5 Key Steps to 4 Successful Years

In a few months, a whole new sea of uncertain freshmen are going to turn the page and begin a different chapter in their lives. A transition stage, where seniors are escorted out with teary eyes and bittersweet smiles and freshmen are welcomed in with open arms and hopeful mindsets. These 5 steps will hopefully ensure a smoother transition for all incoming freshmen.

1 - Stay On Track.

I hear hindsight is always 20/20. Looking back as a junior, I wish I had in some way recorded everything I had done as a freshman. I am struggling to recall memories I made three years ago, let alone remember anything but tidbits and fragments here and there of my whereabouts and activities, meaning a solid amount of potentially college-impressing activities were flushed down the toilet. It’s so important to track and record specific details, like volunteer information and hours, or extracurricular activities, and where your focus goes outside of school. Colleges want details and, according to every single school I’ve ever toured, they want to know everything. Every seemingly unimportant part of your life in high school is important information and they are nosey as heck when it comes to getting to know you! So one of the best pieces of advice I can give you is to keep track of what you do. These are the things that make you stand out.

2 - Make Good Choices.

Something my mom says to me every morning when I walk out the front door. Now, whether this means staying in on a Friday night to do some extra studying for a test on Monday or deciding not to destroy your high school’s bathroom wall after it’s been freshly painted, it helps to make good choices. And, believe it or not, people will recognize and reward you for good decisions. Four choices I’d recommend include doing your homework, going to bed early, be respectful, and being trusting.

3 - Get Involved.

There are plenty of opportunities to become a bigger part of your school than by just being a student. Clubs, sports, and other extracurriculars can really help you branch out and experience more than just Marco Island. Volunteering or playing sports or participating in an activity you enjoy can enhance your perspective on high school and keep you happy. Getting involved in and around the community can strengthen bonds and create important connections that can bring you back home.

4 - Don’t Be Afraid

Ask your teachers for help. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that every teacher, administration member, and coach want you to succeed. Don’t refrain from reaching out because you’re afraid no one cares. In order to truly succeed, you need to open up and be yourself. Something’s bothering you? Talk to someone. Something urgent came up and you can’t get your homework finished by it’s Friday due date? Take five minutes and explain what’s going on to your teacher. Every employee and volunteer alike want you to have the best experience possible. Also, don’t be afraid to trust your teachers. They’ve done their very best to prepare you for tests, for college, and for life. Trust that the work they put you through and the hours they make you study are for good reasons and take it seriously. It’s worth it.

And, most important of all...

5 - Enjoy Yourself!

Life is all about trying to find the perfect balance of work and fun. If you spend all four years working, you’ll hate your high school years. If you spend all four years having fun and disregarding schoolwork, you’ll have a difficult time deciding what to do after high school. However, the so-called “perfect balance” is extremely difficult to find and, at some times feels impossible. I’m still discovering my own specific blend of motivation, hard work, and enjoyment. It’s hard to find a way to prevent overworking yourself and make sure you still get done what you need.  But, overall, it’s most important to make your four years memorable and not wish your life away. If I can give you any piece of advice, it’s do what makes you happy.

Wishing you all nothing but the best on your new four year journey. GOOD LUCK!

The First Day of School vs. The Last Day of School

Her eyes fluttered open with speed faster than the wings of the butterflies in her stomach as she squints to check missed texts from all her night-owl friends. Unable to decide whether the churning feeling in her gut is anticipation or illness, she clutches her boney fingers against her petite waist and barely rolls herself out of bed, being subconsciously dragged to the sweet smell wafting into her room through a slim crack in her door.

Coating her senses in fresh coffee dripping into the carafe, the snap and sizzle of bacon on greased pan, and the ringing of cereal hitting the ceramic bowls, she feels motivated to start her day, kiss her mom goodbye, and try to hide the shaking in her legs on her walk to the bus stop.

The bus ride to the high school was a blur of shuffling papers, counting and recounting of pens and pencils, and double-checking supplies. For her, at least. For most other students, the bus ride was no different than usual- paper airplanes, back-row pranks, etc. No other students seemed to have hit the realization that it’s the first day of a new school.

She hurried off the bus quickly after it arrived, hoping to catch her friends before the first bell rang to pretend like she hasn’t been texting them all morning. They spot her before she notices them and she’s greeted with smiles, hugs, and “You look great!”’s from her four closest girlfriends. She smiles as she tries to stop the jittery feeling from scaling the surface of her body.

However, it is a pretty difficult feat, considering her situation. Row after row, stack after stack of cold, heartless lockers, staring her down in a way that shook her to her core. Upperclassmen, towering over her at what felt like thirty feet taller than her small five-foot-two, giving her the feeling that she was shrinking in a growing room. The unembarrassed stares of teachers and other students that made the hair on her arms stand on end. She imagined herself and her surrounding class their next catch, fresh prey they can sink their teeth in.

Feeling the pit of her stomach drop, she keeps her eyes focused on the floor and her head turned down as she excuses herself from her friends, tucks her long, brunette ringlets behind her ear, and scurries into her first period classroom on her first day of school.

He's counted down the months, then the days, then the hours, and now the minutes. Finally, the minutes. He can taste the upcoming freedom in his mouth, sweeter than the Cherry Blow-pop on his tongue.

He knows his teacher can sense the lack of eyes on whatever last-day lesson that’s failing to be taught as his class of seniors can only stare at the clock directly over the instructor’s head in a “High School Musical”-esque way. There is no way his teacher doesn’t know the countdown is the only thing filling their tired minds, the only thing settled on the tips of everyone’s tongues, threatening to escape everyone’s lips.

He wonders what the use is of his teacher trying to foster their attention for every last second. The anticipation in this classroom is palpable; he could cut through it with a knife, if he had one. How is his teacher not molding that energy into something positive? There just needs to be one last snooze-fest, he guesses.

Every one of his classmates is ready to take the next step in their lives, ready for that bell to ring for the very last time, ready to leave this place once and for all. Not counting graduation in three weeks.

He feels prepared. Prepared to journey on his own. No longer under his parents roof, no longer held by his secure base of high school friends that he can rely on daily support from, no longer in this state of mind or state in the country. He’s ready to let the upcoming cool air of “good-bye”'s and “miss you already”’s from his classmates kiss his face like the breeze his town never seems to feel.

It’s almost like he’s five years old again, boldly introducing himself to his kindergarten teacher and meeting the people he’d spend the next 13 years of his life with.

And, right before the big hand on the clock his 12 to signal the end of class, his world stops turning. His whole life until this point flashes in pictures and memories and sounds and smells and people he will never see again. He moves in slow motion. His head starts to pound as every memory he’s ever made and every person he’s ever met floods into his tight cranium, maxing out capacity and causing him to squeeze his eyes shut in an unbearable pain.

Unnecessary doubts and negative thoughts flood his mind, causing him to shake his head in hopes of willing the wriggling parasite out of his brain, causing him to miss the last second of his ongoing countdown and the heightening level of excitement being excerpted from the rest of the class.

The only antidote seems to be the bell, sharp enough to clear the fog in his mind as he slings his backpack over his shoulder and high-fives his friend, smiling from ear to ear as he moves as one with the rest of his senior class.

A story

I tap my toes together, sending my eyes running laps around the view directly in front of my eyes. A small island settled amidst a lagoon of sand and stone, begging me to soak up every last detail like a sponge pulling in water. As I cushion myself to gravity and the constant rotation of the Earth beneath the weight of my clothed body, I can start to sense a feeling. It causes my mind to blank and fills my every sense is an indescribable energy that radiates off of the ground and throughout my limbs, stretching from the tips of my toes to the top of my skull. I imagine the feeling washing over me like an ocean constantly washing upon a shore, sharing it’s excitement with the rest of the world once it reaches landfall.

As if my toes were dipped in the lapping water of the shore, the feeling shoots up from the ground and invades my body through my toes, disregarding the security of my flip flops as I turn myself over to nature and follow the path carved by the breeze as I fall into a dreamlike state. Suddenly, my toes don’t have the constant pressure of new blisters and the ever-present weight of my body holding them down. Wind whistles through the cracks between the toes that for years played the role of 5 little piggies as the feeling spreads throughout the rest of my feet.

A warmth encircles the rest of my feet, my wandering mind counts every beautiful place these two feet have left their footprints. Step after step, my feet led me here. Down this path, to this life. The feeling makes my feet feel new again, forgetting every hard-earned, sweat-stained mile; every dirt-filled puddle my young mind made them endure; every one of the hundred pairs of uncomfortable shoes I squeezed them into. The countless memories of where I have been carried spreads the feeling up past my ankles and throughout my legs as I continue to take in the scene that is the smooth desert in front of me.

The tan gradients, making up a delicate scene behind the green, cold bars, distract my knees from the constant bandaging of countless squats and endless hours striking the pavement with barely my calves and feet as cushion. The feeling that sprouted from my toes moves up my shins, covered in permanent bruises and scars, past my knees to my smooth thighs, hardened and rocky; the exact opposite of the gentile view in front of me, exposing the smooth curves that lie upon the surface of the beached sanctuary.

The paralysis continues throughout my body as my hips begin to feel the immediate gravitational pull, attempting to snap me out of the slouching in my torso yet connecting me with the suffocating black pavement that is constantly storing and releasing heat as I make myself comfortable on the ground, like a seat in a movie-theater. The feeling holds me tight as I let myself cave to the gradual overtaking of my body. My tired torso slips when trying to find a soft spot to lean against and causes my connected arms to flail out and catch me, slamming my lower arms against a thick floor with enough weight to fall through the roof.

The weak sense in my arms is immediately softened and filtered out as I’m urged to reach out and feel the complete beauty of the sanctuary that drowns me in feelings. My shoulders are reminded of the weight they carry on a daily basis, the pounds of books and laptops and paper, strapped onto my back like that of a man headed out on a backpacking trip. The feeling that spreads and expands throughout my weak arms reminds my dazed mind of the years spent laying sick in my living room, praying and hoping that I would shake the dizziness that was a part of my life every single day. I am stretched within myself, attempting to maximise time spent with the feeling hovering within me, dripping from my wrists down through my hands.

My fingers tense as an indescribable warmth spreads over my hands that’s not from the heated pavement beneath my body, causing the grip on my pencil to tighten and constrict my hand from writing with ease. My thin fingers feel everything and nothing as the feeling that has spread through so much of my body already continues by reaching the tips and falling back in again. The five fingers on each hand remind me of the hundreds of rings, attempting to dress each one up in something beautiful yet no luck due to the slender fit of each bony finger. I feel the grip I have on the pavement start to weaken as the clear light of day that shines through the clouds pulls me back to Earth as I collapse to a pile of skin and bones in the middle of a black drive, granting the feeling access from my toes to my neck as I submerge beneath the sea.

My neck is slowly dragged down with the rest of my body, the heavy presence of my necklace constantly reminding me of who I am. The weight of my own head is crushing as I feel my skull rushing down to meet the pavement and my eyes open wide as the sweet horizon calls out to me, pulling me into its realm when my eyes have nowhere else to look but up. The head that is constantly dizzied, my head that holds all the features of my personality, finally shares in the strong feeling that the rest of my body has been attacked in before.

The pierced ears, connected to me at the head, cringe as the air conditioner behind my place on the floor kicks on and the natural sounds of birds and life is brushed under the rug. My usually parched lips taste the sweet feeling of warmth mixed with a subtle island breeze that shakes me to my spine and leaves me hungry for more as I grant access to more and more of my body. My blue eyes drown me in the sea they project as they are the last parts of me to stand beneath the feeling that has overcome the rest of me so easily and quick.

The feeling that I couldn’t describe successfully engulfs my body in a sea and I’m easily able to point out what I struggled with so much before. The feeling was peace. A thick, dreamy, other-worldly sense of peace that can only be described when you’re fully immersed in the nature of the world.

Picture of the Nature of the Gopher Tortoise Sanctuary

Immediately drawing me in, the smooth desert connects me to the constant rotation of the Earth beneath the weight of my clothed body. The tan gradients make up a delicate scene behind green bars, enclosing and fencing another dimension of sheer power. My mind hones in on the view directly in front of my eyes. A small island settled amidst a lagoon of sand and stone, begging me to soak up every last detail like a sponge pulling in water. I’m urged to reach out and feel the smooth curves that lie upon the surface of the beached sanctuary. My mind blanks as I lose words to properly describe the complete beauty that drowns me beneath a sea of peace. Filling my every sense is an indescribable energy that radiates off of the ground and throughout my limbs, stretching from the tips of my toes to the top of my skull. I can taste the sweet feeling of warmth mixed with a subtle island breeze that shakes me to my spine. I let my head wonder and follow the path carved by the breeze as I fall into a dreamlike state. My eyes dizzy as I follow the intricate patterns of the clouds. My fingers tense as noise after noise invades my eardrums, causing the grip on my pencil to tighten and constrict my hand from writing with ease. The clear light of day that shines through the clouds pulls me back to Earth as I collapse to a pile of skin and bones in the middle of a black drive, heated from the hours of sun-on-pavement. The sweet horizon calls me and pulls me into its realm as my eyes have nowhere else to look but up.

Dear Mom....

Dear Mom,

Do I tell you enough how proud I am to be your daughter??? Because, if not, I think it all the time. You have done so much for me and for all the other kids in Southwest Florida. Whether they come to MIA or not, you’ve given them a choice, a chance to change their life. You’ve given them competition, academically and athletically. But most importantly, you’ve given all the kids who choose to come here a home.

However, sometimes I wish the students who attend here are more understanding.

I have sat through class after class of sarcastic comments, ranging from when the roof of the science wing was being eaten away to when my English teacher brought his baby to school, summoning a sarcastic string of judgemental commentary to spill out of students mouths. They just don’t understand.

But then again I think, how can they? How can they understand how much you cared about this project without seeing you break down in your bedroom in tears as many times as I did? How can they understand how much I hated long car rides because it was an hour or more of listening to the same tired script over and over, holding onto hope that maybe one of the callers on the receiving end would drop $100? How can they understand the time it took when they didn’t grow up in the run down office we leased in the Esplanade, sitting in front of a small TV and watching the same Jean Michel Cousteau video at least 10 times a day? How can they understand how much this meant project meant to you without seeing the computer light glaring on your face late every night.

I guess I just have to accept that they can’t understand some things. The students I’m surrounded by might never understand because, for some, this much care must not something they can wrap their minds around.

And I can’t explain it. Sometimes I almost lose my head, almost. Like when I was in my 4th block Marine Science class and a student asked why we can paint and renovate the inside of the administration wing yet we can’t fix the roof. How could she have known that fixing the roof would cost $85,000? And that the renovations in the administration wing costed around $1,500? Or that the renovations were being donated, unlike the roof.

Inside, I can’t stand it when someone takes this place for granted. When someone complains about something just to complain. Always at the tip of my tongue is a sickly sweet, overly-positive “Feel free to leave!!!” because I just can’t take it. I can’t stand it when someone doesn’t even think about how this school got here.

However, there are students who try really hard to understand (shoutout to you guys for keeping me sane!!!) and to empathize with me when I’m frustrated about someone’s sarcastic remark in my previous class. And even though these kids who try to understand may never know every detail, at least they put the effort out there because I believe that’s the most important thing.

Mom, you’ve done so much and you’ve changed so many lives, including mine. You don’t deserve hateful comments or ignorant remarks about something you’ve worked on since you sent me to third grade. You deserve so much more than what some of these students are giving you and I don’t think it’s fair or funny for some students to just jump to conclusions every time something doesn’t go their way.

I wish the kids here were more grateful of what they have because this is the most unique school I can imagine. I wish we had a way to educate them on what actually went on to bring them what we have today. Maybe a freshmen orientation-history class for all new students. Maybe I should try to speak up when kids in class are bashing the school. Maybe the solution is just to wait. Wait for these kids to grow up, look back, and remember their high school experience. Wait for them to experience hardships so they better appreciate all of them you went through. Maybe the only solution is patience.  



You’ve given everyone a second family, a second support group to fall back on. You’re changing the world, one student at a time.

And I wish more kids understood that because you deserve the world.

Love, Liv