On August 12, 2019 it was my first day back to school as a Junior. I was feeling very nervous, so far I was all good with all my classes. It was time for me to go to my fourth period class, as I walked in I saw the desks formed for like a socratic seminar. It was way different then what my other classes were. I was thinking " are we already going to do a debate on the first day?" I was feeling more nervous. The walls were empty but with only a few CD records. Usually English classes have like a lot of stuff on the walls, like how to make a paragraph, what a semicolon is, how to start a conclusion, and all that other stuff. But this class was empty. When the teacher started talking about open source learning and traditional English I was sort of confused, he said we had to chose and when we had chosen we had to call him in to walk back into class. He walked out of class and we were all so confused. It was something a teacher has never done. Usually teachers decide what we are going to learn about and how the class is going to run. I'm pretty sure none of the other teachers have done open source learning, or know what it even is. I found it pretty cool on how he gave us the option on how we wanted the class to run. I never thought open source learning was going to be like this.
Before I even started the class I was not that good at writing, usually when I wrote I couldn't express what I was thinking. In English classes we just had to write paragraphs on like books we read or about the lecture's. But in this class we write about our thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Which is something I have never done, but now I find that I am good at it. My learning skills have improved a lot since then, now I can take notes when a teacher is talking. Because, once Dr. Preston was reading Emerson and we had to take notes while he was reading which was a really good skill to learn. My listening skills have also improved. I improved so much since then and I feel as if my writing has also improved. Now I help some people with their writing by proofreading it or by telling them what they are missing. My favorite blog post that I ever wrote was "The story of my life" because I got to share something that happened to me when I was with others. I had to start off with something very interesting. I had to think about all the things that happened to me, so I had decided to write a story on how I broke my arm and my emotions and thoughts, when it happened. One of my favorite journals was 11-4-19 because I shared my opinion on something, and I thought my opinion was very good. I usually just write what I think, and I believe that, that journal really spoke out.
The class started getting a little challenging for me, because my time management wasn't at it's best. I started forgetting to post on my blog which made me like ten blog post behind. And then there were new ones popping up every time. I decided to get back on track and do all of them which, I did catch up to in the end. In the beginning I had only done journals in History, so I was fine with the journals. But the blog was something different for me, it was something I had never even seen. As the course went on I was fine with everything. Then came the memorizing poems, I mean I was good at memorizing stuff if it was very important. The poem " Richard Cory" was a poem I still sort of remember till this day. It really didn't take me that long to memorize, but I had never had to memorize a poem. The only thing I had to memorize, ever was vocabulary words. So the poems were definitely something different, and plus I don't even read poems. As more poems came, I saw that they got longer which was more challenging. The one I had the most trouble memorizing was " The Laughing Heart" I don't know why it was challenging for me, but something about it made me mess up, and forget the lines. I really found the essay from Emerson very interesting. I liked when Emerson said " To be great is to be misunderstood" I have had that stuck in my head.
The hardest thing for me was the interview, that made me just want to quit. I had never done an interview in my life! That was something I had never even done at school . Well now that I remember I did have an interview once, and it was to get into a program called AVID, but it was nothing compared to this one. I just thought to myself "what if I mess up, what if I just freeze up there, what if I faint." I had all these "what if's" in my head which didn't help me a lot. I had also been going through some personal problems which was not very good timing. I was also nervous because I thought that my skills that I had, and my answers were not good enough. I had to email my teacher and talk to him about what I was going through, and he was very understanding which I was grateful for. I learned that not everything in life was easy, and that I might have some struggles in life. But sometimes in life you learn from those struggles and get through them step by step. And I hope that people going through the same struggles in life, they get through it.
I decided that everyday I had to have a calendar and write down everything I had to do for all my classes, and that made it very easier for me. Before, I used to just try to remember what homework I had and then I would forget. Now I finish all my work and that gets me to the grades that I have now. Which I am very proud of where I gotten and all the things that I was able to accomplish this semester. Back in August when we had started the blogs I used to procrastinate a lot, like I was the hugest procrastinator ever! But then I started falling behind which got me so stressed out that I couldn't even handle my own stress. Now, I do all my work in class when there is extra time and I get all my things done which is a good thing for me. I have really improved in the last four months, and I think other teachers can see my progress too. You can also tell by my blog posts from the last four months.
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