Weekly Blog 2-2 (45): Example of Exhaustion

 Hello 'Ilima

To say that I am tired would be a massive understatement. So much stuff has just been happening and more things are going to be added to my plate. This busy week started with the GT coming to Leadership. The GT were three girls and I had known two of them beforehand as one of them was my friend’s sister and the other one was in my elementary’s school Lion King play. The third one, Sonora, happened to be the one in my period and she was pretty cool. The 7th graders in my period taught Sonora how to blog and helped her create her covers with minimal help which was a proud moment for me as it shows that we have been teaching them well. Moving on, the Complex Area Superintendent (CAS) came to ‘Ilima for a tour and the Student Body Government had to give him a presentation and tour. We had been preparing with a slideshow and evenly split up the slides so that we would be ready for when the CAS came. At 8 AM, we arrived in a conference room and Mr. Greenland showed us the slideshow we would be presenting. Here’s the thing about this slideshow, it was different from the one that we had been using as preparation. Apparently, the slideshow we had been using as prep was old and was not going to be us which caused all of us to freak out. But the slideshow wasn’t the only thing we got wrong. We had thought the CAS was going to arrive at 8:30, but he actually was supposed to come at 9:30 which gave us a hour of time to learn the new slides. So for the next hour we did exactly that and when the CAS arrived, we were ready. The presentation went a lot smoother than I had thought it was gonna go and the CAS was a very chill person. He asked us some questions and we had an overall nice conversation with him. After the presentation, we were supposed to give him a tour but then the power went out unexpectedly. This power outage extended to many other schools and it was very odd. But the show continued on and the tour was decent. The classes were just doing some activities in the dark when we would walk in and the CAD would just observe the students. Overall, the whole process went well and I think the CAS enjoyed his time. Then, Thursday was a double header including ISA and Family Nite. The ISA was Boy’s Volleyball and Girl’s Basketball at Kapolei Middle School and it was probably my favorite ISA. For starters, I remembered to bring my water so I wasn’t dehydrated throughout the day. The sun was also not as bright as it was on the other ISAs which made it less miserable then it usually was. But it was still tiring and my neck was aching. Oh and another thing, there was this one kid who was super tall that I had to literally crank my head up to see his face. It was insane and he was also pretty good at volleyball. Moving on, the Family Nite was later on that day and it was Social Studies and ELA. I was working the NHD booth which I was excited for as I heard that my project from last year was going to be used for it. During my Period 1, we helped set up and at around 3:30 we got situated at the cafe. My booth was outside and we needed to set up display boards and computers, but there were a couple problems. 1. The wind would knock down the display boards and I would have to keep on fixing the boards. 2. There was an issue with signing into the computers. We needed to be in Mr. Cole’s account but it would only allow him to sign into 2 computers. So he had to email each link to me and Meygan (the GT I was working with). But once we had the websites and videos up, we realized that the computers would turn off if it wasn’t interacted with for a time. So we would have to run our hands over the computer every now and then to make sure they wouldn’t turn off. These issues were just some annoyances, but the worse part was the heat. I was so exhausted from the ISA and to stand in the heat for hours for the Family Nite was torture. My head was being to hurt and I could feel my heart pounding with hard pulses. I tried drinking a whole lot of water, but I was still hurting. When my parents came to do my activities, I was able to get a little break. But I was feeling absolute terrible and my parents handed me the car keys so I could eat some food they had. When I got to my car, I opened the door and got the Starbucks pack in the back seat. It was the pack that had 2 eggs, apples, grapes, bread, and cheese which was something that I used to have a lot. I started eating but I started to feel nauseous. I forced myself to keep eating but then it all came up and I threw up my guts in the parking lot. The only positive I could say is that my head felt better as throwing up always makes my headaches go down. After throwing up, I had used my walkie to ask for napkins so that I could clean my face up. My parents came to clean me up and I came back mostly better. Overall that Thursday was like an unchecked fire. It started small but it got larger and larger until the whole house burnt down. Besides these events, school has just been as awful as always. Because of the CAS and the ISA, I had missed my 4 core classes and I had to get caught up on that while having a Financial Literacy test. I desperately need a vacation as I will just overwork my body into a coma at the rate I’m going. Next week is Halloween and I have been having some troubles with it. Parts of my costume were not going to arrive in time and so I had to go to Party City and find the pieces I needed. But I’m keeping hope and I feel like my costume will turn out nice. One last note until we move on, I updated my homepage for my blog! I created a whole new banner using art of shows that I watched and made a new color scheme for the site. I hope you like it as it was confusing trying to figure out all the buttons.

Me on the Bus Ride to Kapolei 

SBG Group Picture

Everybody in ‘Ilima

A highlight from this week would be it ending. Okay I’m joking, kind of. The real first highlight would probably be the GT arriving. It’s nice to have some new faces and it will be cool to find out what they bring to the group. Another highlight would probably be the beginning of the NBA Season. It has been an eventful first couple of games and this season is going to turn out to be a strange one. The first highlight of the week would be my Thursday. I was so tired that whole day from ISA and Family Nite and heat exhaustion is never fun. I actually threw up twice that day as when I got home I needed to throw up again. The other lowlight would be schoolwork for the same reasons I said in the last section. There is just so much stuff to do and I am overworked and overwhelmed. I actually came up with an idea to protest school. ‘Ilima students can start a movement to fight for the rights of us children. I could ask the majority of students here if they are exhausted and they would say yes. Our peaceful protest would fight for a change in the school’s schedule and the schools curriculum. In an earlier blog, I mentioned my idea on how to shorten the day. For a short recap, make school start at a later time so that students can get the right sleep they need. Then shorten classes to 1 hour as it still gives the teacher time but condenses it so that only the main things are talked about. After that, you increase the break time or cause school to end earlier. This whole plan would up student productivity while making the jobs of teachers easier. Then for the curriculum, make the work matter more. Teach us things that we would actually need to know in the future and allow us to do more hands on projects. This mix of things would make class more interesting and more meaningful. Anyway, this week was pretty miserable.

The lesson I learned from this week is that some people’s expectations are too high. I’m like a freak show act juggling 9 balls while walking across a line of fire all while rocks are getting thrown at me. So much is on my plate that I just can’t comprehend. Teachers and adults need to realize that we are still human. Children aren’t just some monsters that are made for work and labor. We have our own dreams, passions, goals, and minds that just aren’t respected all of the time. Children aren’t as different from adults as people lead you to believe. It’s just very troubling and I hope that maybe some change can happen later in life. With that being said, this concludes my blog. I hope you have a great week. Cheers to another day!