Personal Narrative: My School Year In High School

remember it all like it was yesterday. My history teacher assigned that one big project that is worth half your grade. It was Tuesday morning of my junior year in high school, I walk into class and the day starts good until he hands out the assignment and gives us the due date. The project was to create a diagram from the 1900's to the 1950's or write a 5 page essay. I had been working hard the whole school year to maintain an “A,” but soon none of that would matter. All the nights I stayed up to study for the test and all the study guides I rushed to turn in before the first bell in the AM wouldn’t help me anymore. As a student my grade wasn't jeopardized on all my hard work, but by one simple project. My procrastination had finally put

me out of luck, my lack of paying attention to detail has caught up to me, everything I had tried to get away with before had taught me a good life lesson from one simple project.
I was in my last class and the bell last bell of the day rings, I was thinking “finally the school day is over.” But this project has been running through my mind all day! What could I possibly build that everybody else isn't? I don't want to have the same concentration camp as not only my classmates, but every other period my teacher, Mr. Post has. Or you know, what could I write about that interests me. Bloody Sunday, the Mexican Revolution, or the ANC formation? It's 5 pages so you know I expect it to interest me somehow and the "copy & paste" buttons are definitely not an option since it’s due on turn-it-in.com.
The days just keep passing and not only am I procrastinating the project I really don't know what I'm going to build.

There's about three days until the deadline so this is when I mention it to my mom so she take me to the store to grab some supplies. I could not decide on what I wanted to do and I didn’t want to be up all night the day before it was due, no thank you. So I turned to my last option, "the easy way out," a basic concentration camp. I was telling myself it’s okay to have the same idea as long as it’s constructed differently right? I mean this definitely won’t be the first time happening in the world. I go grab my supplies at Walmart to create an Auschwitz concentration camp. I have no idea how I’m going to design this, but I’m more than positive I can think of something like it’s not rocket science, it’s a building with 4 walls and a roof with wired a fence. I literally grabbed the most random things, styrofoam, popsicle sticks, the fake grass, paint, and construction paper. I get home and get on my project right away. I pull out some cardboard I had at home and start building a base and a building. I am not an artist so I’m not expecting a Vincent Van Gogh piece of work. I hot glue everything together and I’m feeling good about it, but the it’s getting late and I still have time to do it tomorrow so I’m not even stressed and I head off to bed. The sun rises and I’m off to school, it’s just a normal school day and then I go home. My teacher said we needed to

give a one paragraph description of our project which isn’t bad, I could do that. Then submit it through turn-it-in.com of course. I begin to finish my project and everything’s going good. I have my camp up, I cut out some windows and a door, because no building it that simple. I add some grass to the front, and put some wire all along the perimeter. I start to paint on the roof and add a railroad track to the side.
I was feeling real good about my project, and I still had one more day left to complete it, I was proud of myself… Only I didn’t have one more day, I misread the deadlines.
I walk into class the next day and everybody's carrying their project and I’m thinking “maybe they just brought it in early,” whatever. Nobody brought in their project early, I don’t even know
why I would think that. Everybody’s asking me “Lydia, where’s your project?” Even I’m asking myself, “LYDIA, WHERE IS YOUR PROJECT?” I would do this, this is so typical of me.
I explain to my teacher what had happened, but he had no sympathy and of course I was livid that whole day. It’s not like I could go home and get it or have my mom bring it, it was due that hour. This project was worth half my grade and it was just sitting at home doing nothing for me.
All day I was thinking of excuses, and ways to get it in, but nothing could help me at this point.
My 94 just went to a solid F, what am I gonna do? I cannot fail a class, ,it is so embarrassing and sad, my parents would kill me. Ok, this is the moment I get it all together, I have to do whatever it takes to get my grade up. I am determined!
My teacher definitely did not like this idea, but he told me “I know no student is willing to fail,” so he gave me the opportunity to prove myself once again.

I was very thankful at the moment, until I got to the work. I never had to do so much work for extra credit in my life. I would stay after school grading stacks and stacks of papers for two extra credit points! Are you kidding me two extra credit points!! I was only complaining on the inside, because I did not want to be biting the hand that was feeding me at the moment. I did this about 2-3 times a week for three weeks total. This got my grade up to a 63%, which was passing but that was not good enough for me. I did so many study guides I could probably teach you history myself. I was balancing out five other classes and a job! I did not have a life for a good six weeks and it really was a terrible experience because I felt as if I did everything right, all I did was forget to read the dead line on the assignment. My grade ascended slowly but surely which made me happy, but the end of the school year was coming up. I never got my grade back, but I was so happy I got it up to a 75%.

I didn’t want to be the girl of my group of friends to fail a course. I struggled tremendously in this process, I was taking six academic courses and doing extra credit work to fix my mistake. I was also working my first job at the movie theater which gave me no weekends off and I worked really late during the week from 5-11pm. I got a

really good lesson out of this process, always double check the dates and give yourself more than three days to work on anything!