The fear of trying new things limits you from possibilities. Especially when that new thing could inspire a habit in you or leave you with new knowledge, even if your endeavor was unsuccessful.

As a staff, we decided to be bold and dedicate a week to something new. Our undertakings may seem small, but the merit of our attempts, whether successful or not, comes from our dedication to seeing it through and being okay with what we did or did not learn in the process. Though our week is not over yet, below, we will share our thoughts this far and the reasoning behind our choice of pursuit.

Hannah Dollar

I chose to take on the task of meditating consistently for an entire week to establish a habit of starting my days calmly and ending them in a reflection that carries me into the next day. Some days I have found myself taking this pause in my day more than once, and others, I can barely fit in five minutes, whether from limited time or lack of motivation. Regardless of the time, I have been able to dedicate to meditating, I leave my sessions with a sense of calm and relaxation. I actually find that if I meditate for more than five minutes, I start to drift into sleep. I will admit that I by no means have the art of mediation down as I still have not been able to turn off my active mind, but what I have enjoyed is the escape I find. Though my mind is still running, my creativity and thoughtfulness overcome my stress and anger, and I come out of my meditative state with those parts of my mind eased. Another difficulty I have is the obstacles that seem to extinguish my mediation. For the remainder of my week, I will focus more on maintaining my meditation practice even when I am active throughout my days.

Eleanor Kelly

I chose bird watching because birds seem interesting. Bird watching seemed peaceful and an easy thing to do because birds are everywhere. That didn’t seem the case because as soon as I started looking for birds, they disappeared. I went out on Monday, November 15th, and saw nothing, though every once in a while, I saw a leaf flutter down to the ground that made me think it was a bird; it was not. For the short ten minutes I was out there, I got a few mosquito bites and some cool pictures of the sun shining on the trees. I searched for when it is the best time to bird-watch and found that dawn is. Later that night, I saw birds flying in a “v” formation. Hopefully, tomorrow I will at least see one.  So far, it has been cool looking out for different birds and a very peaceful experience.

Mo Carter

My new thing for the week is not going on social media; I even took it a step further and didn’t use my phone in the house. Because of school work, I still allowed myself to use the internet through my laptop. When I get home, the first thing I do is put my phone on the kitchen counter and head to the study to finish homework. Work that would usually take me a full hour to complete I have finished within 20 minutes, then I have the rest of the evening to myself. Initially, I thought this dead space would cause an issue, but instead, I found that I am more focused on whatever book I read or show I’m watching. Without my phone, I thought that my evening jogs would be tiresome and grow boring; however, before now, I hadn’t realized how many birds were in my neighborhood. Without my headphones plugged in, I can hear each call like the ring of a bell.

Gabe Tartaglia

For my seven-day thing, I chose to wake up at 6 o’clock every morning. There was no real reason for doing this other than just to see if I could. It has definitely been a positive thing so far; I am no longer rushed in the morning because I only have 20-30 minutes to get ready before school. I’m also finding it easier to fall asleep at night if I don’t take naps after school. The only negative to this is my days do feel longer because I am up doing stuff for more extended periods of time. Although it seems positive for me, I don’t see myself continuing this after the seven days because it’s just a struggle to get out of bed that early.

Dayan Rivera

Writing in a journal for a consistent amount of days can help with clearing your mind. Whether you write about what goes on throughout the day or write about your troubles, you somehow feel a little relief by walking away, knowing that your thoughts have been lifted. Every day so far in my week of trying this, I have written in a journal. My initial reaction was a little odd. Writing in a journal about what went through my head made me feel uncomfortable since I wasn’t used to it. Though every day that passed, I became more comfortable and open with my feelings. I started to open up about my past, including my problems, and grew a lot more relaxed with this task since I knew no one else could read whatever I wrote.

Lulu Shaban

For this week, I decided to cook dinner every night for my family of five. I chose to do this because I’m not very good at cooking in the first place and thought it would be nice to learn a few meals to help my mom out at home. I didn’t cook on Monday, but I watched my mom make some top-tier, gourmet hot dogs. Tuesday, I decided to make Molokhia, which is one of my family’s favorite meals. I began with separating the chicken and putting it in a glass dish to cook in the oven. While that was cooking, I cooked up some small pieces of noodles for the rice and added water to that. Then, once the chicken was done cooking, I put it in the instant pot, added three Molokhia packages, and added 10 cups of water and some salt. I let that cook for about thirty minutes and stirred it to break up the pieces of chicken. When I served it to my family, they said it was the best they have ever had. On Wednesday, I went with an easy but delicious meal, lentil soup. I cut up some onions, sauteed them, and rinsed out the lentils while the onions were being sauteed. I later added the onions and lentils to the crockpot song with some water, salt, and other spices. I waited about 45 minutes to cook and stir it, and then I served it to my family; they loved it. I also included some pita chips on the side to add to the soup. So far, so good.

Stay tuned to find out how our week of newness turns out.