Come Back to Afghanistan Blog #10

I had a really insightful and enjoyable freshman year. It had been hammered into my brain that high school would be so much harder than I could possibly imagine and the teachers would be way stricter, that they were babying us in middle school. But, in reality, that is definitely not the case. The workload was big, sure, but it wasn’t nearly as difficult as everyone in middle school made it out to be. Plus, I always do my work, so the idea of not being granted “freebies” wasn’t so menacing. I have had the most fun I think I’ve ever had this year more than any year of my life, at least as far as I can remember. My favorite classes were NonWestern History, Geometry and Literature, even though they posed a challenge. I really enjoyed having the freedoms I am granted in high school instead of the oppressive rules that dominated everything in middle school. I think I learned quickly but at first painfully that I needed to really concentrate on studying and that I couldn’t just not study and still ace the test like I used to do in middle school. I hit the ground running but quickly fell flat on my face when I used the same tactics I did last year. I ended up getting a C on one of my first history tests because I didn’t know really how to study, but now that I’ve developed study habits I think the rest of my high school career won’t be nearly as difficult as it would have been if I hadn’t figured out how to study well.