Kate's Happy Fun Blog

       A lot of my family traditions involve food. For example, every year on Christmas, I eat dinner with my extended family at my great aunt’s house. I remember watching my aunts and my grandma cooking Christmas dinner when I was younger, and I always wished I could be a part of the cooking.      Honestly, I’m not sure why I wanted to cook with them. Maybe I felt left out. I wanted to feel like I had a role in my family traditions, and by helping out with the Christmas dinner, I would be able to feel like I had a purpose. Plus, these are people that I looked up to, so I wanted to find a way to connect with them. Of course, I was still young, so there wasn’t much I could do without getting in the way or just slowing things down.       But one year, my grandma gave me a job. I helped her make a dessert we always eat with Christmas dinner. She used to tell me it was a family recipe, but I think it was just an easier version of a Char...

       If you were a part of Mr. Butler’s sophomore history class, it’s probably hard to imagine anything worse than memorizing flowcharts. But for me, the research papers were far worse. Sure, flowcharts could be tedious and boring, but I never procrastinated on those like I did with my papers. I still remember the panicked feeling I would get every quarter when it set in that I had a paper due the next day and wasn’t even halfway done.       Look, I did all I could to get started, but my brain just wouldn’t let me work. I would even set mini-goals for myself a few weeks before our papers were due. “Ok, I'll make an outline today, and then I’ll write one paragraph every day until I’ve filled up five pages (usually ten paragraphs and a couple pictures to fill up the extra space) and then I’ll have a couple days left over to clean it up a bit.”      If you haven’t already guessed, that never happened. I would leave it until the last ...

       If you asked me before writing this if I had a fear of failure, I would’ve told you no; I’m capable of doing plenty without thinking about failure at all. But this prompt has me questioning whether that’s really true, because there’s no doubt that if I couldn’t fail, I would do a whole lot more than I already do.       Take this essay for example. I know I’m supposed to be writing what I’m thinking and trying my best to not hold anything back, but of course, that’s impossible. If I write a full stream of consciousness, putting forth all of the thoughts bouncing around inside my head, that would be a pretty confusing essay. Authentic, but confusing. So I have to hold at least a little back - sort through my thoughts, put them into words, strategically place them where it makes sense - to not get a failing grade.       But what if there was no chance I could fail at this? I still wouldn’t write down all of my thoughts (bec...

  My first instinct when I think about this prompt is to list objects that have value to me - things that remind me of good memories I’ve had over the years or close people in my life. Maybe you have a favorite toy from your childhood (for me it’s a cardinal toy I used to play with at my grandparents’ house), or a gift from a close friend that you cherish. But that’s really not enough to cover our entire lives. Our life story is not just a few meaningful objects we collect over the course of our lives; it’s the interactions we have with other people. What represents us is different for each person in our life. For example, the only thing the cashier at the grocery store knows about me is that I bought a container of strawberries that one time (and to be honest, they probably don’t even remember that). My parents, on the other hand, know almost everything about me. Probably more than anyone else in my life.  But sometimes I feel like even my parents, the people that have known ...

       Everyone has those moments where they look back at old memories and think, “I wish I could do that again.” Maybe it’s a big once in a lifetime thing like graduation or a wedding. Of course I haven't done either of those since I’m a child but I’ve still done fun things with my friends or family that I like to reminisce about. But I’ve never wished I could actually experience them again.      Of course, I still have moments I regret. One memory from my past that stands out is when I went with my mom to see Hamilton a few years ago. I had been wanting to go for months and so had she. We both listened to the soundtrack over and over again, wishing we could be there in person.       Finally, one year for Christmas, my parents bought tickets to watch Hamilton in Chicago. And honestly, I feel like I wasn’t as excited as I should have been, given that I was obsessing over it for months. But it’s understandable -- it was Christmas and...