Day by Day

"Believe you can and you're halfway there."— Theodore Roosevelt 

I struggle sometimes to write to you all because compared to the news I had I feel my life becoming a little more boring but more normal. At the end of the week I remind myself I need to write, and I sometimes dread it because the last thing I want to do is bore you all. So here sitting in class I finally had a lightbulb and decided its time to write.

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If you have followed the Flotillas from the last post, you will have seen that they have been stopped and the people on board taken hostage by Israel. Some have been released but the most memorable, known and influencial are still being held and some have even disapeared. Now it surprises me just how much the world is blocking this all espeically here in the US. While people are starving and the world hears it, the protests, the violence the surrounds it, here in the US I feel I hear nothing. Now it might also be because I live in the middle of the woods but if it was meant to be heard it would be heard in all the places no matter how far. So it worries me deeply that this massacre is being covered, censored and removed from our news. But it isn't the only silencing that is happening. Thousands are being silenced around the world, but also in the US and it scares me. I am a woman, and in 2025, I have seen women be utterly silenced around the world in a greater force than what we have seen in the past years.

As I broaden my knowledge on the planet here at school and widen my connection with the planet, I feel I am losing the connection with the world in my "little" bubble. I enjoy being naive sometimes when the world feels too big and a little too scary because I get to pretend that it isn't happening, that the hardships that I am facing are the worst the world has to offer, but it isn't true. Millions of people around the world struggle with worse than we can imagine, and we still look away knowingly and some without guilt. I support living life to the fullest, living without guilt, and accepting that some have more than others, that if you have food, be thankful, but don't starve to make others feel equal. But I cannot understand, and I cannot accept being so naive as to blind yourself from the world. Our bubbles are large, yet they are smaller than a pea in the vastness of the universe, and to use them as a shield is the most dangerous thing you can do. What happens in Africa will hurt us, what happens in Gaza will hurt us, in Israel, in Afghanistan, and in Poland; it will all affect us in some way, someday. It is not about fighting a war with your own fists. It is acknowledged that these problems around the world exist and are dangerous. It is speaking for those who cannot, making sure that no one is alone in their fight because every voice screaming is not only pressure to governments to change and think, but also whatever they want, unchecked. We are watching them. I am not here to encourage people to get hurt, don't go crazy, of course, but do not let yourself turn away, do not let yourself be blind to the problems the world is facing. You never know when one day they could become yours. No one is 100% safe, no one is guaranteed freedom, consuming, too, shows them that they cannot do, and no one is immune to the same treatment that we see all over the world.

Life update time, as we are approaching midterms, school is getting a little harder and harder, but also more and more interesting because we are getting to focus more on the hands-on work that comes with Ag. Tennis is also coming along; my shots are solid, I am lifting in the gym again, my full weight, which has been so much fun after taking it easy with my shoulder last year, but that isn't to say I am 100%. After some part of your body gets injured, you never go back to what it used to be, and that is so true. I have aches and pains all over my body most of the time, but it's something as an athlete you come to accept and learn to live with. Now, pain is fine in small amounts, small bites. However, it's learning the good and the bad pains. Being sore versus pushing too hard, being tired versus being injured, there are differences in all pain, and knowing which is which is so important in sports. Slowly, when it comes, I have learned over time which pains I can push through and which pains I need to stop with. But life has been good, my birthday is slowly creeping up this next weekend, so it is a big one because it is 21. I am both excited and nervous because it's another one of those big steps in young adulthood.

Thank you all for reading and next time I see you I will be 21!