Over the past few months leading up to this week, I've hear so much about the first week of senior year. That everything changes. That you find who you really are, and you prepare yourself for who you're going to be in college. I'd like to say that looking back on my first week, I hope this is true for me. I want to grow, and I want to become the person, academically and spiritually, I know I can be.
This first week of senior year, a common thing I've heard is "I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm going to college." In AP Lit, the first day, this is what I heard the most. Why? The idea that these people are diving head first into their futures with no idea where they're going frankly terrifies me. I think this comes from a lot of places deep inside me. Past trauma and events have molded me into a person who is horrified of not having a plan. In class this week we talked about our futures, and reading, and our goals. I enjoy talking about my goals and my future a lot. It scares some people but it's one of my favorite things to talk about. I am so unhappy with my present, I love to talk about the future. Standing in that circle, I was scared to talk about exactly what I wanted to do, so I didn't. I think this happens to a lot of kids. They have passions, they have plans, they have purpose. But their peers make them feel as if it's not okay to know what you want. It's cool and it's comfortable to not have a plan. If you ask nearly any senior in the school, "What is your plan for the next 5 years?" and they will comfortably answer "I don't know, probably college" with a laugh. And everyone else laughs too. Because that's what we do. This first week of class brought forth a lot of old fears, and new fears. Old questions I've been asking myself for years, and new questions too. Will I succeed? Will I die before I can make it to the end? What lies ahead for me? Is there a big picture that everybody else gets and I don't? Am I just an idiot? Doing the activity where we learned our reading speed, for some reason, really helped me move forward. I constantly hear from my peers that I'm the "dumb friend". And that it's okay that I'm not very smart, because I'm pretty and I'm good at other things. But for some reason that activity itself reminded me that I am smart. I know that reading quickly does not make me smart. Just like reading quietly doesn't make others dumb. But, the activity reminded me that I can read a lot, and I can comprehend what I am reading, and I am not dumb. I will no longer dumb myself down for others. I have the ability to comfortably read 8 books this trimester. And god dammit I think I'll do it. I hope that my reading ladder is tall, I hope it is long, I hope that I can look down from the top of that ladder and wave down at the old me. The me that believed that I was dumb. The me that thought that my life -- and the circumstance I've come to face -- has made me weak. I believe that in this class, I will grow, and I will pave the road to my future more seriously then I've ever done before. I'm going to start that journey by reading my first book of the trimester, and finishing this essay of a blog post. P.S. I'm so sorry when I looked back at this it was so long but I promise the rest of them probably won't be this long sorry you had to read all that that was basically an essay of rambling I hope that's okay.
1 Comment
Ben
9/14/2017 04:04:03 pm
Hey Aliyah,
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