Author: Avery Kim

As I worked so very hard on Tranquility, I believe that was the virtue I struggled with the most. I chose this because, as I continuously worked on this virtue everyday, stress would come around and cause me to become impatient, stressed, tired, and all together I would be short tempered with everything that happened in that specific day. This virtue was the most important to me because I am normally a calm, fun, outgoing person, but when I am stressed, I want to do nothing but work harder in school. When I get interrupted, it ruins my flow and I do not stay tranquil. I believe in order for me to get through this year without my brain exploding I need to learn tranquility, so I am able to manage my team between work, friends and school without getting overly stressed. I would like to continue volunteering, and improving myself as a whole. I would like to improve my day, so I can help improve other peoples lives.

A virtue I made an obvious improvement in is Cleanliness. Staying organized, eating right, and working out has helped my stress decrease. Living a healthy lifestyle from these past 10 days have helped with the way I sleep, and my mood. I expect to see an even bigger improvement as I plan to continue this virtue. I have a new gym membership, my family knows my commitment to eating right, and I have scheduled times to do laundry and clean my room. By setting goals and letting it be known to the people who know me best, I will be held accountable for my Cleanliness virtue. This is important to me because I think changing eating habits and my lifestyle has already helped improve my life, I cant imagine how it will help me in a time span of a year or two.

I started my voyage of virtues strong. I had a good week and I kept up with my goal of virtues. One rough day led to another, and I found myself struggling to get out of the funk. I have learned acceptance with my grade, which has decreased the amount of stress in my life, I have learned Liberality, as I hung out with friends even if I was stressed hoping to distract me, and I found it worked! Bettering my life will better me as a person. When working on getting to a less stressful lifestyle, my mood will change, I will have more free time, and have time to volunteer, make new friends, which will better me as a whole. I will see a whole new side of my life if I continue working on these virtues. I hope everyone continues their virtues past this assignment. Have a lovely break!

Getting close to the end. Today started off amazing! Sleeping in helps my day so much, I am so thankful for our late starts! I made my lunch, fed my bunny, talked with my mom for a bit, then I was off to school. I started my day out with math. Accepting I had done bad on my first try at the mastery quiz for math, I had a retake today and I am pretty confident I did well, which is always rewarding. It helped me move on from the grade, knowing I will work on passing the mastery. My next hour I did a dissection, so gross, but so fascinating! I also caught up on my portfolio, leaving no stress for the class. I finished my day off with child development, I was able to color with soothed my day helping with tranquility and I did homework so I don’t procrastinate. I came home and had a pear for my snack, and a bit of cookie dough because my mom had just made it and I couldn’t resist myself! Today has been such a fabulous day, but tonight I am studying for my chem exam. I have been stressing about this exam all week. Last exam I had a studied partner and I did well on the test, so I am doing it again. Tonight I am staying up with my friend to teach other and go through the notes so we do well on the test tomorrow. Overall I would give myself a B, only because of the stress I have on myself due to chem. I hope everyone had a great day today, and I hope tomorrow is even better! Friday!!!

Wednesday was a pretty good day. I woke up around 6:30 ready to get my day started. Chemistry went well which always makes my day easier, and the rest of the day flew by. I had weights today, and I focused on form and reps, working on cleanliness and my health. I hung out with my friends after, this really helped me stay tranquil. Hanging out with my friends also allowed me to work on liberality. I was having fun and worrying about homework later, when I got home. Eating spaghetti, maybe not the healthiest, but I ate it in moderation, which I have found is the best way to handle cravings and unhealthy food. Overall I would give myself an A. I got all my work done, it was stress free, and I had fun. Pretty good day to me! I hope the rest of you had a fantastic day. 🙂

Tuesday, I was very stressed. I practiced, and practiced chemistry, preparing myself for the quiz. I had friends over and I was trying to help them as well. Teaching them the periodic trends, allowed me to practice tranquility. Overall, tranquility was the main virtue I worked on, and I was a little disappointed in myself for only working on the one. But I thought I did a great job explaining the concept, and staying calm while doing it. I hope everyones virtues are going well!

Today could have been worse. I started my day off quite negative. I was tired, I was upset that I need help with chemistry, and I was just not having it. I went in and got help, and started my day off slow. Working on tranquility and acceptance as my top priorities today because of how poorly I did the night before. My day was slow but I begin to have a good day after getting a good meal in during lunch. I found my inner peace today ignoring the fact I had little to no sleep, and I turned my day around. At the end of the day I have weights class, today working on my cleanliness as well, I stayed after school to finish my workout. Pushing myself through a workout because I knew it would satisfy me after. Overall after starting out pretty rough, I pushed through and made it a decently swell day. Overall I would give myself a B+. I hope everyone had a great day and if you need something to motivate you through this week, remember, next week is thanksgiving break! Goodnight:)

Yesterday was very chaotic. Everything was a disaster! Throughout the weekend I thought I was doing decently well with managing homework, and I was getting my blogs done. Sunday came around and I had a bunch of chemistry homework that I did not understand. Working on acceptance, I continuously looked at my chemistry grade displeased with the B I had. Stressing about my B, I could not figure out the homework, and I continued to worry about my grade. I would give acceptance a D-. I was able to stay tranquil with my baby all weekend until yesterday, I wanted my sleep and kept getting woken up and I would get upset. I struggled with staying tranquil, and I hope it will be better today once I get a full nights rest. Overall yesterday with tranquility would receive a C-. Cleanliness was not too bad. I have realized it is hard to incorporate healthy eating when I am with friends, I struggle to contain my cravings. Although I could have eaten worse. For the reasoning I would give myself a B-. Yesterday could have been better, but I am hoping today will go better for me. I hope everyones weekend went well for them!

Exhaustion, Stressed, Happy, and having fun all at the same time? Who knew that would be possible. Taking care of a baby has deprived me from my sleep, yet I enjoy this project. Taking care of this baby has let me enjoy the moments of fun, working on Liberality, I was having fun. The stress from the rest of my life is creeping up on me and I am beginning to feel the tension. So far I am satisfied with living in the moment and enjoying moments like these where I go out with my friends who also have babies this weekend. Moderation has worked well for me, I have been able to balance unhealthy foods, and eat them in moderation. Cleanliness has been hard, you know how it is for us new moms. I have kept up with skin routine, but when it comes cleaning my room, my child cries… Therefore my room is a mess, and there a need for a deep clean coming soon. Going on to my next virtue, tranquility. With the little sleep I have gotten, I thought I would not stay tranquil, I survived and I went on with my day with tranquility. I woke up this morning and went to volunteer at the food pantry, and had great conversations with people, which boosted my mood for the rest of the day. I would say overall I did quite well with my patience, and staying calm. Overall, I had a day full of excitement, and lots of babies crying. I managed oversee the bad with all the good that has occurred these past few days. Below are pictures of my baby waking me up early in the morning. Enjoy and Goodnight!

Overall today was not my best day, which made it hard to boost my mood, considering it is Friday I thought it would be better. I have a lot to do in chemistry, which has stressed me out quite a bit. I am working on Liberality today, because I need to focus on taking care of the baby I took home for child development. I am trying to balance between my school stress, and having fun with this assignment. I have been struggling throughout the day to shake off my worries. My math test was grade today as well. I did not do very good, and I was not able to stay tranquil. Following my annoyance, it was hard for me to accept the grade I had gotten on my test. I chose to play positive music, hoping to boost my mood. It did. After a roller coaster of emotions, I took my baby to target and went on a little adventure, working on loosening up and having fun. When it comes to cleanliness, not much fell into that category other than eating. For lunch I ate a squash salad mix, and for dinner I had Canes, though I ate it in moderation. I am satisfied with the way I handled my control over eating. At the end of the night I am not satisfied with my day, but I was able to tie all of my virtues into one day. I have acknowledged what I need to work on, and there is nothing more I can do. I have accepted my thoughts and feelings. I am now moving on. I will work on meditation tonight, and a positive manifestation for tomorrow! Goodnight!

Today was not as successful as I had hoped for. When it comes to cleanliness, I started of well eating healthy, then I ate a taquito and a kit kat. I was not satisfied with the way I had handled my cravings and I hope I will do better tomorrow. I worked on acceptance, and told myself today was a minor slip up. I will continue to work on healthy habits, and I will continue to tell myself it IS OKAY to have a slip up every now and then. It takes time to break old habits, and start new ones. Overall Cleanliness gets a C-, and acceptance gets an A-. This week as I have been trying to work on my stress, I treated myself to a nail appointment. I worked on Liberality. I decided to loosen up and have a relaxed night, by hanging out with friends and worrying about homework after dinner. I feel that if I set a goal for when I should get my homework done, I am avoiding my procrastination habit, but allowing myself to have fun right after school. I hope my day is better overall tomorrow. After all it is Friday! Goodnight, I hope you all have an exceptional day tomorrow!

I started the day off, happy, and excited! I have finally understood chemistry. I wanted to spread my happiness to my chemistry teacher, so I brought him a donut. Today I focused on tranquility. I went to sleep telling myself “tomorrow is going to be a good day”, I woke up and I told myself again “today is going to be a good day”. After seeing the happiness I brought to my chemistry teacher, after doing the smallest act of kindness, it inspired me to encourage it throughout the whole day. Falling into the category of tranquility, staying calm and peaceful, I have learned today, in order to stay calm, I need to find my inner happiness and spread it throughout my day. Today helped kick start my voyage of virtues. Today I give myself an A+ in the tranquility category. Onto the next virtue, I focused on acceptance. Today I looked at my grades and I was not quite satisfied with my B in chemistry and B in human anatomy. I continued to stare, until I realized the stress building up. I immediately closed out of my grades, I told myself I was doing my best. The A on my chemistry exam was the journey to receiving an A at the end of the semester in chemistry. For the category of acceptance I would give myself an A-, a minus due to the reasoning of allowing myself to stare at my grades too long. Overall these were the main virtues I worked on today. I believe this was a superb day, I hope my voyage continues with days like these!

Today I have chosen to focus on cleanliness as my main virtue. I have chosen this day to clean my room, do my laundry, do a full skincare routine and eat a healthy lunch and dinner. For lunch I had a chicken salad sandwich, which contains proteins, grains, and veggies I need for a full nutritional meal, pairing it with an orange and grapes. For dinner I had chicken pesto, which was moderately healthy containing proteins, veggies, and carbs. Today my main focus was cleanliness, however I continued to keep in mind my other virtues throughout my day. I started off my day with math. When it comes to math, I gravitate towards frustration and impatience. Today while we were reviewing for our test, I was able to ask questions, and take deep breaths if I wasn’t understanding the concept. I was able to stay tranquil and continue on with my learning. Moreover the virtues I have achieved today, one including moderation. After school I lean towards the unhealthy bag of chips rather than the carrots and celery. Today I chose the bag of chips with moderation of the chips, balancing it out with carrots and hummus. Overall I would give myself an B+ because I know I could have incorporated more of my virtues.

The motivation behind my blog is to improve my life as a whole. I would like to live a clean, well organized life, and condense the abundance of stress surrounding me. As I have gotten older, I have let stress crowd my life. Stress determines the way my day will go, how I will sleep, how I will eat and generally affect my health. This stress leads to cleanliness, I get out of focus, and become messy. My room is always clean, but the stress takes over my life and I have become more sloppy. I am eager to start a new routine to help with organization, and cleanliness. The relationship between Franklin and I, is both aiming towards goals in our life. Franklin has inspired me, and my class to begin a journey of virtues. Franklin constantly kept himself occupied, achieving goal after goal throughout his whole life. I strive to have the motivation Franklin had, keeping up with his virtues until he no longer could. I had told myself a goal to have each month, we then began to talk about Franklin’s virtues, it gave me the perfect opportunity to grow. I hope to keep this going throughout my life just like Franklin.  

The virtues I have chosen to help me succeed in life are, Acceptance, Tranquility, Cleanliness, Temperance, and Liberality. Starting with Acceptance, I have chosen these virtues as I tend to hold things over my head when I know it is out of my control. I please others before pleasing myself. I have realized I need to come to terms with the fact I can’t make everyone happy, but I know I need to enjoy life to the fullest. A strategy to remind me I cannot please everyone, is to try my best, and know that I did all that I can do. Following acceptance is Tranquility. My life is full of stress, and the easiest way for me to handle it is to channel that stress to anger. One way I am going to work on tranquility is working on my breathing and communication to my peers. One of the virtues I want to focus on the most is Cleanliness. I have become messy as I have gotten older, and I’ve decided to change that.  One way I am going to achieve cleanliness is letting my family and friends know, so they are able to hold me accountable for eating healthy. Another way I am going to achieve this goal is committing to the gym and after school weights. Continuing on with my health, I have chosen temperance. To help with cleanliness I need to learn how to eat in moderation, and work out in Moderation. I will limit the amount of sugars that are in my house, and if there are I will set a goal of how much I will eat. Food in general, I am going to download an app to tell me my calorie intake to help keep track of what I am eating. Lastly I would like to work on Liberality. With the goals I am setting, I still need to learn a way to balance all without being uptight. When it comes to school, work on school work, but if it’s the weekend I am going to give myself a break and go have fun. Throughout my high school years so far I have learned to live in the moment and enjoy the time I have with my people. A way I am going to achieve this goal is, setting goals for when to get my homework done. After I have made it to that time I will go out and live freely. 

My hopes for these virtues, and my plan to achieve them, are to help me live a better, and relaxed life. I believe with my determined mindset, and the obvious need for a schedule fix, that I will be able to continue these virtues past the class time we are given. Although we have a short amount of time to succeed in these virtues, I believe each will have a positive impact on my life. I have high standards for myself, and all I want is the best. I believe these virtues are the pathway to that success I yearn for.