Maddison's Musings

It takes someone with a very special set of skills to trip up the stairs. I have those skills. I wish I didn't have these skills, but alas, I still manage to trip. And it's not even like once in a while I might stumble or something, but it's at least once or twice a month and I totally just trip and it's awful and embarrassing. 

I wish I was talking about tripping up the stairs at home, but nope. I don't have stairs in my house (although when I did I would trip while running up them about once every few days... I wish I was joking). I trip up the stairs at school. Out of all of the places in the entire world, of course I would be the one to be clumsy at school in front of everyone else trying to get to class. God bless the fact that I don't give a single crap about what people (especially the irrelevant twats at school) think of me, so it's not that emotionally scarring.

In fact, when I tripped this morning, the girl behind me asked if I was okay, and then she tripped, so that honestly made my day. I don't care if she meant it or not, but the fact that I wasn't the only one made everything better. We then laughed at ourselves and made it (successfully) to the top without another mishap.

The weirdest thing isn't the fact that I trip, but I'm usually not a very clumsy person. I'm just going to blame it on my school because those stairs are steeper than the ones in the main building, so obviously that's the problem. Yep, that should help my self esteem. Blame it on the school.

Does anyone else have this problem? Please tell me I'm not the only one.

~Maddison

Most people want the perfect 4.0, 100, straight A's, etc etc, and I totally understand that, I want that too. However, I'm starting to realize that it's okay not to be perfect, as long as you're trying. Now, I'm not saying that grades aren't important, they totally are, but it's not the end of the world if you end up having a B in a class. Getting one bad grade won't hurt you. In fact, having a somewhat lower grade in a harder level class can actually be for your benefit. For example, say you took Pre-AP (or honors) Chemistry and you're getting an 87 in the class. Although yes, you want the A, it's better than taking regular chemistry and getting an 99 in the class. Colleges don't just look at your GPA and grades, they look at your course load and how well you're doing with the classes overall.

Also, having a lower grade in a class does NOT make you stupid. Some people don't understand or like a particular subject, and that's totally okay. If you're not good at art, *cough* me *cough* nobody will ridicule you for it and it will simply just "not be your thing." However, some people don't apply the same logic to other classes such as English, Math, History, Science, all of the required courses, etc etc. This irritates me because then the person is labeled as "stupid," when in reality they just don't get that subject. For me, having an 85 in ceramics is killing me, since I hate that it's my one B, but I'm learning to just accept it. I'm trying my hardest, and that's all that matters. When I apply to colleges, they won't look at my transcript and think, "Oh no, she got an 85 in ceramics, she obviously can't be accepted." No. They won't. I'm a writer. I write. I want to be a journalist, an author, a blogger, a writer. I don't see myself making clay pots for my career. It's simply something I'm just okay at. And that might be you with something else.

Sometimes, you just have to be happy with the fact that you're trying and learning, so who cares what anyone else thinks. To me, trying is everything. Effort shows through far brighter than anything else.

Upon having this realization, it's been weird to think about, almost scary even. I'm a really good student (my GPA is a 3.8), and I excel in school, so the thought of not getting really good grades kind of scares me, I'm not going to lie. The thought of getting a C in a class is appalling to me. I allow myself to have one B a year, because I know that there will be at least one class in which getting an A would be harder for me. I gave myself this little break when I received my first B (an 89, so close yet so far to that 90 A) in a pre-algebra class in seventh grade. Throughout middle school (seventh and eighth grade), My B was pre-algebra and algebra one. Granted, the "B" was nearly an A, as I had anywhere from an 88-93 average for the two years, but some grading periods it just wanted to stay an 89. Then, I did geometry last year and I hated it. I praised my 85 average. The funny thing though is that this year, my algebra two grade has been a high A all year, so I guess I'm finally back on good terms with math.

I think it's good to allow yourself one or two (or three, whatever you want) "lower" grades a year. Lord knows that if I forced myself to have straight A's, especially during high school, I would probably already have a head full of gray hair. Allowing yourself grace times to be a human and not some robot genius is good. Challenge yourself, but know your limits.

~Maddison

Music recommendation: Technicolour Beat by Oh Wonder

Here's a link to it on YouTube: Technicolour Beat by Oh Wonder

It's such a great song, my friend Court suggested it to me and I've been listening to it nonstop. I love it.

Growing up, I read a lot. I mean a LOT. I was always reading and it was fantastic. But for the past few years, especially since I entered high school, I've found that I don't read that often anymore. I simply "don't have the time" (yet I find the time to mindlessly scroll Tumblr for hours...). In all honesty, I have plenty of time- I have all of the time in the world, yet I simply just spend all of that time on the internet.

I wanted to change this habit, so last year for one of my goals I wanted to read at least 100 books. Yeah, that totally didn't happen. I had the intention to, I really did, but alas I had a ton of homework and was constantly on the internet. I think I read a total of about ten books last year, nowhere near the hundred that I wanted to read. 

I'm proud to say though that this year, I've read about thirteen books so far! That's three more than I read in all twelve months last year. Bringing books to school really helps. You never know when you're not going to do anything in class, and having a book you actually want to read on hand is a lifesaver.

Granted, I am a naturally fast reader and I love everything about reading, so it's definitely nice being able to just read and save my phone battery sometimes. Reading is a nice way to escape the real world and dive into a world that someone else has created. As long as I'm reading, I'm not thinking about life, I'm just focused on my book. It's truly one of the best feelings.

I've been thinking about doing a few book reviews on here just for fun, so I might just do that soon (or not, who knows). But, if I don't do reviews, I'll definitely try to list some of my favorite books and such every once in a while.

~Maddison

My favorite books I've read so far this year:

The Giver- Lois Lowry 

Any of Ellen Degeneres' books 

We Should Hang Out Sometime- Josh Sundquist

And anything by John Green

It's been a very long while, I know. But you see, the problem is that I've simply felt "blah" and couldn't write. I don't really know how to explain my feelings without hand gestures and weird facial expressions, but it's just that general blah feeling, you know?

Besides feeling weird, I've done some things in the past month that are pretty cool I think. I started  April off by finally getting my driver's license, and it feels so amazing to be able to go anywhere by myself. If we're being totally honest here, all I ever do when I drive by myself is sing. Not even to any music, but I just sing. The car is the only place where I can be truly alone, so I just sing my heart out. It's amazing and I love it.

Also this month, I learned how to merge both of my blogs together so now instead of hardly updating two blogs, now I just have one to hardly post on. I'm kidding. Kind of. I've also added tags to all of my posts, so that should help with organization and stuff.

It's so weird to think that April is almost over. We're almost one third of the way done with 2015. That's absolutely insane to think about. I'm really excited for May to come because once that's over then it will be June and on June 18th I have my last day of school. Honestly, God bless. I'm so done with school here it's insane. And hopefully in the next two months my family will know what the heck we're going to do about moving home or not. Oh how I wish that we'll actually move home this summer. Maybe once I'm home I'll feel happier. I don't know.

I have lots of ideas for blog posts (I literally have a huge list on my phone), but I have no idea when my next post will be or what about. What do you do when you feel all empty and blah? Does anything help you? Let me know if the comments if you want, or not, I won't be upset. I love each and every person who reads my blog and I hope you're all feeling happy and content.

~Maddison

Today my little brother and I had a sudden strike of inspiration and decided that we wanted to cook the family dinner tonight. We found self-rising rolls in the freezer while scavenging things for lunch, so we put those out because they're delicious. Then, whilst eating lunch, we thought that we should just cook dinner for everyone.

We rummaged through the house to look for things to cook. We found chicken breasts and various chips, so we decided on chip crusted chicken chunks (which can be found easily with a simple Google search). We've made these before, and they were amazing, so we thought why not do it again. We set the chicken out to thaw for a few hours and got our plans for dinner ready.

We had lots of fun making dinner together. We ended up making three flavors of the chip crusted chicken chunks: Fritos, Sour Cream and Onion, and Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos. We also had leftover chicken breasts since we over calculated how much chicken we would need, so we put a little bit of seasoning on them and started grilling them on the stove top. Meanwhile, we were also cooking pasta, the rolls we found earlier, green beans, iceberg lettuce salad, and a fruit salad.

Cooking dinner together was filled with laughs and everything tasted delicious, if I do say so myself. It was also a great way to give back to my family. Mom didn't have to worry about finding something to make, and we even did the dishes after. It was a really good time.

I encourage you to make dinner for your family once soon. It's so rewarding, and you won't regret it. But also make sure to offer to do the dishes after as well, no matter how much you hate doing them.

Chicken and sides

I hope that my little brother and I will make dinner for the family again soon- it was a ton of fun and a really rewarding experience.

~Maddison