The Surprise Assembly that was Dearly Needed

Angela Trejo, Staff Reporter

  Monday, January 27, students entered the school and started off their day as usual. Except word had been spreading around that we were going to have an assembly, no one knew why or what it was about. Not until the classes were called down to the BPAC to start this surprise assembly.

   It began with an introduction from two students, they gave Kate Fitzsimmons, the speaker, a warm welcome along with the students of BHS.

   Kate caught the attention of many students in several ways: telling us she came all the way from Sydney, Australia, teaching us cool Aussie slang, and finally getting serious and telling us the tragedy that made a difference in her life. Her sister, Nicole, sadly passed away in a tragic motorcycle accident in 2012. During the time of her passing Kate had the mindset of, “How can I go on?” and “Why did this have to happen?” Most of her time was spent pitying herself, until she finally decided to make a difference for everyone.

   She began by starting The Nicole Fitzsimmons Foundation, which is in honor of Nicole’s legacy of fulfilling life’s desires. Kate also talked about emotions and how our thoughts can be the cause of these emotions. Many times we think that when certain things happen to us, it affects the way we feel. In reality we have control over our emotions, which brings us back to how thoughts can also affect emotions.

   After Nicole’s death, Kate wanted to do something about having negative thoughts, or what she liked to call them A.N.T, automatic negative thoughts. After a situation happens our brains tend to focus on these A.N.T’s. To prevent these, she came up with the three R’s, recognize, reflect, and redirect. With these three R’s you can easily turn those A.N.T’s to positive thoughts, leading to positive emotions. So, remember what Kate says, “Your response is your choice.”