[Re]: Changes

"It's amazing how people change over 4 quick years. I'm sure I've changed in almost every aspect, no matter how much I want to tell myself that I am the same.." -Adam

I believe that for the most part, the change that people undergo during their four years of high school is for the better. Reflecting and looking back now, I think that I was quite a naive freshman. High school is really a place for inner development. Change is inevitable, bound to happen sooner or later, and whether you like it or not, it happens to everybody. In one way or another, you do change.

As seniors, our class has had the most allotted time for development. Basically, our class should theoretically be the most mature, although there are of course a few exceptions to this. Aside from that, I believe this rule holds true throughout the entire populous at our school. Even though I believe that most of the learning you do occurs outside of the classroom, our school as a setting is a center for development. It's simply because you take all these different types of people, coming from different backgrounds, cultures, etc. and putting them all together for half a year, for 7 hours a day. Through this you learn about the type of people you dislike, the people you are attracted to, those who influence you and much more. I really think that's why a lot of people actually enjoy going to school, so you can see people.

I personally believe that I have changed a lot since first stepping into these hallways. The inner workings of my mind are far different than that of four years ago. I feel like I've become more open-minded and aware of my environment. From the way I talk to people to the way I behave in class has even differed from my days as a freshman. I view this personal growth as an achievement because as long as you're happy with who you are and what you're doing, then something is going right in your life.

[FP]: Senior Life.

The top of the food chain, the upperclassmen, senior year has finally dawned itself upon us and it feels odd to be placed in this niche of highschool society. It's hard to believe that we've walked through the orange lined hallways for the past four years. Everything feels routine at this point, from knowing the best routes to get to classes, to knowing where to meet-up with friends during breaks. In addition to all the social perks of being a senior, there comes the ever-so daunting pressure from colleges looming over most of us.

This is where things start to feel a bit surreal for me. Knowing that by the end of this year, we'll have sent off our applications to admission officers to decide on our future based off 1000 words. It's a bit frightening to think about actually. The whole college admissions, SAT, etc. process has had a weird effect on me. I've found nostalgia creeping into my mood more frequently. Perhaps I feel as if I'm not mentally, or physically ready for college yet, or it could just be that I regret not spending more of my time in these past years doing more productive activities. Whatever the reason may be, the fact still remains that each day that passes by, is just another day closer 'til the end. I won't be seeing 95% of the faces that I see currently for the rest of my life. A walk across the stage, a diploma hanging on my wall, and a giant chapter of my life will suddenly come to an end just like that. I hope these next few months will honestly be one of the best times that I will have ever spent in Alameda High, because you only go through this once so you better make the most of it.

My Thoughts on Blogging and the School Year. [English Final]

1. Explain one or two ways audience feedback helped you grow over the semester. (It doesn't have to be stuff Sutherland said.)
• Have you been tracking your blog's traffic with Google Analytics? If so, you can respond to this prompt using the rich data that Analytics provides: Where is your audience reading from? What are your most popular posts (and why do you think they got the most traffic?) There are lots of possibilities here...

    In my first literature circle blog post for "Patient Zero", the actual author Jonathan Maberry commented on it. This was a tremendously surprising thing that happened to me and it actually made me feel motivated to dedicate more time and effort into the whole Literature Circle process. For example, my Confessions of an Economic Hit Man book review took me a considerably long time compared to the other one's I've done. This is made evident in my use of multiple quotes found in the novel (which took longer than I would have liked) as well as my analysis of the quotes and some themes that are shown. Peer feedback, well any feedback in this case has proven to get me motivated. It lets me know that people are actually taking their time to read what I have to write and it doesn't feel like as much of an assignment anymore. This aspect of it has definitely made blogging/writing more enjoyable. 

    The introduction of Google Analytics really made me pay attention to my blog more often. I would check out the site every now and then out of curiosity about what kind of data it would read. Actually, I posted a post about how cool I thought it was. Since then my blogging data has evolved a lot. As of November 27, 2009 I had a total of 63 views with an average of 1:38 spent on my blogspot. Looking at it now, I have a total of 366 views with an average time of 1:07 being spent there. A surprising little fact is that my original statement of purpose has had 66 page views alone, 47 of them being from different computers. Now this is one of those things where I have no idea why it has become like that, but for some reason it's the most popular/viewed post that I have to date. My absolute favorite aspect about Google Analytics however, would be the Map Overlay feature which shows where in the world people have visited your blog. I have 366 page views from 19 countries/territories. Now this is really really surprsiing to me because I have no idea how anybody would ever find my blog out of all the blogs out there. Besides having it linked to my Tumblr, I cannot think of any other way people would be exposed to it. I've had visits from places like, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Germany, Brazil, Pakistan, Russia, India, Belgium and Norway. These countries are all around the world so it's not like only a certain region of the world has viewed my blog. These kinds of statistics simply amaze me. The power of a blog can be limitless as long as you have valuable feedback and good content. I've learned that people will find your blog and it gives me a kind of grateful feeling. It's cool to know that all the effort I put into this blog isn't all for waste and people are actually reading it. Thank you to my followers especially! 

2. How do you like having a blog? How has blogging changed the way you write, the way you think, or the way you think about writing?
• Has blogging had any other effects on your life beyond strictly your "school life"? If so, explain.
• For the second semester only: Do you plan on continuing to publish writing on your blog this summer, next year, or beyond? If so, what are your writing goals and how will you use your blog in the future?

    Well, blogging for me hasn't ever been a new thing unlike a lot of other people. I was first exposed to blogs back in 2006-2007. During that period of time I didn't write much and it was pretty boring writing. I would just write about my thoughts or my day, like a type of online journal because I knew nobody who I knew would really be reading it. Since then, I've had numerous other blogs made simply out of boredom and as time progressed I started to post more and more frequently. I would actually get to the point where I started to feel kind of bad because I didn't post anything in a long period of time. For my blog before this one (which will remain anonymous), I actually managed to produce 66 different posts spanning from 4/26/09 - 8/22/09, so a little under 4 months. That's pretty crazy now that I think about it. Now this blog that I have now is very different compared to the past ones. 

   

    I feel like it's this one that has been the most changed compared to the previous. First of all, the thing that helped develop my blog was that a post was due every week for a grade, requirements were set and I got to work. I wanted this blog to be something meaningful. When Mr. Sutherland first introduced the whole blogging process I know that I could have just BSed everything and created pointless posts, but then I wouldn't get anything out of this whole thing. The key to having a successful blog in my mind is dedication. You cannot get lazy on your posts, or skimp out on the content of it. Knowing my peers/friends could read what I was publishing, I wanted to write better. I tried to make this blog more formal than others and tried to treat each post as an actual writing assignment.

    I would say that my blogging style has evolved into a combination of daily life posts, along with content filled posts that others can relate to. This has all come together in my latest blog. I don't think blogging has has much effect on my "school life". The one thing I would say however, would be that it has helped me produce writing much quicker and more efficiently. I'm not sure if this is because of blogging itself, or the quickwrites that we do in class, but either way it's helped my writing. 

    As of now, I'm not quite sure if I plan to continue with this blogspot account. Tumblr's user interface is just set-up so much better and has made it easier to get exposed to different blogs and have contact with others. Also, since a lot of people have Tumblr accounts nowadays, (because there was some trend about it apparently....) it's a lot easier to network with a wide number of people that I know. I might occasionally return to blogspot to make a post, but I doubt I'll post more than once a month. As for my plans for blogging in general, I hope to achieve a wider audience, while writing about posts relevant to my life, and not just posting pictures and videos. As said in my statement of purpose I still hope to improve my writing and vocabulary. I plan to also create more posts that are meaningful and post them more frequently. As for now, I think I'm just going to blog when I feel like it. Summer is around the corner and it's been a long long year. Blogging has definitely changed the way I think of writing nowadays, as well as the process I go through with coming up with a piece of writing. 

I hope that this will not be the last post on this blog, but who knows?

Thank you for an amazing school year and I wish you well on your future endeavors. 

                                                                  
                                                        With love,

                                                                Alvin Lee