In honor of my best friend, Maria Laura Jorges’ birthday this week I’ve decided to share the story of how we became the best friends we are today. Before Maria J came to St. Joes from NDPA, my best friend was Maria Garcia. She had been basically my only close friend since third or fourth grade. Anyways, it was the first day of seventh grade; Maria G and I were standing with the rest of our grade waiting for the teachers to let us inside. All of a sudden we hear a voice ask “Don’t you know Tristen?” The voice was obviously not addressing me…Tristen was Maria G’s friend from dance who apparently also went to NDPA with Maria J. That is how our duo became a trio…this is not to say I was very happy with this. For mostly all of seventh grade I readily disliked Maria J, and according to her I made that quite apparent ;)

It wasn’t until the summer before seventh grade that I began to like Maria J. We had planned a sleepover and a day at the mall. She came over to my house and the next day we went hung out at the mall and then saw Shrek 3 (I still have the movie stub from this memorable day). This was the day I realized that Maria J wasn’t that bad, she was genuinely a sweet person and she was definitely not faking it as I had previously thought. Throughout eighth grade Maria, Maria, and I became the best of friends. I was there for Maria J’s Justin Bieber phase, I even watched his movie about 100 times, that’s how obsessed she was ;) Our friendship has only grown stronger throughout high school. Even though we may butt heads at times, we are quick to forgive and forget. Mostly because we have funny things to share with each other ;)

To this day I have never met a person as truly sweet at my little Maria. Even though at first I really didn’t like her, now I wouldn’t trade her for anything in the world. Maria is so genuinely sweet and caring, she will always put your needs before her own. Maria has so much potential and I know she will work hard to get far in life. I admire her a lot.

We’ve been through these crazy high school years by each other’s side and I don’t know how I would have survived without her. Happy 18^th Birthday Mary George! Here’s to many more years of our friendship, I love you!

Uncertainty

     This past week I’ve been thinking nonstop about the future. I don’t really like thinking too much about it because I know that nothing is set in stone. Things change, people change, everything changes. I have mixed feelings about change. I want to grow up and experience life, but at the same time I want to be a kid forever, it’s a catch 22. For me it’s hard to not be able to know how things will end up. Sometimes I wish I could just see myself in the future and know everything is going to turn out fine, but obviously I can’t do that. 

     Quite frankly, not knowing scares me. I can’t just let things happen because I care too much, I want to know. It seems like time goes by so fast that before we know it we’re going to die. I know that sounds drastic, but that’s just kinda how I’ve been feeling these past few days. There are certain things that I want to just be guaranteed, again I know nothing in this life is guaranteed, but I would feel a lot better having some reassurance. Even though I feel scared, there’s nothing I can do to slow down time or have a glimpse into the future. So I guess I will just have to trust in God that in the end everything will be okay.

The Big 1-8

This weekend was probably one of the best weekends of my entire life…my 18^th birthday was on Saturday, but I started to celebrate on Friday. I usually do something special everyday of the week leading up to the day of my birthday, but I was at State for most of the week. Even though we were only at State for a short time, it was full of many memories. I had planned being in Richfield for my birthday so nothing was really planned out. Because there was no set plan things were just spontaneous. After school on Friday I went to eat at Zupas, one of my favorite places to eat, with Maria, Marivel, JJ, and Des.

At around seven o’clock something pretty awesome happened. I got this call from an unknown number…it was someone from the admissions board of UC at San Diego. I received the best news, I GOT ACCEPTED TO UCSD! I love San Diego so much and I was so happy that I got accepted! San Diego is the best place to be, I probably won’t attend UCSD because the U also has a great chemistry program. But the fact that I got accepted is just amazing. On Saturday Maria had planned a surprise birthday breakfast that I had no idea about. We went shopping and had a crazy experience with a hairdresser. I went to get a haircut and she totally messed up my hair. It was a good thing I told her I only wanted two inches off. In such a hurry we had to find a different place to get my hair fixed. We were running all over Ogden like crazy people. We had to get home to get ready for dinner and my hair was literally a mess. Finally we stumbled upon a place to get my hair cut right.

After that horrendous ordeal, I finally get home and waited for P.Okey to come over so we could go to dinner in a few hours. Dinner was so delicious and I got free ice cream because it was my birthday :) I cannot believe I am 18! It really feels no different except for the fact that I have to now figure out what I am going to do with my life. Sincerely I have no idea, but no matter what I know I’ll always have great people by my side.

Unexpected

      Tonight….tonight was probably THE worst performance of my life. I’m not just talking about halftime the entire game was awful. After I hit the final stunt I instantaneously felt how awful I had done. It hit me like a ton of bricks, I couldn’t bring myself to even look at the coaches. That might sound like a little silly, but that’s how bad I performed. This was the game in which we really needed to bring our A game because there where cheerleaders from others schools there. We don’t really get to see other cheerleaders throughout the season, region and state is our time to see other school’s cheerleaders.

     Tonight I failed the coaches, my team, but most importantly I failed myself. I didn’t really realize exactly how much cheer means to me until this year. Of course I had always liked cheer otherwise I wouldn’t wear this uniform and cheer/perform at the games, but this year I realized that I love it (this is not to say that I am the best cheerleader out there because if you’ve ever seen my jumps you know that’s not the case). Regardless of that, if I were told I could never cheer again I would probably die because I would have nothing to do with my time. By this time everyone knows about the trouble that I happened to get into. When I realized how that was going to impact cheer, I literally broke into tears. All I could think of was not being able to cheer again, what if I got kicked off the team? I couldn’t even handle the thought of not being able to go out there with my team. And to be quite honest the academic punishment was nowhere near as painful as renouncing captain. Still to this day I do not regret stepping down because it was for the betterment of the team. 

     Back to tonight, this game was just so embarrassing because we all know we could have done better. We went out there and did everything half way. I know I wasn’t out there giving it my all, for all I know that could have been the last time I ever got to do something I love! Thankfully it’s not, but that’s not the point…we never know when will be the last time we get to see someone we love or do something we are passionate about. This super embarrassing game has reminded me to give everything I do my all, 110% and more if possible.

Sleepiness

Sleep…one of the most important things that the human body needs. Lately it’s something I have not been getting enough of and I know I’m not the only one. Every day as I walk through the halls I see students that look so tired and even in class people will often doze off. For whatever reason everyone always seems exhausted and lacking motivation. What surprises me is that this is not only happening within the upperclassmen, but this even includes the lowerclassmen! When I look back at freshman and sophomore year I don’t remember ever being tired, but now I as I talk to many freshmen and sophomores all they say is how they’re so tired. It is really unfortunate that they are already tired because they still have a long way to go lol.

Even though I am so fortunate to have the privilege to attend school it’s becoming a real struggle to wake up in the mornings. I have to set three different alarms just to make sure that I will wake up in time to shower and get ready. Even with my multiple alarms I always seem to be running late. On Friday it was a miracle that I was able to pick myself out of bed. I realize that our time here at St. Joes is coming to an end; we only have 3 months left! It may seem like a long time, but we’ll be wearing caps and gowns in the blink of an eye. So this coming week I will try something new, as soon as I wake up I will start my day off with a few positive thoughts. Even though it will most likely be a little hard to be positive considering I’ll want to continue sleeping, I want to change my outlook and try to be happier in the last stretch of my high school career.

PS- never get pasta from The Pizza Factory because you will get food poisoning, which leads to throwing up, which leads to a miserable weekend ;)