By Laney Figueroa, staff writer
My older sister Riley (who is 1 year older) and I have been close our whole life, but at school we like to go our own way and be separated from each other. We have our own interests, are involved in different activities and have our own friend groups. But keeping our school and home life separated has been hard to do this year since we have the same class together for the first time; which has been both good and bad for our relationship.
At the beginning of the school year I originally had Physics, but transferred out after the first week because I didn’t like the class, and because I didn’t know anyone in the class. I ended up switching to AP Biology which Riley was already taking.
In class, we tried to stay apart from each other, but she was the only person I knew, which meant that we couldn’t be as distant as we wanted to be. Then it was really hard to be separated when our teacher, Mr.Chinn, asked if we were related, because of our last names, and sat us together.
I didn’t want to sit next to Riley at first, but I also was sort of relieved because I expected her to help me, especially because I just transferred to the class. But Riley was not helpful. Whenever I got called on and I turned to her for help, she didn’t know the answer or she just wouldn’t tell me what the answer was. Other times I would ask her what something meant and she wouldn’t explain it. I started to feel like it was going to be hard having class with her.
Not getting help when I was still new to the class was one of the bad things about being in class with my sister, while another negative is now the constant competition between us related to the class. Riley and I are both very competitive and we fight over everything. This has made being in AP Biology together worse because we compare and compete over everything related to the class; our test scores, our mini quizzes, and we race to see who finishes their study questions first. When we compete it often leads to a lot of arguments between us.
While there have been some negatives to having the same class as Riley, I’ve also realized being together in a class isn’t all bad. The good thing about being in the same class is that we’ve started to talk to each other more during school. Even though Riley has many friends in the class, she isn’t close to any of them so she’s become friends with mine. Since we’re all friends, we do study groups and hang out together after school. Riley and I also help each other study by doing our study questions together or quizzing each other about the topics we are learning in class.
I was scared to switch classes at first because it was my first AP class, but now that it’s been a semester, I’m glad that I decided to switch because I like the teacher, the class, and most important, the people. I was worried at first if having the same class as my sister would affect our relationship, and even though it has had its drawbacks, I’m glad we’re going through AP Biology together.
