I am invisible! This is so scary. I can see people, but they cannot see or hear me. This is going to be a long day. I can’t last without getting some attention. Can I sleep for the whole day? I can’t; that would have been impossible. This day will be miserable, and I can already tell. Since, I’m like this, I might as well do some chores to surprise my parents. I started with my room; it wasn’t too bad, I thought until I started organizing my clothes and art supplies, in addition, sweeping the floors and making my bed nice and tidy. What I thought was thirty minutes was more like an hour, but my room was sure clean. I was tired but went to school anyway to spy on my friend. Even though we were not in the same classes I still went in. After all, they can’t see me. Once I went into the leadership class, which was his first period, I spotted Thomas sitting there patiently. I told myself I wouldn’t cause chaos now but maybe later during core. So I left and looked for my other friends, who were nowhere to be found. After the fifth teen minutes the bell rang, I pushed the door open to his next period class and everyone looked at the door, just swaying there in confusion, but all I thought was the wind.

As I waited for ten to fifteen minutes, they started to do a lab for cooking muffins. This was my time to shine with chaos. I went to Thomas’s station and saw he had all the stuff ready and was about to bake. He started to make the muffins. He put the flower eggs and any extra ingredients in the mixing bowl. Then he ran to ask the cooking teacher a question, and I thought, this is my time, so I switched out the sugar for salt. Let’s see how this goes! He returned and put a lot in the mixture, and once it was done, put it in the oven at 340 Fahrenheit for 15 minutes. He was done and started to walk to another station and chat with his friends. Once he left I changed the temperature from 340 Fahrenheit to 400 Fahrenheit. I waited so long, wanting disaster to get stuck, but he noticed his muffins were burning and took them out just in time. He took a bite and his face showed how bad it was.

Then the bell rang. I was excited for the next class, which was core. I am excited because the kids in our class are chatty, so it will be fun, causing twist.We first get out our iPad and read a book for 15 min, so I started to take books off the shelves randomly, and nobody noticed until I accidentally tipped over the bookshelf, and tons of books fell! Miss. Moffat our core teacher, asked who did that, and everyone said nothing, so and were very confused. She had some volunteers clean the books and put them back. A few minutes later when Miss. Moffat was telling us something important about this project. I went to the supply station and made a mess I dropped everything on the floor throughout markers, pencils, and rulers. By the faces, of everyone they were absolutely terrified and started to scream! So I just left the class. I think that was enough for today! I was so tired, so once I got home, I fell into my bed and slept. The next day, I was perfectly normal, and everyone told me I should’ve been there yesterday because of the incident. The story had been told to the whole school, and they still didn’t know it was me.

I awoke to the sounds of palm trees swaying in the wind, the hot beating sun on my face, and the crashing waves. Am I on an island? Was I dreaming? Sure not, as I tried to get up, I fell into the sand face first! Ouch. Once I got up, I saw a giant stack of materials such as tools, fruit, water, a sleeping bag, light, and a bunch of wood and stones to build a house. Looking through all the materials in disbelief, I looked around the island and noticed it was beautiful. The island had variations of Hawaiian flowers and palm trees; the island had white sand, and the water had a beautiful teal color. As I looked at my surroundings, I thought about how I would build a shelter. First, I built the base with leaves to create a smooth starting point, and then I looked in my stash of materials and found lots of rope. I used this rope to tie wood planks together. After many hours of tying and blisters, the house was ready! It was not perfect, but it still worked; it was stable and functional. I even had time to build a bed frame for my sleeping bag! I was so tired from working that I slumped into my bed and fell asleep. I can’t lie It was very uncomfortable, and I could barely sleep. In addition, I was struggling with the transition. The next morning was rough. I was tired, and my back was hurting so badly. But I still had so much work left. First, I needed some breakfast, so I ate an assortment of fruits and bread with a side drink of fresh coconut juice. Thankfully, this delicious meal energized me. I knew I couldn’t last on fruit forever, so I looked in my stash to see if there were any tools, and I found a fishing rod. Long hours of struggles later, I ended up catching five fish, and this was enough for two days of dinner. It was almost 8:00 when I finished dinner and headed to my hut. And was oddly excited for the next days. This was mainly my routine from the days going on. I expanded my house by adding a living room kitchen and found new food sources. Eventually, kind people in a helicopter found me and took me home. This was my life living on an island.

December 2, 2023 I woke up at 5:45 AM more excited than ever. I’ve been waiting for this day for forever. It was my second VEX vrc robotics tournament, and I had to be there at 7:00 am sharp, no excuses. I don’t remember the last time I have woken up at 5:00 in the morning, so I was very tired. Once I got dressed, I headed downstairs to eat my breakfast. Every minute felt like an eternity, and I just wanted to get there so bad. Feeling like I would be late, I frantically checked the time repeatedly. Time flew by fast, and when I checked the time, it was 6:30. I put my breakfast down and ran to pack all my essentials, such as sunscreen, a hat if needed, and my iPad so I could keep my parents posted. When we got in the car, we noticed that the GPS said we would arrive at 7:05! Oh no, are we going to be late? Still being on the speed limit, we zipped down the streets of Tustin, hoping that we would get there on time. To take down my nerves, I grabbed my headphones and listened to music. Thankfully, this was a great idea because it helped me feel calm. We got there at our destination at 7:00 am sharp! When we entered the event, deja vu hit me. This was the same area where in 5th grade, I got third place! This happiness ended when my teammates called my name and told me it was our first scrimmage.

I felt the adrenaline going through me. Was I going to do this? I put my game face on, and when the judges said go, I placed the tribals in the catapult as fast as I could, my hair was getting all over my face, and I was sweating; then the ending bell rang, and I had perished. Did we win? Then they announced the scores, and it was dreadful. The loss was so bad that I don’t think we can recover. I let my team down and felt defeated. “Milo, this is not the end; you can do it,” I told myself. But it just got worse; our team kept losing, and everything kept breaking. We almost lost all hope until the last game we won! Our whole team cheered. All the games were done, we did not get any awards, and we placed 31st out of 33! Even though our team was deeply sad, we each told ourselves we had one more tournament to prove what we were! For the next month, we worked as hard as possible to prepare, and our next tournament is Saturday, February 3. Wish us luck.