So Much More

It amazes me.

Here we are, day in and day out, reading about revolutionaries, navigating their ideas and their work, exploring our thoughts on their thoughts from the safety of a classroom. We've tasted the tales of Smith and Edwards, Wollstonecraft and Fitzgerald, Lincoln and O'Brien. We've bent our backs over biographies, cramped our hands because of essays, burned out our brains over the bombast of writers long dead. It's time-consuming, it's thought-provoking, it's brain-breaking... it's fun.

But have we done anything?

My writing has improved, expanded, my mind is more open, but I'm still trying to churn out blogs and rough drafts and failing fantastically! My completed writings are gathering dust, fly legs and skin particles atop grades derived from late nights and long hours. It makes me sad. It makes me wonder why I'm writing if my words mean nothing more than the number penned onto my paper.

Do our words mean anything more than an assignment? Than busywork? Who else besides this AP Comp Class will hear us? I thought writers wrote with reason. What happened to the purpose behind the pen?

Don't misunderstand--AP Comp has been one of my favorite classes ever. I love it; I look forward to it! I'm sad we have only a few weeks more. But as with most of school, I've learned more interacting and listening to people than I have from any homework.

All I want is a reason. Not a "college peeps love a good essay" or "it'll help you in the future". College is important, sure, but who evaluates a person solely on their grades and rhetoric? That's stupid. People are so much, much more than that. And my future? What about my now? What about yours?

So let's do something! Write a revolution! Put purpose into our papers! Herald our own halos instead of looking back at the historic, over-glorified greats! We are a generation made for a waiting world and we are more than our test scores, so why are we damning ourselves to our desks?

I have ideas, and I can't be the only one. Call me greedy, call me crazy, or call me out for what I am--someone who is sick and tired of being sick and tired.

The rant ends here. Homework calls.