One thing I learned is that I’m terrible at gaslighting myself. In all honesty, it’s a good tactic! I tell myself I studied enough, or that I’ll have time in the day to ready myself. But, it never worked. I waltzed into senior year ready to tackle my last year of high school and have fun. I took three blended classes and that was the worst schedule decision I’ve ever made in my entire life. It sounds very ideal, having a blended 1, 4, and 8. But if you know me as a person, I have absolutely no restraint. I sleep in first, I hang out with friends 4th during their lunch, and 8th I just never paid attention to anything. Junior year was terrible for me mentally. I’ve also learned that I’m really bad at working with others. Since joining peer tutoring in the second semester of junior year, I’ve tutored a total of four sessions. Four. I went three times a week. Also, I’m a pe leader and I’ve become the same as the leaders I disliked when I was in my freshmen year. They should be more selective when it comes to this. I dealt with a lot of issues that I was terrified would affect me this year as well, so I decided to pretend everything was fine. Grades won’t matter in the future and all I should focus on is spending more time with friends and family before I have to become independent. 

Some advice I would give to incoming seniors is not to procrastinate on college applications. And ask for recommendations early. I had such a warped perception of college applications. I thought the personal essay would be easy to write, the supplemental essays were only like 150 words, and that I could finish them with no stress. That didn’t happen. I remember cramming in the little study room stressing about the essays. When you write these, isolate yourself, you’ll get nothing done with people around. To the incoming seniors, focusing on enjoying the school year is the most important. After this year, we’ll be waking up in a different room, and seeing different people, and social media is the only way we’ll be able to see updates from each other. 

The last six months have been pretty fulfilling for me. I used to hate the bus, I haven’t taken the bus since freshmen year, but the traffic is awful. The bus schedule just seems so glorious than my tardies. My dad once complained that I took his car, so I asked if he could drop me off, but he had the audacity to say it was too much work for him. As of today, while writing this post, my perspective of Gabriela Clara Hernandez has changed. “Is there an ‘e’ in Santa Claus(e)?”. I’ve started to respect my parents more. This sounds terrible but I’m talking in terms of taking care of someone. My dad went on a ton of business trips so it was just my mom and me for a little. But ever since we both got covid, she’s been pretty sick and I took up the initiative to pick stuff up for her and cook. I didn’t realize how exhausting it was to do. My parents made sure to check up on me a ton but I wanted to be someone they could rely on. Sometimes I have to remind myself that it’s my parents’ first time living and that they’re not perfect. 

Some lesson I’m going to take away from this year is that I really should do my work during blended times. My blended anatomy in the morning is not a late arrival nor a coffee opportunity. I need to learn how to stay more organized and manage my time better. Another thing I learned is that caffeine is never the answer. The drinks taste terrible and I just have cases of energy drinks that I can’t even chug because it’s carbonated. If I don’t sleep, I figure I’ll be fine if I just have an energy drink, and the anxiety I get from it is just a fun effect! 

I know that I’m still on a journey of self-discovery but so far senior year has been extremely fulfilling with my friends and family. I’ve gotten all the support I need and I’m not sure I’m ready to create another chapter of my life. 

My blog’s supposed to represent a recipe book but I’m just going to say piano is a recipe for disaster! 

I like making my hating the piano a part of my personality. I’m honestly surprised I didn’t write my personal statement about this silly little instrument. I feel like everyone I know has played the piano; it was just me who was robbed of the ability to quit. Since my high school career is coming to a close, my career as a pianist is also going to end. So, I’m going to reflect on the experiences my ability to play the piano has subjected me to.

Jazz Ensemble! I hate jazz with my whole being. Joining the jazz ensemble as an 8th grader was completely on me but it was a situation where I couldn’t just up and leave. I wanted to expand my horizons. I wanted to work in an ensemble. I wanted to like jazz. But most of all, I wanted to turn back time to when I wasn’t ambitious and stop myself from auditioning. I wasn’t creative enough to compose a fun little riff on the spot and lived completely on edge during rehearsals. It was way too hard to sight-read both hands at the written tempo and overall a mess every rehearsal and since the keyboard was connected to an amp I was just hyper-aware of how loud my mistakes were. I had a relatively okay background in music theory but what I had to do was completely unrelated! That overall experience was a 6/10 as the performances were kind of fun. This also serves as a formal apology for my lack of practice to those in this picture.

Orchestra! I don’t know what happened to me in this musical era but middle school orchestra was a disaster. I played the viola because it was such a popular and delightful instrument to play and I couldn’t wait to learn a third clef! For some reason, we had a large viola population and didn’t have enough scores to fill each stand. So my stand partner and I were granted the gift of the third violin part despite her preaches of how important the violas were. This caused so much unnecessary stress. Just because I could read multiple clefs didn’t mean I could blast a tune on any instrument. This continued on for all three years. It went all downhill in 8th grade. Joining jazz ensemble somehow was an invitation for my orchestra teacher to request me to play the piano for her. All the experiences I was put through really made me question what I was doing. I got such little information about

anything I did and little to no prep I just felt bad because I was dragging people behind. First, she asked if I wanted to play with the advanced ensemble and I was excited too because I had friends there but I really did regret it later. Anyway it was the same time as jazz ensemble in the morning so I obviously couldn’t do both and it was my fault one ensemble couldn’t rehearse. The piano did not play a key role in either one. The second instance that

really destroyed my faith was playing for the 5th-grade orchestra. I did what any musician does and played what was on the page but my teacher failed to inform me that the little elementary schoolers were performing at less than half my tempo. So I realized this DURING the performance and very well could not look up at her conducting or hear the orchestra because of the amp next to me or just even function. These instances are extremely trivial but I’m just as spiteful as 124.

Finally the last actually fulfilling experience I had with piano at school was Tyler’s Mr. NNHS act. I say that for only practicing for two weeks we were pretty good at something that was music related. What I found the most amusing was the fact counting was the main issue for us despite Tyler being the drum major and counting being ingrained into my head. Maybe it’s because the school had nothing to do with this experience or I had a choice of what to do that I actually enjoyed it. I enjoy performing with friends as it’s always a delightful experience to witness people playing instruments as it’s never a daily occurrence. If I ever ask to play a song together, I plead.

I know music is a great way to connect with others and I wouldn’t give up being a musician for anything but I really wish I had more stories about competitions rather than school experiences.