Something for Something

I feel this school is turning more austere, and I don't like that. I hope the chaos mixed with the zero intolerance for anything plus the drama between teachers and students is not a harbinger of what Chinquapin will become. To me all of this is rather novel. I guess because I was used to the loving, homey, and nurturing Chinquapin I grew up in. Yes, we called it family, not so much to sell it to donors and perspective teacher, as we do now, but because we truly felt like a family. We truly felt loved. I truly felt loved. But now it seems it's all about business. I guess it's something for something. Loving family environment in exchange for a more professional and "efficient" system that train people for college. And it's no only me saying it; there are other our there too scare to speak up.

Cults

There are many obscure cults in the world in which people are abused.

Growing Up

When is time to grow up, some people are filled with apprehension because with adulthood comes many new things, most of which are responsibilities. I mean how can someone not be timorous to start a new life because basically that's what happens when on grow up. A new life suddenly hits us on the face, and we can never be the same again. The things is that we have no idea what's exactly going to hit us on the face because this kind of grown up life is unknown to us really. I mean we see all the good things about it, but very rarely do we see the trepidation of life. Nothing's ever for sure in life. It's simply filled with surprises. When we think we have everything figured out, life comes and slaps us on the face only to show us we know nothing. That's grown up life. It sucks. Really. I mean there is no more mom and dad to protect us from the craziness of life or from any ominous things that might get near us. We are naive sometimes to think that being an adult is all fun because it isn't. We know nothing, yet we are thrown into what's called adulthood, and it's amazing, yet scary because now we have to make our own decisions. We have to decide for ourselves, and that's the hardest thing in life because it's difficult sometimes to decide what's the wisest decision we can make. It's hard to know what is the best for us, even though sometimes we feel we know it all.

Creativity Week

During creativity week, we remodeled the gym. We repainted the entire gym with red, gray, and white, and we made a prodigious mural that says burrs.

Many of the people painting were novices, but luckily we have Mr. De Leon, who simply seemed like a virtuoso when he would grab the paint brush. He has inherent skills when it comes to painting. He taught us how to use the brush and roll properly. If it hadn't been for him, we would have never finished our job. We really enjoyed learning his innovative teachings.

You Have To Earn It

Some teachers might thing my attitude is bad, but I mean I tired. Some might argue that my behavior is not exemplary, but I try my hardest to be the best human being that I can and to always go for justice. I don't care what have to do to achieve this, and I don't care who likes it or who doesn't.

I've been trying to please the world for the last 5 years of my life, I simply can't do it anymore. I'm human I get annoyed too, specially by those people that are so fastidious. Yes, those people make me mad. Even more annoying are those who demand to be venerated. The thing is that you just can't demand respect, just like you can't demand love. You must earn it.

People can't expect to be respected, loved, and looked up to simply because they have a title. That's not how it works. Even in a hierarchy, the person at the very top isn't always respected by others. People respect those who give respect, love those who give love, and look up to those that are worth looking up to. It's not a matter of idealizing a person. No on is perfect we all know that. Looking up to someone is a matter of looking at a person and seen that they have qualities worthy of admiration. Qualities like humility, patience, understanding, among many more.

We should all learn to earn the respect and love of others, instead of demanding these from them. Because when we demand it, we will only get the complete opposite.

Thanks...Really Thanks

I'm not an ingrate. Am really not and I would bet that my classmates aren't either. I really am grateful to have been at Chinquapin. I am thankful to all of those that really cared, and that helped me to go on even when I felt like I couldn't do it anymore.

Just because we don't say thank you every second of our lives, it doesn't mean we aren't. We are simply tired and burned out, which is why it's harder to show our appreciation.

Ahh...

I will neither be disingenuous nor will I use ostentatious writing to convey my message; rather, I'll just go right to the point with simple plain language.

When certain things are taken out of context, they sound wrong. For example if someone took out of context some of the stuff I said to a teacher when angry, it would sound pretty bad. But once the circumstances are explained certain things are understandable.

I've shown for the past six years at Chinquapin that I have sense of propriety and that I am prudent. I've never really had any big problem with anyone. Usually, I'm pretty decorous with everyone, and I rarely get mad. Even when I get upset, I usually have great equanimity. I'm not even brittle because even under the pressure of anger I can usually keep my head cool. But I have a limit to how much I can take. Usually, I think before I say things because I'm not capricious. But I can get mad when people are unreasonable and stubborn. And when I loose my temper, it's not pretty.

Like this week, I know I was very upset, and lost my temper completely because a teacher gave us an arbitrary test. A teacher went off on us and gave us an extremely difficult test because many people didn't do the homework. He set us up to fail. I believe that, and will continue to sustain this claim. He was trying to punish people for not doing their work because he saw it as malfeasance. But the problem I have with this is that he punish me too, even though I did my work.

I understand he was frustrated, but I was and still am upset because I actually did my work. I don't like mediocrity, so I try to do the best work I can. I haven't been doing my best work lately because I'm just tired. I'm burned out, and I just need people (teachers) to understand that. I'm just tired of people telling me I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do when I'm really trying to get done the million things I have to do. The continuous reminder of everything I'm doing wrong is very discouraging and annoying.

I reached my limits. I was so upset because this teacher by giving us this extremely hard test will cause my GPA to go down probably significantly. I mean, I have worked my butt off for the last 4 years to have good grades for one teacher to come along and cause my grade to go down a lot. It's very upsetting, which is why I kind of went off on him. I was really frank with him, maybe a little too frank. But I needed to let him know how I felt. What made me even more angry is that he didn't care about what I had to say. He just seems not to care about us. It seems like he just wants to affect us negatively as much as he can, so he can get revenge.

I know I haven't acted so correctly myself. I was brusque and maybe even insolent when I was expressing my feelings, but I couldn't control it. It was frustrating to be talking to a rock. I'm trying to calm down, but I'm still very upset. I just hope this passes and that there will not be any enmity between us. For my part I was going to apologize, but today he just added more fuel to the fire. It will probably be some time before I can apologize sincerely.

See this is the kind of stuff that makes seniors want to leave. Certain people just create negative vibes, and I don't want to be in a toxic environment. I loved Chinquapin (I still do is just that I'm mad), and I thought I would never say this, but I'm ready to get out of here.

I hope that these essay doesn't seem a heinous one. I hope I didn't come out as pugnacious either, but if I did, I hope I get some understanding. I mean what is the expected reaction from someone who had to pay the price for something she didn't do. I felt like I was made reprehensible simply because the teacher believed I should. He thought I should be punished and blamed with all the rest even thought I did what I was supposed to do. I felt like I had been blamed for what others did. I want to also clarify that I do not intend to vilify the teacher that arouse my anger through this essay nor do I intend this to be a flagrant sign of any rebellion; I simply intend to vent through.