It’s Almost Over

By: Kristjon Culbertson

Welcome. To whom it may concern. To whom this might interest. I will be your guide. I will be taking you through my perspective and the moments where I’ve seen or shown examples of gratitude, pride, respect, and lastly I would love to honor many individuals in this school that have been an amazing help throughout my time being here. Keep reading or you might miss a spot that you are in. We all have heard many times of people bashing Berlin, even our own students. Myself included. Many of us are guilty but it’s time to step up. Let’s build a peaceful community together. One where there is nothing to bash including your peers, our school, staff because we all see each other and are in school all the time together until you’re a senior which goes by so fast. Believe it or not this is where you will be stuck until you graduate. So enjoy it! Of course if you move you will no longer be a part of the community. But, hopefully we all can make an effort to better the community we are in to allow more people to enjoy sending kids here knowing they will be in a safe and healthy learning environment. Hopefully hearing these things from a student will help build a more positive community and more appreciative one. If you have made it this far [you might as well keep reading] or you might miss out on some hopefully helpful tools that I have seen throughout my time as a student here at Berlin Central School District.

Let’s get started. As I shower you with many thoughts from my weird/wandering mind I hope you take the time to understand some things from my point of view. Let me first talk about gratitude. For those who may not know, it means the quality of being thankful. Can you think of a moment of gratitude even if it takes some time to travel deep into your memory? Well I sure can. There are many I can think of but, i’ll talk about one moment to keep this a little shorter. I’m not sure if you know this but, you see these specific people in school that actually feed you and do their absolute best with what they have every single day of the year. Those people are our lunch ladies. Probably if not some of the sweetest people in the building. I’ve heard many times where people including myself say how bad the school food is but there actually are days they make some amazing food. And is it really that bad? Almost everyday I thank them everytime I step up to order food there to show gratitude. Feeding hundreds of kids and staff everyday with what they have. So next time you go to lunch not just in school but thank the person making your food it will definitely put a smile on their face because they are not appreciated as much as they should be.

Pride! I’m going to talk about is the pride I have in our school’s athletic program. From being embarrassed to play sports in elementary for a team, thinking I wouldn’t be good to ending up having one of the most difficult positions on the soccer team I take pride in being in one of the more difficult positions because if I never took the opportunity starting soccer in 7th grade I would’ve never known that i’d be pretty decent as a Goalkeeper. It was a lot of days training watching videos to become able to understand the position and getting over the fear of getting hurt. But I take pride in all of the work no one saw me do to be as good as I am and still continue to better myself. I loved the many different coaches I had and being able to understand things from other points of views and learning and moving on from taking constructive criticism and also criticism. I learned from being around older kids,  and being that young one to become stronger mentally and physically. I take pride in being a Mountaineer for being able to look back on all this very soon and realize nothing will be worse the next day if you keep focusing on what you want to accomplish and instead day by day focus on accomplishing at least one goal and be consistent. Stop letting things that happen currently affect the future days to come because the clocks are always ticking and it’s your choice to build the experience of life that you want so stop making excuses and blaming other people. If you dream of it then keep working for it  until it’s in your possession and you’ve made it.

Alright if you’ve made it this far you might as well finish reading. Respect! One of the most important things that should’ve been taught by your parents or whoever raised you because this is a very important thing to know and have. First let me give you a dictionary definition for; respect. A feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements. Let that sink in for a moment——–. Have you ever seen, shown, or been given a sign of respect throughout your life or in our school? Mostly should be yes there’s respect everywhere unless you weren’t taught to respect. If yes, that’s amazing. If no, that’s alright you must’ve just never been taught but there’s always time to learn. Respect goes a long way. I’ve had many times in our lovely school, well I want to call it that as much as I say otherwise, to where I have seen, shown, and given respect. There are a few staff I would love to mention that have been a great help no matter what happened between us. Those few people are Mrs. Davies, Ms. Monty, Mrs. Marbot, Mrs. Lamontagne, Mr. Christian, Mr. Covell, Mr. Mellor, Mr. Weaver, Mr. Conolly, Mrs. Connolly, Mrs. Honsinger, Mrs. Berschwinger, Mr. Paravella, Mrs. Wetmore, Mrs. Day, Mr. McFall, Mr. Viner, Mr. Gould, Mrs. Colbert, Mrs. Brownell, Mr. Darha, the janitors to coaches of my sports and to many more that are not on the list I would like to say a final thank you for always putting up with stuff and giving me a hand in school and also a sorry for the things I put some of yall through. I respect all of the women and men in and out of school for dealing with myself. May sound silly but honestly do respect everyone for all of the things they have done they were a lot of help, and still a lot of help. If someone helps you out or does something kind for you, remember to show them respect.

In conclusion all I want to say is just enjoy school the best you can not everyday is full of sunshine and rainbows there’s always a rainy day that will hit. Just remember to take it day by day and you will one day be on a boat getting carried away on your own voyage. 2023 Senior signing out.