By DMA Junior Antonia Alvarado-Riquelme

At the beginning of my Junior year all I wanted was anatomy, but my future had another path it wanted to take. So at the beginning of the school my class schedule said “Optimistic Mindset”. It was not my first option of science, but it was science. It’s the science of how your mind and body work together and work against each other. Over each week I learned how our minds get the reaction and how we express these reactions. Our reflection papers made all of us think out of the box and more in depth on how we feel about certain subjects. The class discussions about topics we once were uncomfortable talking about became a “normal” conversation. Learning that happiness doesn’t come from how we see ourselves but how we treat other people and that happiness comes from within. The society we live in today allows the younger generation to believe and be thought that the way you should be prorationing yourself is to please everyone around you. But on the contrary, most of the people we have around us could care less on how you look, how you dress, and even how much money you have. The only person putting these thoughts into our heads is ourselves. We make it out to seem as if we need to be perfect for a boy/girl to like us or a group of people to get along with us. In this course, Mr. Shelton teaches us not only to be happy with ourselves but to be happy with what we have. That not everything has to have a price tag, or even that not everyone has to like you. At the end of the day you should be happy with yourself and what you have. Mr. Shelton will do exactly that, he will make you see yourself, how you treat others, and much more in a different way. Lastly, most importantly you will see that not everything has to be looked at the same way as everyone else. It is alright to have a different perspective or idea on things. It’s alright to be you.