19 Things for 19 Years

Tomorrow I turn 19 years old. My LAST YEAR AS A TEENAGER. I'm freaking out just a little bit inside.

Here are 19 things I want to do in my 19th year.

1. Read all the books on my reading list that have been there for longer than a year. I have tons of books that I've wanted to read and I keep putting it off, or life gets too busy, or whatever. I want to pick up some of these books and make reading an important part of my day. It's such a great way for me to unwind and relax.

2. Get my driver's license (I still only have my permit).

3. Buy a car. So I can get around.

4. Start working in schools on a regular basis, more than just my practicums (volunteering, possibly becoming a paraprofessional, etc.)

5. Read my Bible and journal daily.

6. Buy a camera. For better videos and pictures for YouTube and all my socials (for my rabbits)!

7. Post on For the Love of Everything Good at least weekly. As long as I plan well and write and schedule posts on my days off, I should be good to go!

8. Take 3 trips for myself (besides family vacations or church retreats).

9. Take a camping trip alone to refocus and reenergize.

10. Register to vote.

11. Post on YouTube (Holly's Hollands Rabbitry), at least twice a month.

12. Post on my HHR blog at least once a month.

13. Develop social medias for FLEG (For the Love of Everything Good).

14. Travel by plane for the first time. Hopefully I'll knock out this one in December!

15. Work out 3-5 times a week. I usually work out 3 times a week right now and it's rarely enough for me. I always forget how much I love working out until I do it.

16. Put $1000 every month into savings. This is a shorter, more manageable goal that will lead up to my long-term goal of graduation Western without student loans, buying a car, and tickets to visit CA.

17. Do a hardcore cleanse and detox for my body. My body has a lot of inflammation, psoriasis, etc. To totally get rid or minimize the effects of this I will need to do a hardcore detox. This might require time off work, because detoxing my body in the way it needs will not feel good. But I'm sure I'll feel a thousand times better afterwards (and look better, if my psoriasis goes away!).

18. Keep at 3.7 GPA in school.

19. Take time for myself. Prioritize my health. If I slack on taking care of myself I can't be the best me that God wants me to be.

Thankful Thursdays pt 1

Every Thursday in November, due to Thanksgiving, I will be posting about what I was most thankful for every single day that week. I was thinking about daily posts, but in one day I might not have enough to write about to warrant a blog post, and posting each day is too overwhelming with everything else I have going on. So weekly it is. Let's jump right in.

November 1st:

Today I'm thankful for work friends and Thai food after an early morning shift.

November 2nd:

It was hard to find something to be thankful for today. But I'm thankful for my family's support and my mom's willingness to take an hour out of her day to drive me to work if need be.

November 3rd:

Sunsets & snow.

November 4th:

Today I'm thankful for productive days, where I can just do homework and hang out with my bunnies without worrying about having to be anywhere.

November 5th:

Today I'm thankful for my desire to try new things and not be afraid of change.

November 6th:

I'm thankful for cozy blankets and heaters.

November 7th:

Thankful for baby bunnies.

November 8th:

I'm thankful today for the friendships Dutch Bros has brought into my life. I love you Sammers.

November 9th:

Thankful for my cohort at school. They sang me happy birthday because it was our last day of class before I turn 19 :)

Revisiting my Goals

I made goals for my 18th year last year and that's pretty much where I stopped blogging. But since I've picked it up again, let's review what I set to accomplish and see if I actually did.

Click HERE to visit the post I made the day before my 18th birthday (it seems like a lifetime ago and yesterday at the same time).

So these are the goals I wrote for myself last year and my explanation to whether or not I achieved the goal.

1. Write in my journal at least 3 times a week. I didn't continue this through the entire year. I went months without writing when I first turned 18, and then I wrote almost every single day all summer long, so it pretty much balances out, right?! I didn't think so either. I'm trying to get into the habit of writing everyday. 

2. Read my Bible every day and start studying God's Word. I have definitely been reading and studying the Word more than I have in the past. Of course, some days I would fail this goal. But every day it's a goal and a choice to make God a priority. 

3. Start spending more quality time with family and friends, and people I love. I guess yeah? How did I plan on measuring this? 

4. Get a summer job and save money. I actually got a job two weeks after writing this and it's been almost a year now! And I've definitely been saving money because I paid for my first quarter of school with no loans and I almost have all the money for next quarter, too (even though it's not due until January). AND I'm doing my best to save for a CA trip in December! 

5. Buy a car and learn how to drive. I got my permit and I drive all over, but I don't have my license or a car of my own yet. But next year for sure. 

6. Visit a state I haven't been to yet. I have a plan in the works to visit California before the end of the year :) 

7. Make new friends and strengthen current friendships. I started working at Dutch Bros, made great lifelong friends there, and started at Western which has introduced me to a group of 14 other future teachers and we're all great friends already.

So, there you have it. Lots of goals achieved, which I'm very excited about. And some that were not, which is okay, but it makes me even more excited for my goals for next year!

Stay tuned for a post on my 19 goals for my 19th year! Make sure you're subscribed (put your email into the box on your right) so you know right when I post it and you don't miss out!

Smiles (this is how I had a professor sign off on a message to all her students, isn't it fun!),
H.L.W.

With Unlimited Funds, Change is Easy

In my diversity + equity class on Mondays, we have fishbowl discussions. This is where half the class sits in a circle and has a discussion, over a topic the professor chooses, and the rest of the class watches them and takes notes and discusses their observations after the discussion is over.

Our discussion topic this past Monday was to make a brainstorming list of everything that we felt contributed to a gap in the achievement of low income or minority students in American schools (because there is a huge gap from kindergarten to high school, you know). Our list consisted of:

- Teachers' low expectations

- Almost all teachers are white females

- Parents working 2+ jobs, with not enough time to help with homework

- Language barrier (parents don't speak English, can't help with child's homework, child is learning English and can't understand many things, etc)

- Poor child readiness (child comes to kindergarten/1st grade never having been read a book, not knowing how to count or what their colors are, the family doesn't own any books, etc)

- Loud/hectic household, child unable to focus on homework

- Because of low income, child may not eat at home or have enough food and go hungry

- Anxiety/stress because of low income

- Poor health

- Parents may be unable to attend conferences or meet with the teacher

- Child may need to take on more responsibility at home, such as child care for younger siblings, household chores, or parents think family time is more important than homework

As we've been learning in all our classes, these are all things that contribute to the academic achievement gap that occurs in minority or low-income students and their families. As prompted by the professor, we needed to choose our top 3 that contributed the most to the gap. We chose language, teacher bias/low expectations, and families not spending time with their child getting them ready for school or setting them up for success inside a classroom (such as reading to them, teaching the alphabet song, etc.).

When I say that these parents failed to set up their child for success, I'm not bashing the parent. It may not be their fault at all. As a low income parent, their primary responsibility is to work and earn money so that the family will not be homeless, have food to eat, and hopefully clean clothes to wear. And when a single parent or both parents need to work multiple jobs to make that happen, it becomes impossible for the parent to make sure the child is ready for school; their biggest concern is making sure their child is safe and healthy. How can a parent who is just trying to keep their families' heads above water in a system that is settling THEM up for failure, be able to make sure their children are at the same level in kindergarten as rich white kids?

The next thing my professor told us to do was to role play as women on a school board and we had unlimited funds to make changes in our schools and provide resources to families to fix these top 3 things. What would we do?

- Provide classes so parents and families could learn English together.

- Provide clubs or daycare/preschool programs designed to help families get books, food if they don't have enough, and help children be ready for school and feel successful.

These are the two I remember the most, although there were many more that we discussed. And of course, there were issues with these too; a classmate of mine, whose parents don't speak English said they had the opportunity to learn when she was in school but it was really, really hard and inconvenient for them to learn. They didn't want to. They may have felt forced and there's no way that someone who does not want to learn a language will learn it easily and be any help to their student.

Our professor ended the discussion by saying that we will have the same groups next week, and the discussers (myself included), needed to do the suggested reading and come up with ideas to fix these issues we saw in the current system. It was really easy to come up with ideas when we had unlimited funds and resources. But now, in the current system, how can things change?

Maybe next week after my Monday class I'll share what we talked about and how our ideas could be implemented in today's system, to fix the system.

More Police but Poor Education

Remember last Saturday's post? Click HERE if you haven't read it yet, because you definitely need to read it in its entirety before continuing with this post.

My mom shared an article with me that she thought fit into Saturday's post. Unfortunately, I couldn't fit the article into what I had already written, so I decided to just do a new post on it. Here it is, if you want to read it all: https://www.kiro7.com/news/north-sound-news/snohomish-county-proposes-property-tax-levy-to-pay-for-more-deputies/629709759

Basically, the Snohomish County is proposing an increase to property taxes to hire and pay for new police officers. Because we need a bigger force to keep the public in check. But we don't need to better fund our schools first?

It's governors and politicians like these that make me so angry. We are setting children up for failure. We are paying for more police officers, and a better police force, but not paying to educate a student better. We're paying for more people in jail, but not for more books for kids.

We're paying for kids that the public school system failed, to be incarcerated. Because we know they'll fail. We know there will always be "bad kids". "Bad people". And nothing we could've done could've prevented a teen from turning to drugs or theft? Nothing we could've done could've prevented a child from joining a gang?

Of course, these things will always exist. We live in a sinful world and perverted people will always be here until the end of the time. But that doesn't mean that we can't help those kids that were led astray and lied to BEFORE it happens. If we're really concerned with lowering crime rates, why don't we start at the core of the issue? Why don't we start with the schools?

If we raise property taxes, can it please be for something that doesn't just affect the low-income and minority children the most? We all know that low-income, minority children get in the most trouble in school and have the highest rates of turning to crime and getting caught. If we raised property taxes to fund schools, provide more books, provide better curriculum, provide more GOOD, EFFECTIVE teachers and paraprofessionals, WE WOULD

HAVE LESS CRIME IN THE FUTURE.

Of course without Jesus, and in a world where there are bad people and where evil lurks, we won't ever have a totally peaceful society and what we do in schools or on the police force can't change that. But that doesn't mean that we have a right to not try, just because that's how it may always be.

I understand we have to deal with the crime we have now. We can't just let it go, and let the current gangs grow, and let people get shot, and let banks be robbed, and let adults kill themselves with meth. But we also need to think more and more clearly about our future kids. Are we giving them a good future?

Are we setting them up for success in society? No? Then we need to change something. Or at least try to start at the heart of the issue.

See you Saturday,
H.L.W.