Candidate Journals

Fifty journals! That's really cool. I really like the idea of reflecting on my day and writing about it, I think it's made me a lot more relaxed after putting my thoughts down somewhere. I wish I had been more consisten with these journals, but I also think I'm going to continue journaling somewhere! Testing is just about ~2 days away, which is really exciting! I'm so glad I get to be on this cycle, and I hope to make my first Master, the one who believed in me when I didn't believe in myself, Master Gina, proud! Goodluck to everyone!!

School was really normal today, nothing super interesting, but taekwondo was fun! I needed two more mentee sessions, so I got to work with a yellow belt and high yellow belt! It was confusing because I believe those two poomsaes are really similar to eachother. After having them do 'minion poomsae' (doing their poomsae on their knees) and 'animal poomsae' (doing their poomsae based on an animal, they chose a cat), my brain was getting tripped over the two. So, I had them work on hopstep kicks. They raced down the mats, which I thought was a good idea until I saw them doing more running down the mat and less kicking down the mat. I challenged them to instead do really good kicks down the mat, and anytime they (purposefully) did a bad kick, whether that be from speed or not trying, they had to do 3 jumping jacks. They...

I was asleep for a lot of yesterday. When I woke up around 12 I went downstairs to eat, stretch my arms (that still hurt today?!), and helped my dad clean around the house. We also saw a lamborghini while driving around, and I made the joke of crashing into it. My dad was fully against it, jokefully disagreeing because that would be way too expensive. He then laughed and said he should race it in our 2007 Honda Odyssey. 

This morning was the Harrisburg dojang physical and written test. I beat everything from my pretest, including the run! I am very proud of that. However, as I still couldn’t do a pull up, I did another top hold. I wanted to at least double my time, from 3 seconds to 6. Although I felt weak, as this was the last thing we did for the physical test, I pushed through and got 6!! In doing so, sadly, I fell from the bar to the ground. I was still trying to hold onto the bar as I fell, and pulled my shoulder muscles and whatever is near the elbow. It hurt really bad. I did the written test, but it started hurting more. Luckily, I didn’t have to focus on the answers and rather focused on memorization. I wanted to stay, so I iced it for a few seconds and tried...

Today was a nice day off, I got to work on preparing myself for my physical and written test tomorrow. I'm a little frustrated, because while there was improvement on things, I did not improve as much as I had hoped to. However, my expectations were a lot higher, and I'm still proud of the improvement.  However, I did worse on my time today. I understand every day is different, but it sucked seeing I took 14 minutes when on my pretest I took 12.  As nervous as I am tomorrow, I am also so excited, because tomorrow is just another step closer to the 22nd! Goodluck Harrisburg :D

I don't have school tomorrow, which is very nice because it means I get another whole day to focus on TKD, which will be especially helpful because Harrisburg students have their physical and written test this Saturday! Our final test is so close, I can't believe its almost here :O Today is also my favorite day (in March, anyway), 3/14! Otherwise known as Pi day!!!! Its based on the first three numbers in pi, 3.14. Established in 1988 by an Exploratorium (San Francisco science museum) employee named Larry Shaw, its known for celebrating the number essential for various mathematic equations, like the ones used to send a rocket into space!

I haven't been sleeping well recently, I have been swamped in a lot of work recently. I planned to sleep early tonight, but immdiately fell asleep when I got home. I missed the high belt class, but I was able to make it to the black belt class time. However, there wasn't a black belt class today, but instead I got to work with Master Foster on Bo Cho Dan specials and self defense, high blue belt's yuk chang, and hapkido 4! It was very fun :) Mrs. Palmer also bought boxwood shrubs for the testing Bo Cho Dans', and I'm very grateful she did! I couldn't do anything with the plant tonight, but tomorrow (or at least, by Friday) I plan to go ahead and put it into a pot and water it! 

I went at 6:45PM today, but instead of helping out with the senior tiger class, I worked on some requirements I know I can't do at home. I worked on falling, and was getting frustrated that I couldn't do a perfect front fall or side fall. I reflected on the car ride home after the adult class, and realized I have made progress since the beginning of the cycle. I'm proud of this progress, but wish that I could at least have a proper fall by testing.  

Today was the first day back from spring break, and it was very fun! I got to see all my friends again, and we immediately all started arguing over who slept the most over break (it was me). We had precalc first, and it was so much fun working on trig identities (it was not fun, I'm still working on it even though we had 90 minutes to work on it in class). The practice problems were easy, but the homework was horrible. Eventually, I'll understand them, but maybe not today. I mean, how did they figure out sec^2θ-tan^2θ=1..?!

I didn't really do much today. I helped cleaned around the house, and ran around with a swiffer on the wood floors simply because it was fun to do! I also prepared my bag for school tomorrow by cleaning it out and making sure it had everything I needed for school. I really just didn't do much today, but I guess thats okay

Classes started at 9AM and ended at 12:30PM, a nice Saturday of TKD! I realized the packing day for Bags of Hope was today after I had left, and I was disappointed I had missed it because I was very excited about it. It was okay though.  I also learned that what I did with the green belts (doing their poomsaes in the engaging matters I learned at Instructor's Camp) stuck with them! One of the 3 that I worked with came up to me and started laughing about how "weird" it was. The day I was working with the 3, I noticed all of them were laughing and enjoying it, especially the one that came up to me. Him telling me about how he felt about the engaging poomsaes told me that he found the practice enjoyable and memorable enough to talk to me about days a few days later. I was...

I still wasn't feeling good from yesterday, and continued my streak of concerningly large sums of sleep. I missed the advanced sparring class the one chance I could actually make the full class (I come home from school at 5:00-5:10 and would reach the class way later). This was really frustrating, but I managed to make it to the weekend black belt class a few minutes before it started. I still wasn't feeling well, and felt lost on the poomsaes that we were reviewing, which was especially frustrating when I knew I could do them.  Only two or less weeks left, and I will push forward :D

I woke up later than I have been this week, and was greeted with nausea. For the rest of the day, I really just slept, especially seeing my whole body felt heavy, and I felt like I couldn't move anything. Everything hurt, and I felt ridcuously drained. I wish I had something better to write about, but I just felt sick today.

While I helped out with the high greenbelts in today's high belt class, I used what Master Shin talked about in his seminar at Instructor's Camp! I had them do Tae Keuk Sa Chang twice the normal way, and I could see boredom slowly forming. Then I had them stand on their knees, and they were very confused. They were concerned about how to kick and how to do their stances, but I just told them to figure it out. I did the poomsae on my knees alongside them, and although they fell over a lot they really enjoyed it. We still had a few minutes after that, so I asked someone to give me an animal. One of them said monkey, so every four steps in the poomsae, they had to pat their head and rub their belly. I came up with this because they said monkeys eat bananas and...

I started feeling worse than Friday, which is absolutely wonderful especially since it is spring break (not). I slept a lot recently I feel like a bear in hibernation.  I’m very excited to eat frozen yogurt tomorrow!! I haven’t eaten it in a few years, and I wonder what flavors they’ll have :)

Good morning!! I wasn’t feeling well on Thursday and immediately knocked put after camp yesterday haha Camp was very fun!! I loved working with other instructors in training from various dojangs, and I made some nee friends that I’ll hopefully see next year!  One big takeaway was learning from the small group class that repetition is not the same as monotony. While it is important to do a poomsae, or self defense, or even a kick, over and over again with students, it doesn’t have to be the exact same all the time. For example, you can teach a poomsae using animals! You ask students for their favorite animal, maybe they’ll say a bunny, and then do the poomsae with the characteristic of a bunny, like hopping after every step.  I’m excited to go back next year!

Yesterday I wasn’t feeling very well, so I went to sleep the moment I got home. I also didn’t go to school today, as I still didn’t feel well and my school cancelled the zoo trip. Today would have basically been a free for all day, so it was better for me to stay home!!  I’m very excited for Instructor’s Camp tomorrow, and I’m excited to learn anything new! I hope we get to do things outside tomorrow, because I remember not being able to do that last year!

Blaze Pizza is doing a sale on 3/14, where any 11in pizza is $3.14. Is there a secret catch to this? Probably. As an early college I will proudly admit we are a bunch of nerds, especially my friend group. I got tired of Physics work so I went on my phone, where I saw the glorious $3.14 pizzas ad! I showed it to my friends, and since we're all nerds and just finished the trigonometry unit (which included the unit circle and... pi) we all got very excited over it. We're planning to geek out to our Precalculus teacher. She's either going to be excited with us or be concerned. I'll find out tomorrow!

I had the first part of my math midterm today, and I don't think I did too bad!! I have the second part of the midterm tomorrow, so after I helped out with the senior tiger class I went home to review. I'm also planning on waking up earlier tomorrow to do a final review.  Working with the high white belts was fun! I noticed that their sidekicks were looking like round houses because they didn't really grasp bringing their legs in, so i had them balance small square targets while in the sidekick chamber position! They were laughing and enjoying it the whole time, and it was rewarding to see them having fun (because I've always found it harder to engage with senior tigers than it is with junior tigers) and especially rewarding to see them connect the dots! Once they realized all the had to do was tuck their...

Today I failed a math test. I know I failed because I did not know half the questions on there. However, I am glad I failed. I usually stick to exactly what the teacher has given us to study, and not study on my own. That became a problem because there were things on the test I learned but did not study as intensely as everything else. I've learned I should be in depth about everything I study, as it'll benefit me.  Failure is important. Without failure, I couldn't learn the difference between doing something the right or wrong way. It'd be difficult to have morals if nothing ever goes wrong. I learn from failure, and it makes me better as a whole. Also, in English 111, we somehow got onto the topic of Fortnite and how we can form an argument essay. My idea was videogames how it has had...

Today we went out to The Cheesecake Factory for lunch! I got a strawberry cheesecake and the little strawberries were super good :D I’m currently working on reviewing for my unit test tomorrow on trig and the unit circle, and I also have to review for my two day long midterm coming up the day after my unit test. So fun and exciting..

The math socratic seminar did not go as bad as I thought it would have! It was really fun talking with my classmates and figuring out math problems. There were things we didn't understand, but we pushed through them as a group, whether that was hunting down a video and trying to interpret it, or someone who knew a concept well explaining it to the rest of us. There were times when I led the group to find the answer, such as when they had a question about the laws of sine and cosine. I am strong and confident in those laws, so I was able to teach my class how to solve it. It was rewarding seeing their faces when the dots connected! There were also times I followed. I am not strong in special right triangles, so I went up to the board when it was my turn and asked...

Today at school I learned I have a socratic seminar in precalc. I am not sure how I am supposed to have a class discussion about math in the same way I would have a discussion over a book or a general topic, but I guess I'll figure it out! Also, fantastically, this socratic seminar counts towards our unit test next monday, and we get points just for discussing. This is good news, but would have been better news if I could figure out how to discuss math like literature >:( I attended Grandmaster Lee's 6:45 high belt class today, as I come home too late to partake in his seminar. It was a really interesting and fun class, and I really enjoy learning in his class. Something that stuck with me was his talk about how there is always more to improve. If you can kick at 15mph, you're fast,...

I woke up around 3AM this morning and realized I could not get myself to fall asleep. I thought nothing much of it, and instead used the time to write some college essays, work on some requirements, and study some precalc (which I am definitely understanding). Then I went to school. After school, I concluded that not sleeping has severely adverse affects, especially when falling asleep late (12AM) and waking up early (aforementioned 3AM), such as becoming incomprehensible to my friends. I thought it would be in my best interest to take a nap. I set an alarm for 6PM, as I came home at 5PM and after showering and helping unload dishes it was 530PM, and it seemed like adequate time. I would be up in time to do homework and get ready for the 650PM high belt class and the black belt class right after. Except I was ridiculously way...

I took my classes today, such as the sparring class and helping out with the junior tigers. Then I had the greatest idea to coke home, lie down for an hour, and then work on my English 111 essay and some physics work. In reality, I’ve only woken up about 10 minutes ago, and it is currently 11:18 PM. Maybe not the greatest idea to lie down, but it was a good “nap” (slumber, really). 

Hello!! I am currently on the route for my black belt class. Today is the third day of my white belt week! I sadly couldn’t go on Wednesday to help out with testing because my sister usually has a tutoring class somewhere else, and Thursday I had an after school event I had paid for.  The event was really fun! It was a trivia night in the same style as a Jeopardy game. There were a bunch of teams, and although my team didn’t win anything, during an individual round my friend won!! It was also fun arguing over the correct answer and then learning all of our answers were wrong.  I’m sorry I didn’t journal those two days, I got busy with college and physics.

Another late journal, because I'm ever so great at time management! Today, I helped out in the senior tiger class. I led a warm up and then did worked with Deetya to help the high white belts learn Chagi Sool! We noticed their kicks weren't the sharpest, so we had them balance their legs to hold a square target to practice their knee positioning; we told them if they could balance the target they had a good position, and they were very entertained. Honestly, so were we, especially as the high white belts struggled at first. Eventually, they all did well, and it was rewarding to see them succeed! I should really work on my time management..

Today was my fort day as a white belt! I decided to tie my belt into a bow for the act, and I found it funny alongside other people!! The belt surprisingly stayed on for the class, but while I did some mentorship with Deetya and Master Foster, it immediately fell off after we started Hapkido 2 (wasn’t surprised). 

A quick journal before I fall asleep!! Today I made a couple of drawings on these paint swatches I found! Each paint swatch had a name and, obviously, a color, so I drew something based on that. My favorite was ‘Bread Basket’, which was a painfully simple one but it was something I didn’t normally draw, which was nice

This morning I went to take some classes. During my 9AM sparring class, however, I got kicked in the knee fast and hard, but I didn’t want to think much of it. I iced it for a few minutes then went back on the mats. Two hours later, it feels worse than it did at 9AM. I went home to properly RICE (rest, ice, compression and elevate) it, alongside some light movement/stretches. None of it seems to help, but I’m sure it’ll be better tomorrow morning.

Today, I had to stay mute for 12 hours. It was difficult being unable to put my input on things, but it helped me be a better listener. It was entertaining watching my friends try to get me to talk throughout the school day and during the weekend black belt class. To my success, they failed.  My school friends had tried poking fun, making me laugh, and bribery to make me talk. In the end though, they were super impressed with my determination and helped me through the day, explaining to other people why I couldn’t talk and taking the time to translate my gestures. My friend even taught me some sign language; although simple, I’m really grateful for them. 

I fell asleep sometime inbetween read my book for school, Night by Elie Wiesel, and doing requirements. I’ll have to do some math when I get home today to find out how much I did, oops!  Today, we have a socratic seminar, and while usually I tend to watch more than speak, I want to be more involved in the conversation today.  I’m going mute tomorrow, as it is a Friday which means my classes are shorter and we do a lot of team based activities during the second half of the school day. Because it is team based, I’m going to have to find out creative ways to communicate with my group, as we’re normally not allowed to use our phones. It is going to be interesting, and good for my essay!!!

HI :) Today I went to TKD at around 6:40, and came home around 8:50. I worked on rolls and falls, pull ups, and planks for the time from 6:40 to 7:35. Then I took an adult class, where we worked on our self defenses, and I got to work with Mrs. Palmer!! After that, I worked with Jill, my mentee. We worked on her kicks for yellow belt and her self defenses. I mixed up high yellow and yellow belt, but I did fix that. She also got to use Matthew as her target. I'm not sure what his relation is to her, except that he makes an excellent punching bag. I have a math test tomorrow, which I'll pretend to be excited about. I know that stuff, its just the pressure that comes in the form of a test. yaaayyy mathh I also tried to explain velocity to my friend in...

Good 9:09 PM! I finally got to take some classes today, a high belt class and then a black belt class. I then got to take a mentorship with Master Foster and Deetya. Although I am a little tired, I have many things to work on, and that in itself is motivating! I'm utilizing my laptop's timer again, so I can have focus periods for schoolwork and then take breaks to work on requirements :D Overall, a good day!!

I do not have anything much to write except for how I wasn’t feeling well. But I’d rather write something positive.  I bought myself some craft fabric and made flowers out of them! It was difficult trying to figure out what to do because I had bought fabric instead of felt, but they came out nicely! 

Yesterday had the ability to be a very productive day as I did not have work that was immediately due tomorrow. I was tired, and decided an hour nap would do good for me. This nap then became a slumber from 5:30pm-7:30am. Not only did I sleep over 12 hours, I woke up later than I normally do on school days. I’m assuming the sleep debt caught up to me. Is this a sign to sleep earlier instead of staying up late to do schoolwork? Yes. Will I acknowledge it? Absolutely not. They told me sophomore year would be the hardest year because of the college courses I’ll be taking alongside the junior and senior year honors classes. I should have believed that!!!!!   But the slumber wasn’t that bad because there was this one dream about a carnvial on a beach with a really large rocking horse that looked the...

I found out that my laptop has a feature that has a 'focus timer' which is very helpful! It sets a timer based on how many minutes I want to work and then blocks out any distractions, something i am veeryy prone to. It also has specific times for me to take breaks! In school today my American History teacher helped us play a joke. She 1/3 of the class to take a walk around the school, and told the remaining 2/3 that when they come back, the people in the class would interview eachother while the 1/3 outside would take notes. The catch was the interviewer and interviewee were told to purposely talk fast, loud, distractedly and indecipherably, to make it hard for the notetakers. It was very entertaining to see them frantically try to take notes. This was to show why the difference between Gray's two sets of notes he...

Bad day today; I wanted to finish physics, my narrative essay, start work on a tkd essay, and do requirements all today but instead spent the majority of it asleep. I do not enjoy falling sick easily. You would think the amount of times I get sick my immune system would be stronger!!! I do not have much else to say, goodnight kt! 

I did not journal yesterday because I was and am still not feeling well. I'm assuming it is a light cold, but it knocked me out cold that I went to bed the moment I got from from my bbc weekend class and woke up at 12. Sadly that meant I couldn't attend sparring for today, which honestly sucks because I was looking forward to it. Our Friday class consisted of a lot of self defense from white to green, and I'm excited to have more curriculum packed bbc classes!! I don't know how to end this journal so I'm looking around my room for an idea; my lego flowers are pretty!

Balanced by extremes day: I probably failed the second part of my math test but I also got to go to tkd today! I got a mentorship with Master Knight to work on stick and staff form #1, helped out with junior tigers, led warm ups and the drill with the senior tigers, and then worked with my mentee! I also worked on "pull ups" which are really just hangs with the occasional attempt to pull up, but they're something rather than nothing!! I have math homework to finish, and then I'll work on reviewing American History for my test tomorrow. Or maybe I'll fall asleep. I'll know in 20 minutes.

Tenth journal! I’m one fifth of the way there!! I decided to write a little earlier today. I’m currently in my ENG 111 class, and we have a workshop day today, so we’re meant to be working on our Narrative Essay. I’m writing about my test for my Bo Cho Dan. I got tired of writing it for an hour straight, so I took a break to journal! I had the first part of my Precalculus math test earlier, and I don’t think I did too bad on it! It hasn’t been graded yet, but I’m pretty sure I missed at most two. I have a ton of Physics work to catch up on, as the self paced course won’t allow me to move onto another assignment until the previous one was graded. Have a nice day :D

I am not enjoying precalc. However, I think it is just how the first unit played out, as the next unit seems a lot more interesting. Probably complicated, but at least I'll be able to enjoy problem solving instead of having to repeat things in this first review unit. I have a math test that starts tomorrow and ends on Thursday, so that will be interesting. I am reviewing my work and hoping I can connect the dots by tomorrow morning.

I hope everyone is having a good 11:47PM! I am tired of working on precalculus work. I decided to try running right after I got home from school instead of waiting and forgetting, and it didn't go as badly as I thought it would! I only got one mile in, but it is better than 0!!

Very eventful day (not): I did some requirements and then napped. I like napping!! It was a concerningly long nap but a good nap nonetheless. I'm going to see if I can get myself a little ahead in physics work now :)

Today was a good day! I got to go to my 9am sparring class, help out with junior tigers, get some requirements done, and play tiger ball!! Master Knight let me lead small groups of junior tigers, and I had them work on basic punches and kicks. I hope to be a little more enthusiastic and come up with more engaging ideas next time!! :D We got Popeye's for lunch, and then I came home and took a ridiculously long nap (I woke up 20 minutes ago). Goodnight!!

It is unbelievable how much work you can miss once school is in session-- physics is going to eat up a lot of my time. Today, after school, I took part in the black belt class and got work on various poomsaes and self-defense done. I also got some rolls in, which was fun to do! Afterward, I ate tacos from the potluck after the class. Now I'm going to frantically work on physics and hope it makes sense to me.

As I didn’t get to go to school today, I decided to work on some requirements that I was missing, so that I could start chipping away at it. I also got to go to taekwondo today, so I went earlier than my class to get a mentor session in with Master Knight. I haven’t taken my class yet, but I am excited for it. At my dentist’s appointment, I got my rubber bands replaced with the colors orange and blue, and they look nice!! 

Tomorrow I can't go to school because I have a dentist's appointment that is very far from my school. I will be able to use that time to my advantage to hopefully finish catching up on everything as I was unfortunately swamped in schoolwork today. In ENG 111 today we talked about how to write a narrative essay which I hope to use the information taught in the essays for the cycle! We also talked about Denny's and Wafflehouse in the same class period, which was interesting. We were talking about how to structure the narrative essay based off of a memory, and my professor came up with a fake memory involving one of my friends and him having a sword fight in front of a Denny's and a Wafflehouse.

Hi! Today I decided to run around 3 miles, which took me a while, but got me closer to being on track with the requirements I've missed. I had a day off today, so I took the chance to bake banana muffins and learn to make cheesesticks (at the very least, they didn't burn!). I also finished up some physics homework, and started my American History project! 

Good evening! I am (finally) getting around to my blog posts. I had the flu so I am behind in my black belt requirements, which is admittedly frustrating, but I am slowly catching up and pushing along. I got some jump roping in today, along with some poomsae and self-defense work, all of which I was mainly behind on. I also got some college coursework done, and I have a good feeling about ENG 111.