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| Me Swimming the 100 Yard Butterfly at my home meet. |
Hi, my name is Elyssa Erickson, I am 15 years old and attend New Technology High School and am a junior. I know right, 15 years old and a junior; I am also a swimmer, water-polo player, and competitive diver, and an avid reader. I serve as my cities Parks and Recreation High School Commissioner and love to help my community. Now that you know about the present me you can learn about what I hope will be the future me. So, here are my goals and ideas for the future.
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| My start for the 200 Yard IM event. (Right side of the picture) |
As a kid the number one thing we are asked by our peers is “what do you want to be when you grow up?” or “what are your goals?” Most often you heard the stereo typical, “fireman” or “ballerina” and for me it was the same, but my goals for my future have long since changed and matured. In the here and now I have a number one goal, a goal for this year you could say, that is to go to Sections. Sections is a really big goal for me as a swimmer in high school because ever since I had started on the swim team when I was nine I had looked up to the Varsity girls and told myself that one day I would make it there. However, I soon learned that making it there was no small feat. There were so many things along the way, so many steps that needed to be taken. Some of them I have already completed but some have still yet to come. A few of the steps that I need to take are as follows; work hard in practice, attend practice every day I can, and work hard in meets.
To work hard in practice is number one thing for me because of the fact that I always seem to do the least amount that is required in practice. This is why I have put it as a required step to reaching my goal of sections. As well, working hard in practice goes hand in hand with my second most important thing, attendance. Because logically attendance is required in order for you to work hard, if you’re not at practice you aren’t working. Finally, giving it my all in swim meets. To just try your best in a meet isn’t enough I have learned, you have to give it everything you have even if that means you can’t walk without falling over. If I can successfully do these things I believe I can make it to sections this year.
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| I also Play Water-Polo competitively |
Graduating High School, every student enters high school with one goal in mind, successfully graduating. As a high school student I too have this goal in mind and so far I am right on track to completing it successfully. However, seeing as I do not attend just any ordinary high school in the valley you must know that I have more graduation requirements that normal public high schools do not. In fact I have a quite large amount more than normal high schools, so in order to begin completing my goal to graduate high school I must first complete my requirements to graduate. The rest is actually quite simple, attend school and do your best, attending school is the simple part for me seeing as I have already done that for 10 years. As well as doing my best which for me actually it seems comes quite naturally. Finally my last requirement to complete my goal of graduation is grades. The start of this requirement begins the start of freshman year, ninth grade, and continues till your last day of senior year, twelfth grade. So far my grades from ninth grade till now have never been anything below a C- and for this I am actually quite proud. I just need to keep up the hard work and make it one and a half more years.
My last and final goal for the next couple years is to get a job. This is important because after I have graduated I am going to need to provide for myself more than I had before. To do this, naturally, I need money which means that getting a job will be an important step. Likewise, such as the other goals I have there are things I must do, steps I must take, to reach this goal. The first of these things would be to decide what kind of career interests me. Choosing what my career topic would be should be relatively easy and after a little thought I’m sure it would be something to do with animals.
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| My family <3 I love them so much! |
As an animal lover I have always enjoyed playing and working with all animals, so at least this job would be enjoyable. The second would be to become older; being only 15 at the moment has its setbacks, like the inability to get a job. Meaning, my sixteenth birthday with have to come first, than from there, as the years go by, I will get older and more job opportunities will open there doors for me. Finally the one step that right now affects me, grades. Every student knows that the better the grades you have the better the chance, meaning that those students with higher grades are more likely to get the job. Then of course you have to apply, because that is how you have a chance to get the job, shocker right, if you want it than you have to apply. I’m sure I will complete this goal soon. Now there is that final question, the one where you take all of your future into account. Where do you want to be in fifteen years?
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| Me after coming back from me and my dads 4 mile hike hunting for whitetail deer. |
Fifteen years, fifteen, that is a very long time, for me as a fifteen year old girl that’s another lifetime. Never less, as a 30 year old woman I would have three main goals in mind I believe. The first and foremost being that I would hope that as an adult of this age I would have moved out of my parents house and not be one of those kids who is a leech to their parents their whole life. Again a step would need to be taken, such as having a job. For without that job you have no money which means you cannot in any way pay bills and that leaves you homeless, in my opinion I would rather not be a homeless person. This coincides with my second goal which would be to have a steady job, once again like I said I wouldn’t want to be homeless so a steady job for a steady income of money would probably be a good idea. The last and what I think is the best goal would be to, despite my idea that at this moment guys have cooties, be happily married. As a 30 year young woman I would hope I will have already found the “right” guy for me the one who loves me for who I am and be happily married to him.
My future goals and plans may sound typical, or maybe to you they don’t, maybe to you they are abnormal and completely unrealistic. But in my life I am going to do everything I can to complete these goals I will need to fulfill for the future to ensure that I am making a difference in my life. I decide my future and who I want to be, and if I complete these goals I can reassure myself that I am the person I know I can be. So that one day I can sit down with my children and tell them truthfully and honestly they can make themselves a better future through the choices they make here and now.
