Ashley Apel

1. If not chosen correctly, the color of your walls will eventually get on your nerves.

“Grey walls are proven to make people feel dreary and depressed,” was something my dad told me as I contemplated what color to paint my bedroom walls two years ago when I first moved in to my new home. “I would know. I had grey walls at one point in time. I would never paint them that color again.”

Sure, I took his advice. Does that mean I made a wise, well thought out, home designer choice at the age of fourteen? No. The color I chose for my walls ended up being on the opposite end of the grey, depressing, spectrum: lime green. And when I say lime green, I mean bright, obnoxious lime green. The type of green that should only exist in any interior design in the carpets of a bowling alley or a movie theater. This sickly green could also be mistaken for the color of a neon green expo marker: the type of marker you’re afraid to draw on yourself with, as you’re afraid somewhere within the hypochondriac center of your brain that it’s going to lead to radiation poisoning of sorts.

If there’s anything to take from this, it’s that if you’re gonna regret the color you choose for your walls, find a way to cope with it. Personally, I don’t mind the walls much, since they add an interesting contrast to having all black furniture. But with black furniture in mind…

2. If you invest in black furniture, be prepared for a dust blizzard.

With all black furniture, dust gathers noticeably. It does this with every color of furniture, but the thing with black furniture is that you just know. It’s visible. Too visible. That bothers some people, understandably. More often than not, I find myself scowling at the dust that gathers itself upon the furniture I’ve just cleaned two days prior to this new dust’s arrival. With that being said, you’ve got to really dig down and ask yourself if you’re willing to put up with black furniture’s nonsense. Personally, I’ve found that I don’t mind.

3. Roommates are annoying.

It’s late on a Saturday night and my room is silent. My parents are away, and it’s my job to watch the dogs; meaning all three of them have to sleep in my room. Tank, the largest of the puppy crew, wakes me up in the early hours of the morning by pressing his cold nose to my face. Even though he didn’t want to go outside when it was raining at eleven o’ clock, he decides five in the morning is the best time to go. Angel, the old and delusional pup, snores so loudly that she’s probably able to wake the dead- which is what it’s like trying to wake me up throughout the night. My dog Louie, who normally sleeps in my room, is sleeping contently on the pillow at my feet. Suddenly, the weight on the pillow at my feet feels light, and next thing I know, a dog’s tail is right beside my head, tickling my nose.

“How were the dogs?” my mom asks the next morning.

“They were fine,” I say, feeling the bags weighing heavily under my eyes. “No problem at all.”

4. Carpets are more comfortable than you think.

I remember the first day I moved in to my new house. Two years ago, about a week or two before Christmas. My new room was filled with new, bare furniture and a mattress with boxes piling the top. I was tired and lacking Internet access: the fatality of an adolescent. As I lay on my new, crème colored carpet, the softness overcame me, and I fell asleep. I woke up to my stepdad knocking on my door, asking if I’d woken yet. He then slid open his iPhone to show me a picture of myself sprawled out on the carpet, sleeping, again, like the dead. “This one’s going on the Internet,” he said, laughing. Luckily for me, it didn’t.

5. Moving a lot isn’t so bad.

You’d get annoyed with moving eight or nine times throughout your life and never having stayed at a school for more than two years, too. It gets tedious. But once you realize where moving so much got you and where you are now: those lime green walls aren’t so bad anymore.

Ashley Apel is an eleventh grade Literary Arts major attending LPPACS. She lives in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania with her family, three dogs, and two cats.

“How many of you want to be doctors?” Hands flew up all around me, and looking around the room, I saw that only one other girl and I did not have our hands raised. Upon being asked what she wanted to do, the girl confidently answered, “Neonatal nurse.” Well, never mind, that left just me, as always undecided.

I could not help but feel inferior in that moment; everyone except me seemed to know what he or she wanted to do in life. My classmates at the STEM summer program I attended last summer had figured out what they wanted to achieve most, finding a passion to make a living out of. I had witnessed their joy when they peered at hydra through microscopes or added herbs to chick embryo and their undeniable eagerness to seek answers to their infinite biology questions. It never felt the same for me, at least I could not see myself doing these things for the rest of my life. Simply put, I had not found my passion, and ironically my pursuit of passion was starting to feel like an obligation.

My classmates were lucky in my eyes; it happened their passion for medicine aligned with society’s views, specifically that of Silicon Valley and many immigrant parents, who saw the medical profession as “practical.” It is undeniable that many of the students in my school feel that same conflict between preserving their passion and meeting their unwritten commitment to their parents and heritage when choosing their career path, and those who do not “honor” this obligation are viewed with envy, awe, and often doubt.

I saw my friend set aside her love for art, because her dad had told her if she ever became an artist, she would become “homeless.” Another friend who dared to choose psychology as her major was immediately viewed by others as incapable of having gotten into the same college if she had specified any other field. She wondered why no one saw that psychology was what she loved and why everyone immediately judged her for having shunned her “duty” to join the masses of students who are accepted into STEM, business, and law fields. She realized she may not be the one every family member bragged about at Thanksgiving dinner, but it was a decision I respected and feared I would be unable to make for myself. Maybe everybody’s condescending judgment toward my friend was because of the natural STEM-geared environment we live in in Silicon Valley, or maybe it was because we all covet her ability to pursue her passions without regret.

Instead of forgoing either my passion or responsibility, I have chosen to find a balance between the two, hence attending that summer program, clearly intended for those who had already decided their path in medicine. I wanted so badly to like medicine or in fact anything that could enable me to finally answer the age-old question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” with confidence.

The truth is everyone wants to find the balance, but few achieve it. For most, the search for what brings them joy begins in childhood, dictated by parents. My childhood was littered with ballet, art, swimming, tennis, piano, and cello classes, just to name a few. Every summer was filled to the brim with a new program, whether it was horseback riding or rocketry science, and every hour set in stone. As I grew older, I decided which programs I wanted to attend in the hopes that by some miracle, that would be the program where I could discover my career. My life would be so much easier, I kept thinking, if I just liked computer science, like my dad and sister, but programming classes always were constant battlegrounds for my sanity.

When I first received emails from college counseling programs promising to identify my college major and career, I laughed at the thought of students voluntarily allowing themselves to be packaged and labelled by people who knew so little about them. Now I recognize the allure of having the burden of such an enormous decision placed in someone else’s hands, but this enormous decision is still one I insist on making myself.

In all honesty I know that I could not and would not force myself to commit to something for the rest of my life based on one program I attended as a kid or the personality test results of a college counseling program, but others, often because of financial pressure, are unable to make such an easy statement that they would never abandon their passions. My mom faced this exact situation in college when constrained by her family’s circumstances, she had to decide between medicine and accounting. The latter was a much safer choice, because choosing pre-med and not getting into the competitive medical program after meant, as she once told me, “becoming a pig farmer.” However, her choice, in turn, to major in accounting, forgoing her passion for medicine, has to some degree granted me the means and support to decide my career based on what I love, and I am not going to let it go to waste.

That is why I refuse to quit my school’s newspaper staff. On the surface, people are justified in their assumption that I should not stay. It does not help my GPA, requires extensive dedication outside of school, and the stress ages me ten years every deadline night. But writing is my passion, and unlike my search for that “perfect” career, does not feel like an obligation. Where else but in my school’s newspaper class could I write seven stories about topics I truly want to write about, whether it is my opinion on China’s One-Child Policy or a feature on the STEM gender gap, every three weeks? It is in newspaper that I find myself asking questions to better my reporting, design, and writing skills with the same enthusiasm I envied of my peers at the medical summer program. Looking back, my natural curiosity of the topic and the feeling of fulfillment I gained were indicators that this was my passion. Even if I do not pursue journalism as my major, I know because of that warm, proud feeling it instills in me when I see my work published that I will always make an effort to incorporate it in whatever career I choose.

As I look to the future, my dogma is those who believe it is fine to sacrifice their current passions for their obligations are also believers in delaying happiness in the hopes of achieving it later. It is always happiness for later…but I refuse to believe I am naïve for wanting happiness now.

Last summer I did not find my passion for medicine, like I had hoped, but I still do not believe a choice must be made between passions and obligations. I will continue in my search for the best of both worlds.

Caitlin is a current junior at Saratoga High, a member of the school newspaper the Saratoga Falcon, and an avid reader, artist, and tennis player. As her community holds an alarmingly strict interpretation of success, she felt it necessary to share her story about her own struggle with passion versus obligation.

The suspense rushed through my body like oncoming traffic on the highway. My palms were sweating under my boxing gloves and my knees buckled once or twice. Two lions slowly approaching each other preparing to fight for the last piece of prey. We touched gloves without losing eye contact for a second. Then all of a second the bell rung and the crowd went roaring.

Growing up as the youngest child of eight I was labeled the “problem child” and was the most disciplined by my parents. My mom probably received a phone call home about my bad behavior at least once a week. I was involved in several fights and always got caught doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing. I used to get so angry over the smallest things and just lashing out at people. My mom put me in anger management to see if there was a solution to my anger. After going several times a week I learned the solution wasn’t getting rid of my anger, it was controlling it.

My anger management counselor gave me several tips on how to control my anger in various situations. It seems like whenever I would get into those situations the tips never helped me in the moment. I remember I got into a heated argument with one of my classmates and it got to the point of insulting each other. My counselor told me to step back and count to ten. I tried to do that but he pushed me and I knocked him out. I mean seriously knocked him out cold with one punch. My fist crashed into his face faster than the speed of light. All my classmates praised me for doing so, but my teachers and parents were disappointed. I was suspended for ten days. My mom made me go back to the counselor for more advice.

The second time I went back to my counselor she told me to just walk away whenever I feel like I’m about to explode. I was sure this would work. One day at my high school and upperclassman confronted me about something I said about him to his friend. He towered over me like the Willis Tower with his fiery red hair and his huge eyes filled with hate. I wanted to punch him in his guts so bad but I decided to just walk away. While walking away he called me out of my name. When I turned around there was a huge crowd surrounding me. I felt like I was in a big arena and I was as small as a cell. I was so angry and I could no longer keep my composure and control. I ran up to him, leaped up a little bit and punched him right in the eye. He was knocked out cold as ice. The arena went quiet and everybody stared at me in amazement. I couldn’t believe I knocked him out either. Then the crowd went wild with excitement. Once again everybody praised me for what I had done. This time the punishment was worse. I was expelled from my school and had to transfer to another school. My mom didn’t know hat to do. So my dad decided to put me in boxing.

The first day I walked into my boxing class it felt as though my trainer already knew who I was personally. He told me he heard I was one of the best, and instructed me to put on gloves and meet him in the boxing ring. The bell rung and every punch I threw he dodged. He didn’t even try to punch me back. He asked me if I was tired and I said no and I told him to fight me back. He didn’t hesitate to hit me and every time he hit me I stumbled down a little bit. I began to get angry, and he could tell. He hit me one more time and I got dizzy. I knew I couldn’t fight anymore. I started to cry because for the first time in my life I felt defeated. He told me that I had great potential but before he could teach me fighting skills, he would teach me control and discipline. He told me I should never get angry in the ring. We trained together for 6 months and I learned control, discipline, and finally some proper fighting skills. He said I was one of his best students and he was ready to let me compete.

The day of my first fight I was confident that I had all the skills mastered to beat my opponent. The bell rung and the crowd went roaring. This was no easy fight, we went round for round and he seemed to meet my every punch. I began to get mad because I started to feel defeated. I started to fight with anger and began to lose control of my focus and skill. He was beating my badly. Then I remembered all the things my trainer taught me. I got focused again and the moment he left his right guard down, I stuck him with all my power. He stumbled and fell and was so dizzy he couldn’t get up. I won the fight, victory was mine again.

I learned so much from boxing. It taught me how to control my anger, discipline, and respect. I learned how to take my gift and use it in a positive setting instead of one that gets me in trouble. I don’t know where I would be without boxing in my life.

Shareef Dillard was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. He is now a sophomore in college at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. His major is business marketing with a minor in international business.