It is hard to believe that School is almost out. Simply incredible, three months to breath and think without having to worry about turning in homework, that is reserved for the beginning of the next school year. This year went by in the blink of an eye. Perhaps it was because I was always so busy. Since it is almost the end of the year, I would like to reflect on my experience in Ms. Lahaise’s English class.
I got my schedule two weeks before school started to be sure that my schedule was correct. Plus I was already in the office, so why not? When I read the name Lahaise, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I was not even sure if it was Miss or Mister, so I decided to do some research. With any luck, the school website would jog my memory. No luck, but at least I knew what she looked like. With any luck I would not mistakenly enter the wrong class.
I arrived in front of room 503, slightly nervous, and took the closest seat to where Ms. Lahaise sat waiting. As I waited to figure out who else might be in my class I examined the room. It was very colorful and inviting. I noticed pictures of two small dogs, dog owner. Then it happened, Ms. Lahaise talked in a clam and pleasant voice. She announced that we would be blogging. I was truly unhappy. I had a very negative relationship with my Internet. The relationship was that my family paid and it did not work for a week or entire month. (Fortunately, now it works.)
As the weeks progressed I felt more comfortable and eventually I raised my hand. Most times, someone took the words right out of my mouth. Our class had its dominating voices. I mostly chime in when I have something new to offer. Personal change has not happened for some years. I stay basically the same. I do not make dramatic changes, I adapt to my surroundings. My vocabulary improves slightly each year almost to go unnoticed. I have never been a fast reader, and I am still not a fast reader. However, there are trade outs. I understand what I read. Through literature circles I was able to further my understanding and discuss with my friends the ideas behind the text in Native Son. I was able to speak up during discussions about Native Son. This might have been because I had such distaste for that particular novel.
I highly suggest that Native Son not be read again. It was torturous and I found no redeeming qualities. Bigger was an unlikable character throughout the entire novel. I understood the racism and his screwed up mind seeming interesting, but it was revolting to me. I could feel my vocabulary deteriorating. It was too grotesque and Bigger was too unintelligent. It was too much inside a psychopath’s head with no possible escape.
I liked the first set of T.E.D.s and a good majority of later ones. Some left me utterly dumbfounded or I felt were just not saying anything of importance. I liked the more comical ones opposed to the depressing ones. Our class got a lot of depressing T.E.D.s all at once and then we began to disapprove of T.E.D.s in general. It would be better if they were different themes each time, and not a repeated idea discussed by another person.
I loved that Ms. Lahaise allowed a special project to go on unannounced to her other classes. The Dumbest Generation Project was extremely fun. It allowed me to come out of my shell a little bit and show a little bit of leadership because we were in such small groups. With that project it finally hit me, I was going to be one of the “big kids” next year. We are going to be the oldest in a few months. Which was both intimidating and liberating.
Though I did not like to have to be on the computer, I was able to discover things about my friends. My friends are astounding writers. Whether they are professional or comical they kept me entertained. I like that I was able to support them and comment on their interesting blog posts. I tired to comment on every single one of my friends blogs and for the most part I did. I felt that was really spectacular, and it was something that I had not been able to due before.
The HW Drop was kind of a scary concept for me. We upload our homework into this page and press send. It almost felt like the HW Drop was a huge black hole in the Internet and we would purposely feed it our homework to destroy and gobble up as it pleased. It was much better when it had a notification that it had been successfully sent. Until then it just disappeared into mystery land and was never talked about again.
Overall this year was fantastic and passed by quickly. It could be Global Climate Change messing with my head, but this year felt like two separate short years. This has been the only school year where there has been a noticeable change between semesters.




















