Five things to remember when you want something

• failure is an option
• failure is not a bad thing
• no one is perfect
• try your best and no regrets
• often times, things will come your way

This may sound depressing, but believe me when I say, that if no one gave you this cliche speech, who knows what you might do when failure hits you.

My school is immensely crowded. It is full of prestigious programs and the school has a good reputation in the province. As a result, I am constantly competing with the smartest people in the region and this can get very tedious. Due to the large student body, I have to file an application for every extra-curricular I am a part of. At my previous school, I was the top student. I won every award, had the highest grade average, and I was an executive member of the numerous clubs I was a part of. Now that I am in a higher field of education, I am open to a lot more competition. I never realized these invisible people who are all better than me. I got my hopes to high when I applied to be in clubs such as DECA, Model UN, etc. and unfortunately, rejection hit me hard. I hope that all of you are aware that failure is an option. My recoveryfrom that rejection phase was hard to pursue. Out of the 5 clubs I applied for, only one accepted me. Now I am determined more than ever to make the best of it. 

From the words of Aerosmith's Dream On.

"You got to lose to know how to win"

Dealing with Stress

Ever since a young age, I have always overworked myself in the midst of completing projects. I find myself with loads of homework, using loads of effort that I cannot manage. Even if procrastination is not a factor, stress is hard to deal with however the following tips may (or may not) help you cope with one of the biggest hindrances in acheiving maximum potential.

Always have a plan. Planning out your projects ahead of time will save a lot of time when pursuing your project. Take a giant calendar and write notes on what you want to finish on particular days. Then dig deeper, set goals within a day. What do you want to achieve today? Before dinner? Plans will improve efficiency by at least 100% , guaranteed.

Take breaks. I suggest to

• go for a jog
• go for a swim
• drink a cup of tea
• meditate
• take a nap

Exercise, eating, and resting are three components to rejuvenating willpower. It may sound like a lot of pain to go jogging, however the after-effects are beneficial. Not only do you burn of a few calories, circulation throughout your body is improved and you will feel refreshed and ready to work. Do any of the things I suggest, they will most definitely help you deal with recuperation from stress.

Sleep. Make sure you are getting a sufficient amount of hours when you sleep. Sleep deprivation is one of the biggest burdens when trying to work efficiently and without stress. Lack of sleep will cause disfunction in the brain, and may cause additional stress.

Keep hydrated. Don't drink pop or coffee, stick with the natural H2O. Water will hydrate your body, keeping it refreshed and active. It's also been proven that drinking water will reduce stress by replenishing lost fluids.

There are more posts to come about dealing with stress but these are just the basics. I hope you find these tips beneficial.

Good Luck !

Homework Tip #2

You may have heard this from your teacher before but always check your work. Checking your work will always provide reassurance as well as a higher accuracy in your final mark. Especially in written assignments and tests, it's always beneficial to check your work. I used to never check my, I was confident that all my answers were correct. I was a top-of-my-class math students, always helping my peers, however when it came to tests, my marks weren't the greatest. I remember I used always get angry when a student I helped in math achieved a higher score than me on tests. The contents of the test were extremely easy, so I ended up underestimating the difficulty of the calculations. After a term of average marks, I was frustrated. I had finally realized the worth of checking my work. The following term, I took an extra fifteen minutes after completing assignments to check over my work. Whether it was answers, grammar mistakes, spelling, I never knew how easy it was to make errors. Soon after that, my average increased by an astounding ten percent! Take my word for it, checking your work will change your academic status. I started being the well-rounded student that I am today, after the change in my work habits.

Five things to check for

• calculation errors
• units used, operations used, if a number is written to look like another number
• spelling errors
• keyboards nowadays are deproving, companies are more focused on software than hardware, making  typing prone to mistakes
• grammar errors
• word-processing programs are not smart enough to detect grammar issues accurately. The only thing in this world capable of detecting grammar of this age is yourself
• omisions
• always work with a rubric or a list of expectations. make sure you did not omit anything
• completion
• similar to omision, always make sure you completed the work correctly. sometimes people miss a bubble in the scantron and end up filling the entire test with wrong answers.

Good Luck !