I’m Curtis Dowdell. This will be my last writing piece for RNE. I am not writing this because it is fun or because I’m obligated to. I am writing this because I never truly gave RNE a good or final goodbye.
Freshman Year: Year of COVID; the worst year of high school. It shouldn’t even count as a year. I was happy being home. Who wasn’t? You could stay in bed all day until you realize what you signed up for. The first semester was easy, light work, no reaction.
The second semester came and hit me like a train, but I’m sure that would have been better and less tiring. That was when I started feeling burnt out. It felt like I was depressed. It didn’t help that I had two of the worst classes for that to happen: Journalism One and Foundations in Algebra.
In Algebra my teacher wanted us to turn on our cameras so she could see us. I was anti-social and lazy so I didn’t want to do that. I was not sleeping in class, I only did that once. I missed a day in that class because I fell asleep right before classes started. That’s not the point. The point is, I didn’t want to show my face so I had to be creative and somehow get marked present. After that challenge, this lady wanted us to take a picture of our work. I was too lazy to even work in math. Then she gave me a 63 in her class. Like what is wrong with you? Even If I deserved it doesn’t mean I should have gotten it.
In Journalism One, my videos were horrible. I don’t know how I’m still in this program. I remember doing a video 20 minutes before it was due. The worst thing is it was a ceramic project/ video, so I also had to clean up my room afterward. I ended up with a 70, which meant I did no other work in that class. I swear I did, but I guess not.
Nothing happened in sophomore year, other than my friend moving. Like who does he think he is by leaving me all by myself? I only had a few people to talk to because I was still antisocial around that time so I didn’t hang out with a lot of people. I was just staying to myself a lot. For example, if you ask Ayire, she would probably say I was in the back of the class listening to music. Music will always be one of the best things ever created.
Nothing happened in my junior year either. I stepped outside my comfort zone a lot that year. I only filmed a few things for CavPlex because I worked more on the trivia. I joined the news show that year. That year doing the news show wasn’t bad. I enjoyed hanging out with everyone. I joined Mock Trial, which helped me step outside my comfort zone and it was fun meeting new people practicing law. For the most part, it was pretty chill for me.
My final year at RNE has been amazing. At the beginning of the year, I was put into Chemistry. I thought it was going to be hard, but it was easy. I met a lot of people and we had some crazy experiences, like the time I broke an egg. During that time, I met Meyira, an amazing person to film videos with. We filmed a lot of videos, not all of them were finished or put on the news show, but it was still a fun experience. One of my favorites to film with Meyira was the cooking video. I came up with the idea and she took control, which I am not complaining about. I’m glad she took control of it.
I was able to make friends through the news show; the new journalism students. They can be a handful to be around but they are great people. I did mock trial again this year. I took pictures for them to be put in the yearbook, and I’m working on a commercial. The crazy thing is after taking those pictures, Faith asked me to take pictures of Girls’ Soccer for the yearbook. After taking a few photos for those games, I became a fan and started to show up to most of the games to support Ayire, Niah, and Kiley. They’re all great people to be around. That is probably one of my best highlights of this school year. I went to prom, took pictures, and hung out with a friend for the last time this year.
Thank you, Mr. Rawson, Ms. Dennis, and all the journalists for an amazing year in Cavplex. I hope everybody has a great year next year. Signing off, I’m Curtis Dowdell.
