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Diligence Part 2-Due 02-28-2008
Write about an event in your life in which you succeeded at something which was very challenging. How much did any of the behaviors listed in Diligence Part-1 contribute to your success? What did you learn from that? (Minimum 12 sentences.)
11 comments:
My 8th grade year, I wanted to try out for cheerleading really bad. I talked to my mom about it and she said if I do try out I have to be determined. I agreed and told her I knew that. Well, when clinic came around, we started learning everything we had to do for tryouts. It was my first year to ever want to be a cheerleader so of course everything was hard for me. I couldn’t get the dance as fast as it was supposed to be and I couldn’t remember the words to the cheer. I practiced everyday as much as possible and worked my butt off to get it perfect. I sweated to death, I lost a lot of weight because I worker so hard. Well the day of tryouts came around and I was a nervous wreck! The whole week prior to tryouts was difficult and challenging. I went over everything throughout the whole day in my head. Well, it was time for tryouts and I was in the 2nd group, so it was almost my turn. I got out there, did my best and went back until every body was finished. They called us out there to announce the new 06-07 cheerleaders. I waited….and waited….and waited and finally I heard…”Olivia Clark” I yelled and screamed and jumped up and down, and I knew that all the hard work I had been doing paid off. I know by that experience I have to do the same for tomorrow. Tomorrow are tryouts for this year’s cheerleaders. Yesterday’s lesson made me realize, striving for the best, and giving forth your very best is probably a smart thing to do because it helps a lot. I learned from experience.
Last summer, I was really into riding BMX and there was this one jump that I had wanted to jump for a long time. One day a friend of mine came over and he was into riding bikes to so I suggested that we go check out that jump. Well, I wanted to look cool in front of my friend so I said I’ll jump it first. When I got into position to jump it I thought to myself, “what am I doing?” I pedaled towards the jump as fast as I could and as a hit the ramp, my heart sank. I had over jumped the landing ramp and I was leaning back so I landed on my hind end and I couldn’t walk for about a day. It hurt so bad walking back to my house that I said to my friend “I will land that jump one day.” A few days later I started practicing on smaller jumps so I could get better at determining what speed to get to before I jumped a ramp. Well, what do you know another friend came over about a week later and wanted to go riding. So, we went back to the jump I had wrecked on before and we were going to try it again. This time I didn’t pedal near as fast and I landed the jump perfectly. In this experience I used self-discipline when I practiced to become a better jumper. Also I set a goal to become better at jumping ramps and I did. I also learned from my mistakes and jumped the ramp at a slower speed the second time.
When I was younger, I was overweight. All of that time, no one had said a thing about it so I just ate my happy but to heaven like I did everyday. The first time I was made fun of, it kind of shocked me. I was never told “don’t wear that, it makes you look fat” or other rude things, so how was I supposed to know? Well, since I was brought up to be a confident person, being bigger than someone else was never a hard thing for me to comprehend. I never thought of myself as being ‘gross’ or ‘fat’ but, I wanted to change. It was a very hard change with about 6 months of walking/weight lifting everyday and eating –at first, “nasty” food. It was a constant ritual. There was no cheating because I knew I’d hate myself for going around the rules I made. The consequences of my actions were painfully recognizable and I made sure that I was going to get down to a weight I was comfortable with, not the size 0 everyone my age was. In the end, I had lost a total of 58 pounds in the course of 6 months and 2 days. In the beginning, I blamed everyone for my eating habits and lack of drive to not accomplish my goal. When I noticed that the motivation was not seeing other people, but how I saw myself – I was able to drop everything for me. Some may call that selfish, but I see it as my form of motivation. How I see me is the only thing that matters.
There has been many events in my life which I've succeeded at things I never thought I could ever do. One that sticks out in my mind is when I was about twelve years old. I was new at Oak Grove and it was my sixth grade year. Well, it had always been a dream of mine to become a cheerleader. So, when the time rolled around for Jr. High tryouts, I went for it. I had never cheered before and I really didn't expect much. I really didn't know any of the other girls trying out, so I was a little scared. But at clinic, I just stayed focused and got the dance and cheers ad best as I could. Then, tryout day came. I wasn't as nervous as I expected I would be, suprisingly. Then, they started callng out names. Suddenly, I hear "Ginger Sherrill". I jumped up and ran to tell my mother. Now, since I made it my first year, with no help, I am confident each year that I try out.
Ever since I can remember I have struggled greatly with my grades. Well not always I got my first D in the 5th grade. Ever since then I got into the habit if making bad grades. I stayed grounded constantly. I’m a really good kid I just kept on bringing in bad grade reports. My grades were the only reason I would ever get into trouble. Even when I would get un grounded , next time progress reports came it was no phone , friends , or television for me. My mom and step-dad tried everything . They even took away my mp3 player. I was so sick of being grounded that I couldn’t take it anymore . I told my mom I said, “ I’m almost sixteen , I’m supposed to be going places and doing things with friends. “ She told me that if I wanted to go places I would have to fix my grades . A few weeks later I brought in all B’s on my progress reports. So on Friday , just before the weekend, I got ungrounded and went to a friends house to sleepover. It was the most fun I had had in months. I believe the reason my grades were down is because I would always procrastinate and when I started an assignment I would never seem to finish it. All the bad grades added up to be a really bad grade.
My very first year trying out for cheerleading was my time to try the best that I can. I use to work every night when I came home from the cheer clinics. When the day of tryouts came I suceeded on making the squad. The information from Diligence Part-1 relates to how I worked. I strived to be the best that I can. I was self-disciplined to myself to reach my goals. I set my goal and I accomplished it. I've learned a lot from that experience. I learned that if your wanting something so bad, you have to work for it. Things just doesn't fall into place like you want it to, you have to work to reach you goals. After you try to reach you goal, no matter if it happened or not, you got to know that you tried your best and there is always a second chance. I reached my goals that day I tried out for my first year of cheerleading.
I have always been a very shy person. I never talk to anyone I don’t know. Last summer, I did something I thought I would never have the guts to do. I volunteered at the Birmingham Zoo. The shy girl was up and talking to random people about animals, and facilities. You had to take a lot of classes but, it was all worth it in the end. I had to stay focused while I was there. I had to study, and learn where all the bathrooms are. I had to have the guts to stand up in front of about 30 people and speak to them directly. I had to have a lot of confidence, and a lot of humor. I have always wanted to work at a zoo. So I was determined to do this whole Volunteering thing correctly. I had to break all my boundaries with people in order to do what I had to do. I embarrassed myself a few times, but everyone has their first day at school. I had my first day at the zoo, and actually working there. You have to have a lot of patience. We were required to work with small children. Patience is not a big thing with me. I learned a lot of neat things, and I gained a small amount of confidence with people. Now, I will talk to some one I don’t know and blurt random animal facts to them. All of the qualities of a diligent person, turned out well if you are planning on working.
Ever since I was a freshman my main goal in high school basketball was to be able to dunk before I graduated. It was not going to be an easy task because I couldn’t really jump that high. I had to work out a lot and run all the time. I kept on getting closer as the years went by and finally my junior year I was able to dunk. I was really excited about it and was proud of my self for having self-discipline and never giving up on my goal. It took a lot of time but since I had already started I couldn’t just stop because I had already gotten so far. I just had to keep striving and continue doing my normal workout routines each day. This is when I found out a lot about my character and how strong willed I am. I hadn’t of had some what of inspiration I don’t think that I could have done it. The main reason I never gave up on “dunking” is the simple fact of failure. I can not stand not being able to do something. Everyone used to tell me that I would never dunk but I guess I showed them something. They kept saying that it would be impossible but I just would continue to fight closer and closer to my goal.
One time in seventh grade I had to do a whole project in just one night. I first set goals and thought about all that I wanted to be accomplished on the project. Afterwards I began to put everything in to action. I stayed focused and work diligently through the night. Even though I could, I did not shortcut any thing and finished it completely. Even though I had procrastinated before I did not any longer. The whole time I was just imagining how it would feel when I finally got done with it. Also even though sometimes I got frustrated and wanted to give up I didn’t. The whole project took me over six hours. Also unlike other times I left nothing that I had to do the following morning. Once I was done the sense of accomplishment was overwhelming. The next day at school I got several comments on how great my project was and received an A+ on it.
This year I all my friends were signing up for volleyball. I wanted to play too. So when it was time to sign up I put my name on the list. I was so excited even though I didn’t know if I was going to like it or not. When the first meeting came around I was pumped up about our upcoming season. We had a bunch of practices during the spring and summer. We worked out in the weight room 2 days a week. Finally our season came around. We had a pretty good season and we beat the JV’s record by like 5 more wins. We attended camp at the University of Montevallo. It was a very exciting event. This is a very important event in my life. I cannot wait until our upcoming season.
My 7th grade year, i had to get an insulin pump. Its this thing that you jsut programin it how mush insulin you want and it well send the insulin into your body through this tube.. Its alot easier than giving yourselfa shot everytime you need insulin. But anyways i had to go to these classes at childrens hospital to learn how to work it. It wasnt as easy as i thought it was going to be. There were so many things that you had to learn about it. And there were so many things that you had to push and to program in it to get it to give you any insulin. I thought at first when i went to those clases that i wasnt ever gonna get how to work the pump. I kept going to the classes and trying to work on it on my own. And i finally got the hang of it. The was one big challenge for me. Ive learned from the other lesson that you have to have discipline for stuff like that.. it will get you through life alot easier.
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