In Loving Memory of Jon Feltman's Formerly Clean Record

This post is dedicated to Jon Feltman, who gets off of probation tomorrow. Jon Feltman, a young man with no discipline record in school or crime record with the police marred his record forever sometime last year.

Last year was Jon Feltman's junior year and it was free ACT day and all juniors were required to take the test. Jon was running late, so he thought he would go a few mph over the speed limit and get to school in time to take the test. Soon enough police sirens were blaring behind him and rather than pulling over, Jon went faster. Amazingly enough he got away, parking his car in Taylor Potter's driveway, who couldn't figure out why he was there, as Taylor was already gone. When asked, he responded simply "Just hangin' out."

When enough time had passed, he left Taylor's house and went to school. On the same route he outran the cop on. He ran into the cop again and was confronted by the po-lice and got many charges.

Jon Feltman, this is for you. Today's life lesson is:

"If you get away from the cops, don't go back to them." 3/7

Start early on your college search...

This doesn't apply so much to my fellow seniors, but I've learned something in the past few months that I feel I should pass on to underclassmen. Being the second person in my extended family to attend college for a bachelor's degree, I really didn't have anyone to turn to for advice when my search began.

As a result, my search did not begin, really, until spring break of my senior year. I began filling out applications about a week before the deadlines and used Common App to apply to a wide variety of schools that I thought I might have an interest in later. What resulted was a frantic and very stressful last quarter of my senior year that has had me reaching out desperately for some sort of certainty about the next four years of my life. I've settled on Centre College, just two days before my acceptance of admission is due, and though I'm very happy with my decision and confident that I made a good choice, the process could have been much easier if I only started it earlier.

2/7

Sometimes it's good to take a break from technology

Recently, because of water damage, I've been forced to live at my grandparents's (Is that correct? I never got that rule down.) house for a few weeks. Unfortunately, during this same period my laptop has died, the operating system on my desktop has expired, and my car has broken down. I have had more work than usual in school and difficult decisions about college to make. I've had very little opportunity to interact with my friends on Facebook or play video games, as I have been separated from my beloved computer and Xbox 360.

As a result, the vast majority of my time has been spent listening to music (The Shins at the moment, one of my all-time favorites) and reading (re-reading Harry Potter). I had forgotten just how therapeutic reading for pleasure can be, as I'd been constantly busy with reading material thrown at me by all of my classes and not had much time for reading what I wanted to. Oddly enough, I don't feel as stressed out right now as I do when I have many less things to worry about and I'm at home. I can't speak for everyone, but a break from technology has helped for the most part.

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