Senior English Reflection

This year I truly learned how to write, I have finally honed in on how to write an essay. I learned that I need my thesis first before I do anything else, then I need to wire my bodies and then my conclusion then my intro. Dr. Forman, you have helped me learn how i need to approach my essays. This year in english I really felt like I was in much more of a college environment. A lot of tasks were for us to handle a much more lay back but yet more productive environment. I really also enjoyed the use of the ipads because of the ipad I would get alot more work done then in the years before.      

New Second body

As a senior, I am no longer a part of the standard Buckley student club. A senior is something entirely different; from the first time we walked on campus wearing jeans on a Monday to college t-shirt day, seniors stand out. However it is not obvious at first. It is not until second semester that reality hits, and a senior begins to feel that he no longer belongs. Meursault goes though similar feelings in The Stranger. When he enters the courtroom he is confused as to why everyone is staring at him: “ I noticed then that everyone was waving and exchanging greetings and talking, as if they were in a club where people are glad to find themselves among others from the same world. That is how I explained to myself the strange impression I had of being odd man out, a kind of intruder” (91). Like Meursault, I too have become the odd man out. I find myself watching other high school students studying for tests and rushing to class just as I used to, and I feel separate, in a league of my own. 

new first body

When Meursault is first in prison he passes the time without realizing how quickly it has elapsed. Meursault settles into a routine rather quickly. He uses his memories as a way to pass time, and he learns to live his new life as a prisoner. He is shocked to find out how five months have passed: “For me it was one and the same unending day that was unfolding in my cell and the same thing I was trying to do”(87). I associate with Meursault because in September I came back to school, looking forward to being a senior, like it was any other year. After being at Buckley since Pre–K, I had become accustomed to my routine. Camus uses the phrase “the same unending day” when he describes Meursault’s time in prison before the trial, and I relate that to all my years at Buckley. I am not criticizing; it was just habitual to me. Now, suddenly, I am close to the end and I don’t know where the time has gone. Like Meursault time has passed and I still feel like it’s the beginning, the same unending day.   

New Essay Idea

Just as Meursault detaches himself from the world in the second half of the book, I find myself disconnecting from Buckley.