Life Update #1 – Don’t Remind Me About School

A. Homework, Activities, Classes, etc.

School is now in full swing and my life has become a purposeless void again. Kidding. Well, not completely. There are a few things to look forward to, right? In my Science elective class (which is kind of like an intro to independent science study), we get to go to a nearby lab and check it out, I guess. I’m also going to the local observatory/planetarium for that class sometime soon. Astronomy’s pretty cool if you ask me.

I am finally beginning to understand Dimensional Analysis in Chemistry, and although this isn’t school school, I’m finally starting to get good at my online programming class. It’s taken a while.

B. My Cat May Be Dying….

She keeps making this strange hacking sound. She acts normal, but every once in a while she’ll start making that sound again. Any Veterinarian’s or knowledgeable cat owners care to help me out? If it is a hairball, she’s going to cough it up sometime, and it better not be on my bed.

C. Gymnastics Developments

As you may know, (probably not though), I have recently become a Gymnastics Coach for six-year-olds. They’re really cute, but one of them has this terrible habit of screaming whenever she slightly messes up. She could be upside down in a handstand and be screaming so that the whole gym can hear. Luckily, I’ve been able to tempt her into cooperating through the threat of conditioning. Specifically, push ups. So far, it’s working and she hasn’t had to do any yet.

D. School Clubs

You knew I was coming back to the topic of school, didn’t you? I just can’t seem to find anything else to complain talk about. Anyway,  my school’s Science Club is hosting a meeting this week involving Liquid Nitrogen made Ice Cream. I’m going. I

My school also lacks in interesting clubs. Other people have Robotics clubs, Entrepreneurship clubs, School newspapers, Improv Clubs, Movie Clubs,  and some Hobby-ish clubs.

However, my school has…

Harry Potter Club?

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good leviosa, not leviosah. But, where are all the good clubs!! I currently attend Community Action, Model UN, and I’m going to go to Science Club.

My school’s yearbook is a joke, and my school’s only newspaper is an actual joke. It’s a satirical newspaper if you didn’t get the awful joke I made. It wasn’t even a joke.

E. Fall Bucket Lists

So, my friends and I made a huge list of things we want to do this fall. Are half of them going to get done? No. Do I care? Absolutely not.

Don’t rain on my parade, okay?

*cue Barbra Streisand*

Also, I really want a white cropped cable knit sweater. Someone find one ASAP.

F. The Strange Conundrum of the Sudden Views.

I checked my stats page today, thinking I’d see the usual couple of views and likes I get when I publish a new post. Instead, I found 32 new views on my blog. 31 of which were from the United Arab Emirates. I think that’s pretty cool. Someone must’ve spread the word around, right? I’m always surprised at how diverse the countries that read this blog are. So, thank you, readers, from the UAE, I appreciate it. I really do, as well as the one person from Ukraine who read that post. Love you all.

Also, I recently changed my theme, and don’t worry, I’m going to keep changing it until I’m satisfied. So, don’t get used to anything… yet.

 

Sincerely, 

-V

 

 

The Admissions Paradox: Activities

I’m not even applying to colleges, and I’m not old enough so that I should even think about applying and preparing for college. I should be enjoying high school (I know) and be doing whatever I want.

Instead, we are supposed to do activities to make our applications more appealing. We are also supposed to take hard classes and succeed in them.

But- why? Why can’t we just pursue what we’re intersted in doing whether it’s good for our applications or not?

But also, do I really want to pursue all these activities because I love them or want to try them, or is that just what I’m telling myself?

 

And, on every day I get assigned more homework, more quizzes, and more tests.

So why is it that we’re expected to be defined by our activities? Maybe it does make up some of who we are, but not everything we are interested in can be typed up into 150 characters, listed under one of ten slots under the activities sections.

But, I don’t think I’m just doing these activities to put on my application, I genuinely love doing all of these things.

I do love doing them though, so why do people keep trying to tell me that I do it for my college application?

Why is it so rare that students do activities simply because they love them? Shouldn’t that be expected?

Sincerely, 

-V

American Horror Story: School

Nobody likes going back to school.

Nobody.

I mean, why would you, when you give up your full 12 hours of free time to spend six of them stuck in a classroom being fed information?

You know, dreading math homework and tests, dealing with stress. All of these are classic things that you just get used to during the school year. But, you’ll still complain about all of them.

The truth is, it shouldn’t be this way.

I like hanging out with my friends at school, but no one likes having to deal with always being stressed and overworked.

This year, I am forced to take:

English II, World History II (H), Chemistry, and Algebra II.

I have a “choice’ to take Dance III and Spanish III (H). The point is, we’re forced to take classes, if you’re going to make us take subjects we’re not strong in, we should at least be able to choose what focus we want in these. Thank god for college, right? Oh wait, never mind, General Ed. requirements.

Unlike most people, I believe High School is better than middle school.

-No more uneducated peers giving their irrelevant opinions when it has nothing to do with the discussion.

-No more drama and fake friends 

-Less pointless work

Wait, hold on. High School is actually a lot better than Middle school. Of course, that’s all my perspective and my experiences. My high school does not force us into dress code requirements or force religion onto us. They trust us to be in a room alone and have actually good food. The people, in general, are nicer and just better people overall.

And, I’m sure you really care about all this.

Point is, school sucks and I love complaining about it.

I will continue to complain about school until the system changes and makes learning enjoyable for all of us students.

I love to learn, I love education.

But, I hate the way we’re taught. I hate that we’re taught how to think. I hate that we’re taught that there’s only one type of person who can be successful.

So maybe this post was going to turn into some inspiring letter to our generation to fix the system, but I’m not that optimistic. If anything, the whole thing has gotten way out of hand. Not every job requires a bachelors degree, now I find out my cousin, who is perfectly qualified for work, now has to go to graduate school to even be considered for a job. It’s insane, and it’s also a completely different topic altogether.

In short, the education system sucks. It probably won’t change anytime soon, but I’ll continue complaining about it until it gets fixed.

Sincerely,

V.

PS. I just really liked the title, I’ve only watched one season.