Where to begin after so long, for those of you who might actually care about my life?
I just got asked to prom last night, and I never expected it. Unfortunately, it's in another state, and I'm not sure my parents will let me go yet. Of course, I'll have to finish my English essay before then, because it's due the Monday after and I'm taking the SATs on the same day as the prom. That ought to be fun. "Here, let's wear myself out with a big honkin' test and then go party the night away like I never thought I would before." Seriously, I doubted anyone would ask me to my own prom (and no one probably will), let alone someone else's. But he broke up with his girlfriend recently and really wants me to go with him. I'm... astonished. Maybe this could kick-start a writing spree on the Announcement, if only I weren't completely sleep-deprived, which is why I'm typing on here: I can think of nothing else I have the energy to do, which has been my chief reason for avoiding computer time in the last year.
Anyway, out of energy on that subject. There's not much to say yet.
School. Is. Wretched. Or, rather, inane. Yes, there's a good word for you.
Gym. What's the deal with assigning homework in gym? It's a physical class, for crying out loud; there's no place for homework! I'd rather just go out and play catch afterschool if we have to do something outside of class. *evil glare at teacher*
Statistics. Boring. Confusing. Take your pick. The teacher's great, really, but after a while, it's just too much of a routine. And what's the deal with having ten different ways to get an answer for whether or not a claim is correct? On the other hand, it could help me with my senior project, especially now that I've got a crusade to go on. (More on that later.)
History. As usual, can't stand it. It's too much work for people who're dead or forgotten by now. It'd work better if it just covered the notes and we could all listen without the threat of a test. Basically, history isn't worth an hour, let alone forty minutes a day.
English. Finally, the English assignment I've always wanted, and just at the point in the year where I want to just ignore school. My essay's supposed to be a literary critique on The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it so far. Finally, science fiction is recognized as acceptable fodder for high school English classes! I have hope yet! And if/when I'm an English teacher, my students will so be reading Mara Jade's fan fiction and identifying all the wonderful rhetoric she uses.
German. I abhor Wochenende! I hate going in on every Montag morning and having to talk about my weekend. Ninety percent of the time, I don't do anything interesting or anything I ever want to talk about. The other ten percent, I don't know how to express it in German, and I don't care enough to share it in English. They don't need to know what's going on in my life. I'd just as soon post everything on the Internet... sooner, in fact, as is evidenced by this post!
Physics. Still sick of the teacher, just like everyone else. His teaching style isn't as bad as last semester, but it's still getting more tedious, nerve-wracking, and generally ridiculous as the year progresses. I was an idiot to sign up for AP Physics next year and to consider it as a career. But basically, I don't know what I want, and no one wants to give me a direction.
Health. For as horrible of a concept as it was, the teacher makes health a surprisingly okay class. There's a bunch of characters in that room, just as there are in German, and when combined with the teacher (not the student teacher, mind you; she's pretty bad), it makes for a pretty entertaining blow-off class. Of course, I don't listen hard to any of the self-improving advice given; like others, I feel incredibly good about myself and don't think I need to improve myself on that front. Just try to prove me wrong.
So my crusade, since I know you're all sitting on the edge of your seats. They cut the funding for the arts at my school... I think. That's what I've heard. So. I'm ticked. They have enough money to put stinkin' astroturf on the field and to give it traction with itty bitty pieces of tires. But, no, they can't fund the arts, which force kids to learn discipline and often give them motivation for going to school. And not only that, but apparently, they're also discouraging kids from taking band or art. What the hey?! You can learn so much more from those classes--more practical things--than you can in health (ooh, yes, condoms are more important than pianos or graphic design... not). Do they have any idea how important graphic design is to our culture? If all the graphic designers suddenly died, our world would basically fall apart. People wouldn't be as subject to impulse buying, suddenly, which would probably send the economy into recession. Oh, yeah, we need economists but not graphic designers? And they keep saying that we need to be creative, but they're cutting the legs from under the programs that stimulate and encourage creativity!! We need the arts. I'm not even an artist--I play two instruments about once every three months, I only do cover art, and it's not professional at all, I can't do much of anything in front of people--but even I know the arts are extremely important. I'm a writer, and though it's part of the English department, technically, it's very closely related to the arts. It requires thought, hard work, and creativity, just like any other art form. They have no basis for reducing the art program, not even their precious standardized testing crap. (And those of you who know me know how very rarely I use that word. But it applies here.)
The STC's, as I shall now refer to them, carefully hiding the true name of the test, do nothing for us students. And isn't that what education is about? If you need to measure a student's progress in school, don't you DARE take the time out from the student's learning to do it. I like AP English. It's one of the top two English classes I've ever taken, by a far margin. What do the state and school board think they're doing, depriving me of the class I earned the opportunity to take? If they're trying to get me to learn, how dare they make me learn less just to see if I have, in fact, learned anything? The same applies to math. CHS Stats is one of my favorite classes. Why, then, did I have to put my learning and understanding on hold just to show the state/school board that I learned something last year? Those contradictory, uncaring bureaucrats!
Okay, rant over. Probably. What else?
Oh, there's a foreign exchange student over, the main reason for me being on even less than normal. She's been here for three weeks, but she's going home Wednesday. We get along okay, but we're not best friends or anything. It's been tough, for both of us. At first, they (she and her mother) preferred convenience over the custody arrangement, which would never fly, especially for me. I'm not going to throw a boulder into a calm swimmingpool just to make a stepping stone to the other side. I'll swim--it might be wet, but it leaves smaller ripples. Well, we've got small ripples now, though it's been hard to put up with the crowded bus for a week at a time. Then she had a problem with my church, or my youth group, it's hard to tell which. So now we're comfortably speaking about a hundred words per day to each other. It's frustrating, but I'm glad for the experience... and I'll never do it again. I say again: I'm greatful for this opportunity. And I'm living alone or with only family until college; Mom is not allowed to adopt until I'm out of the house.
*sigh* I miss my dog. I haven't seen him since Sunday. He's the cutest dog on the planet, and he loves me as much as my parents do, and they're my best friends.
Which reminds me. My best friend my age is sitting on a steel fense the width of a razor blade. Her parents want to move back to California by next year, but she's got only one more year in school. They keep setting deadlines for the house to sell or for her dad to get a job there and then setting them back when they're not met. It's horribly frustating for all of us. But then, I guess she was doomed to move back as soon as she met me--it happens to all my best friends. But maybe just this once for just one more year it won't. We'll all be leaving after that. And her parents say it's because of her mom's asthema (which was only better there because they keep going to smoke-filled restaraunts here and the humidity's higher), and the better job opportunities (which was why they moved here), and the better school (they don't want her to be stressed out next year, even though our school here is actually better), and the better church (if they'd stop comparing every church to their home church, they'd see that we have very good churches here; they just need to get involved). And to top it all off, they say they don't have any friends; their friends here stopped talking to them. But the thing is, there are hundreds of people here who would gladly be their friends and adopt them into a community of fellowship if only they'd let themselves meet them!!! I know plenty of awesome people their age! And, look, it took me six years to know them. But now I'd rather not leave the church because they're so cool.
*sigh* People annoy me. My muse annoys me. I annoy me.
I'll go take a shower.