Stories by Makayla

What's Next?

All throughout high school, I struggled with finding my identity. What happens after I graduate? What happens when I graduate and I still don't know what I want to do in college? I've always liked to know the answers to my personal questions way in advance before they happened. It wasn't until the middle of my Junior year that I finally realized what was next after graduation.

While I was on vacation in 2015, my schedule for Junior year came in the mail. My 5th period class caught my attention fairly quickly. British Literature with Mr. McElroy, 11:40-12:40, every day. I hadn't heard too many nice things about my soon-to-be teacher. I complained for the next several weeks before school started. When 5th period rolled around on the first day of school, I slowly walked into the classroom.

"Do not let other people form opinions for you. Do not let other people form opinions for you," I silently told myself. As soon as the syllabus was handed out to us, however, that thought immediately disappeared. My first thought was, "How in the world does this guy think I can balance his difficult assignments with all of my other school work?!"

Throughout the first couple of months of school, I didn't enjoy his presence or that one hour a day with him. His class was taking up so much of my time outside of class that I didn't have any time to myself.

One December afternoon, he announced, "After Christmas break, I want you to come back with three possible essay topics for your research papers. It's going to be worth a great percentage of your grade." He later went on to explain that it was going to be more than difficult to score an "A" on the essay. That only made my annoyance with him grow even stronger. I had a deep hatred for research papers at the time. I wasn't excellent at rephrasing important notes into my own words; I feared that I was unintentionally plagiarizing. I spent my entire Christmas break freaking out over what I was going to do my research paper on, and I blamed my teacher for ruining my time off from school.

When I returned to his class after the New Year, I still didn't have any possible essay topics. There were very few things I was educated on when I was 16, so what could I possibly write an  eight-page essay on? Several minutes passed until it finally clicked. I quickly scribbles down my essay topic and walked to his desk. The paper gently shook in my hand as a response to my nerves beginning to kick up.

He looked over my topic and thought for a moment. "Hmm... school dress code?"

"Yeah. I mean, girls seem to always get targeted for their clothing choices but guys are able to get away with wearing their pants sagging dangerously low," I explained.

"Fair enough," he approved. "Just remember to defend your case against the opposing opinion, and not just explain why you believe what you believe."

I nodded my head and then he dismissed me.

I felt a small weight lifted off my shoulders. I had an essay topic picked out and now all I had to do was use the next month and a half wisely and put together an "A"-worthy essay.

Throughout the next several weeks, I complained about the essay and how I was going to fail, even though I've never failed a huge project or essay in my life.

We had weekly meetings with the teacher so he could check up on us to see how we were progressing through our essays. Every week, he had something to point out about how this sentence could be worded differently or how that paragraph was kind of close minded of me to say. I grew more and more frustrated with this essay and ended up putting off the final draft until the night before it was due.

The next day, I walked into the classroom debating on weather or not I should actually turn my paper in. "Of course you should, you idiot. Otherwise, you won't get a grade at all," I said to myself. I quickly set my paper down and rapidly walked to my desk.

Weeks passed before I finally got my essay back. A friend who had the class earlier in the day had gotten her essay back one day and she scored pretty well. She had earned herself a high "B". I immediately panicked. This friend was insanely smart. I mean, for goodness' sakes, she was graduating a year early with an exemplary grade point average. I was worried all throughout lunch about how horrible I probably did on my essay.

When I got to class, my anxieties only began to rise. What was worse was that he waited until the end of the class period to hand back our essays. Those were probably the longest sixty minutes of my life.

Before I left to go to my next class, he handed us back our papers. I was hesitant to look at mine because I was almost positive I didn't do too well. However, as I was walking to my next class, I couldn't help but take a peek at how I did.

I slowly glanced down at my paper and written in the top right-hand corner of my paper in bold red ink was, "91%, well done."

Towards the end of March, we had some extra time to have a laid-back day. He decided that he wanted to use that free time to have a class debate. The issue that he introduced to us was my essay topic. He complimented my writing skills that I didn't even realize I had at the time.

For the entire class period, my classmates debated on whether they agreed that the school dress code was unfair or they disagreed and though that boys and girls got equally disciplined for breaking the dress code.

While I was totally convinced that this teacher was out to get me to fail his class, he was actually challenging me to do better than my best. He was pushing me to get out of my comfort zone, and I didn't really like that too much. He was the one that ended up helping me realize what was next after graduation and what I wanted to major in. In fact, not only did I end Junior year on good terms with my teacher, but he also ended up writing a letter of recommendation for me to get into college.