I didn't choose the IB Life. The IB Life Chose Me.

I haven't written in awhile. Sorry, but I didn't choose the IB Life. The IB Life chose me. Anyway, second year began with just as much stress as last year ended. For some reason, our teachers think it's better to put all our deadlines at the same time. Don't know why.

The perks of being a second year are numerous. Being half-way done is the obvious one. Also, we get to watch the innocent first years and laugh maniacally. I was listening to one girl talking about TOK, and how it was cool that they sat around and talked about the nature of truth. I found this hilarious for some bizarre reason. But that's the second year mentality. Really, anything is funny in the IB Life, because there comes a point where you'll laugh at anything just to relieve the stress. I also found myself in the position of having to help another first year kid pick out his extended essay topic, and I got all nostalgic.

I have so many projects to get done, books to read, college applications to complete, papers to write, tests to study for that I'm feeling a bit robotic. I'm being perfectly serious when I say that I actually need to miss school to get my homework done. That's the irony of it. Really, I can't focus in my classes because I'm distracted by my nauseating amount of work. I get home, and I'm exhausted from school and my job and CAS and from being so stressed out. Then I don't get homework done. IB is so strenuous that I now think of being at school as a waste of time when I could be working on IB.

Let's see, what's my to-do list look like? Well, I have a biology test tomorrow, a calculus test on wednesday, homecoming skits on thursday, homecoming game on friday, a math IA to put actual math in by friday, a history IA topic to pick, a Model U.N. paper to write along with a resolution, college applications including getting recommendations and writing multiple essays in time to get feedback by November 1, reading some books of literary note that I want on my college resume, my final EE for October 15, my final world literature essay October 16, a pseudoscience fair on October 22, a history IA due about that time, a book drive/fundraiser to organize, CAS, my dog-walking job, and starting Mock Trial up. Throw in a bunch of history readings, math homework assignments, a couple of essays, some unforeseen catastrophe and that sums up my life right now. The IB Life, that is. I don't really have a life at this moment.

"Evaluate to what extent has IB driven you mad? Discuss the ways of knowing." Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.

The Guide to Acceptable Situations to Swear for the IB Student.

In general, I'm against the casual use of profanity. To put it in my venerable mother's words, "it is a sign of a weak vocabulary." But there are some instances of profanity I do condone. I bring to you The Guide to Acceptable Situations to Swear for the IB Student.

Today I learned I got a 97% on my most recent Math test. And just when I was seriously wondering if Math Studies might be a less suicidal route. I saw the 62/64 on the test, and inside I was like

Totally killing a test is completely worthy of a good curse. Let your feeling out!

We play Jeopardy review games in history, and I was my team's choice for Final Jeopardy. The teacher read out the question, and everyone stood there stunned. Everyone but me. I quickly scribbled down the answer, gave it to the teacher, who gave me a small nod of approval when he read my answer. I did a little dance as I went to sit back down in my seat. When he read out the answer (Treaty of Greenville) it took all my self-restraint to not say, "Damn straight it's the Treaty of Greenville!" Why shouldn't I luxuriate in a little swearing, I just won my team 5 extra credit points on the unit test.

Then there are the ridiculous questions on tests where you just have to widen your eyes and throw up your hands in defeat. I think of these questions as "What the hell?" questions, because that is the first thought in my head when I see them. Completely acceptable.

Not that high schoolers need an excuse to swear, but at least these are appropriate instances for inappropriate language.

Adventures in Doodling

So this semester I started doodling. It started with just a storm of lines in an abstract cloud, but then I started drawing other things, and discovered I can draw vaguely recognizable things. Then I couldn't resist drawing this on a Biology test:

I know it's Glycocidic, but I can't spell to save my life

Sadly, my teacher didn't think it merited extra credit. Then in history when we were talking about Manifest Destiny and all that lovely jazz, I was reminded of a famous line from the book that basically is the jazz era, The Great Gatsby:

Gadsden Purchase of 1853

We had a substitute in TOK, and we had to do this reason packet, which included a logic puzzle. Unable to answer any of the questions on the page, I just filled in the only one I knew:

My biology teacher decided to change the arrangements of the desks into this bizarre formation. It was quite disturbing to walk in and see previously logically aligned desks in this strange, slanted triangle thing. I immediately turned to a friend in horror and said:

IB Oregon Trail

Studying Manifest Destiny in IB history. Oh, side note: best named treaty EVER is the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which settled the Mexican War. Obviously it's time to play some Oregon Trail (My characters are Batman, Ryan Gosling, RuPaul, Karl Marx, and Catherine the Great. I couldn't think of any good names).

I have always been a rather unpopular nerd, so of course at my first elementary school the popular kids had a monopoly on the Oregon Trail Game. The one time I got to play it they gave me bad directions to get me off faster. Yeah... true story.

But the Oregon Trail is fantastic. For a while there I thought I had somehow been lucky enough to have no mishaps, but then everything went wrong. Catherine the Great died of Cholera (not, as rumor has it, having sex with a horse. Weird AP Euro facts are always relevant). RuPaul did, too. Karl Marx was killed in a random buffalo stampede. Batman died from typhoid, but showed later covered in mud. Apparently he wasn't dead yet in true Monty Python Style. But he died in an unfortunate buffalo stampede (just the darndest thing). Of course thieves kept stealing my oxen and stuff, but I was a banker so I could buy more supplies. Somehow my party suffered from a multitude of diseases, some of which make me wonder what my characters were doing to get so sick...

BUT RYAN GOSLING MADE IT TO OREGON!!!!! 

Nerd's Creed 3

I have played video games before. Just the usual stuff: Mario, Legend of Zelda, and Sonic. I have never been tempted to play the sort of games that have lots of violence and busty females. But I seriously WOULD play this game:

The first time I saw this commercial I couldn't stop laughing for about five minutes. This is just too awesome for words. As a history buff who just finished up the American Revolution unit in her IB history class, I consider this completely fantastic. You see how the Assassin Dude (Apparently his name is Connor) leaps through windows and is slicing through redcoats, that's me when I walk into an IB History test. The question may be "Analyze the reasons for the Anti-Federalists' opposition to ratifying the Constitution," and I'll be writing something eloquent like "As staunch believers in individual and states' rights, the Anti-Federalists vehemently opposed ratification of the Constitution based in their fear of a continuation of tyrannical governmental oppression similar to that of King George III's reign." But inside, I'm like "GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH!!!!!" and I'm cutting down British troops like a total boss. After I finish a grueling multiple-choice part, write a phenomenally sophisticated essay, and turn it in, I sit back down and it's just like when George Washington gives the nod of approval to Assassin Dude. That's exactly what the test is like.

What I'm dying to know is if my teacher will give me extra credit for it, or if it could count for Enrichment (required extra credit). I'd probably have to write a paper on its historical inaccuracies, but nothing's perfect.

Constitution Showdown

Another reason to take IB History: Powdered wigs are involved and highly encouraged. Our U.S. history class had a mock constitutional convention, where we were paired up and assigned delegates to impersonate. I would take nothing less than the Father of the Constitution, James Madison of Virginia. Dressing in suitable clothing was a grade requirement, but instead of going with a cute pair of flats, an adorable dress, and a jean jacket, I showed up in full 18th century gear. So did my partner.

Left to right: Rufus King, James Madison #1, James Madison #2

The debate was dazzling. As Madison, we had to present the Virginia Plan (the idea for representation that was based on population, the foundation of the current House of Representatives). My parter is nothing short of an artistic genius (She can just sit down and doodle an amazing work involving a knight riding a rooster and it looks like an image from an illustrated manuscript from the middle ages), and she contrived a fantastic rendering of the Virginia Plan, in patriotic colors no less.

I was surprised with how much I disagreed with James Madison's opinions, but I defended them to the death throughout our debate. At one point, to back up my assertion that a Bill of Rights was a bad idea, because listing some rights would involve the omission of others, I stood up and said, "Well, in 200 years, people may be arguing over a woman's right to choose what she does with her body or if homosexuals should be allowed to marry, just because we didn't get around to explicitly mentioning those things in our Bill of Rights." Current events are just as useful two centuries ago as they are now.

Eat your heart out, history nerds. 

Mondays...

Since my high school took the idea that Latin is a dead language literally and killed the program, I have been taking IB Latin at 7:00 a.m. over glorified Skype from a teacher at another school. Of course technology will always have some shortcomings. The long-distance learning thing has stopped working 4 times. This means we go to school ridiculously early, only to find that we won't be able to have a real class. Seriously, why can't we keep our technology working? The Romans were the most technically advanced civilization for thousands of years. They built roads that still work today, they had aqueducts that provided water for entire cities, they built loads impressive ampitheaters like the Coliseum, they invented the freaking arch and concrete for goodness' sake! Surely as Latinists we should be able to equal their standards at least in the technology department. It's a little on the pathetic side that we can't keep a handle on our technology quite as well as the Romans could.

Our glorified Skype the Romans would be ashamed of

The lab is alive with the sound of music... Or it would be if my biology experiment had worked. We went out to the creek near our school and collected water samples to do experiments that involved messing around with bacteria. Of course my logical train of thought started with, "If singing is supposed to make plants grow, what about bacteria?" It makes perfect sense, so I walked into the lab today armed with my CD of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" to subject my bacteria to and observe population growth. First off, there were very few microscopes to go around (Public education is a real bummer), and I had to wait over an hour to get a base count of how much bacteria I had. It was all for nothing. I had NO bacteria whatsoever in my samples. At first I thought I had something, but it turned out to be some gunk on the microscope lens. At least it simplifies writing my lab report.

Science!

I had another complete and total fail during lunch. Today I had a thermos of hamburger meat and cheese mixed together. Like a total clutz, I accidentally spilled some on the table. Now, I have a friend religiously averse to anything that involves vomit. Even the word disturbs her. So she asked me to clean it up, because it resembled puke to her. I cleaned it up with a paper towel. Meaning only to tease her, I tossed the balled up paper towel at her, aiming over her head so it wouldn't hit her. The short story is I have terrible aim. It landed in the top of her shirt. Whoops.

My I-don't-know-how-many-greats grandfather

Then came history. This is only a minor fail, but I just find it incredibly ironic. The teacher asked who lead the Virginian opposition to the Stamp Act. Naturally, I thought the answer would be Thomas Jefferson, because he's a pretty good example of a revolutionary Virginian statesman. The answer was Patrick Henry. This is only ironic because I'm descended from Patrick Henry. You know, the guy who said, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" Somehow, deep down, I feel I didn't fulfill some familial obligation, like when you neglect to thank a distant relative for some nice but completely unnecessary birthday present you'll never ever use. But history was improved by the fact that we discussed British taxes on tea. Because, by some happy accident, I had decided to wear my teapot ring today. Always look on the bright side of life!

My revolutionary ring

Today was also Federalism today in the AP Government classes. I'm not in AP Gov, I got a 5 on the exam, thank you very much. But sophomores in AP Gov are assigned to bring in cakes for a grade when discussing federalism, because the classic models of federalism are cake-themed. This is one very good reason for being friends with sophomores (besides the fact that they're super chill in general). After school, they were walking down the halls with their cake projects. As a good friend and supportive upperclassman, I eased them of their burdens by begging off a couple of bites of their delicious projects. I am always willing to help my underclassmen friends like that. 

You know, just your usual Monday stuff.

Kicking Some Serious Colonial Butt

First U.S. History test today. History is one of my favorite and best subjects, and I actually enjoy taking the tests and writing the essays. It was a good test, and I wrote a simply fabulous essay on how religion shaped the New England and Chesapeake colonies until 1740.

But, as with every test, I always get one song stuck in my head. It plays OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER in my head. That's not a bad thing in this case, considering what song was going through my head.

Despite being amazingly historically inaccurate, Pocahontas is not entirely useless for IB History. I plan on getting out my VHS copy (Yes, I still have it. You have a problem with that?), popping it into the tv, and treating myself to the magic of Disney at some point when I'm not drowning under piles of homework.