Taking classes with friends… most of them are anyway

It’s been about 4 years since I’ve become a student at De Anza College and it amazes me how much we as students have the power to be able to dictate which we want to take. I remember my first quarter I didn’t get the classes I wanted because I was in Mexico and I couldn’t register for classes in time yet my brother was nice enough to register for Chicano Arts and History 17A both of which were fun classes as well as being able to take an English class online which was my writing class which was fun and exciting. Fall quarter was going along nicely until one day my friend Freddy(who attended De Anza for one year before he left for Texas) handed me a flyer when I was exiting my Chicano Arts class and he asked me to take this mind control class with himself, me, and our other friend Adrian. I thought, why not, two of my best friends from  my childhood have asked me to learn Psychology and Speech with them and I obliged and I didn’t regret it one bit. The first day I sat in class with them I couldn’t believe how surreal it was to be in class with these guys because I had lost touch with them yet we were not missing a beat as we always had a great time in the class. I remember one day when we were sitting in groups and all three of us were separated yet me, being sort of an immature idiot, decided to throw a pen at Freddy who was sitting across from our group and it was just to have fun with him, because I always messed with him due to his quirky personality and he was always easy going at least when it came to discussing life and school. I always messed with Adrian as well because I remember one time in the class we had to do a group project on a video game and it was called “Who Done It” and I remember these guys loved soccer and they came to watch the game as we were doing the project and I remember being a little frustrated that they were not taking the project as seriously as I was yet we ended up doing very well on the project because we were gracious when it came to how we dealt when we actually presented the project itself. Anyway, all in all I remember meeting this girl named Amanda in that class and I wish I would have talked to her more because I only knew her for that period of time and she was hot was all I was thinking when I met her. The best part of the class was having to dress up for doing speeches about being hired for a company that wanted my expertise and my insight on how to market video games. It was a great experience and I wish I could do it again with another group of friends. The next quarter, Spring 2007, I took a class with two of my friends, one of which was my brother and the other was my friend Ananad. I took Nutrition with Ananad and I took intro to Political Science with my brother Jesus. I have to say taking a class with my brother was something that was awesome because we took three take home tests together and I remember when we would do them at night we would always mess around with each other about sports, wrestling, movies, and music. I also remember talking to my brother in class about what he was texting his friend because at the time I didn’t have a cell phone yet I was curious as to why he was always texting his friend Enrique. Not to add to the fact, but I remember the professor, Scott Hefner, made the class hilarious by adding political humor and also showing that by looking at his lesson plan he knew what he was teaching and he acted like a real political geek. I just remember being in class with Jesus and knowing that we were in the class to earn credits but also we were there to learn together as brothers who had no real problems with each other and it is something I hold dear to my heart till this day because I would give everything I own to once again learn side by side with my brother. The class with Ananand was also fun but I felt I didn’t learn as much because I felt kind of weird learning about Nutrition and  I wasn’t fully prepared for the tests that were given. The only problem I had with taking the class with Ananand was that he would always be harder on himself than he should have been because a 40 out of 50 on a test yet he would point out that he should have gotten those 10 more right. He felt he was letting down himself if he got a bad grade on his diet assignment yet a bad grade for him was a B but I felt proud when I got mine back and got an A-. It seemed as if it was necessary for him to have to ge the grade he wanted or else the world was ending. Good times I had with him because we shared a lot in those times and I remember giving him rides to school in those times and actually enjoying it because I had nothing going on at that time. Flash Foward to Fall 2007 and I end up taking English 1A with Adrian and Arts 2A with Ananand. Boy those were fun times, I would have my long days on Tuesdays and Thursdays and my short days on Mondays and wednesday and I would look foward to both days because I enjoyed talking with Adrian about his new job at Macy’s and his problems he was having at home. I remember talking with him about projects he was working on in other classes and I remember when on the last day of class there was a paper due yet Adrian didn’t do it! We also did a project on a collection of short stories and we also had to read The Kite Runner, Fast Food Nation, and short stories all of which interested me especially Fast Food Nation as I remember having to not need fast food for two weeks and we would get 15 extra credit points. However, Ms. Hren was interesting because she let us do a paper on anything we wanted to was dragging down society and I did mine on Fantasy Football which was fun and exciting because I got to do research on something I loved. As Adrian didn’t do his last paper he claimed he was fooling around with a girl from Macy’s who was having problems at home, and that’s when I realized that Adrian was being one of the guys by telling me this and I felt shocked how he described in detail what had happened the night before with him and this girl. The one memory I do have with Ananand was when he and  for he art class went to the Stanford Art museum and we looked at very elegant pieces of art and I wondered what had inspired these artists to work on art like this? All in all I had a great time in this class and in Adrian’s class because we got to be a lot more closer and more honest with each other because we had never had the privilege of actually being in school with each other as adults. I had the opportunity one more time to take a class with Adrian and my brother once in the winter quarter and once in the spring, respectively in 2008. I had a hard time adjusting taking a 7:50 class on Mondays because I wasn’t used to it and with Adrian we always talked about life and all it’s consequences. This was around the time I got hired by Target and I found it hard to work and go to school but I learned it’s better that way because you keep yourselfbusy without really hurting anybody in the process. That was English 1B and I found that class to be much easier than English 1A because it was a little more hands off in terms of what was allowed and what wasn’t. In the spring I took History with my brother and I had a great time once again with him in this class because this one was taught by Ben Kline and he always had us laughing in terms of how he described history and he also downgraded anything that really happened so me and my brother always had a great time in this class discussing everything he talked about and the way he discussed his life was entertaining and humorous. So, throughout this I didn’t take a class with any of those guys after that because we either separated or they ended up leaving De Anza all together to pursue bigger and better things. Flash foward to 2010, what happens you ask? My buddy JB ends up going through a life changing experience and he decides he wants to go back to school and he wants to take classes with me. I was thrilled, of course if you’ve been reading the blog you can tell I saw JB as someone who could do no wrong and a self-righteous human being but taking classes with him kind of made me see what he was like. I always considered JB special, so special that I saw him as sort of like a family member but when I took Sociology 35 and Arts 2F with him I saw that school didn’t really matter to him. He felt he already knew everything there was to know in Sociology 35 so he didn’t exactly care what there was to learn as he didn’t end up buying the books themselves. In Arts 2F as well, since he had this “experience” he felt he had knowledge about the Arts yet I found out as the quarter went on he didn’t really care about taking classes with me. Hence, if I took classes with him he wouldn’t have to pay for books and he wouldn’t have to drive most of the time as I ended up driving him home 70% of the time on Mondays and Wednesday as I found it wrong to say anything at the time because he was still someone I actually did consider my best friend. The classes were well taught and stimulating but I wish JB had been more active in actually learning instead of just going because he wants to have fun and not be bored. The difference between taking classes with Ananand, Adrian, Freddy, and Jesus than it was with JB was that these guys actually cared about learning and had deep minds instead of someone who just thought he already knew everything there was to the class. Let’s face it, not everyone knows everything as when I entered History and Political Science with my brother I didn’t know all the stuff I learned and at least I know a little bit more now than I did before. The same goes for when I took Mind Control and 2 English classes with Adrian, I was learning all I could and the saying is true that you learn something new everyday at school. One day I hope to gather with Freddy once again and discuss all the mischeive we caused in Mind Control because I know that if we end up talking it’ll never stop at that point. Anyway, this quarter JB ended up dropping our Women Studies class which wasn’t surprising since I felt he had no  real interest to actually learn something new that was a surprise for both of us. I’m glad it happened that way because I feel more engaged in that class and one word of advice I have for people that take classes with friends: Make sure they want to take the class for the same reasons you do, not just to to mess around and believe they know everything already. Have a good thursday everyone and here’s a song that’s been stuck in my head: