Student Council

Hey Guys! So I recently decided to run for the Student Council elections this week! I am running to become the Sophomore Representative! I thought that I would tell you how I'm running my campaign and ways that may help you win if you are ever interested in running for Student Council! Let's get started.

The first thing you should do is make posters. It is important to show the students who you are and making posters can help you with that. I wrote pretty much the same thing on every poster so that everyone knew that I was the same person which leads to my first tip: do not create posters that look too different and unrecognizable from each other.

the picture I used on my campaign posters

If your posters don't look similar in anyway other than having your first name on them it may be hard for students to realize you are the same person. Also, make sure to hang your posters in the most frequently visited parts of your school to ensure that the majority of your class or your voters see your poster. For my school this means that the candidates for Student Body Vice President have two schools to cover because the ninth grade is at a different school. This leads to my next tip.

MAKE SURE TO GET TO SCHOOL EARLY ON THE DAY YOU ARE ALLOWED TO START CAMPAIGNING. This is especially important in Park City because there are so many different sections of the school to cover in such a little amount of time. I would say to try and hit the main traffic ways of your school first and to have friends help you hang posters in different areas as well. This will ensure that you get prime space in all areas of the school and not just on one wall. However, the most important part of your campaign is your video.

Your video should be your number one priority after your posters. Although some schools don't allow videos most do and many videos are the reason candidates are elected into their positions. Even though it is kind of sad, most high school elections are still popularity contests and having a funny video is an essential part to a winning campaign. And again this leads me to my next tip, don't make your speech too long.

If your speech is long and boring people won't vote for you. Try to throw in some puns and hold your audience's attention. If you make them remember you they will most likely forget about the other candidates and vote for you as they remember you the most. If you want more information on how to write a good speech and presenting it click here.

Be clever and have fun with your campaign! Most schools also have positions you can apply for so don't worry if you don't win! I would still encourage you to make the most out of a Student Council experience because it can be a really good opportunity and a fun time! Hopefully you all enjoyed that post! See you soon!

Update 5/5/16: I won the election! Thanks to all the students at TMJH who voted for me and congratulations to Matthew who was elected as well! Good job to everyone who participated I encourage all of you to apply for positions! I look forward to working with all of you next year!

Stay Positive Part 2

Hey guys! So last time I gave you a couple tips on how to stay positive and motivated through injuries and negative times! For the second part of this series I decided that showing you how I keep track of my progress, making sure I stay on track and how I prevent laziness. Hopefully this helps you guys!

So, how I keep track of my progress is by using sheets that I have created online and print out. I fill these out every day and every Monday I have a separate sheet that summarizes the previous week's progress reports. I find that these have helped me to communicate properly with my coaches, doctor and physical therapist about where my pain is, when the pain occurs and what type of pain it is. I can also take notes and write any questions I think of while filling out my sheet for the day. This takes up about ten or fifteen minutes of my day and it is definitely worth it. I found that last year, before developing this system, I was unprepared when speaking with my coaches. This made it extremely hard to differentiate between what I could and couldn't do and left me weak during the season. Overall I put myself in a bad place and by writing this I hope to prevent any of my readers from doing the same.

Another thing I want to prevent all of you from doing is getting off track. I found that coming back from injury took up a lot of my time and some days it didn't feel like it was worth it to bother putting in the work. When I got into this mind frame I went backwards in my progress.

a photo of Lindsey Vonn, an olympic skier who has had
multiple injuries and come back stronger from every one
photo courtesy of Ten Sports Club

As I got weaker, things started to hurt my knee more and more limiting what I could do. There was a time period when my doctor thought I was pushing my leg too hard and creating pain when I actually needed to do more strengthening. It was a bad time that left me weak as I mentioned before. I had to work ten times harder because I was expected to do a lot more and keep up with my team. It is SOOO IMPORTANT to stay motivated and keep yourself together. Injury is a hard mental game to play and beat. Sometimes you think you know better and that you don't need to put in the work, but you do. Remember this little rant when you aren't feeling motivated and think about re-injuring yourself like I did. It's unfortunate that it has taken me two surgeries to figure all this out but you can learn from my mistakes. This also leads into preventing laziness.

There are some days you just don't want to do anything. However, I have actually read an article that stated the the best days to go to the gym are the days when you don't want to. Some people say your body gets the most out of your workout on those days. How do you get yourself there? This is when these two posts come full circle. The answer to preventing laziness is staying positive and motivated. Sound familiar right? Here's some more information on how to prevent laziness. 

Overall it's hard to get over the bad days. If you haven't read part one of this mini series go do that for some more tips and tricks. Stay strong and follow the steps I've listed to take a more mature approach to your injury or bad attitude and you will be fine! Hopefully this has helped any of you that have had problems staying committed and motivated to your sport recently. Stay tough! See you soon!

Stay Positive Part 1

Hey guys! Knee surgery was successful and I now have another cadaver graft holding my knee together. Unfortunately it sucks, like really bad, but now that I've gone through this process twice in less than a year I'm more prepared for future injuries and I know how to take care of myself. So, I decided to give you guys some tips on staying positive, motivated, reaching your goals and mentally dealing with injury to help you guys out! I will be doing this in two parts so stay tuned!

My first tip, and one of the most important ones, is to stay positive and motivated! It's hard when you're in a slump or injured to stay positive but it is essential to getting yourself back on track. One thing you can do to stay positive is think about all the fun times you've had in your activity, this specifically works well for sports, and think of all the fun times to come when you get back! 

a photo of us doing our flexion and extension exercises at Silver Mountain Sports Club
from left to right: Maddison, Heidi, Ella, Natalie (the one behind Tasia), Tasia, and me

Another great thing to do is to work with a group. There were three other girls on my team, as well as two from other ski sports, with the same exact injury as me. I decided that getting all of us together in the gym would be a great idea since I started doing upper body exercises two weeks after surgery. I can not express how much more motivated I was this surgery than my last because I had my friends there. For me I saw being able to use the most weight as a competition and have thrived from the workout group we've formed. If you'd like to read more about staying positive and how it relates to your health and competition click here. This also kind of ties into my next tip.

My next tip is to reach your goals. Try not to make goals too hard because otherwise you will end up discouraged when you don't accomplish them right away. One of my goals at the gym was to try to increase my weight by every two weeks. This is easier to accomplish for me because when you are starting out in the gym after having a strong muscle memory you make gains in your progress quickly. Of course as you continue you will need to update your goals as you are always changing. Also, don't be discouraged when you fail or aren't able to do everything you would like. With ACL reconstruction, ESPECIALLY a revision, it's a slow process. You can't run immediately after surgery. You need to relearn to walk, strength your surrounding muscles and make sure you have given the graft enough time to heal and become part of your body before you can start to pound your body again. This can take three or more months. It's a slow process that you need to get through.

Alright guys, hopefully this has helped you out a little bit. I know it can be hard to come back from an injury or having a bad week but don't let it get you down. Next time I'll show you an effective way to keep track of progress and be sure you don't make some of the mistakes I made when I had surgery last year. See you soon!