Throughout my 8th grade year, my experience has been okay. This year went by really fast and I learned a lot about school, life, and myself. 8th grade was the best out of all 3 years in middle school, even if there wasn’t much competition. I have struggled in more ways than one, but now 8th grade is almost over and I can reflect on how the past couple of months have been for me. 

My personality has grown a lot since the beginning of middle school. I became more sociable and I still might not like to talk to people most of the time, but I do enjoy talking sometimes. People tend to describe my personality traits as straightforward, neutral, funny, and private. As for my friends, I’ve talked to more people, but kept the same friends for the most part.

I’ve had a couple of accomplishments throughout this year. During 8th grade I’ve managed to maintain pretty good grades mostly being A’s. I managed to win the school STEM competition with my friends, and went to compete with different schools. It was a great experience even if we didn’t win the district competition. I played sports again and won awards as well. In volleyball my team managed to win the Co- Distract championship and got a banner placed in the gym wall that has all our names on it. During track I got mostly 4th place in the 800, but in the last track meet which was district I was able to place 1st with the time of 2:59. 

In the education department I’ve also managed to get better. I was able to get better at math and understand the subject better. With all my classes I became more stressed at times and found myself having sleepless nights trying to do all my homework and having time to study. This caused me to be tired and irritated at times, making my sleeping habits worse. I’ve learned to try not to overthink things and just work on the present. 

In Encounters I’ve learned the importance of multitasking and time management. You have to be able to work on your project and make time to do essays. I’ve gotten pretty good at it and have made time for both things. This year my Encounter’s project looks pretty good and I’m really proud of myself. It was lots of fun being able to use my creativity to create something that people will look at in the expo. 

Now this year is almost over and we're all going to be in high school. We’re going to keep changing and learning new things, as for now 8th grade will always be something to remember whether it be negative or positive. You gain a lot from your mistakes and experiences in middle school. All the things I learned this year will help me throughout the rest of my school days and life in general.