UNTITLED

 Michael Vanderpool, 8th grade, O’Leary Middle School

 My parents have told me my entire life about how important it is to set and achieve goals in life. I found that sometimes you have to do goals in smaller steps to make them seem less intimidating. I have many goals in life.

So far, my biggest goal in life that I have set for myself would be to earn my Eagle Scout Rank in Boy Scouts. I have been scouting since I was an 8 year old Cub Scout. I am now 13 years old and I am very close to earning my Eagle Scout. I just came back from Camp Bradley Boy Scout Camp where I have gone the last two years to earn merit badges that put me closer to my goal. This year I was Senior Patrol Leader for my troop. This means that I had to assign tasks for the other boys in my troop, make sure that they were done, and fill out a bunch of paperwork too. Now that camp is over, and I have my board of review, I will have my Life Rank advancement. After that, I will only have 4 merit badges and my Eagle project left to do and I will finally have met this long term goal of mine that I have had for almost 6 years of my life.

Another one of my goals is to keep my grades up and to have straight A’s. I have never gotten lower than an 89% on my report card at the end of the semester, and that is usually in only one subject. I want to do a lot of duel credit classes once I reach high school so I can get as close to my associates degree as possible at the same time that I am taking high school classes. I am thinking right now that I would like to be a radiologist in the future and I know that getting a lot of my college credits while still in high school will help me achieve that goal sooner.

In my closing, I feel that you don’t need to go as large as possible – you should walk before you run. I like goals because they give you something to do in life and something to look forward to. That is why I have and like goals.