<p>This will turn out to be sort of a rant, and I’m sure that I’ll regret it later.</p>
<p>(This is against you, Guarav, Rahul, Andros, Reed, and Suhav)
(Is this a guy thing?)</p>
<p>About six months ago, everything was going great. I was involved in a research problem pertaining estuaries, I was going to be a graphic developer, and I had a great idea for a charity. And then BOOM BOOM POW, summer rolls around, and than suddenly nobody has motivation, and everybody quits. What is this? An epidemic? A disease you get when you officially become part of high school? A guy thing? Because I’m sitting here in my room at 7:16 am working my butt off after a 4:00 am run trying to learn foreign languages and theories because summer is NOT TIME FOR BREAK. Summer is a dulling drug that you must push through, because the ones that are not dulled are the ones with the advantage.
The problem with balancing multiple projects at once is that you have to depend on others to seal their end of the deal, but as soon as you zoom into them, they’re going on vacation to Morocco or soccer is suddenly so time consuming or they’re at a dinner that lasts forever.
Another thing I’ve noticed is the Dying Off of Dreams. In middle school, everyone had aspirations for authoring a book or going to Harvard or researching DNA. Now, my grade is officially the fresh fish of high school, suddenly the only thing that matters is… nothing, honestly. Oh wait, OM. The OM clique posts instagram pictures of spray painted hands.
That sounded mean… nothing against OMers.
Whoo! What a long/short rant. I’m just sick of my success depending on other’s participation. You know what? Fine by me. I’ll enter the Siemens competition by myself. I’ll develop my own apps. I’ll create my own charity.
Go post that instagram picture of your food because everybody cares
(that sounded mean nothing against taco bell but everything against my ex teammates)</p>
<p>P.S. Anybody know a website without pedophiles where you can meet teammates?</p>
<p>I don’t get why you had to mention their names that was kind of low…</p>
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It’s called summer break/summer vacation… I did like your use of a metaphor in the following sentence. BTW there is a ranting/venting thread here on CC.
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<p>In middle school those were no where near my aspirations. Wow…I didn’t even know people were thinking that hardcore in middle school. I think my aspirations were more along the lines of getting all A’s in high school and not having to go to college in Indiana. Oh, and becoming a surgeon. </p>
<p>I find that you are “trippin” just a wee bit. You need to learn that everyone is not always dependable or as motivated as you. If you go into high school without this mentality you are going to get a reality check really fast. I can count on more than two hands the number of times when we were assigned partners for a “group” project where I am left doing most of the work. And it mostly stems for being the more dependable or hardworking person of the group.</p>
<p>I was actually “love drunk” on Yale; I did a whole project on it in 8th grade. Then I realized that it would never be the school for me because I actually wanted to enjoy college while still being studious. </p>
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<p>I am actually really jealous of that. My middle school and high school vacations (THAT ALWAYS CUT INTO THE SCHOOL YEAR) were involuntary trips to Nigeria for weeks on end where the only person who enjoyed the vacation was my dad. I wish I did interesting things during the summer before freshman year that weren’t school related. Because now (going into senior year) it feels like all I’ve been doing is college applications and I regret it. I can actually see where your teammates are coming from. They just want to have fun before everything gets too serious. Like I miss the freedom associated with middle school when you really don’t have a care in the world. </p>
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Your own personal success begins and ends with YOU. And the sooner you realize this, the better off you’ll be. </p>
<p>P.S. I don’t think you should give up on your teammates just yet. Have you spoken to them about their lack of commitment to a project they agreed upon?</p>
<p>P.P.S your dreams are not dying off. You just need to realize that maybe your dream was meant to be done solo. </p>
<p>P.P.P.S It is very hard to find motivated people during the summer because just break when school is over.</p>
<p>Then stop depending on other people and do it yourself.</p>
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<p>lol </p>
<p>You’re going to need a lot more than just a couple of your friends to be able to do the latter two things. How extensive is your knowledge of coding and logical thinking? Your ability to program in X-code? Your capabilities of actually marketing your apps? Just making an app in itself is not all that impressive; making millions off of it is what will set you apart, and that, believe it or not, is fairly difficult to do.</p>
<p>And do you even know how difficult it is to actually create a charity? My friend thought similarly to you. He told me he e-mailed a bunch of companies to see if they would sponsor his charity. I then asked if he knew he had to register with the IRS and actually apply to become an actual 501(c)(3) organization. He responded with “well ■■■■.” </p>
<p>As for Siemens… well, it’s super easy to enter. Actually winning awards with a decent project that stands up to the hundreds of projects regarding things like cancer research and verification of mathematical theories is what the hard part is.</p>
<p>Seriously, don’t complain. If I were you, I would work myself to actually accomplish one of these things and then shove it in my “friends’” face if I do rather than complain about how people enjoying their vacation don’t actually want to work.</p>
<p>You cannot delete posts. Its in the rules somewhere. That’s why there is only a 15 minute edit limit so other people respond at stuff like that. Basically you can’t delete your post so someone else can learn from you. </p>
<p>I relate to how you feel. I could of easily posted like this near during some of my competitions when my team wouldn’t study, even though the test is almost upon us and they hadn’t studied when they were supposed to. At all (even when I reminded them to do so every week for the past few months).</p>
<p>It is so difficult finding steady partners. And more importantly, keep them motivated. Especially when you go to a school with a small pool of academics. But in some ways, I guess that is a good thing. Less competition. I can’t imagine the pressure of one of those tippy top high schools, like Andover or Exeter. Most of my time would be spent just trying to stay on top of the pack, and all of that pack would be blood-thirsty alphas trying to do the same thing.</p>