Mellody Alexandra DaCruz

John Horton
Advisory
5-30-17

HOM Summary

Strengths:

Organization is giving structure to ones thinking, ones work, and ones life. This
honestly is my best strength. I am always organized when it comes to my school work and my
locker. I always know where my homework is in my backpack, my locker is color coordinated
by subject, and my study buddies are immaculate. I feel that my life tends to run smoothly when
I know where everything is and its neat. Being organized is one of the traits I am known for
between my peers and some of the teachers who have seen my study buddies and how well
prepared I am for their class.
Organization will always be one of my strengths especially in school. But this year I was
a bit on the disheveled side. In the beginning it was not so bad because senior year started off on
a very slow foot, but once my paper and project started to pick up my stuff was all over the
place! The amount of times I had to pop my head in and out of classrooms to find my binders
was insane. I lost track of my belongings 80% of the time, but it was never messy. I even
interrupted Johns biology and AP bio classes a couple of times just to see if my math binder was
on the back table (which it never was). Being organized will always be a strength of mine, but
this years slip up was understandable.

Integrity is telling the truth (or being honest with) oneself and others through ones
words and actions, even when its difficult. Integrity is one of my many strengths because no
matter the circumstance, do not lie. If I know I am wrong or did something wrong, I will own up
to it with no hesitation. One lies because they are afraid. I dont fear anyone, therefore I do not
see the need to lie. Even though I am a strong believer in always being truthful, I have a
completely different mindset when it comes to lying to yourself. I lie to myself all the time. I tell
myself that I have nothing to worry about even when I now something wrong is going to happen.
Or when I get a bad grade on a test and I tell myself that its okay even though it didn't and my
grade is on the line. I tell myself I hate math and Im terrible at it when in reality the fact that I
dont have to take the math final do to a high grade says otherwise.
Integrity will remain as a strength for me because I am always honest with other and
slowly learning to be honest with myself. In my previous HOM, i stated that I never lie and I
own up to my faults. I also stated that I have a different mindset with it comes to myself and I
constantly lie to myself to get by. Well, I have slowly gotten better with that and started to be
straightforward with myself. I now longer beat myself up over things that are beyond my control
for tell myself that everything will be done on time when I know for a fact it will not. Its not that
Im being pessimistic, its just me being real to myself and not sugarcoating things for once.

Collaboration is working successfully with others by listening empathically, leading

sensitively, contributing meaningfully, and learning from group members. I love to work with
others and apply their input to a project or paper, so collaboration is one of my strengths for the
most part. Last year I prefered to work by myself because it was easier than talking to people I
did not know. Being the new kid in school is never easy. This year, I made many new friends and
I enjoyed working with my classmates. For my service learning I thought it would be a great
opportunity for me to bond with people outside my usual friend group, so I joined Wendy and
Jahayra. Now that I have gotten out of my shell, I listen to my peers in group projects and
contribute to the best of my ability.
This is still on of my strengths because with the making of my senior project it was
crucial for me to be open to working with others and collaborating with outside organizations.
Outside of senior seminar work, I also worked with others in my classes like civics. Making
presentations with my peers is always fun because it gives us an opportunity to view each others
input on the topic, learn from each others ideas and help each other with grammatical errors and
things of that nature. I do feel like this will change next year because I am going to be in a
completely different setting with new faces, new teachers, and it is definitely going to be nerve
racking. This will most likely be the reason for me being introverted and not wanting to reach out
to others and collaborate.

Community Engagement is active participation in school, local, state, and global

communities. Last year, this was one of my weaknesses. I barely participated in school events,
never did community service, and wouldnt even consider helping the lower classmen with
homework, projects, portfolio, etc. This year was a very big change for me. I did a service
learning projects helping the less fortunate get coats and sweaters for the winter, I help Keiry and
Daijah with this project to clean up the CF field, I volunteered for the Global Youth Service Day,
and I helped freshmen and sophomores with portfolio and homework. I think this stems off of
me being more comfortable in BACS and learning to be more extroverted. Not only does
community engagement help those around you, it shapes you into a better person knowing you
contributed to an unselfish act.
Im actually really happy and proud of myself that I have gotten better at community
engagement over my 3 years here at BACS. I love how they pushed me to be more engaging
because if the choice was up to me, I would stay at home and watch Netflix all day. Having tasks
like service learning, internships and a senior project really opened many doors of opportunities
to be an active member to your community. With my senior project, community engagement was
an essential part of the coming together of my vision. Community engagement also helped with
my anxiety of talking to others and learning to be more extroverted around them as well.

Wellness is actively working to maintain a healthy mind, body, and soul. Focusing on
sleep, nutrition, exercise, and managing stress in effort to reach peak performance. This is
probably my most improved habit of mind. Last year I was the biggest couch potato and I admit
that. I did not have any gym classes and I just sat all day at school and all day at home. Ive
changed this attitude towards wellness completely. This year, I took 1 semester of individual
sports and yoga and I went to planet fitness with Caitlinn and her mom. I was determined this
year to get more and shape, not because I want to look better, but because exercising in general is
good for the body. I am pleased with how I remained focused on my goal to be more active and
how my procrastination did not get in the way.
Wellness is going to have to be a weakness for me this year. Procrastination does not
even begin to describe my overall experience with wellness this year. I kept using my senior
project and paper as an excuse not to go on daily walks with my mom or even participate with
Gregs team sports class. I promised myself that I would start working out for prom and just for
an overall health benefit nope. I would set alarms and purposely miss them or keep hitting
remind me in an hour until it was 11pm. Stopping dance also didnt help because that was
where I got the majority of my workouts from. The only wellness aspect of my life I actually
stuck too was my MBSR and yoga in advisory and on my free time.

Gratitude is showing appreciation for others and for ones opportunities. Last year, this

was listed under my weaknesses mainly because I forget to thank people for doing whatever it is

they did for me. But I came to the realization that gratitude is more than saying thank you. This

year, I learned to be a lot more grateful because I realized that there are many advantages I have

that people around me dont have. This mainly stems off my Service Learning project. You

would think everyone would have something as basic as a coat or sweater for the winter when in

reality they dont. I would complain to my mom that she get the wrong color size jacket or the

design I wanted was not what I had told her to get when many people are not even fortunate

enough to call a jacket their own.

Gratitude will remain a strength this year because there are countless things and people I

am grateful for this year. I am grateful for John helping me through my senior journey, Gil for all

the little things he does for me, Doc for being an amazing friend and mentor, Carolyn and

Kyleen or college information and support, and most importantly my mother. She is the reason

for me walking across that stage June 9th. Ive realized over these past 3 years that I just
assumed those who did everything for me knew I was grateful for them, but I never really

expressed it to them one on one.

Self-Advocacy is being the director of ones own life; demonstrating agency to become

empowered. Self-advocacy is the ability to speak up for yourself and the things that are

important to you like going to a teacher or tutor for help instead of waiting for her/ him to come

to you. I self-advocate whenever I go to Tracy for help on my algebra 2 or physics homework or

need her to revise a PEET from one of my classes. This year I have been staying after a lot for

homework club just so I can get assistance from teachers and other students on material I dont

quite understand. I also self-advocate by deciding to take AP Biology and Pre-Calculus at the

same time next year because I know that class will benefit my future plans to becoming a

neonatal or registered nurse.

This year self-advocacy was the top strength out of the whole list. As you may know, I

am a very prideful person. I dont like asking for help when it is clear that its the only option. I

tend to struggle with whatever problem I am dealing with rather than ask for assistance when I

know teachers here at BACS will drop everything to help. But this year I was not going to let my

pride be the reason for me to fail. Whenever I felt a struggle of some sort arising, I asked a

teacher or my advisor to aid me. I stayed after school if needed or had extra long meetings with

Tasche during my senior seminar period. This year I took complete control of my life and the

outcome was phenomenal.

Weaknesses

Optimism is believing that ones life, community, and world can get better with effort.

This is a characteristic I genuinely lack. I tend to see the negative sides to situations before I see

the positive side. My main problem is not have enough faith in myself. I doubt my ability to do

well in anything I do and dont give myself credit when I do deserve it. Ive been reading articles

online for a while now (because I have acknowledged my bad habit) and I found different

exercises I can try to be a more positive person. One of the exercises was to smile as often as I

can and dont compare myself to others.

This year optimism was a strength in the beginning, but slowly turned into a weakness

again. Senior year started off on a good foot because I did research on my topic during the

summer so I knew exactly what I wanted to do for my project. Right off the bat John, Carolyn

and Tasche loved my idea of BACS first yoga room. Everything was going smoothly until the

yoga instructors I wanted to interview couldnt see me, my outside organizations did not respond

to my emails and my project required more work than I anticipated. Once I had seen things were

starting to get rough, my optimism went right out the window. I do this all the time and I dont

know why. Whenever a situation does not work in my favor I think nothing else afterwards will

run smoothly.

Upstanderness is demonstrating active compassion, even when afraid or in front of a

crowd (or especially in front of a crowd); righting a wrong, helping those who are situationally

disempowered. I am the absolute worst at being in front of people in general and I consider this a

weakness because I honestly dont try my hardest to break my anxiety shell. Putting my horrible
anxiety to the side, this year was most likely the hardest academic year and it got in my way of

demonstrating active compassion. I had so much on my plate with school work, carrying out my

Service Learning project and outside activities that I would forget about those who counted on

me for assistance because I wanted to get everything done. I let my selfish needs get between my

love of helping people despite being deathly afraid of talking in public or to people I do not

know.

This is now a strength for me and I am proud to say it. This year has been the year of

helping others in need and throwing myself out there for the greater good. This year, for the first

time ever, attended a rally and spoke in front of a crown. The rally was held at the state house for

students interested in free 2 year tuition for CCRI, RIC and URI. I spoke about my financial

detriments to hundreds of people because I was certain my struggles would help with the

decision. For once, I did not let my anxiety and fear of public speaking get between my love for

helping people.