This picture represents how my love of reading is blooming and increasing.
I enjoy reading because I can get lost in the story and unlike in a movie, I can imagine everything how I want it, like the setting, and how the character's look and sound. I also like that it engages my brain more than watching a TV screen does and it's more interesting to me. The way that I make time for reading by first, going to a place where it's quiet and I won't be distracted. Then I put my phone away, (chuck it across the room so I'll be to lazy to go get it if I want it) because it's a distraction and I'll be tempted to get on my phone instead of reading. Then I'm ready to read. Sometimes it's hard to get started because reading doesn't sound very appealing to me at first, but once I actually start reading I end up enjoying it. My biggest obstacle I face to make time for reading is that I'm practically addicted to my phone and I need to get it far away from me so I can focus, which is why I have to force myself to throw it across the room once I've gotten comfortable enough to not want to get up. The best reading experience I've had this year was that I pushed myself to read books that weren't necessarily geared towards teenagers. I read If I Stay, which is kind of a teenage girl book, and I didn't like it all that much. So I read The Book Thief and The Road, and I realized it is much more interesting to read books that aren't all about teen romance. The last time I got "lost in a book" was last week while reading the book. It was peaceful and relaxing because I could tune out everything else and just read the book. But then it got sort of stressful when the intensity of the book picked up, which was really engaging and interesting. It is important to me to be able to pick my own books because I like being able to read things that are interesting to me. I also like having class books that we read though, because I get the chance to read things I normally would not have found to read, and I always like the books we read in class. I like how we have one class book per semester and the rest we can choose for ourselves because I get some freedom to choose what I want, and I also get introduced to new books. Goals I have for future reading are to read a lot more, and to keep reading a good variety of different kinds of books and genres.
This picture describes how I feel about blogging. Cows are boring and you can't really play with them or ride them. I mean, cows are nice and whatever, and we get milk from cows. Also, hamburgers. So even though blogging is boring, I gain knowledge from it. I hope this makes as much sense to everyone else as it does in my head, but it probably doesn't.
The best part of blogging was getting to read about other people's books and letting people learn about mine. The worst part was that it was hard to talk about the book without spoiling anything, and I just did not particularly enjoy blogging. The value in making my reading life and thoughts public online is that I get to talk about my thoughts on books, but in real life I don't get that opportunity very often outside of English class. For next year, I think blogging should follow prompts more, because for me at least, I struggled sometimes to find what to write about specifically.
This picture represents my freshman year. It has been stressful, and upsetting, and while some people really enjoy school, I am not one of those people. This year wasn't completely dreadful though. I have made some of my best friends this year, and I have had a lot of fun outside of school. This just hasn't been the best year for me. Obviously.
This year, I have learned to relax a bit more about my grades, because I realized stressing over my grades, will not change my grades. So I've grown as a student by learning that I can work hard and do my best without always having to be so apprehensive about my grades. As a person, I've learned that it is important to have morals, and to not give into "peer pressure". I already knew this, but it was strongly reaffirmed this year. I've seen some of my own friends make terrible decisions just to be accepted by other people, but it's never worth it in the end. A positive experience I had this year was that I was able to stand up for a girl who was being bullied by some other girls. A group of girls were making fun of her and I couldn't believe no one was saying anything so I went up and stuck up for her. She thanked me for it and I was really glad I had made the decision to do that. I know other people witnessing it were reluctant to speak up because they were afraid of making enemies with those other girls, but I realized that I don't need to be afraid of people like that. A challenge I've faced this year is learning to make the right friends. I've made some really good friendships, and some that didn't work out so great. But I'm learning how to choose the right friends from the friendships that didn't work out. I learned to be friends with people who make you a better person, and who you can rely on. For my sophomore year, I hope to enjoy the school year more than I did this year. I also hope to make more friends and get good grades. I also want to participate in more extracurricular activities because I wasn't that involved this year.
