Emilio ZarateDr. Preston English 3June 8th, 2015Masterpiece Final PaperDuring the beginning of this course, we the students were given a choice as to whether we would want this class to be a traditional English class or be a part of Open Source Learning. At that same moment, Dr. Preston showed a large amount of trust in us. There were a lot of complications, misunderstandings, and even injuries but with that same trust came really good masterpiece presentations. Throughout the year I think Ive shown more effort in some areas where it interested me. My masterpiece presentation shows that effort. Staying up until 3 or 4 in the morning on the weekend not because I had to finish it, but because I had an idea on how to make my presentation better. I really believe that I deserved that trust we got from Dr. Preston.We read many books and forms of literature this year in class but only a few caught my interest. Young Goodman Brown was one of them. Books can catch my attention and get me interested in reading them when the story can foreshadow bit by bit. I feel like I can understand the story more towards the end. Another books that we read in class was Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. The overall story/plot was amazing but I feel like the modern society part of it related a lot to our society now. Brave New World in a way foretold a society that we may one day live in. There were some pretty eye opening aspects of the book where modern society was shown, and I thought that was really cool and interesting. Finally, a book that I chose which was really interesting to read was Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose. My history teacher was talking about this topic on the war against France. The history on the battle of D-Day on the Normandy beaches intrigued me and I knew I was going to be studying this when I got to U.S history my junior year. In preparation for the masterpiece presentations, I knew what it was going to be on. Skateboarding is my one and only true passion in life, everything else like sports and hobbies come and go in my life but skateboarding has always stuck with me. Ive been skateboarding for about 12 years now and this is the only way to express my feeling or release stress. This masterpiece presentation didnt reconnect me with skateboarding but it did reassure me that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life until the day I physically cant do it anymore. At times humor is found in literature work such as Catcher In The Rye. The part that made me laugh was the part when Holden is getting the typical lecture by his history teacher. Holden was basically not paying attention because hes had that talk before plenty of times. Also I feel like most students at school do the same thing and everyone can relate to that moment in some way.A theme I saw in most masterpiece presentations was the power of unity in a certain passion/drive. Most presentations people came together and collaborated to make something of value. In Isaiahs presentation when he was cutting hair ion the middle of the class room, Carlos Guerrero went up there and started cutting hair too and they shared that moment because barbering brought them together. Thats how a passion brings people together.Throughout this course I believe that I have gone through a heros journey. I faced some tough challenges like reading a book that didnt really interest me and then I faced smaller challenges like not knowing how to work a blog. The outcome of this was finding myself and connecting with my passion for skateboarding. That is my heros journey.