Who Am I?

Who is Brionna Scotton? I have absolutely no idea who I really am. My personality is so complex that I get confused about who I am as a person. I like so many things, listen to many different types of music, preferably punk rock or rock music, like different fashion styles than the rest of my peers, I like different things in general. I know that your adolescent years are supposed to be where you are just finding out who you really are, but when I thought I knew who I was, I became sorely mistaken. I realized that I may never find my true self because I can barely understand what I'm thinking about or doing. I'm so confused as to what I really want to do with my life and it's extremely frustrating. I mean I know who my real friends are but I feel as though they don't know me very well. I mean I like anime and manga, something most teenagers don't even know about, I listen to all types of music but I prefer rock music over rap, I'm into Japanese guys for goodness sake! I feel as though I always have to hide a part of myself because I think that I wouldn't be accepted if I showed everyone all of me. I'm not even happy and hyper all the time like everyone thinks. Sometimes, when I'm alone, I get sad, or depressed or just mellow, and when that happens people ask me what is wrong with me. Even when I'm not sad, and I'm just not smiling they ask what's wrong. Is it so wrong of me to not want to smile for once? Sometimes I just don't feel like it and it makes me angry when people just get one perspective of me. I don't mind all that much if people want to remember me or know me as a happy person, but to only think of me as one it bothers me. I just, I just don't know anything about me anymore and I hate not knowing.

Getting Frustrated...

I'm starting to get really frustrated with this whole Senior Project business. My English class, where I take this course, is having a celebration for the program this Wednesday, and both my mentor and sponsor cannot make it. I'm starting to get annoyed with this program because when the year started, I changed my course of study so it became difficult for me to find a sponsor. At first I emailed a published writer asking her if she could become my sponsor because I had worked with her before, however, it didn't work out to well because she never responded back to me to see if she could. Then about a month later, I found a sponsor, Matt Katz, a journalist who works for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and now he cannot make it to the celebration because he has to cover a story for the paper. My mentor, Mr. Roddy, also cannot make it this Wednesday because he has an important family matter to attend to. I'm not saying that I'm upset because they can't come, it's just that I am going to feel stupid being the only student without both of her mentors. This whole project is starting to press my buttons and I'm starting to lose hope and enthusiasm in the entire thing. Hopefully I'll be able to start going out to see my sponsor soon, maybe then I'll be able to renew my hope in this project.

28 Years From Now...

Imagine that you are twenty-eight years old, and you're writing to a cherished teacher whom you haven't heard from in ten years. Tell him/her about your professional life. What do you do for a living and how did you get there? Consider the following: What schools did you attend? What special training and degrees do you have? Where do you work and what is the name of your company? What do your coworkers and boss think of you? What professional successes and awards have you enjoyed since graduating from high school.



Dear Mr. Roddy,


Remember me? It's Brionna Scotton from Lindenwold High School. You were my mentor for the Senior Project, and my eleventh grade English teacher. I hope you remember because I remember you and I just wanted to know how you were doing these past 10 years. I, personally, am doing fine, I'm an English teacher just like you at a high school in Japan. I teach them how to read and write in English and try to inspire them to become interested in literature just like I am. It's hard work, but I love it because I'm getting this chance to teach students, in a country that I love, about the joys of writing and reading literature. I'm happy that I've gotten to where I wanted to be in life because I've worked so hard for it. After high school, I attended TCNJ, The College of New Jersey, and majored in English (Language and Literature), then in my junior year, I studied abroad in Japan! I was able to meet other college students, like myself, and observe how they lived and studied for exams and classes. It was a lot of fun and I made many new and exciting friends. I graduated from TCNJ, I received my BA and got accepted into Yale University's Graduate school for English Language and Literature for my Ph.D. To achieve that was hard work because I had to take many courses in two years, teach for two terms, take an oral exam, submit a dissertation prospectus, and finally submit a dissertation.

I first worked at the college as a student-teacher, and I did such a great job that I was recruited to work at a high school as full-time teacher! After one year, I transferred to prestigious high school in Japan because I've worked so hard just so I could be able to teach there. My coworkers and boss love me. I make them laugh by telling funny stories of my childhood, my mother and other family members. They respond by telling me great stories about themselves, and I'm glad that I've made such great friends. I have a really close friend and coworker at my job. Her name is Rie (Ree-ay), and she is similar to my close friends back home. She and I hit it off right after we met on my first day there, she helped me a lot and I really appreciated that. As of right now, she and I both share an apartment here in Tokyo, and we have a lot of fun together, my family met her when I visited home and loved her just as much as I do. I absolutely love teaching these teenagers. They adore me and always like coming to my class to hang out during lunch. I feel as though I'm a role model to them because they come to talk to me about a lot of things that they're going through. I always tell them that I'm not a guidance counselor, yet they still keep coming back. I feel like I'm wanted and appreciated at this school and I like this feeling. Well, I have to get going now, my lunch break is almost up, but when I come back to visit home, I'll make sure to drop by and see you.

Sincerely,
Brionna Scotton

Unrequited...

For the past few weeks, after I had blogged about what I thought about love, I got a reality check. Love is still a special feeling that many people should experience, however, what I had said about it, with the heart pounding and can't speak thing, it could also happen a different way and you're still in love. When falling in love, you could be totally comfortable with that person and be able to speak to them about anything, however, you can't speak to them about you liking them. That's how I am, liking someone I can speak to without stumbling over my words, forgetting how to speak, all those things I previously mentioned, but I just can't speak to him about my feelings for him. I've known him for a long time and I could always speak to him without looking crazy, but that was when I didn't like him as more than a friend. Now, I see him in a different way, I think he's cuter, nicer, sweeter, a totally different boy than before, and he has absolutely no idea that I even feel that way about him! And it really sucks because I want him to know so much, and I'm afraid that if I tell him he won't return the feelings. It's painful to be in love by yourself, and unrequited feelings are not fun for anyone to bear. I just wish that I could muster up my courage to tell him, but I'm not even sure he likes me the way I like him. He could smile at me, hug me, and talk to me, making me feel like I'm the only one he's looking at and make me feel special. But then he could go to the next person the same way, shattering the illusion that's been placed over me. I see him every day, talk to him all the time, laugh with him, chill with him, overall comfortable around him, and to me, it could make my day, but to him, it could be just like hanging with his friends. He just doesn't understand how I feel about him, and I don't know if I could ever tell him.

Blog Visits

Today I found out that a few of my friends like doing things that I would never do. Enrique and Aliccia like the feeling of adrenaline rushing through their veins by doing daring things like Bungee Jumping and Sky Diving. Natalie got into an accident and got a new car afterwards, and Tyana would rather receive Chinese food over a diamond ring. Jamie wants to control her anger by improving herself, which I can relate to because I need to control my own anger issues. I learned a lot of interesting things about them and I'm glad I had a chance to look on their blogs to do so. Blogs are so convenient.

Weekend Grab Bag =]

I believe love is a special feeling. It's the feeling you get when you really care for someone and you want them in your life always. But there are many different kinds of love. There is love for friends, when they're close to you and are apart of the family. You'd stay by their side through thick and thin and vice versa. There is the love for family, when they are most important to you and you'd automatically know that they would support and love you. However, some people don't get that love and support from their family, which is sad because family above everyone else is supposed to stick together. Then there is the love of a lover. That kind of love is the best kind because when you figure out that you love that person, every thing looks a lot better. When falling in love your heart beats faster every time you see that person, your mind thinks only of him/her, your palms sweat, you can never think of anything to say to him/her, you fumble over your words when you finally manage to gather the courage to speak to him/her, sometimes your heart even skips a beat when the person smiles at you or speaks to you. It's an exhilarating and wonderful experience when you fall in love. Falling in love could possibly be the best thing a human being could do. However, falling in love is a sad, cruel experience as well. When you fall for someone so much and you want them to return that love, sometimes they never do. Either they don't like you the same way, they are in love with someone else, or when they do return your feeling, they either move away or die. It's sad when you look at older couples who've been together for over 25 years and then one day, one of them dies. It's painful to have your soulmate die and leave you alone for the rest of your life. That was the same thing with my great-grandmother. My great-granddad died and a month later she died as well. They say that when your soulmate dies, you can't live without them and die soon after. Maybe not for the younger generations, but for the older generations they never really move on. Love is the greatest accomplishment for any human to achieve.

My Reason For Not Doing The Resolution Paper

I have always had trouble creating New Year's Resolutions. I thought that they were pointless because I never keep them, forget about them, or I don't need them because I improve my flaws and imperfections every year. However, my main flaw was procrastination, and though procrastination is one of my strong points, it hurts me when I have a paper due and I haven't started it yet. Today I had an English paper due about making New Year's resolutions and since I never make them, it was hard for me to write about having some while it was easy for everyone else. As a writer, it should have been a piece of cake for me to crank out some phony resolutions that sounds good to please my teacher, Mr. Abrams, however, it seems I caught a bit of writer's block because I couldn't think of any thing to say. When he found out about me not writing a paper, he sat down and talked to me. I admitted to not doing it and I told him it was partly because of procrastinating, but also because I don't make resolutions. He gave me some ideas that I could go off of and tried to help me because if I didn't do anything, I would've gotten a zero on the paper. I am grateful to him because he is a generous teacher that gave me a second chance. If it was a college professor, I would've had a zero automatically, but Mr. Abrams, luckily, isn't a college professor. With his help, I came up with a few, very few, resolutions that could help me throughout the year. Even though I may not be able to keep them going, I can try to for the sake of myself and my grade.

I really don't like admitting this but when Mr. Abrams talked to me about me not doing his work, I felt terrible. I could tell he was disappointed in me because I am a good writer and a good student and I didn't do his work. I hate when I disappoint a teacher, whether I like them or not. When I feel like I disappointed a teacher, I feel as though I disappointed myself, if that makes any sense. That's why I'm writing this blog for Mr. Abrams because if it can make him feel more confident in my abilities as a writer, then I can as well. This is the least I can do for him because after all, he did allow me to redeem myself by doing this and I am appreciative of that.

My Exciting Topic for Senior Project

The course of study that I have chosen for Senior Project is to experience a job related to English. I want to become an English major in college and I would like to experience the different jobs that most English majors branch off into. The main job that I do not want to do is journalism. I do not want to write about events that has happened in urban areas, schools, major highways, or even suburban areas. Journalism isn't that exciting for me, I think it is boring and becoming a reporter or journalist for a newspaper is not my dream job. I want to do something exciting like creative writing. Writing fiction stories is fun for me, and coming up with a new plot for another story is like going on a new adventure, just like Calvin and Hobbes. My imagination runs wild and creating new plots that sound good is easy for me. I know that it is hard to become big with writing, writing novels is a gamble, however, I would still like to pursue a writing career as a side job. Although I want to write, as it is my passion in life, I also want to become an English teacher. I love reading, writing and discussing novels like Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. I absolutely adore everything about the subject English, and I hope to be able to become a great teacher, or even a writer, so that others can experience the same passion that I have.

How should blogs be graded?

I think that blog entries should be graded just like regular papers, but with a harder assessment of it. On the computer you can do many fancy things to your blog entry that you can't do on regular paper, so I think that the grading should be similar but the blogs should have more categories to be graded on. Blog entries should be about three large paragraphs to me. On paper you could get stuck on what you want to say, I have that problem all the time when I'm writing a paper, so I know from experience. I start a good idea and I know what I want to say, however, when I go to put it on paper, I get stuck. When I'm on the computer typing away, my ideas just flow onto the screen and my papers are better that way. Blogs should include many things like thoughts, feelings, events that someone is doing soon, sections about friends and family, etc. Part scrapbook and part blog journals are somewhat more difficult to grade, to me. I think that the scrapbook part should be graded like a regular paper would, but the blog part of the journal should be graded differently. The blog part should be graded by categories of how it looks, in other words, presentation is key, it should have pictures and videos, and many of the other things you could do on a computer.