I'm pretty excited for this Christmas. I am going to be doing a lot. Well more then usual. I am going to do a little more Christmas shopping with my family. I am going to go see some family and open presents and eat dinner together. I also plan on doing a lot of training and working out because soccer season, as well as, power-lifting season is going to be starting. I want to be in the best shape I can be to do the best I can possibly do. I will also be visiting my dad, whom I have not seen in quite some time. I am very excited for that. Also I plan on going to see some friends in Austin that I met during the summer.

 

I am so excited about college! I am most excited to "find myself". People say college is the best place to find out what you want to be. Which is really good because I have no idea. I have interests yes ,but I have not figured out exactly what I would want to do for the rest of my life and that will provide for my family. Above all, I am going to college for myself. When I graduate from high school and go off to wherever, I will be entering the next chapter of my life on my own. This happens to excite me rather than it would scare me. It excites me because I will be able to be on my own and make my own decisions. I believe some characteristics that matter when choosing a college is that it either has the major you are looking for, that it is in your price range, if you have a scholarship, or just how far you'd be willing to go away for college. I will not really seek anyone's input at all because going to college is going to be to better my future not anyone else's. I believe college is going to help me figure out what I want to be and how want to go about doing so.

This thanksgiving I plan on hanging out with my friends and family for the most part. I also plan on going Black Friday shopping with a couple friends. This thanksgiving I also plan on working out in the weight room but also going to the soccer fields by my house to practice on some footwork and skills to stay in shape for when practice starts up the following week. I will be assisting my grandpa also because he will be having knee replacement surgery and will not be very mobile for a little while. I am having a turkey bowl this Sunday with my youth group and the adults of my church. This is where we all get together and play flag football. My church has also asked me to move around some stuff to help decorate for Christmas season. So yes, my break is completely full.

jobdiscovery.com

For a student like me, that has a lot of extra curricular activities, it is hard to find a job that is willing to work with you to meet your needs and for the most part work on your schedule. I believe that clothing stores are really good at that. For example, I happen to be employed at Hollister at Uptown Village in Cedar Hill. They are very good about working with your school schedule and helping you being able to work a reasonable amount of hours. I also found out that the website I went to happens to make it very easy for you to search the kind of job you want and need. It is very user friendly and anyone can do it. Whenever you prepare for an interview you never want to overdress but it is appropriate to look your best at the same time. I recommend when searching for a job go to jobflagalerts.com, put in your information, and began looking for jobs.

                                                                   Homeless to Harvard

As soon as we started watching the movie, I instantly began to think about my dad and myself. This movie really touched home with me in having a lot of similarity to my own life. My situation is not as severe as Liz's situation in the movie but has a lot of similarities at the same time.In a lot of ways this movie put some humility in me and convicted me for not having the same resilience as this girl did. She demonstrated that anyone can achieve greatness, its just the matter of putting forth the effort. I want to finish out my school career the best I can and make a better life for myself as Liz did for her. One of my favorite parts of the movie to me was when she wins the New York Times scholarship. The fact that this movie is a true story encourages me so much to do better and want to achieve more in life. I haven't been quite as resilient in my own life so far, but that is going to change from here on out.

I expected it to take some time, I did not expect it to be so helpful! Honestly, I really do think I'm ready for the responsibility and to be on my own. I just cannot afford to slack off with it. I can make sure I have a steady paying job to better prepare myself.

I honestly have no top career choice in mind. Sure, there are things I'm interested in but I'm so unsure on what I want to do with my life, who I want to be, and how I want to be remembered. I want to be a person when people hear  my name they're like "yeah I remember him!" that guy did this, that guy did that etc. I want to leave a legacy, not only for myself, but for my family, for my children when i get older, and for the generation following in my footsteps. So no I don't know my top career choice or what I want to do, but I do know that I want to leave a legacy.

I scored a 14 out of 24 on the stress quiz.. so I guess you could imagine that that means I am quite stressed.  am stressed out for a lot of reasons. I would have to say the main reason is because of family and growing up in a broken home. I've pretty much been raised just by mom. You could say that that in itself is pretty stressful considering we are both hard headed and tend to butt heads often. Not to mention that not really having my dad around weighs on me heavy too. I have a few different methods of relieving this weight of stress. One of the main ways I relieve stress is staying busy. I like staying busy because it allows me to take my mind of things that are bothering or stressing me out. Simple things like being with friends and people that care about me or make me laugh or that I can relate too. Also, working out and being active is another huge way of me relieving stress. When I'm lifting weights, running, or  any other form of exercise, it feels like everything disappears. I feel as of nothing exists in that moment of me working out, nothing can break me down except my own will not to push through.  Same thing with my sports. When I step on that field, court, or into the weight-room, everything is gone, all my problems, are gone for that period of time. Last, but certainly not least, is that music is a huge stress reliever to me. Music in any form to me is so awesome and just really centers me with my emotions.

My organizing methods aren't the best but, they get the job done for the most part. Basically I stick  my papers in my bag next to the folder in the correct order of my class periods. That's about it :) .

My name is Mason Alcaraz and I am a senior with a extremely bad case of senior-itis. I'm an athletic person that has a passion for music! I hope that this class helps me write my letters to college and prepares me for these next few years.