Rose's English Blog

What I enjoyed most about this class was the fact that the students actually engaged in conversation with the teacher (most times) and caused and array of different discussions. A project/ assignment that I enjoyed the most was creating my own poem, it allowed for full creativity while playing around with breaking the originally taught rules of literature. Expressing emotion through poetry allows it to feel more real and raw, portraying your true feelings to the reader. I connected with our poetry unit the most, mixed with writing, the complexity of texts that only contain a few words sometimes, forces you to dive into the deeper places of your mind in order to fully understand the meaning of that poem. I mention writing as well because that has always been an outlet for me, I would turn to write whenever I felt sad, happy, conflicted, or any emotion really. I've connected with putting my thoughts into words most of my life, and I felt it was the way I could express my feelings mos...

 A tradition my family used to always follow was going to church, this no longer matters to my family because we have come to understand and respect the benefits of finding your own belief system and finding comfort within that, instead of being born into one religion and having to believe it despite it going against what you may stand for. 

 As a kid, the holidays felt like a magical time of year that lifted your spirits in the darkest of days. As time has gone on, that magic has since faded, I see the stress of the holidays over the happiness, the prep instead of the outcome, the cleanup instead of the joy of unwrapping presents. The holidays are such a happy time of year, but it is still different to experience as you get older. 

 Something that I have outgrown but still miss are my old friends from elementary school. I no longer talk to any of them, but I reminisce on the fact that we used to be inseparable. I never would have imagined that we would have grown apart, but we did. I see them on social media though, the harsh reality is that we would not be friends now, it's not the distance, it is the fact that each and every one of us has grown into different people. Now, I normally say that this is a good thing, however, they have abandoned their morals and sense of individuality, and I would not be able to interact with people like that. 

 The best gift I received was for my birthday when my brother gave me my cat as an early present. We all knew how badly I wanted a cat, and it took him a little bit to warm up to me but I have him for over a year now and I love him more than anything. 

 The masks represent covering up your true identity for the sake of fitting in with the norms that society have set in place. "Masking who you are." When you've had to go most of your life trying to be like everyone else, it is difficult to condition yourself out of that and be true to yourself. But once you discover who you are and what you want, there is no going back. One moment that stood out to me was when she went out without her mask, figuring out who she was, and everyone who still had masks on turned their heads to stare at her, as if someone expressing individuality was such a foreign concept to them. The film's message connects to the poem because both discuss topics of somewhat being shunned for being different. The part of my identity that I want my mask to reveal are the things that make me, me. parts of my life that have shaped how I am now. 

 I do not know that much about my cultural identity, more so meaning my ethnicity, but how I grew up was very inclusive and I was taught to embrace individuality and accept others for who they are. Taking everyone's own culture and appreciating it was a huge part of growing up for me, even now still. 

 A time that I tried to follow what was cool but it ended up not being that way was when I tried to sneak out for the first and last time. I was about 14 and my window led directly to the street so I decided to climb out and wander for a bit in the evening. I didn't have a plan which is something I quickly realized was dumb. I did not wander far before I got frightened and turned around to go back home to bed. 

 A memorable thing I did over break was hang out with my brother who is always away at college who I rarely get the opportunity to have long conversations with. He and I on Thanksgiving night we sat out on the couch after watching stranger things and talked until 4 am about everything you can imagine, he missed so much of the important moments in my life and I never really noticed that until that moment. I caught him up on everything he had missed out on and it was really nice to talk him for that long.

 My most unforgettable meal was when I ate at a restaurant called jinya and I had one of their pork buns with a salmon poke bowl with my mom. You can somewhat see the city lights from the window of the table we were sitting at. The night air was cool and refreshing and it was overall a perfect night. 

A time I realized I had to look out for myself in a harmless situation was when my friend and my brother were arguing and they tried to pull me into it and it was beyond my control so I had to stop talking to both of them for a while. 

 I am thankful for my cat, knives. I am thankful for my friends who have gotten me to where I am now. I am thankful for music, which has also shaped who I am as a person. 

 A moment when new information changed my perception of a person or situation was when I first opposed the idea of attending lakeside. I was assuming it was full of people that I would not have gotten along with. I would not know anybody and I was overall dreading going to a new school. When I started getting my bearings at school it wasn't so bad because I had people who were nice to me and helped me get through the school day. That was when I figured going to this new school wouldn't be so bad. 

 A place that holds deep memories for me is the city, more specifically the skyline when you are driving on the highway. I can remember my deepest and earliest memories driving in the car, late at night, listening to music staring at the city lights in the distance. It used to seem so far away, given I used to live in Gwinnett county and would only see it when I would have visitation with my dad. I was so little, yet my infatuation with it never wavered. As I got older, it stayed the same, but now I live closer, I see that familiar skyline more often and I never once get bored of it. The same nostalgic feeling in my stomach that fills me with happiness and a deep feeling of inescapable emptiness still spreads throughout me when I drive by. The memories never leave my mind, but remind me of every time I looked out and saw those lights, whether I was happy, sad, angry, it was there and a part of me will long to live in one of those sources of light one day. Each day I grow closer to ...