I resisted looking at the clock. I hoped that the less I stared the faster time would go. Getting through a year in middle school is a rigorous journey that all children have to go through. Getting through school while sustaining good grades and still having fun is the final goal that I strive towards. Achieving this goal takes a lot of resiliency, motivation, and stress.

Surviving a year in middle school was a  journey that contained many obstacles that I had to climb to make it to the end of the year. The first few months a combination of my being very focused and the teacher still easing us into middle school made it easy and relatively stress-free. The next few  months gradually get more difficult but nothing I couldn't handle. When the plants start blooming and the ground starts drying the determination for good grades slowly slips from my grasp. The teachers preparing us for MCAS and thinking we all of a sudden enjoy doing homework and having tests lowers my determination even lower.. By this time people are having fires, parties and casual hangouts and school starts to feel even more demanding and less useful. I start to question what school is for and I convince myself that what we are learning in school is pointless and will never be used which is only partially true. With the warm weather, I start playing basketball outside with my friends and going to parties on the weekends and I lose interest in getting good grades.  My grades go from A+ to A to A- and I take notice but don't change much but when I see a B pop up out of nowhere I know I must change something.

I refocus on school and start getting the B’s to A’s but they are not enough to change anything for the third quarter. When the fourth quarter starts I bang out the first week with a few A’s on simple worksheets but when April vacation starts I know something must change. I put a schedule in my head with how much time and effort I am going to everything I have until the end of the year. I put the schedule to work and with a few weeks of trial and error I have the perfect mix and by then the countdown is on until it's all over. The last weeks are when everything starts to seem easier and days feel longer and my grades are where I want them. When the last day arises all the stress and pain from the year is forgotten and my goal is complete.

The year started great, but then a loss in motivation and more school work made me want to quit. When I refocused and thought about what I had to to do be successful I  started to go back to how I wanted. This gave me the schedule between school and social life I think of every day. If you stop and think of the big picture there is always a solution to what you are facing.