I woke up and it was a nice sunny day where you can see the sun shining through the windows, all was well ,but during that moment I've realized that vacation was over and the stress of a new year begins.  Its August 12, 2019, the first day back to school and its the year where Junior year has commenced. My classes went by as normal ,but I land to my 5th period and the first thing I see is that the majority is just girls which I found somewhat interesting. When I entered I felt tired and just wanted to get this class over with already ,but boy was I wrong.
                The class commences and I see my teacher saying various things such as "you have an option a blog course or regular paper parent work." Which I found odd since we never get the option on the first day of school to do something like this ,so it was different ,but a good different. I can see that on the first day our teacher really wanted to connect with us and make us feel comfortable to be in this class which not many teachers fairly do. At that moment I had this feeling that this was no ordinary English class, and I was right.
             Months have passed and we do this regular thing of journal entries, blog posts, reciting poems, and reading various articles and essays such as "The Pedestrian." You may wonder if any  these types of assignments have ever challenged us ,and in way they have. However, we've learned various things from them that have changed our critical thinking. For example, my way of thinking has changed through Emerson's Essay "On Self-Reliance." Especially through one of his examples of "being true to yourself" as well as "Sharing your ideas with others and if people don't understand them then who cares?" These quotes gave me the confidence to be myself and be more open-minded when it comes to other people and learning. Another essay that we read was "The Pedestrian" where the author wrote this small story based on his experiences and emotions and made it into a fictional futuristic story. One of my favorite quotes from the small story was "The car moved down the empty riverbed streets and off away, leaving the empty streets with the empty sidewalks, and no sound and no motion all the rest of the chill November night." This represented to me in that moment in class "Is this our future? Will people be stuck in their homes all day dominated by technology?" However,I realized that this is already the sad truth of our society and somehow "The Pedestrian" became true. Another literature story that we read was "The Earth on the Turtle's Back." To me this story showed me many things ,but there was one quote in the story that really stood out to me was "They looked to see who it was. It was the tiny Muskrat. She dove down and swam and swam. She was not as strong or as swift as the others, but she was determined. She went so deep that it was all dark, and still she swam deeper.She went so deep that her lungs felt ready to burst, but she swam deeper still. At last, just as she was becoming unconscious, she reached out one small paw and grasped at the bottom, barely touching it before she floated up, almost dead."To me this showed me that the small determination a little being can make a difference and change stereotypes which inspired to change the stereotypes in our society. 
               As 4 months passed I realized the extent of my learning in this course and how its helped me perceive my surroundings and the world in a different way. This has helped me write my journal entries and my blog posts by expressing what I feel instead of what I think and allowed me to show who I am and my opinions on various topics. Through all in all this course has been different and unique, but it doesn't mean it was never difficult. Especially recently where I procrastinated and forgot to study over Thanksgiving break which posed a great challenged since I had only 2 days to study about 50 vocabulary words. However, I managed to study the last 2 days before the test and felt pretty confident that I would pass. I learned from this to always have an agenda and write important assignments so you never forget and will actually prepared for the next test.
             Throughout this whole semester I see that people always have this routine and have things already prepared of what they will do throughout the week. In my case, that's not me. I am so involved in many clubs, programs, and organizations that every new event comes out as a surprise through the whole week. So you could so my routine of school and other responsibilities is always in a huge shamble. This doesn't mean I don't get my work finished though I still manged through an actual schedule that I set out throughout the day which manages my time wisely and allows me to have separate time for a separate piece of work.
       Now that this semester is about to end I say that during these 4 months as learner in this class has given me the ability to be more open to others and various techniques of learning, to perceive my surroundings in a different way, and bigger mind of critical thinking. Lastly, I would finally like to add that a topic that I learned and interested me most by Emerson was "The people who earn are respect are the ones who don't ask for anything and blow us away." And I can say for a fact that this has showed me the people who care for me are the ones who earned my respect it just took this quote to make me realize which I found nice!

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