Hearing Loss, Confidence, and my Second Week of School

Week 2 was also successful! The homework load has increased, and there has been an annoying amount of "busy-work" but it has certainly been bearable. It was pretty uneventful (except for a bunch of other sophomores unofficially declared on Tuesday "Scrub Day" which I find to be terrifying and cruel. If you don't know what it is, I'll leave it up to your imagination. Hint: It has absolutely nothing to do with wearing scrubs or cleaning). Since there's not much to say about that, I thought I would talk about confidence and how it has impacted me.

Over the summer I volunteered at a nearby pediatric hospital. While I had done it the summer before, this year they placed me at the front desk as opposed to being in the back filing papers. I was really excited about this, as it's obviously more a lot more interesting to get some interaction with patients and parents. I was in charge of giving directions and walking people to their destinations in the hard-to-navigate hospital. I certainly feel like it taught me quite a bit about speaking up for myself, as you can't exactly bluff when you mishear the location you're supposed to be bringing someone! As time went on, I also built up the confidence to go up and ask people who seemed to be wandering and lost if they needed help. People view you  completely differently when you act like you know what you're talking about.

This brings me to the school year. The (semi-)confidence to talk to complete strangers has proved essential for yearbook, since we have to ask people permission before taking their pictures. This also means getting shot down over and over (and over!) again, but I guess that's just another life lesson! It has also transferred over to my other classes, such as when I asked my teacher to change my seat since I was facing the wall instead of the front of the room. She was more than happy to move me, but I don't think the girl I traded with was too crazy about having to strain her neck for 50 minutes every day. Not sure why they position the desks like that anyway...

I also  built up the confidence to run for an officer position of my school's French Honor Society. To back up a bit, I had never been in the officer position of a club before until I decided to run for my school's Red Cross Club. My friends and I were pretty much the only freshmen in it last year, so this year all 5 of us are officers since there wasn't really anyone to run against.  We're hoping to get more students involved! Anyway, running for FHS officer was the first thing where I'd actually have to compete against other people for the position. Luckily for me, the winner is chosen by having an interview with my French teacher instead of having to give a speech and have members vote (baby steps!) To be completely honest, I wavered back and forth about whether I wanted to interview, and wasn't going to do it until the tutorial session I was going to attend before school was canceled, and I was already at the school so I had nothing better to do but to go and interview for the position. I hadn't prepared at all, but I managed to win the position I wanted, so that was pretty exciting!