Happy Holidays!!

During the Christmas Break, my plans are to spend Christmas with my extended family in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I plan to have a feast with all of my family at my grandma's house on Christmas day. Later that week, my church is having a Christmas play and my family always look forward to attend the spectacular event. Other than Christmas and eating at IHOP on New Year's, basketball practice and games lies in my future almost everyday during the break. I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Why I would want to go to college

My hopes to accomplish by going to college is to become successful in my everyday life. The major I want to excel in is engineering , and I would love to learn a lot about it so I can achieve a successful career. The reason I want to go to college is for my family and myself. Most of my family never made it to college, so I want to be one of the few people in my family to have a further education. My dad was taught in the Army and my mother went through four years at Southern University. Also, I would love to work at a high paying job that requires a lot of skill to help my future family, so I want to go to college for myself. I shall seek the input from my mother because she actually been in a college and she knows all about the college life. She been through the struggle, so she would be a great reference. Many great characteristics that I will look at when choosing a college is the money and location. College has all kinds of information that helps students to achieve their goals. Many professors helps students to be what they want to become in life. Without college, a student may not fully achieve the amount of information that a job they desire requires.

Thanksgiving

During Thanksgiving Break, I plan to unite with my family for Thanksgiving at my house. My parents and I are most likely going to go down on the military base to purchase food for the holiday. Also, I plan to do a lot of homework and study for the SAT/ACT. I plan to watch NBA games and play in many basketball games over the break.

Applying for a Job

http://www.snagajob.com/job-seeker/jobs/job-details.aspx?postingid=11554844&oq=part+time+teen+jobs&item=8&searchid=b4bb3b18-67d9-34f0-5aeb-8c9146cd1568&ui=true&src=title
http://www.tacocabana.com/careers/


I have found a job at Taco Cabana in Lancaster, TX as a team member. Basically, you are able to work in stocking, grilling, or behind the cashier. There are two websites that I found that leads to you applying for this job. Taco Cabana would be great for the students my age and above (starting at 16) because they flex your schedule to meet your needs. They also include great benefits, which include Sickness & Accident Insurance, and Dental & Vision Coverage. Taco Cabana pays you by the hour and they offer competitive wages based on your experience. If you live in Lancaster, then this would only be 0-5 minutes worth of driving. Before applying for the job, you should consider preparing for any interview questions. Many of the questions will be about who you are and your life experiences, so you will need to relax and think of past memories. I would recommend asking someone who has experience with going through an interview so you would have some reference. Also, the web is a great source to help you find out what to do to prepare for an interview.  http://guides.wsj.com/careers/how-to-succeed-in-a-job-interview/how-to-prepare-for-a-job-interview/
The level of difficulty in finding a job online is simple. All you have to do is to look up part-time jobs for teens on the web and it should contain many job applications. Snagajob.com is a great resource to find out what jobs are in need of help. You just need to type in part-time jobs for teens and your zip code, and there will be listings of jobs near you. http://www.snagajob.com/

Homeless to Harvard

My favorite scene from the movie, Homeless to Harvard, was when Liz Murray was visiting Harvard with her teacher and fellow classmates. As she looks around the university in awe, she realizes her dream was to go to college, specifically Harvard. She had been on track studying and trying to get an education earlier, but at that moment, she was entirely focused on creating a whole new life ahead of her. This has motivated me even more to strive to be the best I can be. If a homeless girl can get into college, especially an Ivy League college, why can't I? Why can't you? I believe I would be as resilient as her because I would not want to be a dumb kid running around the streets trying to survive everyday. A qualm (an uneasy feeling) would to be sleeping on the streets and eating out of the garbage. Getting an education can help you to have a better future than what it was supposed to be. Also, knowing that your parents have AIDS and the people around you are suffering tremendously can question your sense in living this way.

My College Budget

What was most surprising about my college budget is that I was already in debt by the end of the month! My job did not provide enough money for me to pay of all of my expenses. I actually assumed I was going to be in debt by a few hundred dollars, but not in the thousands! I have been thinking about this and I am starting to get worried about being in debt and borrowing student loans in the future. I have faith in God and myself that I am able to hold all of this responsibility upon my shoulders. There are a lot of expenses to pay for (mostly for everything), but I think I can manage. It will have to take a lot of work to pull off enough money to pay of the debts. I have realized that I may need to look into a higher paying job or apply for a side job so I can earn some more money.  This job gives me a very low income, so I might have to find  summer job or a side job as mentioned before. I can prepare myself for these expenses by saving up the money in my bank account so I can be ready to pay off the high expenses. I also need to ask people who have experiences with budgeting so I will know what to do when handling my money.

My Top Career Choice

My top career choice that I want to become is an engineer. I am not sure what specific engineer I want to become, but I am highly interested in engineering. I have always been building and creating new things as a child, such as through the Lego pieces or drawing. I like to learn and look up how to take machines or items in general apart and see what is inside. I would love to go to a college who is high in engineering because they can help me understand more about the engineering program. 

Stress

My stress number is a 10 out of 24. It says that I have my life in fairly good control. I need to work on the choices and habits that could still be causing me some unnecessary stress in your life. I tend to stress over a lot of things that happen in my academics. In school, we usually receive a lot of homework or take challenging tests. At my house, I am not allowed to watch television or play video games during the school week. One place that I always go to is after school cross-country practice. It usually finishes until 4:30 till 5:00. When I go home, I am always tired from practice and want to take a nap. I tend to fall asleep all the time, causing me to start on my homework at 9:00 pm. This results to lack of sleep because I am now going to sleep at 12:30 am. This also leads to stress if I am too tired to do my homework that night and I wait until enrichment to finish it. It happens the same way with the tests. I would try to study for the test all night and during the next day. Some ways I can reduce this much stress level is to do my homework or study for a test at a table. Since it is always freezing in my house (for some unknown reason), I crawl in my bed and try to do my work from there. When I am warm and full from snacks, I tend to fall asleep. I can even try and do my work on the outside porch since it is so cold inside. 

Organizational method & Procrastination

My current organizational method is that after cross-country practice, I would take a shower and eat a snack. After I feel clean and satisfied, I would study for any test and work on any homework I have this week. So far it hasn't been working due to the fact that I would take a nap after my snack and shower. When this would happen, I usually go to bed around 12:00 am. I think procrastinating hurts people a lot because they wouldn't get a lot of things down. In school, their grades would go down because you are trying to do your homework at the last minute. I can stop procrastinating by turning off my phone so I won't get distracted. Also, I need to do my homework at the table instead of in my bed because I would fall asleep.

Me and My Expectations

My name is Edrick Hudson and I am in the eleventh grade. I am very studious and a fun person to be around. I live with my twin sister and my parents. My academic rank for my class of 2016 is #2 and I hope to achieve this rank or above until I graduate. I love to eat, run, travel, and explore new things. I hope to visit a lot of counties around the world, seeing things I thought I would never see. My dreams are to become an engineer and live for the glory of God.

My expectations for this class is for it to be pretty challenging, such as writing essays and filing out applications. This class is supposed to prepare you for college and I feel like I can do really well in this class. I would like to fill out a lot of applications and apply to many college campuses. My goal is to get accepted in many colleges and to make a high A every six weeks in the class.