Assignment 24 Garrett Peavler

    There is no doubt that this past year has been important. Not just to me personally, but to the future of education. This year has been a proof of concept for the possibility of virtual schooling; the possibility of a future where you can enroll in a college halfway across the country without leaving your home state. However, if that possibility is to become a reality, there are definitely some kinks that need working out because this year sucked.

    I'm not the type to believe that fate is predetermined, but if it is, the planner of the universe has some personal problems that they need to work through because this was the worst possible year for this to happen. For both the current state of politics and, more relevant to this assignment, my year of school. This would have been my most challenging year under normal circumstances, so the pandemic most certainly did not help matters. It has been a journey fraught with countless challenges, but I eventually reached the end.

   Perhaps the greatest challenge of NTI was the repetitive, unchanging routine that I inevitably fell into. School has always been more or less monotonous, but before, there were places to go, people to see, and other activities that would break up the repetition. This was not the case this past year. With nothing to break the cycle of public education, I quickly became bogged down with the monotony of school. The monotony made it difficult to care about what I was doing because no matter how hard I worked one day, it would always be the exact same the next day. I quickly became complacent with failure, as there was no reason to care. Missing assignments were no longer a disheartening interaction with a teacher I respected, they were just numbers on a page; nothing more. But enough reflection, let's focus on the future. What happens next?

    Well, after we came back in person, almost all of my grades raised a full letter, so now all that's left to do is rid myself of this awful year and get ready to tackle senior year. My schedule for next year is loaded with easy/ fun classes, and I'm just going to blow through it and close this chapter of my life. I don't know what comes after that, but as long as I'm not dead or homeless, I'll call it a win.