106

I have to admit that I was intimidated on the first day of class. It seemed to me that college English was something I would not be able to handle. That first story we read about the incestuous boy really made it hit that I wasn't in high school anymore. As the semester went on, though, I really got into the discussions. I was used to a teacher just picking some random theme or symbol from a text that had nothing to do with anything and focusing on that. I always thought that was pointless, and it was. The great thing about this semester is that we search for meaning in the text that exemplifies the behavior of people we see on a daily basis. That makes it seem worthwhile reading the book and, for me, much easier to discuss in class. I also appreciated going over some of the basic grammar rules. It did seem somewhat juvenile at times, but the fact that we struggled with some of the concepts shows that we needed it. Its hard to remember things we learned six years ago or so. Many teachers would just leave it alone and then penalize heavily for mistakes on papers. Its nice that we got a chance to improve our grammar and increase our chances of doing well on papers. It really sucks when you write a good paper, then get all of your points stricken by dumb little mistakes.