Monday, May 30, 2011

How Tragic.

The school year can end only so quickly.
Even though most of us have already experienced a sense of relief - mimicking the relaxation that accompanies the final day of state-mandated school attendance - after the realization that AP testing has drawn to a close, we still have to steel ourselves for the trials that lie ahead. The hard stuff may be behind us, but we still have to suit up for the worst to come, like my second round of SAT testing this upcoming Saturday, and Finals, on the 13th and 14th of June. The approaching close of a year also signals a farewell to the graduating class, and I'm sad to see some of my favorite seniors say goodbye. Before we can reach the sunny shine of summertime, it seems we have to experience the tragedy of the end of the school year.
(Not to mention the tragedy that an A- I recieved last semester and the fact that our school district refuses to weight students' GPAs is preventing me from becoming one of our school's prestigious Grey Gowns next year. That means I have to watch as kids who swam by all of their high school career in regular and honors classes are honored, and some of us who busted our butts in AP are left out of the fun. Boo.)
However, those AP classes where our work has finally paid off now get the chance to experience a little less high-tension classwork. Sure, we still get assignments, but they mainly take the form of in-class presentations for AP US History, and art projects for AP English's reading of Macbeth.
Macbeth, by itself, was definitely not one of my favorite peices of Shakespeare's work. In fact, I found it pretty boring. As a district, our school system decided that teachers have to assign one of Shakespeare's tragedies every year, which has led to our perusal of Romeo and Juliet freshman year, and Julius Caesar last year. (Next year, as seniors, we will have to read Hamlet.) I really liked both of those, to the point where I even read A Midsummer Night's Dream over the summer between 9th and 10th grade. However, I'm not sure whether I've just become tired of his writing, or tired of people complaining about not being able to understand his writing, because this wasn't nearly as enjoyable an experience for me as his works have been in the past.
I am enjoying the art project bit, though. We were able to choose the medium we wanted to work with, so I decided to go with one with which I was already relatively familiar: a comic book. :) I think it turned out pretty well. However, it is yet to be decided whether my junior year will end with misery, or with mirth. Maybe I could end up turning this tragedy around?

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