Daydreams and Real Dreams
By Molly, age 13, California
Looking back on my life I have many regrets. I haven't done well in school; I was always a B student. I never put time and effort into anything I did, except my thoughts. I have the biggest imagination. Every day I just think about my social life and my plans. Any types of plans - future plans, school plans, social plans ... Every night I have big, crazy, and wild dreams about anything my mind leads me to. If the dream is good enough, I write about it. Normally, I think and think about it until finally I have a story.During the summer following seventh grade I changed. I am now focused on schoolwork and being good friends with everybody, which means being nicer and dressing better. I don't daydream anymore and I have more realistic dreams. I am smarter and more focused on my goals in life. My old life was a lot more fun, but now I have a lot more things going for me.
Do you ever think about how your life would change if you had decided something different in the past? Taken a different road? I think about it all the time.
I don't think back to a lot of moments; I think back to one. In third grade my friend and I started this pencil business. We got really into it and didn't study our math. My teacher never found out, but it wasn't about getting in trouble; it was about learning. If I had decided to do math instead I wouldn't always be trying to catch up. Now I am a normal student. At our school we could be put into Algebra 1 or Geometry. But if I had done my Math in third grade, then I would be higher up in Math today. My teacher in third grade was a great teacher. Beyond that, my teachers didn't push me to be better; they put me in a group of kids who went at a slower pace, thinking we weren't as smart as the other kids and couldn't handle going faster and being better.
That's what I really wanted. I wanted to be smart and be up there with the smart kids. I didn't like feeling dumb. Once I reached seventh grade I failed all my tests. Then my dad had to start working long hours trying to make me understand the material. After a while I started catching up and acing my tests. If I could go back, I would go back to third grade and do that whole year over again. Everything, even if it was hard.
