Why do I bother?

I had a math test on Friday. I studied integrals of polar functions for HOURS...only to find that they weren't on the test. The stuff I didn't study, assuming that he wouldn't test us on it since he had just taught it the day before? Yeah, that stuff made up more than two-thirds of the test. Fun.

I walked out of that room really upset. My teacher is famous for using incredibly difficult questions, only about a third of which can really be answered. But this test was photocopied from an actual AP test prep book. So I figured that everyone else, who I thought had studied more than I did, had done much better.

There were two sets of questions I couldn't understand, each based around a premise.

The first was whether the sum of 1/n converges. Don't make fun of me, I now know that this is basic (it diverges, for the normal people out there). But the test was the day after we had learned all the material, and I adn't had time to let it sink in.

The second was about bounds. My memory of my confusion is unclear, because I honestly don't see how I didn't get this. Basically, bounded series are not necessarily convergent. (see the sine function. any sine function.) But I did not know this, because I had no idea what bounded meant. I know, I know, but at the time it felt like there were options.

Together, there were between five and ten questions based around these two facts that I did not know. On a twenty-nine-question test.

I guessed correctly. For both of them.

And got the top score in the class.

I also got a 92 on that Lit presentation--the one during which I had a freaking panic attack.

Seriously. WHY DO I BOTHER.

Procrastination pays off

I had to do a Lit presentation today. I had the thing mostly written, but this morning before school realized that it had no organization whatsoever and was just generally terrible.

The project was to pick a poem relating to the book we just finished reading, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (oh how I love that book), and talk about how it relates thematically. It was a five-minute presentation, including the time we took to read the poem aloud.

I worked on it throughout the day and finished it during the class prior to Lit. I whispered the whole thing once through, and then went to class.

I was SO NERVOUS. Lit is probably the class that I stress about the most, because I always feel like I have no idea what I'm talking about. I sat through two of my classmates' presentation and tried to discreetly review my notes, but couldn't bring myself to totally ignore what they were saying.

Then it was my turn.

I started to freak out a little bit as I handed out copies of my poem, "It Was All Very Tidy" by Robert Graves. I made it through my introduction, but my heart started POUNDING as I began to panic about my unpreparedness. So when I started to read my poem, I read it ridiculously slowly. I figured that the points I would lose for reading my poem too slowly would be fewer than the points I would lose for being completely incoherent over the course of the entire presentation.

Reading slowly calmed me down, so I was fine for the rest of the presentation, even though I still had basically no clue what I was talking about. I threw in random references to the book that came to my head as I was speaking, but afterwards I thought I had done terribly.

I sat down. I can't even imagine how red my face had been.

My teacher looked over at me and said "I thought the way you read your poem was very effective...almost creepy, the way you went really slowly. It worked really well."

My classmates chimed in, agreeing with her, and telling me how well I had read the poem.

In the hallway after class, someone came up to me and told me they were impressed by how well-organized my presentation was.

Moral of the story: Have a panic attack in the middle of the presentation after not rehearsing, then throw in random facts whenever you feel like it. And people will think you are smart.

I have a post brewing.

It's actually a thoughtful post. But it's about something that, if I'm going to write about, I need to do it fully and well.

So it might be awhile before that post gets up.

But today I heard a teacher telling a student something in the hallway that just made me feel good about my school and reminded me that, to me, school feels like home:

"Hey, whatever you need, just ask. We'll take care of it. We're here to help you."

I think that gets lost sometimes. I'm always incredibly nervous about interrupting teachers, or asking them to take time away from their grading, etc, to explain concepts that I'm confused by, especially if the topics are relatively simplistic. But I've never once had a teacher turn me away when I needed help. And I've often had teachers willingly help me with other classes' work, or things for activities, or just things I'm curious about. I've had quick on-topic questions turn into twenty-minute conversations about whether the Amazon Kindle and products like it will ever completely take over the market (the verdict: no, and both the teacher and I would be distraught if it did). And today, when a friend and I needed help with an assignment and none of the teachers we knew in the department were in school, we asked another teacher, who pulled out three reference books and was glad to help us.

I don't know if this is common to all schools, or common to well-funded schools, or special to schools like mine where over sixty percent of faculty hold a master's degree or higher in their field and often worked in that field before starting to teach. But I need to remember that most teachers probably don't mind answering "stupid" questions all that much. They want to help me learn and be the best student I can be.

Ahh.

Two teachers in a row were absent today, which gave me lots of time to work and procrastinate. Again, I seem to be keeping up fairly well with my workload this year. I was able to finish AP Chem, start thinking about my history essay, outline my answers for Model UN Specialized Committee apps, and figure out a way for my parents to visit all my teachers on back-to-school-night without walking for miles. I also played a few hands of bridge with the nerd crew :)

At tennis, I played first doubles and won in straight sets, 6-0, 6-1.

(That's a good thing, for you non tennis people.)

Tonight:

• History essay detailed outline and/or rough draft.
• MUN apps
• Continue to study for physiology test and figure out what to draw with the essay questions.

Plus, there's a rerun of House on at eight :)

One month to go...

and I have a lot that I want to do. Some of it's practical, some of it's not, but there's only one month left! And only two weeks before tennis starts up.

Warning: this post RAMBLES. A LOT.

I was miserable in tennis. Twenty hours a week, for what was going to be five weeks, was WAY too much, even ignoring the obnoxious twelve-year-old boys who practically turned me into a homicidal maniac. It helped, obviously. My coach, who hasn't given me any private lessons since the beginning of camp, was watching yesterday and told me that I've improved a LOT. Over the past couple days, since I've been trying to look for little bits of happiness at tennis, I have been noticing that I make a lot more of the "touch" shots, that are all about precision and control, than I used to. I can even handle myself at net now, unless the ball comes too fast at my head. But, since I was miserable and lonely, we managed to cancel the rest of camp sessions I was going to do. Instead, I'll play with my dad and take a few private lessons. Plus, I was asked to help teach little kids next week at the indoor tennis place I play at in the winter! (Only con: it's at nine a.m.)

So all of a sudden, I have a bunch of free time! Yay! I already went to the library. While I was on vacation, I read Election and Little Children by Tom Perrotta, and The Firm and The Street Lawyer by John Grisham. Then, this week I read The Abstinence Teacher, also by Perrotta, and I have Closed Chambers and In Our Defense out from the Library.

Perrotta's books were recommended to me by my freshman Lit teacher. Little Children and The Abstinence Teacher were both good. I clearly didn't like them as much as he did, but they were interesting, and Perrotta is REALLY good at developing characters. I mean, REALLY good. The problem with that is that by the end of the books you could half-predict what would happen. Election, the other book of his that I read, was way more enjoyable, probably because it focused on a student council election, and I could see parallels between characters and people at school.

John Grisham is John Grisham. I don't think much more explanation is necessary, other than saying that I thought all the main characters in The Firm were seriously fucked up. And the guy in The Street Lawyer was awesome.

I've also been watching lots of TV (bad postscript!) and just sitting around. This is good for me, I think, because I'm STILL feeling the stress from last year weighing down on me. Plus I know about all the different Law and Order shows, so I have figured out why I like SVU much more than the others. I think it's because I've always loved shows with strong and (maybe overly) idealistic, yet flawed, female leads (like Allison Janney in The West Wing and Amy Brenneman in Judging Amy). And neither of the other L&O shows have that.

The other day I had a doctor's appointment and successfully argued my way out of TWO OF THREE shots they were going to give me. Yes! But the doctor told me that he could tell I was right handed because the muscle in my right shoulder is apparently VISIBLY bigger than the one in my left shoulder. I'm still trying to decide whether that's cool or weird. I mean, I can't tell. But he could. Weird.

I've been doing a lot more little things, but I feel like doing nothing. Maybe I'll write some more later. Or maybe not.

Things yet to come this summer: Volunteer work. College visits. Phone calls and emails. Shopping. And, of course, summer reading.

A Baby.

Don't worry, I'm not pregnant. (And if I were, do you think I would be allowed onto the Internet? I think not.)

My favorite teacher this year had a baby in August (I think...). Since she's the best teacher EVER, my friend and I are going to buy her something together. (Well, he might not if she doesn't give him an A, but then I'll do it by myself) Oh, and her baby's first name is my middle name! And since I love my middle name, I think that's awesome.

My dad said that restaurant gift cards are pretty much out because we would have to spend more money than we have. So we thought we could get something for her baby.

The choices are clothes or toys...what could we pick? I LOVE the idea of buying clothes, because baby clothes (especially baby girl clothes) are SO adorable, but that could be difficult just because of sizing. I don't even know how old the baby is, exactly. I'd rather not create stress for my teacher by forcing her to have to return stuff.

Toys are hard because a lot of them are a lot of $$$. Plus, what if the baby doesn't like it? That would kind of suck.

What do you think? Toys or clothes? And if I bought clothes, what size should I get?

My annoyances

(in bullets because I'm so so so so tired)

• The choir banquet is tomorrow, and let's just say my dress is a little snug.
• The year is supposed to be over. But I have two presentations and a test this week!
• My sister. She's my little sister. Of course she's annoying.
• Being tired
• Not knowing my grades in math and chem. Both of which, at this point, could go either way.
• Candy Crowley on CNN. She needs to change her name.
• Having to sit through classes where we do absolutely nothing but not being allowed to leave or fall asleep.
• My hair.

So. So. Tired.

I chose this?

Magnet schools are crazy. The concept is something like this: "Let's put a whole lot of really smart and competitive kids and force them to be together for NINE FREAKING HOURS a day and them give them some crappy teachers* who don't like to, you know, follow the curriculum, so that when they have to take common assessments, they're screwed! Great idea!"


*To my teachers' credit, only one of them is really a bad teacher. Two or three are awesome, and the rest try really hard but I just don't learn much (or at all). And yes, nine hours. 7:15 when the buses get there to 4:10 when classes end. My god.

Comparing Teachers

A long, long, time ago I wrote a pretty incoherent post about how kids coming from middle school (aka annoying frosh) have totally different criteria for evaluating and describing their teachers than I now do. (In a nutshell: they want the nice teachers who will be easy, I want the teachers who will make me laugh, teach me a lot, but probably not be 'nice')

Over the past couple of days, I've been thinking about two teachers. They both started at my school this fall, and came from public schools in cities (one from Newark, one from NYC). A note: the one from NYC taught at Bronx Science, not some inner-city school that has 50% of its students drop out. I think my arguments will still be true.

Both of them, at the beginning of the year, were clearly not used to my school (MS, for magnet school, from now on) and its hyper-competitive, fairly affluent environment.

One of them, Ms. B, was my teacher for an required interdisciplinary project first trimester. When she heard our conversations about how we needed this grade in that class to get an A, she was shocked. She told us that in Newark where she had last taught, she would never get kids who had B's coming to her begging for A's. rather, the kids who were failing would approach her and try to get her to at least give them D's so they would pass.

My math teacher, Mr. C, last taught at Bronx Science. What I've noticed about him is that he seems to have been trained to an essentially "us vs. them" attitude.

I finished a test about ten minutes early one day, and I immediately started to pack up my stuff so I would have a couple of extra minutes before my next class to decomp from the test. He looked at me and said "What are you doing?"

I was completely taken aback. I said something along the lines of "I'm not allowed to leave?!?" and sat back down. He came over to me and started lecturing me about how he would get sued if I a) did something dumb or b) did something clumsy while I was technically supposed to be in his class, under his supervision. I told him what another teacher had told me last year, that since we have oodles of free time and are unsupervised during that time, it's not as much of a liability issue as it is at schools where the hallways are deserted during classes. He shook his head. I sat at stared at the clock, going back and overthinking all the test questions.

I wrote this post intending to show the difference between city teachers, who are used to dealing with problem kids, and everyone else. Now that I think of it, though, there are three real classifications. I like writing about this, though, so I may (or may not) add to the thought tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, wish me luck!

Ugh

I'm sitting in class listening to a pointed lecture about how I NEED to be an engineer.

Kill me now.

I am very unobservant.

The other day I was selling food at a bakesale for our Model UN. The crowd was winding down as all the kids headed to their buses and the teachers scrambled to leave before the buses made it out of the parking lot.

I was talking to a senior on my left when suddenly I heard a shriek from my [loud] friend, J, on the right. She jumped up and down and gave one of our advisors a hug. The advisor look sheepish while my senior friend reached around me to poke J and say "You didn't know either, did you!" I looked around and asked my advisor what was going on. She motioned to her stomach. She also looked surprised, and when we told her that we had no idea she was pregnant, she gave us a look and said "Well, girls, it's getting a little hard to hide...". I genuinely had no idea!

I guess it's a good thing, though. I don't make a habit of staring at my teachers' stomachs.

Some thoughts

I'm too disorganized to write full-ish posts about these:

1. Half days: I lovelovelove half days. But they have absolutely no point. And I end up eating four meals because I eat at ten am when I would normally have lunch, plus eat lunch again at 1:30 when I get home.
   
2. Courses: You'd think I would have learned by now that I shouldn't take too many courses and end up stressing too much. But no. I'm signing up for IB Lit, IB History, AP Math BC, and AP Chem.
   
3. My future: I really, really, like chemistry. And I'm really good at physics. But I love history and debate. I just love how my interests combine so nicely.
4. SATs: June 7th is the date of the SAT-II Math 2. We're having houseguests the night before. It took me way too long to get my parents to realize that kicking me out of my room the night before the SAT was a dumb idea. I mean, waaaaayyyy too long. Like, I had to explain that THIS IS IMPORTANT about ten times. ("But Aunt So-and-so needs a room...")
   
5. SATs again: who on earth came up with the idea that the best way to determine a students' potential is by making them sit for one really really long test early in the morning. Even normal teachers realize that we all have our off days when we barely know how to add 1+1.
6. Tests: I should be studying right now.

You know your school is too intense when...

1. You can't carry your backpack
2. You consider carrying your backpack down a flight of stairs exercise.
3. You never know the weather because you don't have time to go outside.
4. Every day is one of "those days"
5. ALL your schoolmates' away messages say "working" or "way too much work to do"
6. You have dreams about sleeping (sad, but it's happened)
7. You don't have time to do work for the classes you like, but know you have an A in
8. Every single assignment makes you want to cry
9. You have tried to do homework while crying/eating/sleeping/showering (once I needed to memorize something so I tape-recorded it and played it in the shower)
10. You spend weekends doing homework
11. You can't remember the last time you went out on a weeknight
12. The idea of having to go out on a weeknight makes you want to fall asleep
13. You have fallen asleep while standing up/eating/showering/etc.

I'm too tired to think of any more.

High Achievers

I go to a magnet school. Evey chance he gets, our principal is telling us (and observers from school districts from places like Singapore and Taiwan) that we are the smartest, hardest working, best group of kids around. Right.

Here's how I (along with most of my classmates) do my current events for biology. We're required to write one paragraph summary and one paragraph reaction, and fill up a page.

• Double space.
  
• Use full MLA heading (four line plus the title).
• Write out numbers rather than using numerals. (i.e. nineteen twenties rather than 1920's)
  
• Always include the FULL TITLE of anyone you mention (i.e. "Professor of pediatric neurology at University College London and Great Ormond Street Hospital, and the principal investigator on the study") rather than little title, like "Dr. XXX, a professor".
• Include at least one quote.
• Mention every institution named. So, if it's about people at Oxford, also mention the names of supporting institutions as well as the names of anyone associated with them.

Here's what our summaries look like: "I think that this research should be continued, as it contributes to scientific knowledge...filler filler filler".

Since our teacher only skims them, it doesn't matter to us.

Other habits of high achieving students:

• Writing papers no sooner than two days before they're due.
• Writing down the bare minimum for physics homework and then claiming we didn't know how to do it.
• Missing over two weeks worth of class each year because of trips and competitions.
• Facebook.

I just reread through this post and it really does make us sound like a bunch of lazy slackers. But we're not, trust me. We don't slack off when we're not completely overwhelmed. Maybe I'll post again after I finish up that lab that's due tomorrow.

The Paper

Vague topic? Check.
Unclear guidelines? Check.
Unhelpful teacher? Check.
Lots of summary? Check.
Filler? Check.
Six pages? ...
...

I think my editing partner is going to laugh at it when she reads it on Friday.

My schedule for the next few days:
Thursday:

• Wake up, eat, go to school.
• Before school: Do five zillion math problems.C
• Class ALL MORNING. (try to read history day book in bio)
• Lunch: Print updated resumes, then work on paper while eating lunch.
• Class ALL AFTERNOON. Hand in badly-researched and -written journalism article.
• Get picked up by mom. Go to mall and Cheesecake Factory.
• 6 pm: college fair. Be nice to admissions officers for schools. Hand out resumes. Get bored and argue with mom.
• 8 pm: go home. get stuck in traffic.
• At home: work on paper some more. Imagine ways I would kill whoever thought up this topic.
  

Friday:

• Go to school.
  
• Work frantically on paper during free time.
  
• Attempt to skim book about History Day topic during class.
• Lunch and free: PAPER
• At home: PAPER and frantically review history day topic.
  

Saturday:

• Go to history day, 8-2ish. During approximately 4 hours of downtime, study for SAT-II Math.
  
• Come home. If home before 1:30 (unlikely) go to tennis. If not sequester myself upstairs and take SAT-II Math diagnostic test. Cry when my score is below an 800. Study some more.
• Worry.
  

I'm exhausted and babbling because I don't want to work on my paper. Sorry, editing partner.

History Day Emails

Advisor to me: You might be interviewed. I'll let you know next week.
Me to advisor: Details?
Advisor: You will be interviewed at ten am. I think.
Me: Is there a schedule?

Advisor to NHD people: Is there a schedule?
NHD people: Yes.
Advisor: Could you please SEND IT TO ME???

Wow. I thought only younger siblings did stuff like that.

Rutgers

They swore they would never go to Rutgers. I don't know why, but the fact that they are depresses me. I mean, I haven't spoken to them, so maybe they genuinely changed their minds. I really really hope that they aren't being forced to go there by their parents, or presured to go there by their friends.

Wow, I'm stressed out. Why do I let such stupid things bother me when I don't even know all the circumstances?

I have a Future?

Forty-seven-ish days left until I'm a junior. Forty-seven more days of the hell that has been sophomore year, and then...something else?

The math teacher I will likely have next year is a jerk. He hates kids who miss eight days a year because of Model UN and at least eight more for debate. (As far as I know, he doesn't hate kids who miss school for math team trips.) Math is the subject that a) I hate the most and b) counts the most in my GPA. Oh joy.

Lit and history should be better. But I'll also have SATs and APs and IBs to worry about. Ugh.

I need a vacation. And it can't possibly come soon enough, after that nervous breakdown on the tennis court.

A Math Problem

Chemistry Class has two tests per trimester.

Math Class has three tests per trimester.

How is it possible that their tests are within four days of each other?

Ugh.

My dad and I had a fight today. We were playing tennis and I was doing really well until we started a match--the exact same thing that happened yesterday in my class. All of a sudden, everything was going out, and my serve was basically nonexistent. So I got frustrated. And then (bad idea) I started thinking about how miserable school is this year and how sick I am of going to a math math math school.

So I started crying in the middle of a game after I screwed up yet another shot. My dad got angry at my frustration and told me I needed to chill and lower my expectations. That does NOT help me. I have expectations based on what I have been able to achieve in the past. It's not like a totally arbitrary thing.

I finally made him let us go home, and he yelled at me on the way to the car (the people at the court diagonal to us looked over and apparently decided I wasn't being abused or anything) and took us home. I ran upstairs and he talked to my mom for a few minutes before coming up.

When he came up to apologize (and let me apologize, which I did) I tried to explain all my issues with school and stuff this year. I pointed out that the three or four big things that bothered me were just made worse by the zillions of little things that were bothering me.

He agreed, obviously. And since he did, I decided not to go off on a rant about how much my mom adds to my stress. Smart move, huh?