Life Lessons

My name is Emily, I’m a sophomore and in my English class we are doing a project. The project is on life lessons and we are supposed to include things we learned from the books we just got done reading. I read “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch and it was also about him and the experiences he had. This book is about a man who is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and knows he is going to die. He is forced to ask himself, what would you do if you knew you were going to die? Who would you spend your time with? He spent his time with his family and he wrote a book, leaving his children with something to remember him by. Although it was for his children that he left his knowledge and legacy, he also impacted lives around the world. People read Randy’s book and feel compelled to ask themselves the same question…What would you do if you knew you were going to die?

The Pausch family

Mrs. Plair

A while ago when I was in first grade, I had a teacher and her name was Mrs. Plair. Although this was first grade I knew that I liked to write and that I someday I wanted to be really good at it. Mrs. Plair was a normal first grade teacher, she was very encouraging and she inspired all the minds of us little seven year olds. Mrs. Plair told me I was a great writer and really helped me a lot if I had questions. One day I was feeling really good about my author skills so when I got home I decided to sit down and write a book. Because it only took an hour, right? Yeah, that’s what I used to think. Anyways, I wrote a book it was about two cats, one was named socks and the other one was scruffy. My story really didn’t have a point, they kind of just sat around and played all day and enjoyed their lives as cats. I drew pictures for it and when I was done I punched three holes in the side and tied it together with yarn. I was so excited about my new number one best selling book that I took it to school the next day to show Mrs. Plair. I read the book to her and showed her all my pictures that I worked on for so long. She asked to take my book and told me she wanted to give me a surprise so of course I let her have it. When I came in the classroom the next day my book was sitting on my desk… laminated. My teacher took time out of her day to laminate my book. This has stayed with me since first grade. It taught me that there really are people out there who care about your dreams and who want to help you. Although this wasn’t my book being published, it had the same affect on me. To this day, I do not think that Mrs. Plair knows how much that meant to me and I wish that I would have told her. Now my grandma has that book and I take it out and look at it every chance I get.

Coach Jan

In eighth grade I was on an awesome softball team. We won first place in our playoffs and we were just really good. But I had this coach… her name was Coach Jan. Coach Jan was the kind of person who acted so sweet to our team but then when we weren’t around she would talk bad about us. It was sad to me because we were the teenagers and it felt like we were more mature then her. we would be sitting in the dugout while others were playing or we’d be standing near her while she was talking to another adult and we would constantly hear her talk badly about our teammates. Also, we would be told that she would say things about us, specifically. This was so foreign to me because my mom would never do that, my mom would never act like a child and gossip to other adults about little teenagers. I didn’t know what to do because I was taught to not be disrespectful to adults so I couldn’t just come out and say something, and even if I did, what would my opinion do? I soon learned to not pay attention to the things she said and just ignore it, but it still eats at me. I still do not understand why an adult would do that, was she still in that stage where you talk about others because you think it’ll make you popular? Whatever it was it definitely taught me how I do not want to be as an adult. I don’t want to make people feel bad and I don’t want my kids to end up like that. So maybe this isn’t a good teacher, she didn’t inspire me to do something great and she didn’t set a good example. But she did teach me something for sure, even when you are old, there are people who still act like they are children. It’s not okay to hurt others for your own gain of popularity or self confidence. That’s one that will always be true. So maybe one day she will realize this and who knows, maybe she already has. I hope she has a great life, and I don’t wish anything against her, I just wish she would have thought about what she was saying before she said it. There comes a time when people get too old for gossip.

Mr. Riley

So one thing that almost anyone knows about me is that I absolutely hate math. I hate it with a burning passion. In eighth grade I had a teacher, Mr. Riley. He was my pre-algebra teacher and as much as I hated math and I wanted to hate him just for teaching it, I couldn’t. I told him that I couldn’t do math and he tried really hard to help me. This isn’t why I think he was a great teacher, because any teacher would try hard to help their students understand what they were teaching. And, I’m still horrible at math. But there is one thing that he wrote on his board everyday, in the top left corner it always said, K.I.S.S. This meant Keep It Simple, Stupid. He couldn’t stress this enough, he told us how what he taught was so easy and we were the ones making it complicated, which was completely true. But I took that advice for more then just math, keep it simple stupid was applied to my everyday life. I learned not to over compensate things and just go with the flow. For example, if there was drama, why make things complicated and over exaggerated? Why not just keep it simple and not worry about it? I don’t think Mr. Riley meant for this to be carried over into non- math related things but it was for me. He really helped me to see that things didn’t have to be hard if I didn’t make them. That will stay with me forever.

Any day could be your last

When I was around nine years old I was in third grade. I was friends with everyone in my class, just a care free kid with no worries at all. I lead a normal life as did all of my friends.  Nothing bad had ever happened to me and I didn’t expect anything bad to ever happen at all. One day I came into the classroom and my teacher had tears in her eyes and everyone was sitting around wondering what was wrong. We all assumed that she was waiting for the whole class to tell us what was going on. I really didn’t have any idea what could make my teacher so sad, other then personal stuff and in that case I didn’t think she would go to work. Once all the students got into the class and into their seats she began to talk… and it was nothing like I thought it would be. She told us that our fellow classmate, our fellow nine year old friend had passed away over the weekend. His name was Jeffrey and he was at the beach with his dad, they were fishing. Jeffrey had wandered off and found a little rugged shack and decided to go inside, like any kid, he was curious. He began to play with a rope that was hanging from the ceiling and something went wrong and he ended up accidently getting caught in the rope. Jeffrey’s dad found him after a while but it was too late… Tears immediately filled my eyes while the story continued… all I could think of was the boy that used to steal my purse and walk around acting like he was me. The boy I could never stop laughing at because he was so funny. I cried myself to sleep so many nights after that. . I soon realized that this was real, that I wouldn’t be able to forget it and that Jeffrey would never be in class again. I’d never get to say good bye and I’d never get to talk to him again.  Jeffrey now has a memorial at Port St. Joe Elementary School. This life lesson was clear as day to me, any day could be your last, so make your good byes count and take advantage of every breath that is given to you.

The answer you've all been waiting for

As my last life lesson, I’m going to tell you how I answered that question that the readers of “The Last Lecture” had asked themselves. What would you do if you knew you were going to die? Who would you spend your time with? Of course this is not a question that is easy to answer, you can’t think about it for a minute and everything just come to mind. You really have to think about what you want to do, how you want to be remembered, and who you want to be around. I found my answer through an English project I had this year. My English teacher assigned a bucket list for us to do. We had to answer all of those questions. I had never thought about this seriously before so I felt challenged with the assignment. Once I thought about it for a while I knew the answer. I want to travel before I die, I want to be with my family and friends, and I really just want to be remembered for the good things about me. I knew that I wanted to be with my family right away, family is most important over anything. Sure, they aggravate you, or you get into trouble but you realize it’s just because you care for each other and worry about each other. I know that my family is the most influential people in my life and I cannot imagine myself without them. While doing that project I figured out what I think the meaning of life is, it’s not what you want to do before you die, or what you want to accomplish. It’s the bonds you form with the people you cannot live without along the way. You may agree, or you may disagree, it’s really an opinion. But I know now what I want is to be with the people I love, doing something that I enjoy. So I don’t want my English teacher to end up like my first grade teacher because I’ve made that mistake before. I want to make sure she knows how great it is that she assigned such a meaningful project and that with her help and encouragement in all of us students, I tried really hard… and you know what? I got an A.

Confidence comes from within

My mom is not known for her advice. She isn’t the “let’s sit down and have a cute little chat about your feelings” kind of mom. She’s more along the lines of, well it’s not going to kill you so just try and get over it. But there is one piece of advice that she gave me that literally makes me happy to tell others; right now I’m a little bit ecstatic that I get to share it with you.  I was in middle school, in the awkward stage when you think you’re not pretty and you’re overweight. Well, my mom and I were shopping and I was trying on clothes, complaining about the sizes and just feeling absolutely horrible about myself. My mom was trying her best to control herself from strangling me because I’m sure I was being really annoying. After some more of my complaining, she finally just blurted out, “It’s not the size that you wear, it’s how good you look”. I had an epiphany. After that I realized that I was so unoriginal, I was like any other teenager complaining about her size, and I decided to not think about that and just really look at myself and how I looked. This advice wasn’t some award winning quote, but in a way, it was to me. Now, if I hear my friends complaining about the same thing I used to, I tell them exactly what my mom told me. Because honestly, who cares what size you are? You can be the biggest size there is and still look gorgeous. This piece of advice will stay with me, and one day when I have a teenager that I take shopping, I’ll tell her the exact same thing. I think that this is something that all girls should know, be comfortable in your own skin… and clothes. You don’t have to wear tight things to impress people. You just have to look good in your own eyes.