It seems like it’s been a lifetime since I’ve actually blogged. Life has just been so crazy. I figured I would actually blog though and let people know how my life has actually been comparative to my rants and raves about how shitty I think my life is when really there is nothing wrong.
I started my college classes two weeks ago. I can’t tell if I am going to do well in them or if they are going to have epic fail written all over them. I am taking a short story class and calc 1. So far I really, really enjoy the short story class. I love to read a story and then have the freedom of talking about OUR thoughts on it instead of some written out technical answers. The only thing I really don’t like about it so far is that we have quizzes every day we have class, and I have a huge test anxiety. Worst part? The entire class is based on those quiz scores. That might be the reason I drop the class. We have our first essay coming up this week. I have never written a formal paper for college before, so I am really afraid that I won’t be able to set it up the way the Professor wants us to and what not. I will be asking a lot of questions.
My calc class is calc class, what can I say? I took calc 1 last year in high school and I’m taking calc 2 there right now. Yet this calc class is a lot different. For starters I got one of those joyous teachers who don’t teach very well. He has this idea to assign homework BEFORE we learn the topic. Which is fine with me but for some of the kids in the class who never have done Calc before, not so good. We had our first quiz, didn’t do so well. I didn’t know how to find the domain of an inverse. I sort of understand it now, but that doesn’t help me anymore. We did these problems called Epsilon delta proofs which I had never heard of before. The Professor keeps explaining them to us, but we still don’t get it. I am still trying to figure out what he is talking about and how to do the problems.
I got a letter in the mail today from my dentist. I had gone in over Christmas break for a checkup and they had told me that I was clear of cavities. However, this letter says that upon looking at my x-rays they have needed to schedule me for a thirty minute filling. Now, sure I’m angry that I have been so dumb lately as to let my dental hygiene go poorly, but I am ever more upset that now I have to stress around to find a good hour and a half (considering the dentist is a good twenty minutes away from my area) in order to go get my teeth fixed. I don’t have time for that! Between high school, college, work, and homework, I don’t even have time to blog anymore let alone spend an hour and a half doing something I really hate—going to the dentist. I don’t understand dentists. They scrape at your mouth make you hurt and bleed and then put this extremely disgusting toothpaste in your mouth and tell you that is how your mouth is supposed to feel. You know that fresh out of the dentist feel? Well, let me tell you, I HATE THAT FEELING! I just don’t understand dentistry. Sure having pretty, straight teeth is nice and all, and I am really glad my parents put me through the punishment of having braces, but I can take it from here. I have a cavity? I don’t feel anything; if it gets too bad then I will go to the dentist, but before that I think I will live. I can take care of my own teeth and you know I really want to whiten mine. That’s why they have over the counter whiteners that work good. Maybe it’s just because I hate my buck teeth that I don’t care about the dentists, but then again I hate doctors too.
I am going to grow up to be one of those people who doesn’t go to the dentist or the doctor and just takes good care of themselves. This is really ironic because I want to be a veterinarian. Animal doctor who doesn’t go to the doctor herself? A bit contradictory isn’t it?
Eh, I’m just really stressed out right now.
I am finishing up things for my senior project which is a huge project you have to do at my school in order to graduate. It’s really pointless in the spectrum of things because it A. ruins a person’s senior year seeing as how no one enjoys their time doing it and b. they won’t fail you anyway because they want you to graduate. For this lovely project you can either A. Job shadow, B. Do a creative exhibition, or C. Do a leadership/community service project. I held a spoons tournament to raise money for the Humane Society. I had originally wanted to raise money for Project Clean Water a foundation that gave clean water to poor countries (for info go to www.giveadrop.com or www.jeweljk.com) That didn’t work out though and I had to go with a plan B, the Human Society. If you don’t know what the game Spoons is I suggest you look it up, it’s fun but I don’t really want to explain it, I’m too tired and don’t have enough time for it. Basically the night (last Wednesday) was a disaster. I had thirty people sign up to play, but only maybe 10 of them came. Three other people, one being my mentor, another being a kid I had asked last minute to come, and the last being a brother of some of the competitors came as well, so basically there were thirteen people there. I had eight refs. Do the math. We only raised $150 dollars, which when you think of how much it costs to take care of animals, it’s not much at all. I have been forcing myself to look at the bright side of all this and say that at least people had fun and we raised over one hundred dollars. But, come on, you know me. I am a huge pessimist.
My phone just went off. My ringtone is Maurader’s Map by the Ministry of Magic. That made me smile a little. I didn’t answer though. I don’t answer when I don’t know that number that is calling me. That’s how I function. Plus when they don’t leave a voice message I don’t have to worry about caring who it was or telling them that they had an incorrect number.
Ugh. I don’t know what else I really have to talk about. Just ended a semester at my High School. Finished with my terrible sociology class (yes I got my grade fixed). I get to move on to geography now. Yippee? We’ll see.
Well I am off to shower then work on thank you cards and short story reading. This week I get to read Pritchette and Hawthorne. Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of my favorite writers to analyze so I am really excited to start that!
P.S. If you don't get the title I suggest you look up the vlogbrothers on youtube.
DFTBA!
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Senior Excellence “The Experience”….
As a senior in high school I get the “honor” of filling out a Senior Superlative for the yearbook. You know, that list of who’s who. Class clown, biggest brain, most likely to suck egg. But I don’t get it. Superlative by definition means excellence, when we’re not talking about grammar at least. Thus, we are saying that those being elected as “Class Clown” “Best Eyes” “Most Holy Art Thou” and such are the school’s excellent senior students? So we are implicating the fact that by goofing off in class or by being pretty these people are excellent while others aren’t. Right?
Sure, it’s some high school rite of passage to do this for the yearbook, but can’t we do it without being stereotypical about it? Obviously looking at the list of Senior Superlatives in front of me “Biggest Brain” is going to go to that girl who’s been known as the brainiac all her life even though she doesn’t want to be considered that any longer. The “Most Spirited” is going to go to the head cheerleader and the football captain. “Prettiest Eyes” will go to the most popular girl in the school, not because her eyes are pretty, but because people want to compliment her. Then there are things like “Teachers pet” and “Most changed since freshman year” that can be offensive to people. Who really wants to be known as that person who could get whatever they wanted from their teachers…not me.
All eighteen years of my life, and my four years of high school, I have been told that we shouldn’t stereotype people. We shouldn’t judge people. We shouldn’t categorize people. Isn’t that what these “Senior Superlatives” are doing? We focus more on the popularity side of high school when we look to categorize people, but what about the average Joe? Categorization is one of the first stages of genocide. Not that I would ever expect for something this simple to start something THAT massive, but stranger things have happened. But maybe if we focused on the REAL definition of superlative instead of the one that will give the high school kids “kicks.”
I know this girl. She’s been a Girl Scout all her life, and she worked really hard and received her Gold Award which is I guess the highest ranking award girls can get through scouting. That’s forty hours of work she put into her community to improve it and herself. Looking at her she’s a normal girl. She’s not overly brainy. She has normal eyes and normal hair. She dresses as most high school kids do: jeans or sweatpants. She’s not particularly artsy, sporty, or spirited, but she’s put so much work into improving the things around her. She never got recognized for her excellence in that field. And here I am sitting and looking at my list of Senior Superlatives and there is no category of excellence for her and her work.
In my eyes being pretty, being sincere, and being smart, while all being nice things, aren’t excellence. They are more of gifts given to us by the good grace of God. And by abusing our democracy in America to tell people what they are and are not isn’t excellence either. As high school students, with our raging hormones and major cases of “Get me out of here I’m sick of this place,” we can get hurt by these categorizations of our classmates. Because what if you were that boy who was pushing harder than anyone you knew to get to your future. What if you stayed up until midnight every night working on scholarships, financial aid applications, that novel you have been working on in hopes to someday get published, but because you are a little shy people don’t know you, or because you don’t play football no one cares and you don’t get “Most Likely to Succeed?” Wouldn’t you be hurt? Wouldn’t you be put down so low that graduation almost, if even only for a second, felt pointless?
For now a week of my life I have had to sit and listen to groups of kids “plot” out their superlative lists.
“Hey let’s vote her for this category because she’ll hate it,” Or “Lisa is class flirt because I think she’s a slut. Put her down! Maybe she’ll cry when she gets it!”
Yes, I’m not joking around. Those are the things that I have heard this week while superlatives were out there. High school kids are brutal and mean.
Why am I sitting here, at my computer complaining about all this? No, it’s not because I already know I won’t get a spot on our list. But that is true. There is no category after all for, “Most likely to start a riot” or “Most likely to picket the White House,” although if there were THAT would be excellence. THAT takes courage! (I’m just joshing.) Anyway, I am saying this because I know there are a lot of senior out there who are getting ready for their yearbooks who agree that this senior list isn’t really all that fun and games. Some people don’t agree with it. I’m not saying “let’s take it out of our school systems.” NO! I understand that although maybe one percent of the population hates them, 99% of seniors really enjoy doing it. It’s part of “the experience.” I just think that maybe it’s about time more thought goes into these sort of things. Let’s take away the offensive material, and put the ones that matter most.
“Most community service”
“Most work for his/her school”
“High Honors”
“High Lettering”
Get rid of those Best this and best that and most likely to do this and most likely to do that. Those aren’t the things we should focus on. It’s about time we stopped with false excellence.
Sure, it’s some high school rite of passage to do this for the yearbook, but can’t we do it without being stereotypical about it? Obviously looking at the list of Senior Superlatives in front of me “Biggest Brain” is going to go to that girl who’s been known as the brainiac all her life even though she doesn’t want to be considered that any longer. The “Most Spirited” is going to go to the head cheerleader and the football captain. “Prettiest Eyes” will go to the most popular girl in the school, not because her eyes are pretty, but because people want to compliment her. Then there are things like “Teachers pet” and “Most changed since freshman year” that can be offensive to people. Who really wants to be known as that person who could get whatever they wanted from their teachers…not me.
All eighteen years of my life, and my four years of high school, I have been told that we shouldn’t stereotype people. We shouldn’t judge people. We shouldn’t categorize people. Isn’t that what these “Senior Superlatives” are doing? We focus more on the popularity side of high school when we look to categorize people, but what about the average Joe? Categorization is one of the first stages of genocide. Not that I would ever expect for something this simple to start something THAT massive, but stranger things have happened. But maybe if we focused on the REAL definition of superlative instead of the one that will give the high school kids “kicks.”
I know this girl. She’s been a Girl Scout all her life, and she worked really hard and received her Gold Award which is I guess the highest ranking award girls can get through scouting. That’s forty hours of work she put into her community to improve it and herself. Looking at her she’s a normal girl. She’s not overly brainy. She has normal eyes and normal hair. She dresses as most high school kids do: jeans or sweatpants. She’s not particularly artsy, sporty, or spirited, but she’s put so much work into improving the things around her. She never got recognized for her excellence in that field. And here I am sitting and looking at my list of Senior Superlatives and there is no category of excellence for her and her work.
In my eyes being pretty, being sincere, and being smart, while all being nice things, aren’t excellence. They are more of gifts given to us by the good grace of God. And by abusing our democracy in America to tell people what they are and are not isn’t excellence either. As high school students, with our raging hormones and major cases of “Get me out of here I’m sick of this place,” we can get hurt by these categorizations of our classmates. Because what if you were that boy who was pushing harder than anyone you knew to get to your future. What if you stayed up until midnight every night working on scholarships, financial aid applications, that novel you have been working on in hopes to someday get published, but because you are a little shy people don’t know you, or because you don’t play football no one cares and you don’t get “Most Likely to Succeed?” Wouldn’t you be hurt? Wouldn’t you be put down so low that graduation almost, if even only for a second, felt pointless?
For now a week of my life I have had to sit and listen to groups of kids “plot” out their superlative lists.
“Hey let’s vote her for this category because she’ll hate it,” Or “Lisa is class flirt because I think she’s a slut. Put her down! Maybe she’ll cry when she gets it!”
Yes, I’m not joking around. Those are the things that I have heard this week while superlatives were out there. High school kids are brutal and mean.
Why am I sitting here, at my computer complaining about all this? No, it’s not because I already know I won’t get a spot on our list. But that is true. There is no category after all for, “Most likely to start a riot” or “Most likely to picket the White House,” although if there were THAT would be excellence. THAT takes courage! (I’m just joshing.) Anyway, I am saying this because I know there are a lot of senior out there who are getting ready for their yearbooks who agree that this senior list isn’t really all that fun and games. Some people don’t agree with it. I’m not saying “let’s take it out of our school systems.” NO! I understand that although maybe one percent of the population hates them, 99% of seniors really enjoy doing it. It’s part of “the experience.” I just think that maybe it’s about time more thought goes into these sort of things. Let’s take away the offensive material, and put the ones that matter most.
“Most community service”
“Most work for his/her school”
“High Honors”
“High Lettering”
Get rid of those Best this and best that and most likely to do this and most likely to do that. Those aren’t the things we should focus on. It’s about time we stopped with false excellence.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Short and from my phone.
Do you ever feel like you are standing at the edge of everything? That no matter what you do you will never be what you want to be? You try and try but nothing ever makes the world seem better? Everything, even the good, is just too bad.
That is how I cirrently feel as I found out about 45 minutes ago that I have a C in my sociology class because of a missing assignment. That's the joy of being able to access grades from online. The only catch is if you dont't know what the assignment is you get to spend a wonderful night feeling like crap because your GPA is on the line and you can't pinpoint why. Yeah. what fun.
I know that it probably isnLt a big deal. It's my first missing assignment and I usually do really well in the class anyway. Besides it's High School sociology. They let you hand homework in late all the time-- I hope. Ugh. I hate this. I hate having bad grades. Yes, in my world anything that is not an A is a bad grade. How can I have over 100% in AP calc 2 but not in a gen. ed. sociology class?
Point being that I now feel like a load od crap because of this. I feel like I have fallen. Between the stress of my senior project (we will get into that on a later date), trying to mantain the last few days of my college holiday, and just attempting to survive I have learned one thing: I CAN'T DO IT! No way. No how.
Okay so maybe I can do it. I am just stumblingevery now and again. So over all something has to change. I can't go on feeling like this much longer. I can't let myself get down because of my disorganization and bad habits.
NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS:
1. I will stay organized with everything. That is school and my senior project.
2. I will keep my room and my study clean.
3. I will blog about something BEFORE I start crying about it.
4. I will keep an eye on my mental health. If it gets out of hand, I WILL GO TO A DOCTOR!
5. I will try to be more positive about life. I have to keep my chin up.
If I think of more I will add them. Now if you read this let me know your resolutuions. (oh and sorry in advanced for all my spelling and grammar mistakes.)
That is how I cirrently feel as I found out about 45 minutes ago that I have a C in my sociology class because of a missing assignment. That's the joy of being able to access grades from online. The only catch is if you dont't know what the assignment is you get to spend a wonderful night feeling like crap because your GPA is on the line and you can't pinpoint why. Yeah. what fun.
I know that it probably isnLt a big deal. It's my first missing assignment and I usually do really well in the class anyway. Besides it's High School sociology. They let you hand homework in late all the time-- I hope. Ugh. I hate this. I hate having bad grades. Yes, in my world anything that is not an A is a bad grade. How can I have over 100% in AP calc 2 but not in a gen. ed. sociology class?
Point being that I now feel like a load od crap because of this. I feel like I have fallen. Between the stress of my senior project (we will get into that on a later date), trying to mantain the last few days of my college holiday, and just attempting to survive I have learned one thing: I CAN'T DO IT! No way. No how.
Okay so maybe I can do it. I am just stumblingevery now and again. So over all something has to change. I can't go on feeling like this much longer. I can't let myself get down because of my disorganization and bad habits.
NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS:
1. I will stay organized with everything. That is school and my senior project.
2. I will keep my room and my study clean.
3. I will blog about something BEFORE I start crying about it.
4. I will keep an eye on my mental health. If it gets out of hand, I WILL GO TO A DOCTOR!
5. I will try to be more positive about life. I have to keep my chin up.
If I think of more I will add them. Now if you read this let me know your resolutuions. (oh and sorry in advanced for all my spelling and grammar mistakes.)
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