Is it Joy I Feel?

In writing this, I'm wasting more time and sleep, but I don't care.

What the heck is going on. According to Chris (and by a conversation I had with Mr V. last week, a credible report), Mr. Verthein said that he could drive himself to the Kiwanis meeting tomorrow. Excuse me, but isn't that a REALLY big problem a couple years ago? And after he and Ms. Engel hassle us with all of those stupid permission forms. Which brings me to a related topic. I just remembered a couple days ago reading something about liability insurance provided by International, and I looked up and printed out the details in hopes that I can get the administration to consent to a blanket permission form for activities or something, especially since we seem to be the ONLY club que importa un pepino.

Also, Mr. Blair apparently has a very short memory. He has now effectively buried us in work again, giving us two more Major Works Data Sheets, one due Thursday! Plus, I spent all evening finishing that stupid book Grendel so that I can write a two-paragraph journal on a line at the end that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. The whole book is "how can I defy every notion about how to write a coherent piece of literature?" The book is pointless and stupid.

Speaking of structure, Mrs. Brown after telling us that structure wasn't important for people writing responses to actual college essay topics instead of one of her topics, gave me 0/10 for the "Conclusion" line on the rubric because I didn't have a conclusion paragraph. Who the heck uses this stupid "Introduction paragraph, 3 body paragraphs, conclusion paragraph" tripe anymore? For crying out loud, they pound that stupid formula into your brain in 5th grade, then they tell you that you have to make it "flow" using these things called "transitions," that don't actually make it flow; they just fill it with awkward, superfluous adverbs. And when you try to write for flow so that a reader might actually get something out of it, they tell you it's wrong. If the reader has such a short memory that he can't remember what I said in paragraph one, he can go back and read it again himself. I'm going to continue with my thoughts, thank you very much.

Calculus is absolutely stupid. She gives us like 20 problems for each section, and two days (if even) to do them. This is not conducive to learning. This is conducive to people scribbling answers (who cares if they're right? she doesn't check that, just whether they're done or not) and people "collaborating." Actually, the better form of collaboration she encourages, saying that we should have "calculus parties." Yet another thing to do in our "copious free time" (a phrase that Mr. Blair uses so often, it has become clichÃ(C)). Actually, I think some people in our class did have a calculus party, but I wasn't invited. That's OK. Pete and I have each other to copy off of, at lunch.

4th hour lunch sucks. It lends itself to leaving things to the day of, instead of getting a head start after they're assigned.

It's not that I'm taking too many APs. Two of them I could pass in my sleep (which, coincidentally, are the ones I DON'T sleep in). Chem is OK, since she gives us plenty of time to do the homework, and lab report due dates are extremely flexible. Tests are murder, though. No, my life has become what it is because of two classes, the ones which I most need to get into a good school.

I think I've run out of things to complain about. Oh, right, except this excerpt from the imood.com site. This is why I, along with most other people of my general nerdiness quotient, think AOL is an evil institution that needs to DIE:

If you use AOL: Make sure that your email options are set to "receive mail from internet". If you have it set so you can't accept mail from the internet, you will not be able to receive any mail from us which could cause problems in the future. Also remember that your email address is YOURSCREENNAME@aol.com and not just YOURSCREENNAME.