Like anything in life, my St. Joe experience has seen its ups and downs.

After spending my sixth- and seventh-grade years at Madison Middle School, I decided to move to St. Joseph Catholic School in eighth grade. I wanted a different experience and environment here than I had at Madison Middle.

At the beginning of the year I was excited. Especially about new friends and football season. Football season was just starting and my classes were easy to work around my sports schedule. Now, I have been practicing with the middle school baseball team, and expect to have a good season.

At the beginning of football season, we were trying our hardest to win games. I was so worried about our upcoming football game against Christ Covenant that I forgot to do my math homework. This made my math grade drop to a “B”. I thought I had learned my lesson after that. Then, at the end of the football season, we had one more football game left. I was so worried about winning that football game that once again I forgot to do my math homework. This killed my math grade. Fortunately, my math teacher Mrs. Judy DeLoach gave us an interactive notebook. An interactive notebook is a guide that we use to help with our math problems. We worked on this throughout the quarter. With this interactive notebook extra credit opportunity, it brought my grade back up to an “A.”

In the spring, baseball season is coming up, and we already preparing for our first game. Our practices started at the beginning of January. It will not be the easiest thing to balance it and homework. I’m going to do my homework while either I’m preparing for games or riding on the bus to games. This will help me get my homework done so much easier.

My favorite thing at St. Joe has been playing sports with people that I get along with. If you don’t get along with someone on your team, it never works out good –you have no communication or chemistry. All that does is hurt you and your team. When people don’t get along they don’t work together and that’s what a team is all about. Out of everything ,the best thing at St. Joe is the positive environment and people who are more relatable and the same religion as you.

Overall, I love many different things about St. Joe. But most importantly, I have become closer to God.