New Year’s Resolution is to treat life like a gift

BY Spencer Massicot

Spencer Massicot
Teen Columnist, The Friday Flyer

The New Year has officially begun and resolutions have been made. Clean eating, being closer to family, losing weight, finding ways to save and spend money, pay down debt, and living life to the fullest are among the most popular resolutions for 2016 and can all be summed up by people around the world saying: new year, new me.

New Year New Me is a hashtag that is being used by hundreds of thousands of people around the world in posts about their new goals for the new year on social media.

The New Year is an opportunity for everyone to celebrate their accomplishments from the previous year and reflect on what they want to change in themselves.

The holiday on January 1st is like a new beginning for people, a clean slate even, to be able to start fresh and make plans for the 365 days ahead.

Some people, like my parents, start out with a plan to have certain things accomplished by certain times of the year and make sure they are on track. Things that are planned out can be meal plans for clean eating, budgeting to save money, and making a plan on when to pay bills and pay down debt.

Other people, like me, have resolutions where I am going to take it day by day and make sure that I am fulfilling my goals each day. Goals that can be accomplished day by day are being nicer to people around you, doing things with family, and making spontaneous decisions to have fun and live life to the fullest.

I plan to treat and use this coming year like a gift, a gift to be alive in this ever-changing world. I plan to use this year to be more helpful to my parents and to be more involved than I already am with school and not lose focus on my schoolwork, and to keep pushing myself to be a better runner.

One of my favorite things to do is go to the movies. Throughout 2015 I saw plenty of movies that really captured my mind.

When I go to the movies, I like to see things that I want to see. But if my parents want to see something, I will be all in to go because I get to have popcorn with the movie theater butter.

This past year some of my favorite movies were the dinosaur-filled amusement park and top earning movie of the year, “Jurassic World;” the hilarious and creative adventures of the yellow creatures, the “Minions;” the fictional destruction of the cities on the fault in “San Andreas;” the capitol bombings in the “Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2;” and the colorful world of what goes on in all of our minds in “Inside Out.”

All of these movies kept you wanting more after the movies ended; they were creative and captured my thoughts and made me focus on the movie alone.

Movies I am excited for this year are “The 5th Wave,” a book I read before I found out it was going to be a movie; and “Finding Dory,” because the first movie I ever saw in the movie theater was “Finding Nemo,” and I have been awaiting this sequel since I heard it was coming out.

Also this year, a few live action Disney movies will be coming out from animated movies I love, including “Tarzan” and “The Jungle Book.”

On January 2nd, I went to see the much-awaited film, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” I had been anxious to see it, but not as much as my dad. He was a huge Star Wars fan when he was growing up and could not wait to see it. I had seen the original movies before and I liked them, but I was never really a huge fan.

The movie was great and I think Disney, who took over the Star Wars franchise, did a great job sticking to the original feel of Star Wars. After watching the seventh installment, I want to go back and watch all of the previous movies again.

Even though I kind of want to stay on winter break forever, I am still excited for the activities, events and the things I will do during the second semester at Elsinore High School.

This semester I want to make new friends, work as hard as I can to survive and achieve during track season, and I really want to set myself up to finish the school year with a bang and to get good grades to put me on track for my future. I hope everyone’s resolutions go well and I wish everyone a happy New Year!

LEUSD Back to School Schedule for January 2016:
• Monday, January 11, is a teacher work day for middle and high schools only.
• Elementary and K8 schools are back in session on Monday, January 11.
• Middle and high school students return on Tuesday, January 12.