Geez. I've been to Joy Yee's three times this month.
I haven't really been up to a lot of things that are special...I've been working with my dad a bunch. He owes me for nine jobs now--I'm counting, because I'm sure neither of my parents are.
My IMSA friend count is up to 16-and by Tuesday, I expect that number to have soared, for two reasons. The first is that I'm going to the quad cities the 29th-30th to visit Connor (and I hope Jacque?)...and the second is that I'm going to the Taste of Chicago on the 1st. PLUS, I'm going to visit Zexi on the 28th. That makes 4 days in a row of chillin' with IMSA peeps.
I'm really hoping to lock in plans for this 6-day camping road trip of pure awesomeness on July 20th-25th. It goes around the rim of Illinois. I made a google map of it: click here to see it.
I'm hungry. Maybe I'll boil some of those pot stickers =]
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
So I've divided my poison ivy into 8 regions. 4 are on my right leg, 3 are on my left leg, and one is on my right arm. And now I think I'm developing a ninth spot to the right of my belly button. Isn't two weeks enough time for it to stop spreading? Son of a bitch!
I'm going to look for what I can do about this shit online. Hopefully I can get some help.
I'm going to look for what I can do about this shit online. Hopefully I can get some help.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
What I've done this summer.
Hmm...Well there was my picnic the day after graduation. I saw 7 IMSA friends that day, and the count has just increased from there (to 10...which isn't that much more). So far I've seen Macy, Zexi, Ashwin, Chris, Erika, Aya, Kirk, Connor, Janelle, and Dean (I thought there was another one too...ah well). Macy stayed at my house for the entire first week of summer, which is awesome, because he lives the farthest away out of all my close friends. I went to Chinatown with Aya and Macy, I went to visit Ashwin and Zexi once with Macy (completing the quad a second time!), I saw Ashwin another time with Macy, I went go-karting and mini golfing with Macy and Dean, I went to Lincoln Park Zoo with Aya, Tyler, Colin, and the Dopps, and I went to Kirk's graduation picnic and saw Connor there. Oh, and I slept over at Janelle's house in the middle of nowhere (don't worry, no hanky-panky XD). And I went to PrairieFest with Tyler once and saw Rachel, my friend from freshman year. I hope I can chill with her more this summer. And Maggie came home! She was a good friend all the way back in 7th grade. So we walked around and stuff. I was happy to see her.
So that pretty much sums up everything cool that I've done. I've visited Tyler at work once too...no, twice. I've got a receipt from Meijer up on my bulletin board that reads, "Your fast and friendly checkout was provided by TYLER." haha
I'm off to go see Martin at his party today. That'll be the next person to add to my count.
So that pretty much sums up everything cool that I've done. I've visited Tyler at work once too...no, twice. I've got a receipt from Meijer up on my bulletin board that reads, "Your fast and friendly checkout was provided by TYLER." haha
I'm off to go see Martin at his party today. That'll be the next person to add to my count.
Fuck the plague--poison ivy is killing me, and it's spreading everywhere. A week ago, it was just at the bottom of my right shin, near my ankle. Now it reaches from my right knee to where it started, and it's on my left leg, too, in pretty much the same region. And it's on my right arm, AND it's on my left ear. And there's one more spot- a particularly annoying location in the crotchal region...not going any further.
IMSA has taught me a lot of things that it didn't intend to in the first place. First of all, I'm glad that I've finally gotten the FUCK out of there. Problem-based learning DOES work, but IMSA, for the most part, doesn't actually advocate it. What it tends to advocate is leaving you to do the problems without fucking telling you remotely how to even start going in the right direction. We can't SOLVE the problems if we don't have any background, you dumbass teachers. We actually have to have some information in order to figure them out! Oh, and one of the problems shouldn't be "figure out what the homework is YOURSELF because I'M NOT GOING TO CLEARLY STATE WHAT IT IS AND WHEN IT'S DUE!" THAT is not what they mean by "PROBLEM." They meant "problem" as in "MATH problem," not "problem" as in a conflict you go through in your life, like not knowing when to fucking turn in your final paper! THAT does not encourage learning. That encourages stress!
The lifestyle was ridiculous. The days of most students can be broken down into five categories: going to school, after-school activities, homework, socializing, and sleeping. Going to school pretty much takes up the first part of every day, so let's forget about that one when determining how to organize one's day, because that's a given.
So, most people's days go in one of the following ways:
1) The lifestyle IMSA seems to encourage: after-school activities, homework, sleeping, with limited socializing.
2) What most IMSA kids end up doing: after-school activities, socializing, homework, then limited sleeping
3) What I tended to do: Little or no after-school activities, socializing, homework, then time for sleeping
There was so much stress and homework that it seemed there was little time for anything other than homework. So if you wanted to sleep, you had to give up socializing, or vice versa.
Fuck that. Seriously.
I wanted to go hang out with people but they were always busy! I wanted to get to know people better but I couldn't.
Well, that was half of it. I wasn't proactive enough, and I regret it.
And I judged people. I found out at the end of the year that there were some really cool people I never really got to know. I thought they wouldn't be nice people but I was wrong. Oh well.
So now I know that I need to be more proactive in getting to meet new people and to get to know those whom I've met. And I know that I shouldn't assume things about people as much as I did. And I know that "problem-based learning" is largely an excuse for teachers to sit on their asses and watch kids learn things themselves without doing their jobs themselves. I've also learned that teachers who know a lot and are highly respected tend to not really give a shit about what grades they give to the kids. Teachers whom you think are the coolest as people might be really bad at teaching--there are some which are really awesome people but are crappy teachers. Yeah, there's integration by parts and oxidation-reduction reactions and eukaryotic cells--but I think that stuff is more important to learn than all that science and math stuff.
IMSA has taught me a lot of things that it didn't intend to in the first place. First of all, I'm glad that I've finally gotten the FUCK out of there. Problem-based learning DOES work, but IMSA, for the most part, doesn't actually advocate it. What it tends to advocate is leaving you to do the problems without fucking telling you remotely how to even start going in the right direction. We can't SOLVE the problems if we don't have any background, you dumbass teachers. We actually have to have some information in order to figure them out! Oh, and one of the problems shouldn't be "figure out what the homework is YOURSELF because I'M NOT GOING TO CLEARLY STATE WHAT IT IS AND WHEN IT'S DUE!" THAT is not what they mean by "PROBLEM." They meant "problem" as in "MATH problem," not "problem" as in a conflict you go through in your life, like not knowing when to fucking turn in your final paper! THAT does not encourage learning. That encourages stress!
The lifestyle was ridiculous. The days of most students can be broken down into five categories: going to school, after-school activities, homework, socializing, and sleeping. Going to school pretty much takes up the first part of every day, so let's forget about that one when determining how to organize one's day, because that's a given.
So, most people's days go in one of the following ways:
1) The lifestyle IMSA seems to encourage: after-school activities, homework, sleeping, with limited socializing.
2) What most IMSA kids end up doing: after-school activities, socializing, homework, then limited sleeping
3) What I tended to do: Little or no after-school activities, socializing, homework, then time for sleeping
There was so much stress and homework that it seemed there was little time for anything other than homework. So if you wanted to sleep, you had to give up socializing, or vice versa.
Fuck that. Seriously.
I wanted to go hang out with people but they were always busy! I wanted to get to know people better but I couldn't.
Well, that was half of it. I wasn't proactive enough, and I regret it.
And I judged people. I found out at the end of the year that there were some really cool people I never really got to know. I thought they wouldn't be nice people but I was wrong. Oh well.
So now I know that I need to be more proactive in getting to meet new people and to get to know those whom I've met. And I know that I shouldn't assume things about people as much as I did. And I know that "problem-based learning" is largely an excuse for teachers to sit on their asses and watch kids learn things themselves without doing their jobs themselves. I've also learned that teachers who know a lot and are highly respected tend to not really give a shit about what grades they give to the kids. Teachers whom you think are the coolest as people might be really bad at teaching--there are some which are really awesome people but are crappy teachers. Yeah, there's integration by parts and oxidation-reduction reactions and eukaryotic cells--but I think that stuff is more important to learn than all that science and math stuff.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
More catching up
May 27, 2008:
Holy shit. Last week. I have a final exam tomorrow (my only one). All of this means I had better be either studying hardcore or livin' it up, and not writing in some dumb journal right now (sorry). I'll write later, I promise.
Holy shit. Last week. I have a final exam tomorrow (my only one). All of this means I had better be either studying hardcore or livin' it up, and not writing in some dumb journal right now (sorry). I'll write later, I promise.
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