This coming Monday, my high school is having a dress-up day for us to wear our Halloween costumes.

Unfortunately, all school rules apply. I had initially planned on wearing a beautiful tutu I have, along with my pointe shoes, tights, and leg warmers. However, that would technically mean no pants, and a spaghetti-strap top as well. Now, I understand why I would not be allowed to not have pants on, but I wish they’d relax some of the other rules. We could wear spaghetti-strap dresses for Homecoming, obviously, so why not for one other day?

So, I decided that I’ll go as a Russian babushka. However, since not even the hats rule is relaxed, I can’t even have a scarf on my head. Now, how pathetic is that? On Monday, there was a Hat Day because of Red Ribbon Week or whatever. I’m certain that it would have been much better to allow that on Halloween. This is so stupid. There’s nothing that bad about having a head covering. It’s not suggestive, sexual, violent, drug-related, or profane. It’s an issue of someone’s ideas about respect, and I think that on a holiday, once a year, that can be relaxed.

I’d like to say something positive about high school for a change: I just love the freedom we have now. In middle school, if you came earlier than 8:30, you were forced to stand in a tiny little lobby until the school opened at 8:30. It got really crowded because busses often came before the school actually opened. Class at high school starts at 8:15, but the other day I got there at 7:00. I went to my locker in the basement and sat there and studied until I decided to go to class. It was so awesome. I wanted some alone time. Who can get alone time in a tiny lobby filled with much more people than the fire warning permits?

However, one thing that really bugs me: when I leave the house to go to the bus stop, it is almost pitch black outside. And it’s still October. Just wait till December. So, it’s almost pitch black, freezing cold, and, for the past week or so, raining. I can’t even see the puddles to avoid stepping on them. So here I am, with all my stuff, my pants wet and no hands available to hold an umbrella, I lift the hood of my coat over my head, thinking that it’ll do something. In such moments of utter desperation, I ponder how different it is from what my parents said school was like: “An hour there, an hour back, raining, cold, lots of stuff, uphill both ways, etc.”. Luckily, I only have to walk as far as the bus stop.

Yet it seems like forever.

Thanks for the nice comments I’ve been getting! Unfortunately I can’t thank you personally, but if you come back here you’ll read this.

Now. Onto my topic for today. In History we’ve got a project to do, and even though I did get one person I wanted in my group, I’m still not inclined to trust anybody with my grades. We have to have at least one visual aid, but we’re doing two because one person is really set on making a poster, but that will require her to go home and do it by herself, also deciding on the content and appearance and drawing up the whole presentation. I don’t want one person doing all that. So I’m making a powerpoint as well. But that’s a waste of effort because we can’t get more than a 100 anyway. This is why groupwork is so stupid! One person usually does all the work, or, in this case, two out of five (me and the other girl, that is). When there isn’t anybody I know, like, and trust, I do all the work myself. After trying to organize a whole bunch of people, I usually just say “OK!!! You guys all just chat with each other and I’ll do it!”.

So I’m always stuck. Once I did almost an entire project by myself, but asked another kid in my group to print and bring some pictures. Well, obviously, he forgot. Now that’s just great. Teachers always say that my grades are my responsibility. But what was I supposed to do? Gather up the band and go to his house at midnight to play a fortissimo piece of music at his window to wake him up?

The same thing happens in math. We often do groupwork and only one piece of paper can be turned in. The people in my group are very stubborn. When I’m certain that I’m right, I can’t convince them. Then, the next day–whammo. A “B”. It also goes the other way, because I often make mistakes in math and I don’t want three people (including two football players, mind you) yelling at me the next day because they decided to get their answers from me. It would be so much nicer if we all turned in our own papers, don’t you think?

Lucky me. I have a biology quiz on Wednesday, and I’m finding memorizing all this info pretty difficult. Since no one ever bothered to explain to me why triglycerides have three molecules of fatty acids and one of glycerol or why phospholipids have two molecules of fatty acids, one glycerol and one phosphate group, but only the fact that they do (again, lucky me), it’s understandably hard to memorize seemingly endless strings of gibberish. Or rote, rather. When I had to memorize a poem for English, I found that it had quite a lot of meaning and it took me no more than 10 or 15 minutes to memorize it. And I wasn’t really trying. Actually, here it is, from memory:

In Flanders Fields, by John McCrae

In Flanders Fields, the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below

We are the dead. Short days ago,
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow
Loved and were loved; and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe
To you, from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who died,
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.

See? Since those words have meaning to me, I memorized them. But the fact that a carboxyl group is O=C-OH has no more meaning for me than “aofia;odfij;aosdijf”. It should be the teacher’s job to make that have meaning.

Today…the unspeakable happened. The violence prevention speaker came back. As she walked in the room, my second thought was, “Well, I hate the way my teacher teaches health anyway”. I think you know what my first one was.

Actually, it wasn’t as bad this time. We watched a video about a young couple who were having some major issues, e.g. the boyfriend being obsessive and abusive. Typical of such videos. Apart from the scenes where they were drinking, the guy was using some pretty colorful language, and when the girl was being raped, it was OK. However, we have been over this plenty of times, and I don’t think that pushing these ideas into people’s minds is a good idea. Actually, the video made me want a boyfriend more because it also showed them hanging out and having fun. Haha. Nice try.

Last week, I knew something was amiss when we were asked to create a “Loto” (Bingo) board for French. This did not bode well. Unfortunately, my worst fears came true. Yes, we played bingo. The entire period. Now, forcing me to play games of any kind is like cutting off a bird’s wings, sticking a Twilight Zone fish into a room lit by fluorescent lamps, or exposing an elephant to a mouse. Imagine that, but several times worse because we were playing that kind of all stupid, frustrating, meaningless, and unfair games, bingo.

That last sentence just about summed it up. The following are all reasons why I hate bingo with a passion:

• It’s the luck of the draw. Almost literally. If I was smart enough to predict how to make my board, I would win.
• Whoever says “Bingo!” first…? Shouldn’t the winner be the smarter person?
• OK, playing games in high school is ridiculous anyway, bingo or not.
• Even though I have to know the words in order to play (since they are being said in the opposite language), it still is much easier for me to learn my vocab by doing worksheets. Middle Ages style school, anyone?
• OK look. The only reason why the teacher made us play bingo rather than do worksheets is because teachers tend to think that if we’re having fun, we learn better. Not necessarily. And besides, bingo isn’t exactly my idea of fun. Parties, dances, seeing movies, talking to friends, listening to music, shopping, and surfing the web is fun.
• Making students ready to rip their hair out does not make them learn better or faster. Now I speak from experience, sitting there many a time and restraining myself because should I not, I would likely lose most of my hair.

I think I’ve been pretty convincing here. Now, why do I waste so many hours a day on crap (pardon my language) like this? At least I can finish a worksheet in 5 minutes, not the whole period.

On Thursday, there was a “violence prevention” speaker in my health class. Now, the reason I put that in quotes is because I think she stirred up more violence than she could have possibly “prevented”. To begin with, she first addressed us with that horrible, kindergarten-style voice that teens like me love to hate. We are in high school after all, and let’s just say that by now, I have forgotten what much of my elementary school looked like. Anyway, the speaker was overeager, loud, and for an hour, gave me a headache. She embarassed most of the boys in my class, and I’m sure some of the more rowdy types in that class would have given a lot for it to be socially acceptable to hit her right about then.

But who am I to be so ungrateful?!? I should count my blessings. There were no group activities, handouts (except for a survey), games, interactive whatevers, or anything else stupid. And, furthermore, it saved me from the teaching of my health teacher for one period.

However, it was ineffective. Yes, that can be a problem.