Welcome Spring!

I can't believe how fast each month seems to be going past this year. Tomorrow is already April (2 months until the class of 2008 graduates from HS). Spring sports start this week. (Baseball was rained out today so I thought this comic was appropriate.) Some of the seniors participating in Senior Project stopped by today to share that they only have 19 days of high school remaining. I am looking forward to the nice weather and seeing the spring athletes in action, but in all honesty, I am not ready for the year to be over yet. :-) Guess that means it is a good thing that we still have 2 more months remaining. Hope you had a good first day back at school. I'm sure it seemed like a long day after having a week off... hopefully your teachers aren't cramming too much in before the 3rd grading period ends on Friday.

No More Sleeping In...

Tomorrow we are Back to School! That means no more sleeping in, but I am excited to see all of you. I hope that you are looking forward to getting back into the swing of things at school. We return to 5-day school weeks and the final push to the end of the year. Don't forget that there isn't a lot of time left in the 3rd quarter so if you still need to pull up your grades you will need to focus right away. PLEASE, don't let senioritis and spring fever impact you!

I may be wrong, but I am guessing that there are a *few* of you who (like me) procrastinated on getting school stuff done this week. I opened up my planner for the first time tonight to see what I needed to do before returning to school tomorrow. Hope that you are able to get everything done and still get some sleep tonight. :-) See you bright and early tomorrow!

Final Weekend

Can you believe we have reached the final weekend of Spring Break? It felt like it went fast, but I am looking forward to hearing about your breaks and what you did during the week off.

This week and next week are big announcement weeks for selective colleges to put out their offers of acceptance/ rejections/ or waiting list offers. It can be a stressful and challenging time for students and families. Please be aware of that and be sensitive to the feelings of others as they begin receiving admissions decisions. For example, you may not want to flat out ask someone if they were accepted, but rather wait and allow them the opportunity to share the information with you on their own time. For those students who are among those individuals waiting to hear - I hope you get the news you are wanting.

Enjoy your last weekend and stop in and see me next week! :-)

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! This weekend I went to Kentucky and had a blast with my sister, brother-in-law, niece, and nephew. Carly and Cole (my niece and nephew) were so excited about the Easter Bunny coming to their house. The weekend did my heart good - lots of time playing, snuggling, and reading books - and, of course, today's Easter fun. Here are pictures to share their excitement...

Carly decorating Easter eggs.

The beautiful eggs...

Carly was up at 7am this morning excited to try to find any eggs and baskets that the Easter bunny might have hidden. Fortunately (for us)/ unfortunately (for her) Cole slept in a while longer so she had to wait. Here is Carly waiting at the top of the stairs with her basket to go collect eggs.

They were ON THE MOVE when looking for their baskets and eggs so I didn't get any good pictures of that, but here are the kids checking out their baskets. (Cole loves Thomas the Train so he wasn't about to turn around and look at the camera when he had a Thomas book!)

After the morning excitement it was time to get ready for church... Don't they clean up nice?!?! They were so cute! (I know that I am biased, but seriously... they were adorable!)

My favorite picture of Cole from the weekend was a moment of joy when he was resting after looking for eggs and eating chocolate.

My favorite picture of Carly from the weekend was when she was cuddled up with her mom (my sister, Macy) after brunch.

Hope you had a great weekend too!

Spring Break!

We are officially on Spring Break! I hope that you have a wonderful and relaxing break.

Good luck to the Wind Ensemble students who will be performing tomorrow night at Carnegie Hall! That will be an incredible treat and is quite an honor. I am sure they are enjoying NYC leading up to their big performance.

Good luck also to all of the athletic teams who will be travel to compete over the break.

I will update a few times over break, but I hope you have a great break and I will look forward to seeing you on the 31st! Please be safe during spring break!

Miss Guided

There is a new TV show that will premiere tonight, but routinely be on Thursday nights called Miss Guided. The premise of the show surrounds a high school counselor who returns to work at her old high school and must face her past and her future. After watching some of the commercials and the online tease I am not sure if it will be funny or stupid or a little of both, but still... how many times does a TV show focus on a counselor?!? By the way... if she (the counselor on TV) is ditzy and stupid hopefully you won't see any similarities, but if she is helpful and smart then I hope you will think that she is like your counselor. :-) Just kidding.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Hope you had a Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Better Safe Than Sorry

Two years ago this week I was working as a school counselor at Grove City High School when two students were in a critical car accident. One student passed away and the other, fortunately, lived. I have found myself thinking about this crisis frequently in the last week knowing how much it impacted the families involved as well as the entire school. So, I decided this was an appropriate time to review the importance of communicating when crisis situations occur. It is important, as a school counselor, to be aware of any major incidents that impact students from the school as soon as possible so that we can help prepare an appropriate response. For the record, I tend to check my e-mails frequently over weekends, holidays, and the summer for any critical incidents, but I do not check my school voicemail, so the best way to pass along important timely news is e-mail. Obviously, my hope is that this information is never needed and that we will not face any crisis situations in the future, but I also know that it is better safe than sorry.

1 More OGT Day

Goodness... I have obviously been slacking since I went two days in a row without posting. (Sorry.) I realize that the Juniors and Seniors like the OGT schedule because you are able to sleep in and have really short classes, but I am NOT a fan. This past week felt like it was really long and incredibly slow. I am ready for Tuesday and being back to a normal routine. (After one more day of the OGT schedule.)

In other news...

The PSEO (Post Secondary Education Options) meeting has been rescheduled. The meeting will be held on Wednesday, March 19th at 7:30pm in the WKHS library. Students (and your parents) interested in pursuing this option next year should plan to attend the meeting.

Test Anxiety

It’s normal to feel a little bit nervous before and during a test. What is important is to learn how to deal with those anxieties so that they do not become overwhelming. Below are a few key strategies for managing test anxiety. If this is something that you struggle with, please stop in and see me so that we can discuss additional ways to help manage your test anxieties.

- Study. Being prepared is the single most effective way to help manage test anxiety. If you are confident that you know the material and have put forth your best effort to be prepared for the test, then you can relax and do the best you can.
o There are lots of study strategies available that can help students and I have a variety of ideas – if you are interested, stop by and see me and we can talk about different techniques you can try to implement for various classes.
o Learn from past quizzes and tests
o Ask the teacher for suggestions on how to best prepare for the upcoming test
o Don’t cram – that only adds to the stress and pressure of trying to “squeeze” everything in

- Stay Positive. Being confident and entering the test with a positive attitude will help you to achieve success. There are lots of strategies people use to help maintain a positive outlook – visualization (imaging yourself doing well on the test) and positive self-talk (we all talk to ourselves so instead of thinking that you are going to fail the test replace that self-talk with positive comments such as “I am prepared” or “this test will allow me to show how much I have learned”). Sometimes it is important to stay away from other people who tend to express their negative outlooks and opinions going into a test… those people who will just stress you out more with their panic about the test.

- Take care of yourself. I *know* that you hate hearing things like this (and yes, I acknowledge that at times this can be a hypocritical statement for me to make), but it is important to take care of yourself. Get plenty of sleep so that you are well rested and mentally alert for the test. Eat a healthy meal (breakfast/ lunch) because you don’t want to be sitting in class focusing on food or listening to your stomach growl and you also don’t want to be coming down off a sugar or caffeine high and be dragging the rest of the testing period. Allowing yourself time to exercise is also important as it is a physical release of stress and can reinvigorate you for studying as you prepare for the test.

- Be a “smart” test taker. Don’t panic! Read the directions carefully. Take a deep breath to relax. Answer the questions to the best of your ability and if you don’t know an answer, skip the question to return to it later and continue on to other questions that you are more confident in answering. Budget your time, but don’t rush to be the first finished – this is not a race. Stay focused. (Focus on answering the question – don’t allow yourself to get off track and worry about your grade or how others are doing – just continue to refocus on answering the next question.) If you start to become overwhelmed with anxiety during the test, take a few slow deep breaths, relax your muscles and remember that you are in control of dealing with these feelings so just take it one step at a time.

- After you are finished, give yourself a short break from thinking about the test, but also don’t forget to consider what worked well and what could have gone better and then make changes accordingly for the future. If you were able to manage your anxiety effectively then you can continue practicing these skills for future tests. If some of the strategies were not effective, then you can try to adjust and adopt new strategies to help manage the anxiety.

Remember, it is also important to keep the test in perspective. It is actually quite rare that a single test will make or break you. (And yes, this includes the OGT/ SAT/ ACT tests because you can always repeat these tests again in the future.) Good luck on your next test!

Local Scholarships

Let's face it, college is expensive and (sadly) money doesn't fall from the sky. Many students are trying to investigate options for financing their college education. One great opportunity to help with some of your college costs are local scholarships. Every WKHS senior should have received a multiple page flyer highlighting the different local scholarship opportunities. After you review the criteria, stop by the Counseling and Career Center to pick up the applicable scholarship applications to complete. All of the applications MUST be turned in no later than April 11th at 3:00pm. Please remember that time flies and most of the scholarships have requirements such as essays or recommendation letters plus with spring break added into the middle of your application period, it is important not to procrastinate and to get your applications completed on time.

Tomorrow is another OGT day - this time students will be taking the writing test. Good luck!

March Students of the Month

The ceremony to recognize the March 2008 Students of the Month was held last Friday morning. Students can only be honored as students of the month once in their high school career. A special congratulations to "my" three students who were included among this month's honorees - Scott Doyle, Jessica Black, and Liz Anderson.

I hope that you enjoyed the day off, but I have to admit - I am ready to see all of you again tomorrow. In case you aren't ready to be back just remember, it won't be long before we are off for spring break. (Can you believe it?!?)

Good luck to all of the Sophomores who will be taking their first OGT tomorrow. In case you are curious, your test tomorrow is the math test. To everyone else - see you at 9:50 and enjoy sleeping in tomorrow.

Another Snow Day!

I am sure that you have all heard by now that we have another snow day tomorrow! I hope you are enjoying the bonus weekend time and the fact that this also means we have another 4-day school week. :-) This snow day does have some other implications. For the Sophomores, the Ohio Graduation Test scheduled for tomorrow will be held next Monday, March 17th. For those students who were considering the Post-Secondary Education Options program for next year, the meeting that was scheduled for tomorrow night will need to be re-scheduled. I am not sure yet when the meeting will be held, but we will let you know as soon as a date and time is set. Enjoy the extra day off!

Winter Weather

The early dismissal yesterday was quite a treat. There were several students in my office as Mr. Dunaway announced the early dismissal decision to allow everyone to leave two hours early and I still can't help but laugh when I think about how high they jumped into the air and the excitement over the news. I heard that the outbreak in the commons was about the same level of joy as I saw in my office. I hope that you all made it home safe and sound yesterday and that you are enjoying a snowy day relaxing today.

I also wanted to remind you that the Freshmen, Juniors and Seniors have a few extra bonus hours off each morning next week while the Sophomores are taking the Ohio Graduation Tests (OGT's). The busses are running twice next week in order to make sure that the Sophomores are able to arrive at school in time for their tests and also for everyone else to come to school after the extra time sleeping in each morning. Classes for the week will only be 35 minutes long so the week should go past pretty quickly. For your information below is the daily schedule for this coming week:

OGT Tests: 7:45 - 9:35

1st Period: 9:50 - 10:25

2nd Period: 10:30 - 11:05

3rd Period: 11:10 - 11:45

4th Period: 11:50 - 12:25

5th Period: 12:30 - 1:05

6th Period: 1:10 - 1:45

7th Period: 1:50 - 2:25

8th Period: 2:30 - 3:05

What a Week!

Perhaps it is because this is the first 5-day week we have had in a while or because it is just a crazy time in general, but this week has been quite a ride. (Thankfully tomorrow is Friday!) Last night I had the opportunity to attend the band concert. I was impressed with the jazz band as well as the freshman and symphonic bands. (Wind Ensemble's concert isn't until the 17th.) Then tonight I watched the "Battle of Worthington" when special education students from WKHS and TWHS joined together on the Worthington Stars team and played basketball against middle school student ambassadors. The Worthington Stars won the game and it was great to watch all of the students so excited to be in the game - especially "my" two students - Adam Bailey and Jordan Berger. The students loved that there were so many people in the stands cheering for them, supporting them, and of course, they also loved the posters. Definitely two great nights of entertainment. I hope you are having a good week and that you are also looking forward to the weekend!

A Future Midshipman

It shouldn’t be a surprise to know that I truly care about “my” students and what happens in each of your lives. While you will graduate and move on to new adventures in life, the fact that I believe in you and support you doesn’t stop just because you walk across the stage and receive your diploma.

So, today’s news is not about one of my current kids, but rather a former student. Tom Collier graduated from WKHS last year and is now a student at Miami University. He recently found out that he has received an appointment to the United States Naval Academy! This is a dream come true for Tom and I couldn’t be more excited for him. Tom has demonstrated the commitment, drive, and perseverance to succeed and I am so proud of him. Congratulations Tom!

When I Grow Up...

What do you want to be when you grow up? When you were little perhaps it was a professional athlete, a superhero, or (in the case of my niece) a princess. Chances are that now that you are in high school you have started re-thinking some of your potential career choices. While there is still a lot of uncertainty and will, in all liklihood, be plenty of other times when you will change career paths in the future, it is time to start figuring out what you would like to be when you grow up.

I *know* you hate it when I say this, but the reality is that you need to know yourself and follow your passions. If you love what you do and you are willing to work hard then you will be able to find success. Everyone has their own unique gifts and talents and it is imperitive that you determine what career will meet your needs. This means you have to figure out what is important to you and how you can incorporate that into your life. For example, for those who love sports it can be hard to imagine life without athletics and, many times, these individuals will pick (at least initially) careers that involve sports - athletic training, sports management, sports marketing, etc. This might be the perfect combination - or maybe not. Knowing yourself and knowing what you have a passion for is important in determining what characteristics of a job will be best suited for you. In this example, the sports minded person might pick a career that involves teamwork where groups of people work closely together to reach a common goal. Or, if you decide that you are not going to meet a passion in your life through your career, then it is important that you still honor that influence in some other way - perhaps playing on an adult recreational team or coaching a youth sport team. While this example deals with sports the same concept applies to any of your interests and passions - art, music, learning.

So, while I am not asking you to abandon your dreams of fame and fortune as the professional athlete, superhero, or princess, I am asking you to start thinking seriously about what will make you happy, what is important to you, and how a career can help meet your needs and goals in life.

Picking a College

For seniors, the countdown to final decision time for picking the college of your dreams is rapidly approaching. For juniors, you are beginning your search and trying to determine which schools you can imagine in your future.

There are so many resources available to review and consider to aid you in making your decision. Campus visits, reviewing the college websites, PrepHQ, and meetings with admissions representatives when they visit Kilbourne are all great strategies for learning more about the college and finding the school that is the best match for you. I want to remind you that there are also a wealth of information and resources available in my office that you are welcome to come in and read to help you in making your choice. There are books that give perspectives of different colleges based upon the responses current college students have provided in surveys about school, others that rank selectivity of schools based upon majors, and others that provide insight about the schools from expert researchers. I know that this process can be stressful and overwhelming, but hopefully you are also finding it fun and exciting. As always, let me know how I can help you sort out your options.