Clara McKinley 1

Although I don't find it hard or uncommon to add a simple "a" to the end of my name, people often manage to just say Clare when they first meet me, unless reading my name off of a list, but I am named and go by Clara. For me goal setting is something I fear, as I always feel it would be worse to set a high goal and not reach it than to set a low goal and over achieve, so I tend to have to somehow force myself to write down my highest goals. To start, I am going to (I find it better to state that I am going to do it, rather than to say I hope to) maintain my 4.0, and I am not going to add maximum levels of stress by receiving another 91.68, by the luck and hours of studying to bring a B up to an A with my final. Along with keeping my 4.0, I plan to receive enough growth and knowledge to score a 4 or 5 on all of my AP tests. Personally, this year I plan to continuing playing soccer and to convince my self to run the horrible 26.2 miles of a marathon in January. Just typing the idea of running 104.8 laps around the Henry Clay track makes me question my sanity, but I have to say that many things do. For the past 2 years I have run the half marathon in Charleston, SC to raise money for children of single parents to be able to attend the camp I am now, strangely, old enough to be a counselor at, and I find that running twice the milage means I could collect twice the money, so hey...why not?

Coming off of attempting  to run a marathon simply for children to be able to spend 4 weeks of their year at a camp, the most meaningful moment of my summer occurred when I was a CILT (camper in leadership training-which is kind of like being a counselor, but not being a counselor.) I was in cabin 11, which was the youngest 4 week cabin. This meant, me and my 3 counselors, who were 17, 18 and 19, were in charge of 12 little girls, plus 2 day campers, between the ages of 7-8, 24 hours a day for 28 days. Although this seems like the most questionable way to optionally spend your summer, being able to have so many kids look up to you is a feeling you can't explain and becoming so close with people from all over the place is something I would "give up" my summer for any time possible. On the closing night of camp, as I sat at a table with my cabin, after spending 4 weeks here, I watch my little campers cry about having to leave. To me this was so special to see that even children this young could enjoy and love an experience so much to go from crying for their moms and dads during weeks 1 and 2 to saying they didn't want to leave. 

If I could have a superpower, I would have to say it would be the power to "watch as much disney as I wanted without mom hiding my remote" as inspired by one of my campers, except I would change watching disney to watching netflix  and with out my mom stopping me to without failing out of school (aka in my mind getting a B). Even typing this I find this super power making me seem electronically obsessed, so I think I would change my superpower once again from watching netflix to doing whatever pleased me in the moment. As much as I enjoy learning, there are times when I just wish I could read a different book, go for a run, or just lay in my bed and not go sit in the florescent light filled school. 

My favorite website, without a doubt, is simply amazon.com. From the outside, there is nothing fascinating about this simple link, but by clicking on it you are exposed to a place where you can buy pretty much anything a-z that you can think of, plus more. You can buy your groceries or book or clothing or electronics and you can probably even buy yourself fake hair, and if you convince your mom to get amazon prime, you get it all in 2 days, so I really can't think of a website that could be much better. 

Lastly, I'd like to share with you this photo of a baby. Although it just looks like your typically baby photo, it is most definitely not. I found this photo when I got home from babysitting one night, having no idea how it got there. After being confused for a while, I came to the logical sense, that somehow this 9 month child had managed to take a selfie on my phone.