Avery Sun Week #16: 11th Grade Memories
Avery Sun
Week 16
11th Grade Memories
For the last blog, I’d just like to share some memories I made this year. Some of these may seem extremely random, but this year went by in a blur, so if I even remember it, then it's significant.
During the summer, I volunteered with this senior at our school (it was a big group of people), and he had no idea who I was, but I saw him at maze day near the station where they assign you a locker. I was given a locker in that one hallway with the trophies between the 300 and 500 wing, but the door was locked on both sides The people giving out lockers were adamant about showing me to my locker so I had to wait for almost 10 minutes for them to get the door open. During that time, I wanted to say something along the lines of, “Hi, I’m Avery,” to the senior but it felt really awkward to do so, so I think I just ended up staring at him for ten minutes (which is arguably even more awkward).
Around December, I met one of my friends from Mission for the first time when he came to American to work with the voting people. I met him from video games, but my friends went to summer camp with him and I went to summer camp with his friends so I knew he wasn’t a forty year old man living in his mom’s basement. That same day, I went to a badminton open gym, and I hadn’t played in 3 years. I couldn’t hit the birdie at all. I played a match against this girl I used to train with (I was surprised she still remembered me) and I completely and utterly lost. After the game, she told me that she was actually nervous to play against me because she remembered how good I used to be, and I felt really sad as her statement reminded me of how far I’d fallen.
The entire second semester felt the same to me, but the one thing I remember is how POAS completely ruined me. I spent so much time writing and rewriting the work section that I had to speed run the other parts because I ran out of time. I still did horrible on POAS, and I did the best on the introduction that I started ten minutes before POAS was due on turnitin.
This year was horrible for me as we came back from distance learning because I just couldn’t pay attention in most of my classes. My grades suffered (and they are still suffering), and I’m pretty sure I completely bombed two of my AP tests. Math went from my best and favorite subject, to my most dreaded one, but I truly did enjoy APENG, despite the workload.
Hi Avery! Second semester was also a pain for me with junior year stress, and big projects coming in the way like POAS and a roller coaster project we have to complete for my AP Physics 1 class. Procrastination is definitely something I learnt to stay away from after this year because when trying to manage work into the following week, it used to be dreadful. Overtime, I learnt how to better manage my time and make the best choices pertaining to my work ethic to do better this semester than the last. At the same time, this helped me sleep earlier and explore my hobbies. Beyond the stress this year, I enjoyed the shift to in person learning for it helped me meet my friends and interact with my teachers face to face. Also the in-person events hosted by the school this year such as night market and prom were fun to attend and definitely events that gave me the Junior year vibes, which I missed out on last year during online learning. Thank you for reminding me of my junior year memories and I am looking forward to making more with you next year!
ReplyDeleteHello Avery! Second semester to me was not that bad until about right now. Junior year was and still is stressful, but for once I had my weekends as I was finally done studying for the SAT. I procrastinated a bunch with many AP Lang assignments, especially with my blogs. I lost a lot of really easy points in AP Lang this semester, but I tried extremely hard on the bigger assignments and did relatively well. This class has taken so much of my time, but I feel like it helped a lot with my individual writing. The AP test for AP Lang was a lot less stressful than I thought it would be: the FRQs were actually tailor-made for me. But the other classes this semester were not that fun. AP Calculus with the infamous Mr. David Takacs was extremely difficult. Even with all the Ramirez-Frogs complaining about their teacher, at least he taught all of the curriculum. Self studying over twenty percent of the exam was not fun, and neither was the extremely stressful and difficult tests, but overall I liked Calculus this year (sorry Avery). USH was a mess: we did so much work for not enough points. It was a boring class. AP Computer Science Principles was extremely boring, but thankfully a free class. That class confirmed to me just how badly I disliked Computer Science and confirmed that I never wanted to touch it ever again. AP Environmental Science had one of the easiest tests in my entire life, for I studied way too much, but it took so much effort to take the class and remained the lowest grade the semester (before and currently). AP Physics was an absolute doozy. I forgot to do an assignment and my grade dropped a record letter and a half, but the class was fantastic. Mr. Shockley is amazing. I also got the easier version of the AP Physics test, so I hopefully did good there. School this semester was an absolute mess, and I need Mr. Shockley to give me back my A. However, I do not regret it (besides the missed assignments). Additionally, I finally had a full volleyball season this year for the first time in two years. We even made NCS this year, something Sarah could not drag us too. I met a lot of new people this year and connected with some people I thought lost to the ravages of time (many frogs). I made many new relationships this year, with especially notable people that I really wish I talked to much earlier in my middle school-high school years. But there is no use in crying over spilled milk: this semester was an extremely productive one in comparison to other years. Hopefully I can maintain my GPA from last semester (praying to the physics gods). This was a difficult year, but I feel like I accomplished a lot and grew a lot as a person. Thank you for all of the memories Avery!
ReplyDeleteFrogs???
DeleteA blog post inside of a blog post!?
DeleteHey Avery, second semester hit a lot harder than first semester for me. I guess I got too comfortable and let my ego and procrastination take the wheel for me, because I've had way too many close calls in recent weeks. Random assignments were slipping and my averages were making it near impossible to keep the "buffer" I vowed to keep for finals last semester. However, I decided that this flexibility to not do so well on my finals was key, so I started to pick up the slack I was starting to create. At the same time, it became a lot more difficult to juggle the various facets of my life. Spending time doing personal research, exploring colleges, the SAT, schoolwork, friends, family and all sorts of other aspects of life started to weigh on me. Spending an hour or so a day just relaxing and watching TV would mean one less hour to any of those things, and it started to weigh on any extensive time I had to myself. Overall, junior year showed me how I could work and how much more successful I could be if I took things more seriously. It was a difficult year, but definitely one I learned a lot from.
ReplyDeleteHi Avery! I agree that at the end of the school year, things do tend to feel like they went by in a blur. For me, I feel like this year I made much more tangible memories, especially compared to last year’s online learning where everyone was so separated. My second semester was definitely a bit more stressful this year though with me generally putting in less effort towards my grades overall partly because of my ego and partly because of burnout. In the end, though, I think I’m still grateful for being able to make memories in person this year and this year was certainly an improvement from online school.
ReplyDeleteHi Avery, thanks for sharing your memories of this year! This year has definitely been filled with ups and downs for me, but honestly I wouldn't have it either way. One memory that stands out to me is seeing my articles published in the school newspaper for the first time. Another memory that is not too good was getting my first fail ever on my calculus test.(And then I failed the one afterwards as well). I cried many times this year, but I also have never been so happy. I think it's important though, that we go through the good and the bad, because both offer important lessons to us about life. Anyways, I hope you have a great rest of the year and a fabulous summer!
ReplyDeleteHi Avery, I really enjoyed reading your blog because it gave me a moment to reflect on my own experiences this year. This was something I needed right now due to all the stress surrounding finals and so many projects! Junior year was a whirlwind, but it also went by pretty fast. I can not believe that I am currently writing some of my last blog comments ever. I still remember my first week in APENG, when we started the year, with a bunch of dreaded timed writes. I remember those first few dialectical journals and the first annotation we did about Asian representation in superhero movies. I remember how scary junior year felt. It’s crazy that we are almost done with our junior year now, something that I never really expected! The end of any year is always kind of emotional, because of the conflict between the excitement of summer but also because of the nostalgic feelings of people we might lose touch with and habits that will be foregone. This year was very stressful, but I also made a lot of good memories. I met and interacted with many new people and I honestly had an extremely stressful, but also fulfilling junior year. And although my sleep schedule definitely suffered, I think I can confidently say that I have learned a lot this year - both academically, but also about myself. This year was a mix of highs and lows, but it is one that I am sure I will never forget.
ReplyDeleteHi Avery, it sucks to learn that academically speaking your school year was not the best. it is pretty crazy to think that we are already only one week away from the end of school. It is kinda crazy to me, because the first day of school literally feels like last month. When looking back at the school year, so much has happened during this school year in such a short amount of time so I can't realize how long I have actually been a junior. During this year, I have truly grown a lot. I have learned so much across multiple different fields. On top of that, I have learned so much about life in general. This will truly be a year that I look back on.
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