Days before break, days with a substitute teacher, or days that follow incredibly difficult exams usually describe the days where a movie plays in front of the class for an entire period and students feel completely relaxed. If someone wants to let their eyelids slightly droop and doze off for an extended period of time, not a single person cares because anything goes on movie days. Homework, quiet chatter, calculator gaming, or even a short nap all remain acceptable activities while the teacher grades papers or leaves the room to make copies for their next class. When a movie appears on the television screen or on the board from a projector, the class, no matter what the subject, transforms into a joke.However, AP English 12 is (Passive Voice ALERT! A perfect example of how much this class screws with my brain) not any class. When word gets around that we watched The Namesake in our eighth period class, my first reaction did not resemble the expected “Oh yeah!” but closely paralleled “Oh no! What kind of eight page analyzation paper on the differences between tone shifts in the book and movie will we have to write next?” As eighth period drew nearer, the anticipation built. Would we immediately need to take notes and further wear out our exhausted brains after they completed a marathon data sheet the previous evening? Or would she, once, show mercy upon our dilapidated fingers and allow tranquility to settle over the pitiable classroom. Unusual amounts of light sifted through the blinds as I walked into the room that fateful afternoon, “a good omen,” I thought hopefully. I sat down and grabbed a pen out of my backpack to prepare for the worst and yet, it never came. We joyfully watched forty-five minutes of a film with no subtitles to compensate for the Bengali spoken in most scenes and no recognizable actors except Kumar from the “Harold and Kumar” series. This ranks on my “Top 10 Greatest Surprises” list and only trails the Quinn-Hillis trade (pure Denver stupidity) and my five on the AP Computer Science AP Test (Vegas gave it 1000-1 odds). The assortment of emotions due to one class still stuns me and I must leave readers with.... only in AP English.
Haha John, this is (whoops, passive voice) hilarious. What a well written post you have here, quite funny and in my opinion, a highlight on the Blog Show tomorrow afternoon. I myself had some lingering feelings that we would have to take notes and prepare for discussion on a later date, so I was pretty surprised as well that none of this transpired. But who knows... maybe there's some assignment, hiding in the distance, that will catch us off guard. Keep up the good writing John
ReplyDeleteJohn, this is the funniest post I have read yet. I could not stop laughing as I read this because you very precisely captured the same emotions I felt. Like you, I anticipated some sort of catch. To both of our pleasant surprises, that catch never came and we have had a very relaxing English class the past two days. Though I miss fighting for points in discussion, I think we earned a few days of rest. By the way, I never knew you could write so well. Maybe you should change your blog title to Eight Steps to an 8+.
ReplyDeleteAs I love watching movies in other classes because it is a free pass to take a nap, paying attention to the movies in AP English is entertaining because they are always of the highest quality. As soon as I realized that the man who plays Gogol is the same person in the "Harold and Kumar" series, I could not contain my laughter. I honestly would not mind writing an essay on this movie because I throughly enjoyed it and did not have to take notes because I paid close attention for the entire three days of watching it.
ReplyDeleteJohn, I felt the same way you did when I saw on the calendar that we would be watching a movie in English class. It made me nervous because I also like to relax while watching movies. However, I really enjoyed this movie and I did not find it one bit hard to pay attention because it was very entertaining. When I have to watch movies in other classes, they are mostly horrible movies that I really get nothing out of.
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