A letter from Sep 7th, 2021

Jayden Cruz English 1H February 7th, 2021 Dear Future Me Letter Dear 18-year old me, I am currently at the start of my high school career, and I am the most eager, ready to learn, grow, and push myself past my preconceived limits than I have ever been before. This is a letter to you, the person I will become in four or less than five years, depending on the date I choose to have this letter sent. The purpose of this letter is to remind you of the person you used to be and potentially give you a morale boost if you’re anxious or if you’ve lost the motivation that I currently enjoy, which I highly doubt you have. Currently, I am an NS1 Seaman Apprentice in JROTC (I got an early promotion at freshman orientation, which you remember perfectly). Last Friday, five days ago, was my last day as 1st Squad Leader under instruction. I didn’t get to do much, but I am enjoying JROTC and I am studying all the basic information like General Orders, ranks, and phonetic alphabet outside of class. It seems like I am ahead at the moment because I am the only NS1 cadet in my platoon to have memorized all eleven general orders, but I’m sure they’ll catch up. Tran (the XO) even asked me to join the academics team, but that could’ve been because nobody went to their interest meeting, including me. Along with being on the academics team, I am also on Colorguard, orienteering, and drone teams, and I will be joining the athletics, cyberpatriot, and marksmanship teams once those interest meetings happen. Now, obviously, I haven’t really done anything on any of those teams yet, but hopefully, you enjoyed your time on those teams (maybe enjoying one so much that you became the team captain… now that would look good on a resume). Speaking of teams, as you know already, I am running Cross Country. So far I have run five 3K’s, setting a new PR on each race. In my last race, on Friday, I set a PR by fifteen seconds, completing the race in thirteen minutes and four seconds. I’m sure that sounds really slow to you, and to be honest, it sounds kinda slow to me as well, but I have to start somewhere. Unfortunately, the practice itself isn’t as hard as I was hoping. My dad… I mean your dad. Our dad? Anyways, dad said that when he was in high school, his coach’s practice was grueling, which is what made him get good. What he described as their easiest practice sounded a lot like our hardest practice, which was something like three miles of hills followed by some strides, finished off by fifteen burpees. All pretty easy stuff. This section is getting kinda long now, so I’m going to move on. I should probably come up with a better transition later so I don’t risk docked points. Whatever, I’m sure it’ll be fine. My life is mostly taken up by NJROTC, Cross Country, and English assignments, all of which I am enjoying for the time being. Considering that World History is an honors class, I thought there would be more assignments, so I’m starting to think that I should’ve enrolled in AP World History, which I believe is the only AP class available to freshmen. I’ll just have to wait and see if things get any harder. Other than worrying about a missed opportunity, I am also annoyed by the fact that I only have math in the second semester. Constantly building upon the skills that you learn in math is the best way to get better at it, so I fully believe that math should be a year-round class, but I won’t lie, it is nice that this semester is shaping up to be pretty easy in terms of core classes. Now to touch on my social life, it’s definitely better than previous years. I am much more confident in myself and my abilities, maybe due to my short time in JROTC. JROTC has been a comfortable social environment to work in, and I have come to know some of the cadets in and outside of my platoon. Right now, Cadet H (not naming names) is the only one I actually talk to outside of class, and I’ve known him since my first day in middle school. He is a tiny bit strange, but he is really good at making friends. It seems like whenever I’m talking to him around campus, there is always at least one person I’ve never seen before who is friends with him and stops to make conversation. I don’t understand how socializing comes so naturally to people. I hope you’re better at it than I am. Meanwhile, I’ll be doing my best to improve. At the moment, my future career goals include going to USNA or an ROTC college like Duke, getting a bachelor’s in Computer Science, or something like it, and serving as an officer in the Navy or Marine Corps. It would be pretty cool if these are still your goals. Just as long as you don’t go off and decide you want to go to Harvard and become a surgeon or something pretentious like that, I guess I support you and your interests or something. You know what, just as long as you get into a decent college and are financially stable, you have my respect. Just kidding, don’t settle for decent. Go to USNA because it’ll be fun and you’ll learn a lot of valuable things for free. In fact, they pay you. But at least get the military to pay for your college and get a bachelor’s in something science-y, trust me, it’s good for you. To finish up this letter I’m gonna talk about my beliefs, mostly because I have to, but also in case you might actually need to be reminded of who you used to be and the mindset you used to have. It is essential that you stay focused, especially now that you are going to start the next phase of your life soon. Stay focused on what truly matters, like JROTC, Cross Country, and your education. Don’t allow yourself to become distracted by trivial things like video games, girls, and partying, not that you are the type to go to parties or talk to girls. I don’t really have much else to say, because I can’t even imagine allowing myself to go downhill after reaching the point that I’m at now. Just don’t catch senioritis and remember, you might just have four years of academy training ahead of you, followed by five years of service, so don’t even think for a second that you’re almost done. Hemodynamically, An inferior version of you