Angel's AP blog

Today in Mr. Rease’s class we read the poem “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou. As we were analyzing Mr. Rease stated “happiness is a decision” ,and I absolutely agreed.. Immediately I reflected on everything I had been through, and I came to the conclusion that I allowed myself to waddle in my sadness for too long. I allowed myself to be unhappy and unaccepting of what life have dealt me. For example, I permitted myself to be unaccepting of my father’s death for 17 years. I never truly coped with the pain because I always felt it wasn’t real. I brought on the distance between my family and I because I was always angry. I felt life was unfair. However now I’m making the executive decision to be happy and not just temporarily.

Class went well today. It started off with a series of therapeutic questions. Each question seemed to be more therapeutic than the other. They were asking about things I yearned to talk about with my family, especially my mother. It was as if the answers were waiting to be spilled out. It was like seeing the questions on the board was a cue for both the answers and tears to release. In fact, I cried while answering one of the them, and I will forever cherish that moment. I’ve been holding back tears all week and I finally stopped fighting. I was tired of pretending everything was okay. I was happy to have that slight moment of reality. Also Mr. Rease asked the class “ What does being black me to you”. I had so many ways to respond to the question, so I responded the most knowingly way to me. It means being criticized because of your creativity and uniqueness. It means being diverse and being both privately and publicly stereotyped. It means being taught over and over that my skin is be

I was absent to class today due to honor choir. Today was our performance, and I was not confident at all. I didn’t know some of the songs especially those in a different language. I struggled  staying on key, and I realized that perfecting one’s craft takes a lot of dedication. It requires more than group practices. Independent practices is vital to success as well. Also I learned something very valuable today from the Honor Choir Instructor. “No pencil, no success”. Be prepared at all times, and every great or successful person had or has a teacher.

Today I was not present in class today because I had Honor Choir rehearsal.

Today we read the poem “Dream”, and we took a multiple choice test afterwards. Neither was easy especially the test. It consisted of ten questions, and majority of them were complex. The hardest thing about it was choosing the BEST answer choice. It was like making a life or death decision and having an angel and devil on my shoulder. It feels like a crowd is screaming at me saying “ PICK ME”, and I always fall for the wrong bait. Maybe I’m the bait and the answers have control over me.

Today Mr. Rease tasked us with listing ten songs that have memories associated with them or songs that trigger memories. The first song on my list was "What is Love" by Veronika Bozeman. The first time I heard the song was on television, so every time I hear it I think about the show. I highly appreciated that exercise before the beginning of class because it gave everyone a boost of energy. Usually the class is non engaging, but today almost everybody was involved and in tune with the lesson. Class was very different today and so was I. I was happy, and my happiness was not short lived. I enjoyed class, and I wanna have many more class days like today.

We had a substitute again today. The assignment left was from the previous week. It was from a cluster we created. From the cluster we had to develop two paragraphs. Creating the paragraphs was a combination of easy and difficult. It was easy to come up with the ideas. However, the difficult part  was incorporating the ideas in the paper. Making everything sound coherent was challenging as well. I’ve noticed that I always struggle with the same things when writing. The repetitiveness is very frustrating, but I’m determined to overcome my struggles.

Mr. Rease was not here today, so we had a substitute teacher. The assignment that Mr. Rease left us pertained to "The Canterbury Tales". It was a brief analysis check about some of the prologues and description of characters mentioned in the tale. The assignment was difficult. The language the tales are written in caused the most trouble. It was very challenging and tiring having to research a definition in every prologue. Essentially it disturbed the flow of my reading, and it enable me to realize a goal of mine in 2020 should be to boost my vocabulary. Also, I realized I do not need to limit myself to contemporary writing. I need to step out my element and broaden my readings without it merely being school related.

Today in Mr. Rease’s class we took a prose test. Originally I failed the test; however, I know where I made my mistakes at. I second guessed myself again. It happens like a continuous cycle. I overthink and make a decision whether it’s involving my personal life or school, and I regret my choice. I need to learn to trust my first instinct because majority of the time I’m correct. If I would have trusted my instinct in previous moments of my life, I probably would be in a different predicament. However, I know that life is all about learning, so I’m going to continuously grow from my mistakes. Overall I’m going to stop second guessing myself and trust my first instinct.

Today we worked in groups. My group and I was tasked with answering open ended questions to “ The Pardoner’s Tale”. The questions were fairly easy, and it didn’t take me long to complete them. I was confident in my answers. However, I still feared the embarrassment of my answers being wrong, so I didn’t answer aloud as many times. I have as ways feared public embarrassment; therefore I attempt to avoid it as much as possible. I also feel liked I’ll be viewed differently among my peers and teachers. I know that this isn’t completely true, so I’m working on getting over my fear.

Today in Mr. Rease’s class we worked in groups. We finished up an assignment we started on yesterday. I wasn’t comfortable being in a group because I had just finished crying earlier. I didn’t want anyone to notice my tear stained face, and I didn’t want the attention to be on me. I avoided looking people in their eyes, and I did minimum talking. Overall my day wasn’t the best. Maybe I’ll have a better day tomorrow.

I made an eighty three again on my multiple choice test, and now I am starting to believe that progression is impossible. I have practiced different test taking strategies and neither has been successful. I think school isn’t for me anymore. Not only am I saying this because I’m not making desired scores, I am saying this because I have no support. Ultimately I wanna give up but something won’t let me.

Today we read “ The Pardoner’s Tale”. When I first read the tittle I thought about the term “excuse me”. After assumptions I learned that a pardoner is someone who pardons people sins away, but the pardoner we read about intentions were not kosher. In fact, they were the opposite. He was only preaching for avarice. He would preach to people who wasn’t emotionally stable. He preached to people that was gullible or naive just to obtain tangible gain. This tale was very knowledgeable. It is my favorite so far because it is fictional yet so realistic.

Today has been the worst day of the new decade. I made an eighty three on my first test of the year. Also, I found out that I am no longer the valedictorian. I’ve never felt so heartbroken in my life. Receiving my test grade and seeing that it wasn’t an “A” made me want to burst into tears seeing that I’m never good enough. I AM completely discouraged, and I am a complete failure. I’m always disappointing myself or my family by being off by one point from being the best. I’m tired of this.

I like the Wife of Bath tale that we read today. It was very interesting and entertaining . I loved when we discussed and analyzed while reading. I especially liked when Mr. Rease asked the young men in the class “What is the thing that women most desire.” Although some of their answers were good, none of them were correct according to the tale. I couldn’t even answer that question myself. I was completely clueless, and I was not expecting the answer to be control. However, when I began to dwell on it and Mr. Rease explained it more, it made sense. A happy wife equates to a happy life.

I like the video that we watched today in class. The video was about putting in effort. The most important thing that I learned was that one does not need talent to be successful; it all depends on the amount of effort one puts in. This was very important because I feel like I won’t be successful because I’m not as naturally talent as others I constantly doubt my ability to be successful because I devoid talent. I also am a slow learner and this decreases my confidence of thinking I’ll be successful.  However, today I’m glad that I learned otherwise. All I need is effort and determination to reach my goals

The 2020 school year started off right. Class went well today. Unusually, I felt happy to be at school. I felt comfortable that these four months will be months of success. In my Rease’s class I wasn’t as nervous to answer questions; I didn’t even care if I answered them incorrectly. I know that this will be my year of growing.