Reflection

I remember during the first week of junior year, we had our first timed writing assignment in AP Lang. I was paralyzed with terror. It took me a good fifteen minutes to begin writing the introduction and even then, I wasn't exactly sure what I was preparing to write the two-page essay on. During the course of the year, I have mostly gained confidence in writing essays, which has given my examples and proof more conviction than it ever did before. I still sometimes stumble when writing arguments because I'm an indecisive person at heart, but I have gotten close to mastering the art of masking my uncertainty in my writing. I hope to grow more confident and to improve my vocabulary in my essays as I continue writing.

Assignments that helped me improve the most were the ones that zeroed in on a particular part of an essay before looking at the essay as a whole. For example, the description, compare/contrast , and definition paragraph assignments walked us through a certain way of attacking a prompt. Even when assigned a larger work (such as the narrative essay or the research project), we were slowly led through the assignment to tackle and perfect one paragraph at a time. The most memorable assignments for me were the storybook project given to the entire class, the satire project, and the definition assignment. The storybook project was an enjoyable way to learn to work together. In other classes, the largest group for a group project consists of, at most, five people, so it was interesting to learn how to function without getting into disagreements (which would have been easy to do with thirty strongly opinionated students who had just been introduced to the art of rhetoric). I had a blast working on the satire project with my group. Besides dressing boys up in Rachael's clothes and makeup, I enjoyed researching our topic and writing the script. It is difficult to get a message across through the use of comedy or sarcasm, and this assignment definitely strengthened my writing when it comes to using humor to enhance an argument. The definition assignment was a creative way to sum up the class as a whole and to improve our writing. I remember having several drafts and editing sessions for this assignment, which helped me take out unnecessary ideas and redundant sentences. This assignment pushed me to look over my essays thoroughly after writing and helped me get to my point quicker by still using enough description.

Your class has been my favorite by far, Mrs. Smith. I look forward to walking into your wonderfully lit classroom every single day and not just for the free candy. If I had the opportunity to retake your class next year, I would accept without a doubt. I would hope to engage in more discussion about a novel as a class. I loved analyzing symbolism and the characters in The Great Gatsby every few chapters; it helped me understand the  novel much better than The Old Man and the Sea, for example, which we didn't get much of a chance to review before the test.

I love you, Mrs. Smith, and I hope that if I become a teacher, I am as extraordinary as you have been! 

Thank you for this year 

6. India

The last time I visited India, I was in seventh grade. I went for two and a half weeks and missed the factoring unit in math class. I still don't fully understand how to factor with coefficients other than one.
It has been four years now since I've gone and I'm finally visiting again this summer. I couldn't be more excited. I'm only going for a month, though, and India visits always need more than just a couple of weeks because there's just so much to do. The streets are always bustling with little markets and poor families selling broken toys and motorcycles, autos, and cycle-rickshaws and familiar faces. When in India, there should never be a boring moment. Unless, of course, you're a teenager from America, in which case, you can't leave the house without an adult (who all prefer staying home enjoying a cup of chai all day long, so you pretty much stay home watching television all day long, but only children shows play because older kids are at school during the day and oh, my goodness, it's so boring).
As an American, I have always felt inferior to the natives there because they felt I was superior. That doesn't make much sense, but that's exactly how I felt. Somehow, through my acquired Indian accent and traditional garb, people from India are able to immediately peg me as an American. (My dad says it's because we can buy things without glancing at the price tag first.) Shopkeepers and taxi drivers take this as an opportunity to cheat me for more money because they assume I don't understand the currency system enough to realize their game. I do, though, but I'm stuck paying more than I should still because I'm hopeless at bargaining or talking back to strangers. To keep me from blowing all my money on a bar of ice cream at a nearby market, I need to bring my grandma along and it makes me feel so childish and immature. I hope I've learned to stand up for myself, so I can go out on my own this summer. I want to be able to experience everything I can without leaning on parents or grandparents for confidence.

[Sidenote: I wish bargaining was allowed in America because much of the clothes in my closet are not worth the amount I payed. Also, why do shorts cost the same amount as pants? That's not at all logical.]

5. In a minute...

I feel underwhelmed.

Obviously, I'm doing something wrong because AP exams are coming up, I have just two weeks to secure A's in my classes, deadlines for summer volunteer opportunities are approaching, and despite all this, I'm spending my Saturday in bed (I have literally not left the bed all morning. It's 1:33PM as of now.) catching up with The Vampire Diaries. Workload in most of my classes is slowing down, but I know this is only because we are expected to be studying for exams outside of class.
Maybe I'll crack open that AP Biology Practice Book for one of the first times. Maybe I'll keep it open for a couple of hours until I fully understand and grasp the concepts I've read. Maybe I'll work on a couple of practice problems from Calc and shoot a roll of film for Photo. Maybe I'll start restudying for SATs and maybe I'll write a few practice essays. Maybe I'll memorize some vocabulary and maybe I'll put those words into my application for camp.
In 30 minutes, I swear. Just after I finish this episode.
And the next.
And the one after that.

A handful of my senior friends have been squealing about potential roommates and future dorms and new schedules. I feel like this should make me excited for the future and more motivated to push through to get to where they are, but really I just want to skip everything and get to college already.
Have you watched the movie Click? I want to embody Adam Sandler's character and fast forward 365 days and slow down for nothing. (even if this means becoming morbidly obese) (Is that what happened? I'm not sure. Maybe I'll watch Click after this episode. And then I'll study, I promise...)

4. Janna-tor

I love taking personality tests. Finding out more about myself without actually having to do any real introspection is marvelous.

The other day, I was working on my monthly update of the myPersonality profile I made on Facebook three or four years ago and I realized how untrue I was being when answering the questions. They were simple questions ("I do not like poetry. Very Accurate, Moderately Accurate, Neither Accurate nor Inaccurate, Moderately Inaccurate, or Very Inaccurate"), but for some reason, I would convince myself that I am indeed one of great sophistication and of a high enough class to spend a sunny day out on my porch reading poetry and sipping a glass of iced tea with my pinky out while adjusting the brim of my white sunhat. "I do not like poetry." Very Inaccurate.

I was planning on exploring the reasons behind my lies, but I actually cannot even figure out why I would decide I love poetry.

"I do things according to plan." I answered Very Accurate. I mean sure, I make to-do lists to set my mind straight, but I rarely complete them or even do what the list says. Before I come home from school, I plan to study until I know every bit of material that may or may not appear of an upcoming test, but in reality, I go home and fall asleep for three hours before waking up for the sole purpose of watching television.
Once, during a sixth grade trip to Disney World, we were required to follow a itinerary each day, but every single day, I would sneak away from the group of obnoxious youths of uniformed bright orange shirts to follow the plan of not following the plan I had in mind. I was always caught, though, because, well, my shirt was bright orange.
I even dream of purposefully following my schedule backwards during school just to see how different my day would be.
Unless planning to not live according to a plan is living according to a plan, my answer should have been "Very Inaccurate."
Maybe "Moderately Inaccurate" because I used to be a Girl Scout. Always be prepared.

I took an aptitude test recently and one of the top career choices for me was being a janitor.
I hope I skewed reality when answering those questions.