During this term, in Mrs. Mayo's eighth period english class, I have been learning a lot. So far, we have read two novels. They are Always Runningby Luis F. Rodriguez and Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin.

Always Running was a little boring to me. A lot of the other students liked it but I didn't like it at all. Giovanni's Room, on the other hand, was very enjoyable. I liked the novel, basically, because I can relate to the main character's situation. Not relation in being gay, relation in trying desperately to hide something and then have that something come back later on in life with a vengeance.

I also have a poem my sister wrote and a story that I wrote combining different experiences of my own and from people that I know. They are both about surviving abuse of some sort. In my class, I am in a group called Domestic Abuse Awareness For Females, DAAFF. In this group, we do research on different types of abuse, such as spousal abuse, domestic violence, etc.

On my page, there is also an autobiography that I wrote. It's very brief and doesn't provide much information but that's the way I like it, short and sweet. I don't really like people to know that much about me; I like to have people wonder what's going on in my head.

I wrote a paper on my definition of love. I wrote this when I was having "relationship" problems with my, now, ex-boyfriend. He was claiming to love me but I was convinced that he didn't know the meaning of the phrase. Yes, he did do some very sweet things but that is not all love is based upon. He didn't prove to me any of the things that I believed the phrase, "I love you" really means.

We also had to write responses to articles, letters, and short stories we have read in class. Two such assignments were a response to the story elevenand to an article about schools.