A Writing Oddysey

My Writing Odyssey

As far back as I can remember I have always been told by educators that I\'m a very creative writer. My first year of high school was an

interesting time to see where my skills in English would take me. For some reason every semester in High School my progress in English would

fluctuate. Some professors assumed it could be better, some assumed it could be no better. For my first year of High School,l I attended

Jamaica High school. I can remember on the first day of English Class the Teacher handed out a book entitled \"The Odyssey\" by Homer, which

was translated by Samuel Butler. The homework later that day was to make a short story of our own little odyssey, and I did just that.

I wrote a story relating to the amerindians, which were people that were living in South America before the Europeans arrived, and acient

women who were sent to exile for performing certain tabu\'s (since women didn\'t have much say in ancient societies) in the the Amazon rain

forest, I wrote about unusual rituals performed by the women of the amazon, like the brain surgeries, heart surgeries, and wearing the skulls of

Jaguars on their heads as helmets, I described them as having beautiful skin, cat like features, such as their eyes, and postures, and described

them as worshiping anything in the felis genus, describing statues of many kinds. I wrote about the many different healing remedies they beheld,

making them seem like witch doctors, forcing people with illnesses to try and find where in the dangerous forest they would reside in as their only

option to be cured for whatever disease. I also made my self one of the people who set out looking for them, proving an ancient legend to be

right.

When I came back with the assignment completed, the very next day I saw it up on the bulletin board. The Teacher was so flabbergasted

with my work,he made copies of it and handed it out to the class. He called me aside to offer me a chance to write for the school newspaper The

Hilltopper. I had it all in there. I wrote a short story that kept the attention span of everyone in the class. Most found the class boring, or at least

his style of teaching, but not that day. I set an example on how a creative writing assignment could be written, which we spoke about the entire

class. Not only was class interesting that day, but so was my story.

I felt as thunderstruck as Susan G. Madera, in the short story, \"One Voice\" since she goes through a similar situation. Not many got that

oppurtunity, which may open doors to other opportunities such as scholarships, and even getting accepted to the college of ones choice. In order

for a student to get into the journalism club, you either had to have outstanding grades, which wasn\'t very common in that particular school, or be

recommended by a staff member of the deparment.

I always felt English didn\'t have to be a number one priority since schools and programs I was interested in (dealing with the

medical,pharmaceutical, and dental field) only looked at high scores in math and science and only required satisfactory scores in English,

therefore I focused on those subjects as my strong points. Being selected to write for the school paper still gave a great recognition for getting

into good schools, but one with high math and science scores received a better recognition for acceptance, which in a way, is not fair in my

opinion, but the answers lie within the schools who request\'s this kind allocation.

However after that semester, not everyone read the school paper anyway, most of the kids werent really interested at all because reading

was never encouraged, except for students who actually enjoyed reading and werent obligated because of a class assignment. there was no

sense of school spirit. Everyone was into the \"hype\". It was like big rims vs. big brains. No one realized that being smart was actually cooler, and

could possibly get y ou somewhere in life.

My following English professor didn\'t even know I was the kid selected to help put together the school paper, but atleast

I thought if I wrote the same way I did the previous semester he would be able to uncover my skill the same way my previous professor did -was I

ever wrong about that idea. apparentlyI wasn\'t perceived the way I thought I would be. He was the kind of teacher that was fed up with the way

things were going, spoke about his many relationships and ex wives in class, and worked to only get the students a passing grade rather than

making them work to get the best grade. we all knew deep down inside there was a guy t hat loved the english language, the subject he was

teaching, and someone who respected the knowledge and power he beheld, or he wouldn\'t of been there in the first place. This is what availed

my grades as well as fellow students to fluctuate throughout the trimester. In a way it wasn\'t fair, and perhaps he was sending the message out to

us that math and science really is more important than his class.