My Learning Rise and Fall

      August 14th of 2019 was the day C'Mira's learning experience would be changed.
School for C'Mira, who goes by the name of Cece, started on August 12th. As soon as she saw her schedule on August 9th she knew something was wrong. It was mainly right there was just one thing that she saw wrong. Instead of AP English Language, it said English 3. That same day that she saw her schedule she went and talked to her counselor. Mrs. Fruge told Cece that she meant to put her in AP English, but there wasn't enough space. So that upcoming Monday that would start Cece's Junior year, she went to her perspective classes. Fourth period had passed and fifth period was coming up. She was dreading it because she just knew it wasn't the right class for her and what she wanted to achieve. She sat in the class just dreading another year of bs textbooks, bs workbooks, and bs essays. Cece texted her counselor and asked if there was any openings yet, but sadly there was not. She went the rest of the day thinking about how her transcripts would look to the colleges she had on her list. After sixth period of her second day of school, she marched straight into her counselor's office and asked her if there was an opening yet, and to her satisfaction and surprise, there was!
     Cece got her new schedule and saw that she had Dr. Preston. She had known of Dr. Preston since she was in 8th grade. Cece had an older sister who went to SMHS since she was a freshman and had all the advanced classes. Cerenity and Cece had all of the same types of classes for their respective grades. So before Cece even got Dr. Preston she knew she wanted him because she knew somewhat of how he taught. She went to Dr. Preston's class afraid of the expectations she was putting on herself to uphold the reputation her big sister had made. She loved creating her blog and doing the blog post. Cece also loved going to Dr.P's blog to get the daily schedules and instructions for the day. Most of all Cece loved doing the daily journals. As the semester was advancing, Cece started having trouble focusing and keeping up with the blog post. She didn't have time because she was trying to prove herself to not only the people telling her she had too much on her plate but to herself. She was the type of student who did things to make her transcripts look good. Cece was very smart but gave up easily once things got too hard.
       On August 29th, 2019, Cece's great grandmother passed. Cece fell into a depression that presented her with many struggles on top of her struggling to juggle her time management with sports and school. At this point, she fell very far behind. She didn't think she could persevere. Basketball season was approaching and her coaches told her that they knew she could do better than what she was, but that wasn't enough. Her foster mom hounded on her to get her stuff done, and that wasn't enough. Her counselor told her that she might have to go to a JC after high school with the way her grades were looking, and it still wasn't enough. What made Cece see that she was only bull shitting herself was the fact that she had come so far, proven so many people wrong time after time, and made both of her late grandmothers too proud to give up when she was so close. She mentally and emotionally slapped herself in the face and told herself, "It's time to face the facts and get back to reality."
      Cece realized that it was not time holding her back but her own mind. Dr. P told the class that they would get a chance to interview for their grades. Thanksgiving break was coming up and she knew that this would give her the chance to properly prepare herself for this interview and get all her work done so she could ask for a good grade and actually deserve it. She would go home after practice over the break and work on her blogs and website instead of goofing off with her siblings and cousins. Cece was so determined to put in the effort for Dr.P's class that she put herself on a schedule that would allow her to diligently and effectively work on not just her AP English work but her AP US History homework as well.
      At the beginning of this semester, Cece fell into a space where she played the victim. She tried to keep up with everyone else standards on top of her own. Cece was trying to keep up with everyone around her when in reality she needed to keep up with herself. Cece is now the student who takes responsibility for her actions and takes charge of herself. She is growing as a student, an open-source student, and as a young adult.

How Did I Do?

Today I had an interview, please let me know how I did. The good, the bad, and the in between.

Today I Asked A Different Question

  What makes people decide to kill? What makes them decide to kill multiple people?

Psychology has always intrigued me. I've always wondered how people think and how our brains are in control of our personalities. It's amazing how chemicals inside our brains and how our genetics make us who we are in every aspect of our lives. Today I asked a big question, "Do all serial killers have a genetic predisposition to kill and how are certain events or personalities correlated to making a criminal?"
Me ka aloha, Cece

When They Saw Them: A Show That Struck the Nation

       When we are young, we have zero cares in the world. We play with who we want without regard to skin color, gender, religion, and race. It's our own person who first introduces us to the pain the world has in store for us or vice versa they introduce us to the hatred that we will have for the world. If it is not hate for the world that a child of color has, then it is hate for the child of color that the world has. Our society needs change. And there was one show that touched the topic and opened the eyes of the nation. "When They See Us." This show hit nerves that no one wanted to touch. A woman, Linda Fairstein, made a mistake. A mistake that cost 5 boys their youth and their faith. She had no leads in a case and decided to pin it on 5 boys she thought, "were likely" to commit this type of crime. She saw the perfect opportunity in these suspects because they were readily available. Fairstein used a known broken system against 5 boys to benefit her. Instead of wanting to put a man away who had hurt several women before Trisha Meili, she wanted to win a case by any means necessary. These boys were coerced into admitting to a crime they didn't commit. "Why admit to it," many people said. These boys were afraid, they were afraid because they had been taught to be afraid when around law enforcement. Oprah was also touched by this show. Winfrey interviewed the cast of "When They See Us" and the actual Exonerated 5. One of the cast members, Joshua Jackson who played Mickey Joseph-the defense attorney for Antron Mccray, said in the interview, "What I did learn about the justice system, is that it's the wrong name for it." In our society, everyone is trying their best to do right. We simply can not try, we have to do. 

When I Saw Them: Trisha Meili

    In life, we take the little moments for granted. We never think that we might be kissing our mothers for the last time, we never think that we might be sitting in class hating every moment of it but still getting our education for the last time, we never think that this moment where we are just being teens messing around and goofing off for the last time. The Exonerated five took those moments for granted.

   April 19th, 1989 at approximately 9pm, a 28-year-old white woman was found beaten, raped, and unconscious. Trisha Meili. Trisha Meili was the woman who was used as a toy and left for dead. Meili was in a coma for 12 days, She suffered severe hypothermia, severe brain damage, hemorrhagic shock, loss of about 75-80% of her blood, and internal bleeding. Meili was so injured that the initial prognosis was that she would shortly die after being found or remain in a coma. As a result of Meili's trauma, she had no recollection of the attack or of any event up to an hour. She had no memory of 6 weeks following the attack.

  Patricia Ellen Meili returned to work just 8 months after being brutally attacked by someone sinister.

  The city of New York sought justice for Meili, they were blinded by the anger of what was done to her and 7 other women. They were so blinded that they so unjustly made sure Justice was served, even at the expense of five young men's youth, sanity, and faith.

First Impression: On Self-Reliance

• "Ne te quaesiveris extra."
• Belief in yourself is what is true for all people
• The belief is genius, not the thought itself
• Cannot be yourself and be someone else at the same time
• Toil= work
• Only champ in your life is you
• whatever happens in your life is a result of you

I believe that even though parents instill in us that they want us to be our own person, they are also instilling in us not to stand out. They don't allow us to wear what we want to wear, they want us to wear 'normal' clothes. I think Emerson's essay is trying to get us to understand that it's not the standing out that makes it incredible, it's the act of standing out. Me ka aloha, Cece.

The Art of Hosting a Good Conversation... Online

The art of having a conversation online-

• Have fun
• Avoid taking sides
• Maintain connection
• Encourage people to talk amongst yourselves
• Stay with the topic
• Set a good example
• Value others' perspectives
• Be fair
• Listen
• Welcome others
• Accept everyone

Pedestrian -

Theme: intro- [Bradbury's experience and feelings]-humanity, technology, and authority

• 2 (tone)
• 3 (character)
• 1 (plot)

Me ke aloha, Cece