Champion

I may grumble about IB and complain that it's full of itself and pretentious and use less than savory words to describe it. I often says IB sucks. But I was very surprised to discover my abilities to defend the program tooth and nail to a non-IB student.

So I was talking about how I want to be Nicholas Kristof when I grow up (New York Times journalist who has championed human rights, most famously in Darfur and the plight of women in best-selling book and hit documentary Half the Sky), and this guy suggested I take Journalism as an elective. I explained that I was taking Chorus, and didn't have room for the class in my schedule. He then managed to characterize IB as a program people only took to look good for colleges, that it makes students sacrifice extra-curriculars for a bunch of bs, that you should just do what you're passionate about and colleges will pay attention to that. 

Well I responded with a passionate defense of a program that I have complained about at every opportunity. Wow. I may hate IB, but I'll be damned if I let anyone else attack it. Thankfully the argument resolved itself amicably, and that was that.

I guess I'm officially an IB student now. You know you're part of a group once you can bash it, but outsiders can't. IB is so messed up. But I get to say that, because that is the privilege I get for working my butt off in trigonometry.

So let me leave you people, no matter what group you're in or not in, however you identify yourself, with this music video from my drag queen role model RuPaul. We're all Champions.

P.S. You might want to fast forward the first 20 seconds, because whoever put this video on Youtube thought 20 seconds of a black screen was great entertainment. 

Math. Ha.

So we're delving into trigonometry. Yeah... Let's just say the real number line isn't wrapping around the circle. It's wrapping around my brain and strangling it. But there's hope yet. According to a New York Times article I read, infinity isn't real. It had interesting things to say, but they all went over my head. My talents lie in the humanities and science.

Why So Serious? MLA.

Finishing up my annotated bibliography for my extended essay on terrorism in The Dark Knight Trilogy. Rather than boring the internet with the details and intricacies of MLA citation, I will share with you things I have found in my research that should be in my paper, but never can be. This is the research I deserve, but not the one I need right now...

These are the birthday cakes for my twin and myself. We both love Batman, but I prefer chocolate cake with white icing, while my twin prefers the exact opposite. They're just ridiculously awesome, and we spent about half an hour making Dark Knight references relevant to cakes. 

"Some men just want to watch the candles burn."

"Yes, Mr. Wayne, it does come in chocolate."

"Why so delicious?"

"When your stomach is filled with deliciousness, then you have my permission to die."

"A birthday party is coming, Mr. Wayne."

"No one cared who I was until I put on this icing."

"The batter rises!"

IB Memes

I was burnt out at the end of last semester, and I expected to be ready to tackle the new one. Thankfully Thorin can put the truth of the matter so well.

Keep it secret. Keep it safe.

Back to school. Whoopie. But the new semester brings some new things. Apparently the school administration populated with Vogons decided to tangle us in even more red tape as far as security is concerned in response to the horrible tragedy in Connecticut.

I myself was thrown into mourning along with the world after the horrible events in Sandy Hook Elementary, feeling a deep ache of pain for those students who had just begun their journeys to knowledge. I remember when I was in Kindergarten. I was curious about everything and passionate about everything, and years later I still am curious and passionate about everything. It saddens me that those kids barely got the chance to begin exploring the world, because I have barely scratched the surface of life with all my years. Years they will never had. I also felt sorrow for the educators, because good teachers have made the difference for me. And now future generations have lost the helping hand of those teachers.

Back to my school. School already resembled prison, and now it really is starting to bear some startling similarities. I won't go into detail, but quite a few of these policies are senseless. It didn't help that our principal stated the reason for increased security as, "to keep not nice people out." Really? With the vast array of words contained within the English language, the head of authority chose the most patronizing combination monosyllabic words possible? Yes *insert fully justified teenage eye-roll here*. Though, allegedly, she got mixed up at the beginning of the sophomore class meeting and said, "The school is not safe." Awkward... I know I should be comforted, but really, I felt a little patronized.

Later that very day, we filled out a survey on the environment of the school. There were questions like how often you did drugs, if people discriminated against you, if you got beat up, if the teachers cared about you, etc. One question was along the lines of "Do you feel safe in your school?" After all this bureaucratic silliness I sure hope so. I kept filling in the "Never" option in answer to questions about whether or not I had been bullied, discriminated against, harassed, etc  in the last year. I began to feel I had missed out on the high school experience. Of course I was bullied and excluded to no end during elementary and middle school, because people treat you like dirt if you fail to conform. 

I had an epiphany while filling out the survey. I distinctly remember being degraded for my love of Star Wars in the 5th grade. I told this to a guy friend of mine nearby, and he scoffed at a love for Star Wars being a source of harassment. It was then I realized my love of the epic, galactic trilogy was taboo only for the reason of being a girl. Little girls who loved spiders, Shakespeare, and Star Wars weren't allowed. A bit girly for a storm trooper? If only they'd had those little surveys in elementary and middle school, because that's where my trial by fire occurred. Kids start tormenting others at an early age, and it's only because I found my niche at my high school that it stopped. 

Seriously, if you are feeling low because others won't accept you, don't hate yourself. I know it's Hell, but I came out of the fires, and burns heal with time. 

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Yeah, I haven't posted in awhile. This is the part of my year that gets insane. First there's studying for midterms, then there is taking the actual midterms, then there's attending therapy for my reaction to bombing the midterms (Just kidding. I didn't go to therapy), then I realize that I've done no Christmas shopping, then Christmas is here. Throw in my birthday and the midnight premiere of The Hobbit, and you've got yourself one roller coaster ride of a season.

Well, I just wanted to let everyone know I am still alive, or in zombie form and still blogging. Actually any IB Full Diploma student automatically becomes a zombie, so that's a bit redundant. Made it through my first semester of IB and on a glorious winter break. Of course it wouldn't be winter break without having an annotated bibliography due when I get back, but I'll probably find time to cram in some hard-core research somewhere.

2012 and the world didn't end. Next year brings my first IB exams and writing my Extended Essay, my IOP on White Noise, and many more surprises. So happy new year to all you out there on the internets and beyond. And so (to the tune of "Old Acquaintance Be Forgot"): to old assignments we forgot to do, and many more to come...

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!!!!! 

A Game of Thrones

There is one thing you should know about me: I AM A HARD-CORE FANTASY/ SCI-FI FANATIC. Harry Potter is my holy text and Lord of the Rings is my life. Reading His Dark Materials changed my life forever. Tamora Pierce's books were what got me through the rash of terrible Young Adult books ripped off that even worse book Twilight. Terry Pratchett is my inspiration and Neil Gaiman rules my world. Ender's Game and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy gladly hold prime positions on my book shelves, and if I talk about The Old Kingdom Trilogy  or The Hunger Games I'll die from excitement. Now that I've given you my credentials, I will move on to the subject of this post.

I finally cracked open A Game of Thrones. What can I begin to say about it? Mind = Blown! It was brilliant. Not only was the plot and world intricately created, the characters themselves were incredible. Each character is fascinating in their own way. And what was best with the characters was that the story was told from so many different viewpoints. At the beginning it kind've felt like Starks were Gryffindors and Lannisters were Slytherins, but the line between good and evil is blurred. The only way that could've been so successfully executed was from the multiple viewpoints.

Another thing I absolutely loved was the politics that governed the game of thrones. The politics were intricate and complex, which I found gratifying. Many times in fantasy books with revolutions and wars the politics that caused them are too simple. Remember, I'm a history nerd. I need something like the causes of WWI: MANIA (Militarism, Alliances, Nationalism, Imperialism, Assassination). A Game of Thrones created a realistic web that the characters could become ensnared in.

Now I'm dying to see the tv show, except I have a have a feeling the story will be overshadowed by the rampant adult material. Whatever. I can spend that time reading the rest of the books in the series. Goodness knows that I'll need the time to work my way through the next couple of books, each of which is about a bazillion pages long. Looking back I'm amazed that I found enough time to read this one while in IB mode.

Do you like Game of Thrones, too? Have you read a good book recently? Feel free to share in the comments.

IB Hogwarts

There are three very good reasons that the International Baccalaureate program is comparable to a Hogwarts education:

1. There are First Years and Second Years
2. Color is spelled Colour
3. The teachers expect us to do magic

1. I am a First Year. I found this incredibly amusing the first time anyone referred to my group as thus. I felt like I had somehow become a Hogwarts student.

2. All the words in my textbooks have the British spelling. "Colour" and "Analyse" and the like. That's because all our textbooks are written in England, because our books are International. I'm sure the textbooks at Hogwarts are spelling with an extra "U" in some words. Well, not extra for them. From their perspective, American textbooks lack a "U" in some words.

3. The teachers expect us to do magic. Really, I watch my math teacher working a problem and one moment she doesn't know the 50th term in an infinite series and the next, she has the answer. It's like she's waved a wand and Poof! It's 542. And they expect us to be able to have multiple tests in the same week, and CAS, and piles of homework, and have a life. They expect us to become world citizens and well-rounded individual at the same time. Also, I am in desperate need of a Time-Turner. I would take a leaf out of my heroine's book and use one, but I don't know what IB's policy is, and if I'm going to translate the Aeneid at 7 a.m. for this diploma, I'm not going to take any chances.