12 posts tagged “school”
I sort of stopped trying to hide my contempt for our school's upper administration (in addition to having stopped hiding my contempt for physics, high school, suburban society, humanity as a whole, etc.). There's too much back story for me to go into detail, but let's just say that "the man" and I do not mesh well. I don't really understand why-- it would seem that an uber-fuhrer would love a loud-mouthed, dissenting feminist bitch. Some things just don't make sense!
We had a meeting between the Superintendent, the district's business administrator, and so-called "student leaders" today to discuss the town's budget. Superintendent, condescending as per usual, opened the meeting by asking us if we knew where the budget money came from. After a short discussion about that, he asked us what we thought the district spent the most money on.
"Maintenance? Laptops?" the answers poured in until every student who had had their hand raised had been called on. Every student, that is, except for me. The business administrator (who had been smiling at me and seemed generally genial), tried to point me out to the Superintendent, but to no avail. By the time everyone's hands had been down (save for mine) for a good thirty seconds, the Superintendent conceded and called on me, feigning ignorance of my identity. Who are we kidding? I'm the editor of the newspaper that quoted a student calling him an idiot. I wrote for the town paper and supposedly snubbed the school Principal in an article about our school's graduation (for the record, I quoted her and the quote was taken out by my editor-- I wouldn't have thought this would be a big issue, but it turns out office politics come into play way before there's talk of an actual office). Let's be serious. He knows who I am.
"So what do you think the district spends the most budget money on?"
"Administrator salaries." I gave a small smirk and sat back in my seat. The business administrator, to say the least, stopped smiling at me.
For Advanced Placement European History (keep in mind that this is supposedly a college-level course, folks), we were told to go online to the school's forum and respond to a blog on the French Revolution.
Here's the assignment, verbatim:
Consider an aspect of the French Revolution and Napoleonic era and
write a SHORT editorial. Editorials are articles or speeches written
and/or delivered by people
hired to give their opinions on issues. Sometimes people write letters
to the editor or post to blogs in response to issues. The purpose of
all of these pieces is to comment on a situation or give praise or
criticism. Alternatively, you could act as a public representative –
past or present – and write a “letter to the editor” of a media outlet.
The editorial is to be informal & short: No more than a paragraph.
Here is the response from one of the kids in my, supposedly college-level, class:
"Was good editor,
I think it is unnecessary to have three classes or estates. People were born
equal to god and have no right to declare themselves better than someone else.
Yes there are people who are richer, but that doesnt mean he can shit all over
the lil guy. The poor guy should have as much right as a rich person. A rich
third class man should be the same as a noble or better because he works harder
and is a help to the economy. Education should also be the same for all people.
what would be the point to a better system of class if only the rich hav the
right to learn. With everyone havin an equal system it can iprove a country
dramatically.
O and i want to give a shout out to the best history teacher out in new jersey [name retracted]. You my boy [name retracted] keep it real.
PS I try not to be late anynore :)"
I really wish I was making this up.
Apparently my initial refusal to see Marie Antoinette was a stupid decision. I had heard bad things about it, and while it wasn't exactly the deepest depiction of the French queen possible, it did put her in a completely new light. Like many actors said in the making-of featurette, Marie Antoinette was the first "victim of bad PR." I mean I was aware that the whole "let them eat cake" thing was revolutionary propaganda, but up until this point I had only heard her story from the proletariat's perspective (you know, Tale of Two Cities and all of that tripe [can you tell I hate Charles Dickens?]). I love that Sophia Coppola chose to show only the part of Marie Antoinette's life that gives us insight into her real character. At first I found the ending to be anticlimactic, but the more I thought about it I realized that including Marie Antoinette's beheading would blur the focus of the film. We all know that she gets executed in the guillotine, but because the film focuses on explaining how her lifestyle and supposed "decadence" spirals from situations that are out of her control (I'd be buying pretty dresses too if I had to remain a virgin for seven-and-a-half years after marriage*).
And I would blather on even more about the stunning cinematography and costuming, but I'll save you guys. Just go rent it.
*The only real gripe I have about the film is that I didn't realize until I read up on Marie Antoinette after watching the film that she had been shipped from Austria to France at the age of fourteen. I thought that only a year had elapsed from the time that she and Louis XVI married to the time they had sex.
School is going fairly well. In general, although last year was much more stressful, I'm not enjoying school as much this year as I did last year. Some of my classes are amazing (European history is really great-- I love the subject and our teacher is a really engaging lecturer), but others are simple and tedious (I opted to take regular Calculus instead of AP Calculus BC because I didn't think that I would be able to handle the workload of AP Physics and AP Calc BC. Unfortunately, the class is a total rehash of everything I learned last year and really just bores me to tears). My favorite teacher is retiring at the start of November (his wife is having health problems), and I'm saddened by the prospect of not being able to see him in the hallway daily and stop by his room to discuss poetry. The Laramie Project is progressing well, I suppose, but I feel like it's still too early in the process to make any assumptions about the final project. I guess I'll have to wait and see.
There's more that I want to write about, but I have to go to Home Depot to buy some hooks for an art installation. I'll try to write more often!
I've realized a few things in the past couple weeks that I've been in school:
-Setting two alarms, no matter how far away they are from my bed, is not going to do anything but make me get up when they ring, turn them off, and go back to sleep. I've been late three times already (although I've technically only been marked down for it once).
-Having a monotonous physics teacher is not good
-Said monotonous physics teacher looking and sounding a bit like Edward Norton more than makes up for that
-I need to purchase a time turner so that I can get everything done on time. We're doing The Laramie Project for the fall drama and I was given four parts, two of which make up an almost four page block in which I am the only person speaking.
-I'm a mess.
I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but I'm taking an Italian class at the local community college (You can't spell "success" without UCC!) because I couldn't fit it into my schedule at school. Community college is, really, a whole other world. I'm used to sitting in AP and honors classes with kids my age who could surely out-intellectualize the people in my Italian class in their sleep (I'm not trying to be an elitist bitch or anything-- it's admirable that people want to get an education in any setting, I'm just not used to being the smartest person in a room full of adults). But if anything, the three hours that I have to spend sitting in a cold room re-learning level one Italian in a purportedly "advanced" Italian class are worth it for the people I see when I'm walking along the hallways to class. I counted:
I finally finished the book, and am planning to print it through Lulu.com (and hopefully sell some copies on Amazon, if they end up being good enough). It's called Things to Keep the Living Alive (there's a sub-title, too, but it makes little sense and I'll probably end up getting rid of it [it's (or, little bear eats some hibiscus jam), for those of you who are interested) and consists of quotes, small poems, and photographs. The best way to describe the concept of the book is that it is some sort of an instruction guide, but I feel that that phrase doesn't exactly encapsulate everything the book has. It's the type of book you'd be handed if you just had your memory wiped and needed to re-learn everything about the world. It's a little hard to explain, but I think it'll make sense when it comes out.
- One girl trying (but failing, luckily for her) to be Amy Winehouse
- Five girls in identical 50% spandex, 50% cotton faux-denim pants
- Three nervous middle-aged men who were older than their professors
- Ten non-professionals trying to come off as professionals
- Two professionals trying to come off as non-professionals
- Fourteen cigarettes in approximately ten hands and four mouths
- One professor being trailed by three students
- Eight thousand pairs of heels that made their wearers visibly uncomfortable
- Zero people who appeared to be my age
I've been considering getting a domain name and running this blog myself, but I'm not sure how much work that's going to entail. Hmm.
And just because I really don't want to study math, here's a list of songs I've been really into lately:
You can see what music I'm playing at my lastfm, here.
- Young Folks - Peter Bjorn and John (I don't care if it's overplayed! I've loved it ever since I caught it on New York Noise)
- The Gold Finch and the Red Oak Tree - Ted Leo and the Pharmacists (Ted Leo being ballad-y; it's a nice change from their usual stuff)
- I Will - The Beatles (I can't even describe how much I love the Beatles)
- Hell Yes - Beck
- Anything by Andrew Bird or Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire-- they have beautiful instrumental work and fantastic lyrics
- John Wayne Gacy, Jr. - Sufjan Stevens
- Conquest - The White Stripes (I can't pass up a chance to crank up this song and scream COOONQUEEEEST at the top of my lungs on the drive to school; I used to do this with Dimension by Wolfmother last year and get glares from tired soccer moms. It's priceless.)
- The Noise - Regina Spektor
- Tom Waits' album Rain Dogs (One of, if not the, best albums I've ever heard. As a package, it's impeccable.)
- I'm Set Free - The Velvet Underground
Charline
I just received my latest Princeton Review practice SAT scores in an e-mail, and they are quite good (2130 all together... I went down from a 770 in reading last time, but I got an 800 in writing and a 12 on my essay, so all is good. I hope I do this well on the actual test so that I have a chance at Brown. :) I see a pattern that scores in whichever category I choose to focus on in studying the week before the test go up-- first it was math, then reading, and now writing. If I do this well next Saturday, when I take the real test, I'll be ecstatic. I'm going to try and focus on keeping my 640 in math [hopefully it won't go down] and 800 in writing and try to get my reading back up to its previous 770 glory.)
I think I've finally found a venue for my G&T project (the play I've been writing-- unsuccessfully, might I add--for months). My friend Rena works at Libby's Pharmacy & Ice Cream Shop, and she says that the owner, Rick Libby, loves putting on all sorts of artsy things (i.e. concerts and the like). THIS MEANS that I will very likely be able to secure the pharmacy for a little late-night cafe play reading! Tres excitement, for sure!
I think that's all the news for now! :)
Charline
I finished my first piece for the Governor's School application-- it's a poem set in Rothenburg ob der Tauber that is quite aptly titled "Rothenburg over the River" (although I suppose it would be more appropriate to do a straight translation, but I'm lazy). It's... interesting, to say the least. I set up a really weird structure-- three nine-line stanzas with aabbcc rhyming for the first six lines of each stanza, no rhyming on the last three (but they each start with the word "and"). I am a crackhead poet, that's for sure. I'm still kind of wary about the whole piece, but the last stanza's pretty solid. It turned out well considering the restrictions (second person point of view, four proper nouns, tell of a townsperson who was almost famous, tell of a tragedy no one in the town will speak of, use all five senses-- all in 20-30 lines). The fiction assignment is even more restrictive, I think. It has to be a letter from one fictional character to another, addressing some sort of thing the letter-writer needs to tell the addressee.
I know, what the hell?
In slightly less stressful news: I did a photoshoot for my friend's band, Paleopancakes, yesterday. The name's tentative-- they've scrolled through the following choices since they formed half a year ago:
I have no reason not to believe that there weren't more names that never fully materialized. (Oh, sweet cousin of the double negative: too many damn negatives for me to even understand what I said.) I took my Chanukah presents for a test drive (speedlight, diffuser, 4/5.6 lens, Hoya filter kit [for my old lens]) and they delivered quite beautifully. Ignoring the fact that it'll take me at least all of winter break to finish editing these, I am excited to get them up.1. The Timeless Art of Seduction
2. Garden State of Mind
3. (The) Vox Populi
4. Paleopancakes
5. Penguin Dust
I am also very, very excited because my parents bought me Richard Siken's Crush! I've been looking for this book all over the place. I highly recommend it to all of you poetry lovers-- Scheherazade is one of my favorite poems.
I'm going to go and make another futile attempt at this prose piece (not to mention my essay on The Beans of Egypt, Maine, which I have been [unsuccessfully] trying to write for the better part of a week, and studying for my big double chapter AP US test tomorrow). I've finally established a goal for myself: survive junior year. It's getting less and less reasonable as the weeks go by, trust me.
Charline
Quote of the day:
Mr. White: "We know that 'co' means sharing, or together, so 'co-terminal' means sharing a terminal. It's like codependent is sharing dependency, co-ed is..."
Peter: "Sharing Ed!"
I got the Governor's School form today, finally (nominated for Engineering and Creative Writing departments, so that I can be the world's most incompetent-- albeit eloquent-- engineer). It's a lot of paperwork to fill out, but I have been waiting for the opportunity to get into this program since my Freshman year. The Creative Writing department is particularly hard to get into ("There are typically 2,400 applications and the program serves approximately 625 students each year."), but I'm up for the challenge. :)
For those of you that don't know, the NJ Governor's School program is an elite free summer program for "outstanding Juniors." They almost canceled it because of funding issues, and I was worried that we wouldn't get a chance to apply for it this year. But, thankfully, it has been upheld by private donations, and I will finally have a chance to join the Academia-Obsessing-Overachiever's paradise. I think that my chances are fairly good-- my portfolio, especially the Columbia stuff, shows off my ability to write in different genres, and I could not be more passionate about this subject. I don't know how much fun living at TCNJ for a month would be, but who cares?
Other news in the world of Academia: I tutored at the middle school for the first time today. I ended up tutoring one of my friend's brothers in "social studies," which was kind of nice. I learned something about East Africa and Swahili, obviously very useful things in the life of an 8th grader who couldn't give less of a shit about anything besides hanging out. Ah, 8th grade.
I have to write a paper for Film and Literature comparing characters in Love Actually to a book that we have read (on our own, not in the class-- despite what the name might suggest, we don't actually read in Film and Literature). I chose to compare the Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson characters of Harry and Karen to Martha and George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (convenient, I know). It's going to be hard, but it beats the bromidic comparison of Sarah and Karl (or anyone in that film, really) to Romeo and Juliet. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to structure the piece; I was thinking something along the lines of comparing how they must keep some of their composure (albeit unsuccessfully, in George and Martha's case) for the sake of their kids/guests, or perhaps how they deal with the situations differently, or how the same type of love (or dependency, even) is expressed in different ways. Strange, isn't it, to have a room full of children who have never experienced the "sheer agony of love" to respond to such a question? I almost feel as though I'll be looking back on this in ten years or so and realize that my answer is almost that of a five-year-old.
"Charline, what do you know about divorce?"
"It's bad! People should love each other! Some people yell at each other and some people try not to. That's why divorce is bad."
Oh, dear.
I was speaking to Seth, one of my favorite people, today (Oh, I could write books and books on Seth) and mentioned to him how it would be strange-- and quite unfortunate-- if both of us somehow ended up back teaching at our high school. He said that it could be worse, but that that idea's pretty horrible. He then went on to discuss how he awoke from a nightmare and almost poked his eye out on the plastic blinds above his bed. Strange boy, really.
Charline
I got a Daily Deviation on Deviantart a couple of days ago while I was away. It was a nice surprise to come home to, I must say. I also got into National Honor Society, which would be exciting if not (basically) everyone that got nominated was accepted. I feel like I wasted time putting effort into the application.
In any case, school is going pretty well. Better, at least, than it was in the first few weeks of September. Gifted and Talented Seminar, our independent study and thesis class, is a pain, though.
But yes, enough literary criticism (I don't even know if it can be categorized as that), and onto some more exciting things. I started writing what might become the second vignette of my play (I really need to get a move on things, I have a lot of December 1st contest deadlines, and it'll be devestating if I miss them), and I hope to get everything finished by mid November, which is hopefully not too much of a stretch. I need to make a chart of deadlines, too, now that I think about it.
In any case, here's a small preview (it has nothing to do with the first vignette, which is why I might end up just leaving it out and starting something new that fits in with more of a general theme):
(ROSE and MARTHA enter the high school bathroom, both holding purses and books and continuing a conversation that began out in the hallway. The bathroom is decorated with typical blue tiles and cigarette laden sinks, complete with lipstick messages on the wall—“Joanie Rich is a prostitute,” “Alana Carter has a fat ass,” etc.)
MARTHA: She’s such a bitch, I can’t even deal with it.
ROSE: What are you going to do?
MARTHA: (hands here a purse) Here, hold my bag. (fumbles through her pockets) Shit… hold on a second. (grabs the purse and ruffles through it; pulls out a permanent marker) Ah, good.
ROSE: What? What? Let me see, what are you doing?
MARTHA: Just drawing a mural in her honor. (stands up on an upside down garbage can and scrawls something on the wall. Steps back and admires her handiwork once she’s finished.)
ROSE: (reads the writing) “Sarah Campbell was part of the Watergate Conspiracy”?
MARTHA: (beaming) Yep!
ROSE: You didn’t consider writing something more exciting?
MARTHA: Like what?
ROSE: (sarcasm) Oh, I don’t know… “Sarah Campbell caused Pearl Harbor”?
MARTHA: Rose, don’t be upset because you can’t get back at her for calling you a whore.
ROSE: That was in fifth grade, I didn’t even know what a whore was.
MARTHA: (turns to ROSE and raises her eyebrow) Bet you do now.
ROSE: (glares) Stop being such a little child.
MARTHA: Sorry, did I fail to mention that I’m sixteen?
ROSE: (scoffs) I have to pee. Hold my books. (hands MARTHA her books and goes into one of the only two stalls.)I'm not sure about where it's going yet; I was thinking Sarah Campbell could walk in and i'd split the stage up into two parts (the bathroom and the stalls). I'm just having a hard time believing I can get this all done in time to send it in to competitions and get it put on at school. Argh!
Melanie (my co-head editor on our school newspaper, The Dawg Print) and I need to get a move on the first issue of the paper-- I think that we have most of the articles in at this point. The deadline was today, so they'd better be in! I wrote my first column/opinion piece of the year about my quitting Myspace, and I still have to write the editorial by Friday.
I never even realize how crazy my schedule is until I make posts here. I'll probably tell you all about the USY Leadership Training Convention I went to last weekend tomorrow or something, I should get a move on my AP US homework.
Au revior, everyone!
Charline
We had to write an anecdote for English. It's not my favourite recent piece by far, but I suppose it provides some insight into my personality. (Everyone was a little surprised when I used "fuck" in the paper. It was amusing to hear the whispers of "Oh my God, did she just say that? Did she just use the f-word in an English assignment?")
Shindig
The first
thing that struck me when I entered the basement wasn’t the pallid blue
mattress piled with fried teenagers, or the nameless rapper spitting out lines
about this “pimp fucking up that ho.” It wasn’t the couple having an endless
make out session by the bar, or the curtain of smoke billowing from the black
and mild sticking out of the host’s mouth. No, the first thing that struck me
when I entered the basement was how much I didn’t actually want to be there.
The whole day had been dedicated to preparation for
my first “real party.” I was advised to eat a lot, so I gorged myself on cheese
quesadillas and a disgustingly rich “like it” sized cup of Coldstone’s Birthday
Cake Remix. I stopped short of the suggestion to drink olive oil, deciding that
vomiting was endlessly preferable over downing two tablespoons of yellow-green
fruit discharge.
The second my foot left the stairs, a pair of arms
wrapped themselves around my shoulders. Before I could register what was going
on, a high-pitched voice squeaked my name into my ear.
“Charline!”
“Oh, hey, hi,” I wriggled out of the grip and turned around to face a pair of cabernet-colored eyes.
“I haven’t seen you since like, the morning!”
“Yeah, it’s uh, been a while,” I slid away and made my way over to the mattress; her gaze remained fixed on my previous position.
“Okay, bye!” she bid the stairs farewell and attained a position of intimacy with the floor. The rapper announced that “shit” had indeed gone down on the streets of Compton, and that some “bitch” would certainly get what was coming to her.
“Oh man, sick!” Someone came screaming out of the bathroom.
“What, what?” the host turned to him, the cigarette still hanging from the corner of his lips.
“Man, someone threw up in the bathroom.”
“Oh, fuck! Who the fuck threw up in the fucking bathroom?” Everyone replied with mumbles of innocence. I took a swig from the misnamed “Hard Lemonade” that had been shoved into my hands (it would have been more accurately labeled as “yesterday’s toilet brush extract”) and shook my head. I started up the stairs and by the time the last “ho” was getting “beat down,” I was already sitting on the curb.
“Hey, you okay?” One of my more sober friends followed me out the door and came up to me, “I’m sorry about this.”
“No, no, it’s alright. It was… an interesting experience,” I laughed. The front door creaked open and a thin silhouette appeared in the doorway.
“I have to pee,” the silhouette admitted, “Do I smell like throw up? I was in the bathroom.”
My friend turned to her, “Go pee, the bathroom’s right there.” The silhouette stumbled over her foot.
“Go, help her, I’ll be okay,” I smiled.
“You sure?”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about it. We’ll talk
tomorrow,” I stood up and gave her a hug, and she disappeared through the door
with the silhouette in tow. As I waited for my father to drive up with the car,
I thought about what had happened. At first I was a little angry with myself
for letting the opportunity to be a real teenager slip away from me, but then I
realized that, as corny as this sounds, being a “real teenager” doesn’t have to
mean sitting outside of convenience stores and smoking blunts in basements.
Being a teenager means being unsure and uncomfortable with life, it’s about
discovering yourself and losing yourself again at least twice a week. It’s
about finding your true calling in aluminum can making one day and deciding to
become an astrophysicist the next. Being a teenager isn’t about age, it’s a
state of mind.
(Okay, and maybe a little partying.)
I'm going into the city with a couple of friends tomorrow, I hope that the weather is good! I've had a lot of work lately, between everything that I have to do for school and filling out college scholarship applications.
I am also going to be aiming to write a 50,000 word novel in December, considering it's National Novel Writing Month. The NaNoWriMo "competition" gives you a month to finish the novel. There's no prize at the end besides the satisfaction of having an almost complete work. The good thing about not offering monetary prizes is that I won't have to freak out over whether or not what I write at that point is good- the website itself says that it is to encourage freewriting and make the atmosphere of writing more relaxed. I figure if there's anything good in what I write, i'll edit it and polish it up so that I can hopefully have a final version of a complete novel by next year.
Life Goal 01: Become a Published Author
I got a lead in the school's production of Neil Simon's Plaza Suite- I'll be playing Norma Hubley, the mother-of-the-bride. It's the main role of Act III (along with Ray Hubley, I suppose), which is sort of weird considering I tried out for the smallest part of the show- the distraught bride, Mimsey. Originally I wasn't going to audition at all, but decided that I might as well have a small part in addition to doing costumes. But yeah, yesterday I went to 9th period a little early and Mrs. Chomko (we all call her by a shortened version of her maiden name- Slesch) told me that my audition was one of the best.
I have to read Hemingway's "masterpiece" A Farewell to Arms. I'm sure many of you will disagree, but it's so repetitive and annoying that it really makes me want to cut my own arms off. I'm only on page fourteen, though (I have to read up to 160 by Monday- that'll be fun), so I'm sure it'll get better. Well, not so much sure as really hoping.
I have to get back to writing about what I want to get out of a college education so that I can be rejected for $1000 dollars.
Oh, and a big shana tova to all of my Jewish buddies. :)
p.s. Does anyone know how I can post images without the borders around them? Thanks!
