Cheerleading

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve always wanted to be a cheerleader; furthermore, a football cheerleader. When I entered high school, I realized that would never happen for me. This is because I’m a dedicated volleyball player. Unfortunately, at Mason City High School a student cannot be involved in two or more sports during the same season. This means that I had to sacrifice my cheerleading dreams to be in a sport that I’ve played for years.

Of course I could always do winter cheerleading, right? I mean I’m no basketball star that’s for sure. But when I was a freshman, I didn’t think it’d be cool to cheer for basketball. After my freshman year, all my cheerleader friends said that winter cheer is just so boring compared to fall. Almost every single one of my friends is a Mohawk cheerleader, and it makes me want to become one even more.

I didn’t do winter cheerleading when I was a sophomore either because I still didn’t think it would be fun. After being at all the basketball games this year and watching the cheerleaders during pep assemblies, I decided I would enjoy winter cheering. I don’t have the opportunity to do it in the fall so why not try out for winter cheer? I only have two years of high school left and I want to be involved in more than just one school activity.

Last week was varsity cheer tryouts. I had no idea what to expect. I’d never cheered before in my life and the coaches wanted us to be good since it was varsity. The first day of practice was overwhelming. Luckily, I have best friends that helped me all night for two nights on both my cheers, dance, and jumps. I’m so happy I had them helping me because all our hard work paid off on Wednesday evening when I found out I had made cheerleading for girl’s basketball.

Job

I’ve been 16 years old now since July, and I’ve been wanting a job since I was about 14. I knew getting a job would be hard during volleyball season, so I started filling out applications in late October. I realized very quickly that many places have stopped hiring at 16 and just hire 18 year olds. Now, when I was 14 and 15 years old there were many places that hired 16 year olds so I was pretty pumped to turn 16. I guess I was wrong.

I filled out about 5-7 applications to pretty much anywhere by January. Some places like Target emailed me and said they weren’t hiring. Other places simply never got a hold of me. No big deal though. I just had to prove to my parents that I was doing everything I could to get a job.

Eventually I filled out an application to Vanity in the mall. About 2 weeks after handing in the application, I got a call from the manager that I had an interview. Obviously I was excited. This was my first job interview, so I was a little nervous; but I had nothing to lose.

Once I got in there for the interview, things didn’t seem to go so well. The interview itself lasted no more than 10 minutes. I thought interviews were supposed to be like 20-40 minutes, so I felt like I failed. Another thing that made me feel like I didn’t get the job is that the manager said she had 15 interviews that week and they were only going to hire 1 or maybe 2 people. My odds of getting the job weren’t looking too hot. I decided that I wouldn’t get my hopes up, but just keep job searching.

About a week after my interview, I got a call from the manager and she said that I got the job. Best moment of my life. I’ve been working at Vanity for about 2 ½ weeks now and I absolutely love it. It can be hard at times, and I am exhausted by the end of my shift, but it’s definitely worth it. I love having my own money and getting to use and save it how I want too. Plus, my parents are so proud of me that they buy me more things now than they did when I was unemployed