Another Year Gone By

Summer is here. As I said in my last post, the prospects of this year’s 3 month break are looking pretty great, but as the closing of this school year sinks in, I can’t help but to reflect back upon it. As always, there were good times and bad. One thing I can definitely say is that I learned this year, as one would hope to accomplish attending school.

In Non-Fiction Writing, I learned a lot about a variety of things and most importantly, I grew as a writer. At first, I was a little dismayed to learn that we were going to focus our studies solely on the personal essay. I had never been particularly fond of the personal essay. Sure, some were interesting to read, but a good deal more of them were not. In the prose of most personal essays, I found notes of self-importance and annoying justifications for one’s own actions that bothered me. I had convinced myself that the weak points of a bad personal essay were a fault of the genre of writing itself, and that these traits would be present in almost every personal essay. Non-Fiction Writing allowed me to explore actually good personal essays. These I liked. Some had a very personal, very real voice. Most of all, this voice was frank. I feel that in order to have a real, good essay, the writer shouldn’t be so concerned with whether they come off as totally likeable or righteous, compromising the truth and importance of their words. A personal essay should be an insight into a person, and that requires the writer to truly show the reader who they are, not who they want to be or who they think they should be. This class really allowed me to explore and find essays that could truly be called personal essays, and I am thankful for that.

As it was a writing class, I wrote a lot. I came in thinking, “Okay, I’ll write a couple of essays as usual. I’ll crank them out for the grade, but I doubt I’ll get anything out of writing them.” Not true. At first, I was quite uncomfortable writing personal essays and blog posts due to my fear that everything in the genre sounded pompous and narcissistic. Thus, it took a while to truly open up and enjoy writing in the class. While I am still not entirely comfortable writing almost entirely about myself, I’m getting there, and I think I’ve become much better at it. Being forced to reflect on my life in essays has allowed me to better grasp who I am. I have put into words what were once abstract thoughts. I have been given the opportunity to truly explore how I think and feel, which has been truly eye-opening.

My time in Non-Fiction Writing has been truly great. I feel that it is one of the few classes that I have taken that has truly allowed me to grow as a person. On top of that, I was given the opportunity to explore myself with little structure, allowing me to write and think about what is important to me. I would like to thank Ms. Majerus and all of my peers for making Non-Fiction Writing an incredibly memorable and magnificent class.

Summer

School’s ending! The end is finally in sight! It’s been a long year. Not to say it hasn’t been enjoyable, but thank god it’s almost summer. The weather is finally starting to move away from the frigid hell that is winter. The days are getting longer. Finally!

Even though we are on the cusp of summer, things are not letting up. It seems like every teacher is trying to pile as much homework on us as possible. The threat of finals is becoming omnipresent. The best part though, is productivity is going down the drain. I can’t work diligently for more than 5 minutes without my body telling me to drift outside and enjoy summer. I find myself napping in the sun more than sitting at my cold desk, writing in the lowlight environment of my basement.

Another thing the end of the year brings is the end of track. As I look forward to summer, I look forward to cross country. I can’t help but to think about how great it is training with the team next year. There is one problem though: it’s still track season. As summer draws ever closer, track gets more frustrating in a lot of ways. Early in the season, there’s not a massive amount of pressure to perform; a lot of the meets we go to for the first few months are small and not very competitive. At this point, we are drawing ever closer to state series, which is a frightening ordeal. This is crunch time. People are trying to qualify for the Honor Roll meet and cut their times enough to hopefully secure a state spot. Also, it’s almost too hot at this point. The weather is great for a leisurely stroll, but a workout or even an easy run in 90-degree weather can take a lot out of you. Also, the season has been going strong for 3 months, which is a long time. It’s pretty easy to get burnt out on running at this point.

As this academic year draws to a close, everyone is getting pumped for summer. It is so hard to stay focused on school-related activities as we can begin to taste the freedom that will be ours in days. However, school isn’t over yet and neither is track. As I said earlier, it is crunch time. We have to stay focused during these last weeks. Now is the time to get all of this stuff that has been piling up accomplished. Summer is the reward for all the hard work we’ve been putting in over all of these long months, and the work is not yet done.