English, Motherf*****, Do You Speak It? (1 - E)

A lot of people who were in or are currently in AP Lang talk about how they were persuaded to take the class after the traditional current-students-tell-sophomore-students-to-take-this-class-because-it's-cool speech, or they took it out of necessity and started off completely freaked out but started to enjoy it a few weeks in, or they felt ready and willing to take the class in the first place. I was not that person. Not in the slightest. See, I had known I was going to take AP Lang long before I was an audience member to that speech sophomore year, and the sole reason I knew was because I wanted to be an English major and felt I should take the hardest English classes to be better prepared (interesting that I no longer want to be an English major). Plus, it was the best class to take for SAT prep, and I knew I would have to do really well on that test if I wanted to actually get into college. But that doesn't mean I was ever excited about it. My brother Zach took lang three years before I did, and he pretty much hated it. I heard so many stories about how difficult and annoying it was, and I got PLENTY of stories about Ms. McMahon, AKA McMonster. Basically, I was not excited to take lang; I was terrified.

Now from here this could become an "oh, I really didn't want to take this class at first, but I got used to it a few weeks/months in," but that wasn't the case for me either. I can't say I was miserable all of the time, but I certainly wasn't enjoying myself. I can't even say I got used to it either because I never made my peace with annotations and I don't think I ever will. I could keep going on, but I don't want to continue to give the impression that this entire blog is about how much I hate AP Lang, because despite everything I've just said, I don't. I realize I actually quite enjoyed the lessons I learned, now that it's basically over. It took me until the end of the year to come to terms with that, and I can see now just how valuable this class is to me, both in the present and the near and far future. I learned so much in this class, and even though I had plenty of mental breakdowns and sleepless nights along the way, I wouldn't hesitate to do it again. I thought I knew how to write before lang, and I discovered that I was sorely mistaken about a week in. I thought I would never be able to write a whole five paragraph essay in less than a day, and now I can write one in less than an hour. I thought I would never be able to sit at a table and engage in a political conversation about the state of the world with my family, and although that one took longer, I was mistaken about that too. I learned about education, the world I live in, and myself, and I never would have realized this potential had I not chosen to take this class. So at the end of the day, I'm not sorry for the many times I complained and cursed out this class, but I'm very thankful for the determination to keep with it until the end (both my own and that spurred by spite), where all of it is worth it.