State+of+the+Student

It has been a stressful and surprisingly short first semester to my first high school year as a freshman. I have had my ups, and I have also had my downs, but despite all of the ups and downs, I still feel I have started high school out on the right step. Foothill. The very name of this school makes some kids cringe with fear and hate. I know I felt this way about this school. Being from Oak View, I wanted to go to a school that is closer to me like Nordhoff High School but instead my parents (mostly my mom) forced me to go Foothill. Trust me I have heard all of the stories about Foothill: the school is for nerds, you will regret it if you go there, and a lot more stories. And wouldn’t you know it, summer flew by and I had to go to the supposed worst high school Foothill. The day started out rough and ended rough, and for a moment I actually thought my friends were right. I truly thought that the school wasn’t for me, but I knew I had to give this school another chance, and I am glad I did. Before I do tell you about how my first semester has gone, let me tell you a little bit more about myself. Two words, sports freak. I am obsessed with sports, which in my mind is not a bad obsession. I love playing sports, I love watching sports, and I love everything about sports. I can probably tell you who has the highest batting average in the mlb or who has the highest quarterback rating in the nfl or even who has the most blocked shots per game in the nba. If I hear something that I think is totally idiotic like someone saying that the dodgers are better than the Angels than I’m probably going to argue with you for a very long time on who is the better team. Although I do love all sports, one of my favorite sports has to be baseball. I have been playing since I was five years old and the game still hasn’t gotten old. I am currently playing baseball for Ventura High School and trust me, it is a lot better than doing p.e. at a high school for a list of reasons : I don’t get graded, I don’t have to take finals for it, and I do something I enjoy doing during school which I think is awesome. So describe this paragraph a little bit shorter, I love sports. Friends are a huge part of my life and unfortunately I do not have too many here at Foothill. Coming from a small k-8 school in a small town like Oak View, I wasn’t expecting to know anyone. As you might expect, Foothill was not my first option. I wanted to go to a high school that was more near me. I had one particular high school in mind and it was Nordhoff. Not only was it a lot closer than Foothill, but all of my friends go there. To be honest, I was very disappointed when I learned I have gotten accepted to Foothill because I knew I would have to go whether I liked it or not. The first thing I thought of was, how was I going to survive through high school without any of my friends. This thought made me very worried. As far as I knew, I basically had only one friend coming with me to Foothill. So as the first semester flew by I really didn’t make that many friends. I have met some really cool and awesome people here at Foothill, but I don’t think I can call them friends just yet. Although I haven’t been able to make as many friends as I wanted to, I was able to keep in touch with a lot of my friends. In fact I don’t think I have lost any because of me going to a school in Ventura. Don’t get me wrong I would still love to go to Nordhoff with all of my friends, but I think I can survive here at Foothill. My family is a pretty annoying part of my life, and I am not being sarcastic either. I am an only child living with both of my parents and my cat Bella. We adopted her from the humane society when she was about a year and half old. We adopted her about a year ago and she was about nine pounds. She is now fifteen pounds, so we are putting her on a diet. She has to be one of the most annoying cats ever. I wanted to get rid of her and just get a new pet, but my mom would not do that. I strongly believe that she cares more about that cat than me partly because she has already said that to me. My mom acts like a five year old sometimes. She says that she is not my real mother and that she found me under a bridge. She is more like an annoying five year old sister than a mother. I also think she has anger problems. I have told her to go to counseling because I honestly think she does have anger problems. My dad has to be the opposite of my mom. He is a very laid back person that just goes to work in the morning and comes home in the evening, eats, and then goes to sleep. Sometimes he does have those moments where you can’t be near him within a mile but other than that he is a calm dad. Lately throughout the first semester my parents have been pretty strict with me and my school. Since I was very lazy in the first quarter they have been on my butt and watching every step I take with my school. I have to say, since I was slacking in the first quarter not only have my parents been yelling at me, but they have also given me a lot of encouragement which means a lot to me. So throughout the first semester my relationship with my family has thrived and I’m happy that it is what it is right now. Academics is of course the most important part of my life. This first semester has been a huge disappointment for me. From a 3.9 GPA in middle school, to a 2.5 GPA here in Foothill. Although Foothill is harder than my past school, that is no reason for me to have such atrocious grades. I have grades like these because I was just flat out lazy in the first semester, which now that I look back at it makes me pretty irritated. I am irritated because I know I can do better and I did not use my full potential, which now that I think about it more makes me furious. Although there are a lot of horrible and awful sides to my first semester academically, there are some good sides. After having an even worse first quarter, my parents basically attacked me on how I wasn’t even going to get accepted by a community college, which I actually thought was pretty funny, but I got the point. I knew I would have to buckle down, which I did. I started turning in homework at a much better rate and I was actually studying for tests and consistently getting good grades on them. It makes me mad that I was slacking off in the first quarter because I could have gotten great grades if I were working as hard as I was. I have learned my lesson though and I am confident and sure that I will have stupendous grades next semester. First period I have algebra 1. I was supposed to take geometry but I guess something happened that I really don’t know about. So I’m just going to be taking geometry in summer at the Ventura College, but back to my algebra class. I have to say that it is a pretty mellow class. It really isn’t loud and while it is a quiet class, it tends to get a little bit boring. Ms. Rocca is a cool teacher in all but sometimes she can get a bit boring which makes me more tired in the morning, but I can’t complain about my math class. All my math class is, is just a mellow first period class. For my second period I have Spanish. Spanish is a very interesting and fun period. Not only does it me get out of my drowsiness, it is also a fun class. My favorite part about Spanish has to be the weird and wacky stories we make up. I also like learning Spanish so I can talk to my Spanish speaking friends. Of course I can’t have a full conversation with them; I just try to go as long as I can speaking Spanish until they say something that I can’t understand. Spanish also has to be up there among my favorite classes because it is a fun and comical class. Period 3 is EDA and if it weren’t for Mrs. Faulconer’s up-beat attitude and strange vocabulary, I don’t think I would be able to survive that class. The only thing that I think is good about that class is that we have no homework. We do create cool things like collages and stuff like that but I still do not like the class because we just take notes and it’s pretty boring. Even though I don’t like the class, Mrs. Faulconer has to be one of my favorite teachers she is very funny with her interesting vocabulary, but still that doesn’t clear up the fact that EDA has to be the most boring class I have. Then of course comes my English class. This is also one of my favorite classes. I like that we don’t have homework in this class. We have read books like “Of Mice and Men” and “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.” The one book that was probably the one of the most boring books I have ever read was “1984.” I did not enjoy that book whatsoever. The only thing I like about that book was the author had the same first name as me. That book still didn’t ruin his class though. I really enjoyed the book “Of Mice and Men.” Overall my first year in English at Foothill has been great. Biology comes after that and honestly that has to be one of the hardest classes I have. I have Mrs. Vega and she is just a cool teacher. At the start of the class you can almost predict what she is going to say, which I don’t think is a bad thing just a funny one. From what I have been hearing from other kids I am much happier that I am in Mrs. Vega’s class than Mr. Duston’s class. I would really like to switch classes for a day and see what it is like in his class. Whatever the case I enjoy Mrs. Vega’s class and have learned a lot in there and I am glad I am in her class. For sixth period I have Health/Geography with Mr. Prewitt. That has to be my favorite class. All we do in that class is watch videos about anorexic people and we barely get any homework. I also like that class because Mr. Prewitt is just an awesome teacher. I have not seen him get mad once this year which I think is crazy because there were times in his class where he could have easily lost his temper but he has kept his cool. All in all I like that class the most because it is just a fun and cool environment to be in. Finally the ninth grade project. Honestly I was a little bit scared going into the whole presentation day because they had made such a big deal about it. I mean you have to say a ten minute speech in front of environmentalists and that freaked me out a little bit. I did the Tundra, Polar Bear, and Global Warming. This was my first choice because I thought it was the easiest subject to do the ninth grade project on. Well I found out that no matter which subject you are doing, for me, it was pretty hard. I had to have at least have practiced my speech twenty times leading up to the presentation day and it paid off big time. I ended up getting an “A” on it and I was very proud of myself because I knew going into the presentation it wasn’t going to be easy, but I worked at it and got the grade I wanted. In conclusion, was my freshman year a success? My answer is a huge NO. I screwed around in the first quarter and because of that my grade suffered. I have learned my lesson at Foothill and I know I cannot do that anymore. In fact I’m pretty sure my first semester would have been fine if it weren’t for my grades. As I said before, I know now I cannot just screw around in school anymore and I have made a promise to myself and my parents that made grade will improve dramatically in the second semester. As for me still wanting to switch schools, I would have to say yes. Foothill is just way too far away just to get to school for me. It’s annoying taking two buses to school every morning and plus all of my friends are at Nordhoff. Whatever the case, I know I will have to stay at Foothill and I might as well make the best of it.