MY LEARNING FALL AND RISE

When I first walked into this class on August 12, I thought this class was going to be like my previous English classes but I was wrong. As people kept walking through the door, there was only girls coming in but then all of a sudden a group of guys walked in. I was surprised to see that there were way less guys than girls in this class. I was hoping that the first semester would be easier but to be completely honest this was one of the hardest semesters I've experienced. I learned plenty of new things and I'm grateful for that. 

We first met when you were standing at the door and you were shaking everyone's' hand and welcoming them into the class. When you asked us whether we wanted to do blogs or work out of the books, I was kind of confused. I was kind of disappointed at first when the majority of the class chose to do blogs instead of book work because it was simply something new to me. I'd never done a blog in my life and I actually thought it was pretty stupid but as time went by I started to enjoy doing the whole blog thing. As for the journal, I had done something similar in my avid class in junior high but I was actually really glad to be doing it again. I personally like writing down my thoughts and opinions on any topic, especially if the topic is interesting to me. There were still some topics that didn't really catch my attention so I would just write about whatever. At first I didn't really like the fact that you made us choose how the course was going to run because there were some of us who didn't want to do blogs. I personally preferred doing work out of the textbook since I consider that to be easier.

As I said before, blogs were something new to me and I wasn't really interested in doing them. Although I did start off the year by doing my blogs, as time went on I procrastinated and stopped doing them. I had to catch up with 15-20 blogs during Thanksgiving Break and it was simply something I didn't enjoy doing. I was stressing so much and I couldn't figure out what to write about so I wrote whatever for some of them. I didn't really think that blogging would be so hard and it actually isn't if you keep up with all your work and post on a daily basis. Moving on to the journals, I really enjoy being able to walk into class and writing down a few of my personal thoughts on the topic we are given. There were some topics that were more interesting than others which meant I would write more for some journal entries. There was only one thing I disliked about this course, which was doing the recitals and uploading them on our blogs and on YouTube. This was something I never envisioned myself doing because I don't like recording myself or taking pictures. I only posted two videos of myself reciting a poem and that is something I'm sincerely proud of because as I said before I hate being recorded. 

The moment where I felt as if I wasn't going to get through the semester was when you informed us that we had to do an interview with you in front of the whole class. It wasn't a choice, we had to do the interview because it was part of our final. I'm a very shy person and I was really scared of going up and doing the interview because I get really nervous when I have to talk to teachers. I was planning on not doing it and being gone but it was hard because I knew my parents wouldn't let me ditch school. I wasn't prepared since I didn't have my resume, references, and cover letter. I had to do all of that during the weekend before my interview. I knew I had to do this interview if I wanted to pass this class and after getting it done I actually felt more confident. I honestly thought I was going to do worse but this helped boost my self esteem. I think that seeing other people get interviewed helped me prepare more for my interview. Overall, I was really glad to see that my interview wasn't as bad as I expected and now I know what to expect for a job interview or any other interview in general.

This semester has gone by fast and I think that's partially because we have the same routine in this class. We walk into class, do our journals, and then get into our class discussions about what we're reading or simply doing that certain day. I think that routines play a big role in how much work we get done and the amount of time it takes us to do something. Most of the time I tried to finish my journals in class and I tried to upload my blogs during class because I never did any of my work for this class at home. Since there was never a deadline for our blogs, I didn't feel the need to get them done and I thought that I could just catch up with them easily, but that wasn't true. Catching up with the blogs was really hard since we had to do notes for something we did a long time ago. I now understand the importance of uploading your blog when you're discussing that certain topic in class.

Now that the semester is coming to an end, I see myself as a new and improved learner. I think that the first semester of this course has taught me to finish my work in time instead of procrastinating as well as participating in class discussions and taking notes. When I first started this course in August I kind of felt like I didn't belong in this class because everyone seemed so smart compared to me. There would be times where we would be discussing something and I didn't know what was going on and that's mainly my fault for getting easily distracted. Next semester, I'm hoping to be better at writing and I actually want to reach my full potential. I don't want anything or anyone to get in the way of me achieving this goal I have. I'm looking forward to next semester and I hope it's easier than what this semester was.