Posts in category: School


Sep 29

The main reason I didn’t post much of anything last week on here was because last week was my week to take over the AP Government Class Blog. And given all of the crazy stuff that happened across the country last week, it was quite a lot of work to keep it going.

Anyway, if you’re interested, here’s links to each of the articles that I posted last week, which gives you an idea of what I was busy with, as well why I only blog about politics on my own blog once in a blue moon. It’s exhausting to do it full-time.

Monday, September 22
What is our Problem with Taxes?
Seven Modest Proposals for President Obama

Tuesday, September 23
McCain-Palin Maybe Not Suited for the White House… Says the Media?

Wednesday, September 24
GOP Campaign Tries to Get VP Debate Postponed
McCain Hides Back in Washington, Wants to Cancel Friday’s Debate
A Look at the Candidates You WON’T See During the Debates

Thursday, September 25
Letterman Responds to John McCain’s Campaign Suspension
Was McCain’s “suspension” Just an Attention-Getting Joke?

Friday, September 26
Jon Stewart’s Birdseye View of our Economy’s “Dive of Death”
Is Palin Losing It?
Open Thread: First Presidential Debate

Saturday-Sunday, September 27-28
The Candidates Take Da Bait, Round 1
Tying Up Loose Ends

Now that that’s over with, I’m hoping to start getting a bit more regular with my own blog here. Stay tuned…

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Sep 10

Please don’t ask me why that’s the title. I had nothing to do with it at all. Let’s just say 42, and leave it at that.

However, I did want to bring a special mention to this blog, since it’s one that I’m going to be directly involved with for awhile. It’s actually a political blog that is being cooperatively run by all of the AP Government classes at my high school. Each week, a group of two to three students is being given the task of taking over the blog and posting articles on political news, analysis, etc. (My week will be coming soon, so stay tuned.) At the same time, all of us are being expected to contribute thoughtful comments to the blog throughout the year (not at any set time, just a decent amount of participation through the course of each semester), which we will be graded for. Nevertheless, with the 2008 election fast approaching, it’s certainly going to be an interesting ride to see what kinds of things are going to be posted on there. So if you’re looking for a blog with thoughts on our U.S. politics from the ever-so-elusive student point of view, I definitely recommend that you check this blog out. I’ll be commenting frequently on there, and may often repost the comments that I make on there into blog posts on this blog (yes, my blog may start taking on a little bit more of a political feel moving forward).

So anyway, be sure to go check it out! As for this blog, I will start being a bit more regular with my posting–I’ve been busy with a lot of things recently, but I’ll start catching up soon. Until then, so long, and thanks for all the fish!

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Aug 18

Well, today is August 18th, and that means that for me, today is the first day of my senior year. The first day of my last year in high school. The first day of my last year where I will get a free, quality education unless some sort of unlikely education reform system is adopted offering a free post-K-12 education system. As the quotation goes, today is the first day of the rest of my life. (Actually, I have no idea who said that quote, so bonus points for the first person who correctly identifies it in the comments.) And so, the same way I did last year and the year before that, it’s time for me to review my summer break here on my blog as I prepare to set foot into the year ahead.
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Aug 15

This past week has been my last week of summer; I will be returning to school on Monday to start my senior year. It’s taken a full summer, but I’ve finally adjusted to the fact that I’m actually going to be a senior–nevertheless, my first days as a freshman from three years ago still feels like just a few months ago. Interestingly enough, though, I’ve spent more time this past week doing school stuff than anything else.

On Monday afternoon, I arranged for this year’s new Peace Club officers to get together at Starbucks in order to discuss stuff for the new year–goals, procedures, etc. I was actually there as an outgoing officer because I’m no longer the president of the club (though I still hold claim to the title of founding the club almost three years ago, not to mention that I’ll continue to be a member). The club has a new president who has a lot of new ideas, and it’s my hope that the club will keep going even after I graduate.

I am, however, a member of my school’s Leadership class this year. I probably should have joined the class a year or two ago, but my busy class schedule kind of prevented that from happening. This year I’m in the class, and even though my run for the slot of Student Body President last spring was unsuccessful, I’m still in and have jobs to do. They’ve actually given me a few responsibilities: I’m their representative to Aragon’s parent organization (which is no longer a PTSA, but since I still know the people and am familiar with the territory, I’m probably the best pick), one of their representatives to UASB (a group of representatives from the student bodies of all seven high schools in our district), and also going to be in charge of maintaining the new website that they want to put together this year. Leadership met twice this week–first for a few hours on Tuesday morning when we found out our responsibilities and did some getting to know each other activities, etc., and then on Wednesday morning, which was our school’s Freshman Orientation. In addition to helping to put on the orientation, we all got to lead tour groups throughout the school and answer other questions from the freshmen.

Yesterday, Thursday, ended up having me more involved in planning for the school year than I would have anticipated. You see, at this point, I’ve pretty much completed all of the math offered at my school. I did my first year of Algebra in 7th grade, Geometry in 8th grade, second year of Algebra in 9th grade, Pre-Calculus and AP Statistics simultaneously in 10th grade, and AP Calculus BC in 11th grade. I’ve got 40 math credits already on my transcript and no more math available at my school, so I was planning to take Calculus III, a semester continuation of Calculus, at the College of San Mateo in the morning for first semester only, and then transit down to Aragon for the rest of my classes the rest of the day. My classes would be Orchestra, AP Government/Economics, English, Biotech, Law & Society/Psychology, and Leadership.
However, my counselor called me up yesterday morning to give me some bad news: my schedule was impossible to put together. This was mostly due to the fact that so many of my classes were only available during single periods: my CSM math class had to be first period, Orchestra has to be second period, Leadership has to be fifth period, and Law & Society/Psychology has to be sixth period. That left third, fourth, and seventh periods for the other three classes, and none of them were offered during seventh. And so, after doing a lot of debate with myself and my parents, I ended up dropping that math class at CSM (after confirming that I could return the $125 textbook to the CSM Bookstore for a full refund), since in terms of its importance to my grade, my graduating credits, and my personal interests, it was probably the lowest priority. After all, I’ve already got 40 credits worth of math stashed up from the past three years, more than enough to graduate. It does completely change my plans for this school year, but unfortunately, that’s what you have to take when life throws it at you.

So hopefully the fact that I’ve been going through all this school stuff this past week means that my first week of school, next week, will be better and more painless than it has been in prior years.

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Jun 19

Well first of all, I am back from China. I got back six days ago–last Friday, but between getting caught up and getting over jet lag and watching two weeks worth of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, I’ve been a little delayed in getting a blog post up and out. But now is probably the best time, so here goes.
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Jun 01

All right everyone, better get your Little Red Books out and handy because I’m off to China!!!

Uhh, say what?

Well, here’s the idea. My school’s band, choir, and orchestra (with me being a member of the latter of those three) has been invited to tour and perform in Beijing, China ahead of the 2008 Olympics (which seem to be on the news constantly these days, and not for good reasons). We were also originally going to spend a few days in Xi’an, but that canceled a week or so ago due to the recent earthquake and the declining political situation in that region. However, as it is, the trip will be an 11 day/9 night stay in Beijing (with one day lost up in an airplane or two), with a couple of concerts and a hopefully-not-too-overwhelming amount of sightseeing. But before I share my itinerary, how about a little peek at everything that I’ve gone through ahead of this trip, eh?
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May 29

Well, today was the much anticipated last day of school, marking the end of my third year of high school. It’s kind of scary to think about the fact that I’ve only got one year left until graduation comes around. Interestingly, though, this school year seemed to whiz right by, especially compared to my sophomore year, which I eulogized in a similar post one year ago. This year was certainly academically harder and more hectic than my sophomore year was, but this year seemed to be much smoother and less controversial than sophomore year was, and it might be that I’ve finally started to strike a balance between school and my other commitments. However, I thought that I’d do like I did last year and write a blog post looking back at this past school year, but this year’s post should be somewhat nicer than the one I wrote a year ago.
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May 28

Well, for me, junior year is almost done, and with the closing out of junior year means the closing out of standardized college entrance exams. This year has been filled with quite a number of tests of various things, from PSAT to SAT to ACT to Subject Tests to AP exams to all of these other things. However, one of the more contentious debates between tests of this class is between the SAT and the ACT. Both are general-subject standardized college entrance exams, and are often said to “compete” between each other to be the test of choice. Well, now that I’ve prepared for, taken, and gotten scores for each of these exams, I thought that I’d take the opportunity to review them and offer my opinion on the one that I like better. (I do promise that although my scores differ a bit between the two exams, I am not considering how I scored on each exam in this review.)
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Apr 21

Hello everyone,

This is just to let you know that I will be having little-to-no activity on my blog over the next few weeks, as I have a very busy couple of weeks coming up, between preparing for two AP tests (along with associated practice tests) and SAT Subject Tests, missing 4-5 days of school for a State PTA Convention that I’m working at, etc. Therefore I will be forcefully diverting my attention away from blogging and many of my frequent internet activities until things calm down for a little bit. I appreciate your understanding.

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Apr 07

It’s April, and for California public schools, that means STAR Testing time. This thing called “Standardized Testing And Reporting” means nothing more than two weeks of craziness as different grades are given tests in different subjects requiring a bunch of confusing schedule changes even though there’s still six weeks of classes left in the year. Crazy? You bet. Welcome to California.

Tomorrow (4/8) will be the California Language Arts Standards Test, which mostly boils down to reading stuff and answering questions about it, and then correcting badly written “student drafts.” Wednesday (4/9) will be the California Mathematics Standards Test, which is a bunch of math problems written by people who obviously AREN’T mathematicians or people having ANYTHING to do with math because of the idiotic way that at least 10-25% of their questions are written. (As someone who excels in math, when I say that the questions are worded stupidly, I know what I’m talking about.) Thursday will be the California Social Studies Standards Test (aka U.S. History), which probably is the most topical of all the tests on the plate. And then, finally, next Tuesday (4/16) will be the final STAR test: the California Science Standards Test, which is again mostly a drill & grill of science subjects. Woop dee do. And then, I get a super-late start on Wednesday (4/17) because that’s a Sophomores-only test.

The crazy thing about these tests is twofold. First of all, they really don’t say much about me, but about my school. As in, if there aren’t enough kids proficient in these tests (or even if not enough kids are there for these tests), the school gets burned on this magic number called the API. But worse, by the year 2014, if 100% of all students in the school aren’t proficient, then the school gets marked for Program Improvement (PI), a very scary thing which eventually spells doom for the future of public schools. And can you realistically expect that 100% of all students will be proficient? No. Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to the #1 flaw of No Child Left Behind.

The second problem is that as an assessment of my personal academic performance, these tests STINK! Math is my best subject, I got a 710 on the Math section of the SAT, and yet on the STAR tests, Math has been my lowest score for the past four years. Why? I can tell you why–all those math questions are worded so darned strangely that a good portion of them are near impossible to figure out what they’re trying to get across! I swear, there is something VERY WRONG with those tests.

Luckily, next Tuesday, I will be able to celebrate. As an eleventh grader. this is the LAST YEAR I HAVE TO TAKE THE STAR TESTS!!! After taking these tests yearly for the last ten years, I will be done with these wastes of partially-recycled paper forever! And yes, I am excited about that, and not just so that I’ll be able to get even with those rub-their-nose-in-your-face seniors who get to sleep in for five days while the rest of us are stuck with the tests.

So, here we go with a few strange days at school…

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