During the summer, I spend as much time as I can outdoors. But during the winter, I’m usually cooped up in my room, on my computer or watching TV. After a couple weeks of this, I get a strange guilty feeling, like I’m wasting my life just because it’s a little cold outside. When this happens I make an attempt to do more things outside of my room, like walking places instead of driving or taking advantage of sunny days by hula hooping outside. It never feels like enough though. As soon as spring rolls around though, I’m back outside for most of the day, hiking and kayaking and just running around. It feels easier to be outside where I’m allowed to be dirty and messy, than stuck in my room all day breathing the same air over and over.

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Currently my local community is a small college town in upstate New York. Right now our school is facing heavy budget cuts that will definitely affect student’s everyday life. If I could I would take whatever position would put me in close range of creating some sort of fight against these cuts the state is trying to make. Many kids go to a state school because they don’t have the funds to go to more expensive private schools. Our school has served its students greatly, and I wouldn’t pick a private school over it even if I could. But these budget cuts we face are going to hurt students, faculty, and the campus itself, and if I could do anything to change that, I certainly would.

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I was lucky enough to live in the same house as my cousins till I was 14 years old. Growing up with so many kids, we were always in the backyard for hours playing any game we could think of. One of my favorites was the game of Hot Lava, where we would hop around for hours without touching the dirt or the grass, which was now, in our minds, boiling hot volcano lava. We would climb over the swing set and onto our clubhouse, trying to escape the vicious red lava. My brothers, my cousins, and I would play this game almost every day during the summer, and even imagine the snow in the winter to be dangerous. It was definitely one of my favorite games, and one that I wish I could find someone to play with me today.

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I don’t think I could pick one particular book that stands out to me as life changing. I love reading though and have plenty of favorites from throughout the years. The book I always claim as closest to number one in my heart is Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. Card created the character of Ender, a genius child who ends up saving the world and experiencing some of the hardest situations you could possibly imagine.  Every time I reread this books, and believe me its often, I end up noticing some new detail I didn’t pick up on before that makes me pity and love the main character more and more. His selflessness and intellect enticed me from the start, and I have to say he is one of the most interesting literary characters I’ve ever come across.

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