devynmk

I used to have so many friends. I could tell them everything, we could amuse ourselves doing the dumbest things, and we laughed together, constantly. I lost those friends a few years ago due to a series of unfortunate events. For a two year period, I really had no friends. I only had acquaintances who I could say a few words to, but we never hung out together outside of school. No one ever asked what I was doing over the weekends, so I has to put forth all the effort in trying to make friends, but I never received anything back. After a while, I sort of gave up on my goal to make friends. You can imagine how humiliating being friendless in high school is. However, just recently I revived my long lost goal to make new friends. I overcame my fear of rejection and asked this nice girl at school if I could sit with her at lunch and she said yes. I wasn’t worried about her saying “No, you can’t sit with me,” I knew she would say yes, but I was more worried about whether or not she and her friends would include me in their group chatter and inside jokes etc. Well, they did! Apparently, this girl doesn’t really have a BEST friend and I knew she liked me, so we have kind of hit it off. For the first time in a looooong time, someone asked what I was doing on the weekend and if we wanted to hang out. After only a couple of months, we sleepover, go to movies, hang out at school, call each other, etc etc. So, I’m hoping this friendship works out and that I can make even more friends. I don’t ask for too much now, I am just soo thankful for having a real friend again. Good luck to everyone else with this goal!
-devyn

Uhh I’ve been so bad lately. I don’t understand how I let myself succumb to my urges, knowing how badly I want to quit. I just keep arguing with myself and saying “well, its just this one hair” or “just one more won’t matter.” After a few lost arguments and several hairs later, I’ve exposed a new bald spot on my head and have lost a lot of the new hair growth I was so proud of prior to my slip up. I think I’m going to try a new strategy: Carry a pen with me at all times and every time I even think about pulling or before/after I catch myself pulling, I will write a small mark on my hand with the pen. Hopefully, having this other activity to occupy myself will distract me and remind me of my priorities. And at the end of the day, I can count all of the marks on my hand and contemplate about how many or how few I have and strive to have fewer pen marks the next day. Let’s see how it goes. And good luck to everyone else.

I’m pretty close to achieving this goal. It started with a meeting offered at school. They handed out fliers and applications, and also made me very interested in the AFS program. So I went to another, outside school, meeting. They gave a lot more information here and also opened the option for hosting. I found this to be a better option for me. I want to host maybe next year (high school junior year) and then once I graduate and go to college, then I will become an exchange student. I just don’t feel that I can give up all of my Honors and AP classes for a year, they are crucial to get into my ideal colleges. But hosting is a good option for me. There is another meeting coming up where I’ll probably apply to be a host. wish me luck!