“The End”

August 25^th, 2022. The start of a new school year. The start of my sophomore year. The start of English 11000. Having remarkably lofty expectations of me doing amazing this year. Last year’s English class was not the greatest for me. I ended up failing and not being credited for the class due to my causes. Lack of communication and updating my professor on what was happening in my personal life. But in the beginning of this fall semester, I believed and trusted that this semester was going to be different. Nothing like last year’s mistakes. I guess I was somewhat wrong.  

The start of this semester was pretty much good. For the first couple of classes I had. fun and enjoyed what we were doing. Getting to know each other, learning what the expectations of the class are and preparing what we are going to be doing throughout this entire semester. I really enjoyed everything this class was doing. But then, personal events occurred suddenly. Leading my entire family and I leaving New York. We had to leave and see other family members in Minneapolis. Something bad has happened. I don’t want to get into specific details about it because every time I talk about it, I get this feeling. This feeling of pain and blues. I had to stay strong for my family. I had to stay strong for myself as well. Then boom! COVID hits me when I got back from Minneapolis. I was out of campus and my classes for another week and 3 days. These events that have happened made me miss so much while I was gone. Missing my classes, missing assignments, missing soccer games while I was a student athlete in the men’s CCNY soccer team and missing the chance to get to know my classmates even more. Not just for English but for my other classes as well. By the time while get back, I’m going to be extremely confused and have that embarrassing feeling of not knowing my classmate’s names or what kind of person they are. Is this person a serious person? Are they not so serious? Do they have a sense of humor? Does this person take everything to heart? I had so many questions about my classmates and wanted to know them more. But I could focus on that. My main focus was getting back on track, passing my classes, and having a better semester than last year. Even though I missed so much while I was gone, my strength throughout all this was my communication which was something I didn’t do quite often last semester. I had to keep updating my professors and coaches about what was going on and why I wasn’t showing up. They understood why and that’s what made me gain twice the respect I already had for them. Understanding that we’re all human and things happen for a reason sometimes. I appreciated that from them all. 

Phase 1. Now for phase 1, I really didn’t get to do much while I was gone. Missing some discussions and rhetorical assignments on reading. But I did gain and got back on track with things like assignments and what were the other expectations. While we had our literacy and narrative assignment, I really had to brainstorm and go down memory lane when I had a situation where I had difficulty with a language. Hearing about others’ past experiences of how they had to deal with this type of situation in their lives really took me back to when I traveled to another country when I was at a younger age. Expressing on how I struggled speaking Spanish to my family down in Ecuador. Thinking Ecuador was a country where English was spoken often. I was a kid. Very innocent of the world. I had many strengths when I authored my essay on my experience. Many of them are such as expressing my emotions when I was in Ecuador, emphasizing on the ways on how I learned Spanish, explaining the activities I had to do in order to gain my knowledge, and using metaphors to give my essay more life rather than a script or words on a screen. So far, phase 1 has been looking good.  

Hello to phase 2. Phase 2 was really short. Now when I say really short, I actually mean it. Phase 2 lasted for a couple of days to a week. This phase was about rhetorical analyzing. We had to go through some articles and discover the rhetorical situations the author was providing in their text. The situations were ethos, pathos and logos. Ethos focused on credibility and ethics. Pathos focused on emotions and feelings of the characters in the stories. Lastly, logos are all about logical situations the characters had to deal with. All three were found in all the articles we read for this phase. The article I focused on was “3 Ways to Speak English” by Jamila Lyiscott. It was about how people now in this generation uses 3 types of languages while speaking English. Those 3 are to our teachers and professors, family, and friends. Expressing how we have 3 types of filters when we speak to them. Ethos and pathos were the rhetorical strategies that were being used the most. Pathos because the author went deep in the subject on how we express our English differently and ethos because it shows a form of character. Showing how we as people have many ways of speaking to others and how different it is when you’re using it. Even those I had past knowledge on these rhetorical strategies, this phase gained my knowledge more in it.  

Welcome to phase 3. Now for phase 3, I was struggling a bit for many reasons. I got sick so many times which led me to missing multiple classes and had to run to many appointments with my grandmother and sibling which also led me to missing out classes and making my attendance even worse. But towards the end of this phase I picked up and focused 10 times harder. For this phase we had to have a research essay ready by the end of the phase and my topic was on why muscular therapeutic, or muscle therapy, is very much crucial to many athletes. For this essay I really went deep. I researched so much to the point that I had so many tabs open on my laptop and my laptop began getting viruses, but it was all worth it. I talked about how there are many solutions for muscle therapy like home remedies and clinical therapies. I also talked about how benefitable it is and how athletes can cause their injuries worse and put an end to their career if they don’t take the right treatment. The intended audience for this essay was for other athletes and coaches in general. I really enjoyed this phase even though I was on the cusp of not passing.  

Lastly, phase 4. This phase is a phase where we begin to separate ways and analyze what we have been doing throughout this entire semester. Recognizing the mistakes, we’ve made in the past, viewing our strengths and how we grew as students. It all finally comes to an end and now to move on to a higher level in English. From everything we learned this fall semester, we continue to excel and grow outside of our English classes and bring this knowledge into the real world. I know I’m not the only one who struggled through this semester, we continue and live and grow our knowledge in school. The show must go on.