Friday, September 17, 2004

Just keep on rollin' rollin' rollin' rollin'....
I got five comments! That calls for Comment Commentary!

Shyguy: Honors courses aren't always that much different from the regular ones. For example, French II and Honors French II are in the same class and the same period at my school. The Honors group is simply given an extra assignment to do every now and then.

Arcadia: I know studying helps. I just can't that through to the decision-making part of my brain. v.v

Mimmi: Actually, the Honors courses earn me more points per grade towards my class rank. ^_^ So a B in an Honors course gets me the same amount of points I would get for an A in a regular one. :D

Solo: Freshman year I was pretty paranoid about my grades, too. Heh. Ms. Gencarelli's Honors Biology sure snapped me out of that quickly enough. After a bunch of grades ranging from 50s-70s, I sort of got accustomed to things under an 88. =p

hEvN: My English teacher this year, Mr. Lamoureux, told us something like that from the start. He does not care about our grades. He doesn't mind failing us, just so long as we learned something. He told us not to expect high marks in his class, because it was likely we would not earn them. He was very emphatic about us learning something as opposed to earning a grade.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ah. Finally. The weekend. :)

Finally, a brief reprieve from the hellish nightmare that makes up my school days. :0!

Okay, I'm exaggerating. My days aren't really that bad. I'm just remembering and focusing on the bad parts of it. Not really intentionally, it's just sort of happening. *hauls out massive Psychology notebook* If I were looking for a biological reason for this behavior, I would say that I have low serotonin levels. It says right here in my notebook: "If serotonin levels are low -> anxiety, insomnia, moody.

So, hey, there might actually be a reason behind the madness. =p

Then again, maybe I'm just a screwed up little teenager. Just like in all the show on TV recently. Shows that I, by the way, do not watch and generally do not like to be forced to put up with.

*random subject shift*

I got my history paper done late last night. I had neither the desire nor the research to formulate a thesis for my English paper. I had already taken my contacts out by that point, and so I just slumped into bed. Blissfully.

I always seem to forget, before I get into bed, to set my alarm clock. Almost the second my head hits the pillow, I remember that it needs to be done. So, I sit up and flick on my light. I push back my blanket, get out of bed and walk across the room to my alarm clock. I set the radio volume to the max, and then make sure the alarm is set to radio. I give it a short test to make sure the radio is sufficiently blaring, and then set it back down on the ground. Back into bed I go.

First period today I had a vocabulary quiz. I think I got most of the question right, or at least close enough that Mr. Leone will accept them. The only vocab word I forgot about, though, was relativism, which is the idea that there is no set moral code. E.G. I can't tell you that it is wrong to kill somebody. Or, I can, but that doesn't make it true. Or something.

Then he gives us this huge assignment that's due next month. Quite a nice way to start the day, eh? A quiz, and then a massive assignment given out. Lovely. Simply lovely.

Psychology was fun, as usual. I got my quiz back from the other day; 90%. ^___^ I only got one question wrong. I like this class so far.

AP History with Mr. Currie was great, too. It makes me feel a bit bad, though. He's always trying to start up a discussion with the class, but we're not a very vocal group. Which is a shame, because he's an awesome guy and I hate to disappoint him.

I spent the first few minutes of my Off period writing up the Thesis for my English paper. I knew that I wanted to do something about slave narratives, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't just blindly stumbling into something. When I was finished, my classmates balked. I don't exactly know why, but.... -_-;;

A girl in my English class, Gillian, was writing up her thesis on the computer next to me. She at least gave a reason for her reaction. "Do you think you can get six pages out of that?"

I confidently replied: "I can get six pages out of just about anything." Which, I believe, is true. Given the time and motivation, I could write a paper on gummy bears. The paper has to be expository; explaining and clarifying the topic we chose. I'm confident that I can pump out six pages on the subject. Especially because Mr. Lamoureux makes us turn in outlines ahead of time, to help us formulate our papers. I think that approach will help my paper-writing extraordinarily.

Anyways, as soon as I was done, I printed out my single sentence thesis. Gillian and I walked to Mr. Lamoureux's room, and timidly handed out papers over. Gillian asked if we had formatted it correctly. He nodded.

"Excellent." He pauses, reading each thesis. "Excellent, very well done."

From then on I just sort of "In your face"'d any friends that put me down about the single sentence. Mr. Lamoureux had called it excellent, and that made me think I was off to a good start. =p

We left his room, and then Gillian brought up an excellent point. I should probably print out another copy of my thesis, so I had some idea what I was supposed to write my paper about. XD

I had given the only copy I made to Mr. Lamoureux. :p Good thing Gill was there to remind me. ^__^;;

So, I printed that out and headed to the cafeteria for the remained of Off. John and I played Yu-Gi-Oh. :0!

I'm using a Direct Damage deck now, for a change of pace. Generally, Beatdown and Direct Damage are the two deck types I generally use most effectively. Everything else I try works okay, but doesn't give me as good a record as these two deck types. Anyways, John and I traded wins back and forth earlier in the week. Then, yesterday or Wednesday, I made a slight adjustment to the deck. (I took out two cards that could only help in certain situations, and added cards to stall and let me get more damage in)

He hasn't beaten me since I made those adjustments. ~_^


Despite Mr. Baginski's assurances to my mom that I was in the right level of Physics, I wasn't particularly convinced after today. It wasn't so much that I didn't understand the material, it's that I didn't know it. I didn't have it committed to memory, and that sort of lent itself to hurting me. I'll survive, though. I understood all of the graphing he was doing today on the board; he just kept going too darn fast for me to keep up. He'd ask for an answer, and I'd still be puzzling it out. >.>

French is, I will repeat, a Godsend. Mr. Ayres is just so great. He spent the first fifteen minutes of class finishing his lunch and discussing fine cooking. I now know that I shall have to try capers on something....

We went over our homework, did one exercise in the book, and then we had a general discussion for the last eight minutes of class. The exercises we were doing involved us reading sentences aloud. Out of the six people (out of seven) who were present today, I think Gillian and I have the best pronunciation. Mine is a bit more constructed, but hers flows smoothly as if she'd been speaking the language all her life. Her accent, even, is perfect. She has a bit of trouble on some words, but it's pleasant to listen to her speak French.

Pre-Calculus was the last period of the day, and we spent the period fiddling around with our calculators. Mr. Pukstas was showing us how to graph equations and how to find the best fit for the calculator's window. My results usually came out different than his appeared to, but I think it's because mine is two levels below his. I really need to get a newer calculator. *makes a mental note to take Jess's*

I went to a brief fencing meeting after school. Basically, it was just to see who was interested and to answer any questions they had. None of them really had any questions yet, as for the most part they knew little or nothing about the sport. My friend Matt Donnelly was there, though. It'll be cool to have him on the team. ^_^ Mrs. Kainz saw him and said something like: "Oh! We'll have the twins fencing this year. :)"

That got a groan out of Matt and a nice roll of my eyes. :p

After the meeting concluded, I talked briefly with some of my Freshman friends. FINALLY! I hardly ever see them during the day, and even when I do, I don't really have a chance to talk to them. >.>

Talking to them for once was nice, albeit short lived. My ride was waiting outside, so I could only stay for a few minutes.

Wrapping this post up for now, let me just say that I may be going to Six Flags tomorrow. My grandfather retired from Pfizer some years ago, but they still invite him to the company picnics. So, he'll be taking my mom, me, Emily, and Michael to the picnic tomorrow morning; weather permitting.
Comments (3)