Honor, in the National Sense

Once again, it seems I must apologize for my extended absence. I've been swamped with school work and scholarships, so I haven't been able to fit in a few minutes to blog. Never fear, I plan to post every day for the next few weeks, so there will be no shortage of information, reflection, and reminiscing to read up on.

Today, I find myself in a rather patriotic and national mood, so I decided to talk a little bit about National Honor Society (I apologize to those of you who didn't follow how the two connect, it seems that kind of disconnect or randomness happens often in my train of thought). National Honor Society, according to the backside of my membership card, stands upon four tenants, if you will. These are: scholarship, leadership, service, and character. To me, National Honor Society is a place where the best and brightest people from my school can gather to engage in service for the community and have fun together. I know when I go to a meeting or attend a service activity that I am surrounded by people who understand me and my goals, and strive for similar goals themselves. In this context, I will be regarding NHS as a "service" aspect of CAS.

On to the learning outcome: showing perseverance and commitment in my activities. While I have done this for all of the activities I'll talk about on this blog, I feel I should talk about my perseverance, as it were, for NHS because of the work I have had to put in to make sure I would get all of my requirements to stay in the club. To remain a member of NHS at Loveland High, one must complete at least 20 hours of service, attend four of the monthly meetings, maintain a 3.7 GPA, and participate in at least four NHS sponsored activities. I know, it doesn't sound like a lot of work, but try factoring in the three other clubs, cheerleading, and the rest of my IB workload, it's difficult to make sure all the requirements are met. However, I have managed to maintain my status as an NHS member for the last three years, and I have lettered twice.

Even when it seemed like I could not possibly make it to one of the meetings, or one of the events I signed up for, I made it work, even taking on extra activities such as poster making or making the program for the talent show on my own time, so that I could make sure I would stay in the club. I feel that I have learned to overcome the obstacles that would try to bring me down, and instead I make said obstacles into something positive. When I commit to being at a service event, or say I will be at a meeting, I make sure to be there, and if I absolutely cannot be at the event, I make sure I let my club supervisor know ahead of time so someone else can fill my place. Being committed and persevering in my National Honor Society activities has helped me to learn life skills in the areas of time management and being true to commitments I make, regardless of other plans I might want to make, or other activities I might want to do more than the service activities.

Hope to see you all tomorrow for more rounds of reflection!!
Jordy