Yes, it's not really tomorrow, is it? I said I would write the rest of it tomorrow, but it's been done gone a week. And it's about to be do go another one. I found out that I am indeed exempt from all my exams except for photography. Photography is because Mr Hubbard is ridiculous. He expects that you're already an expert at what he's just taught you, and he expects that you can work with the speed of lightning. He vaguely explains five assignments and says they're due whenever, but there's not enough time to do them because when we're starting to make a dent there are all of a sudden three or four more projects. On top of that, there's the special "Secret Project", which is top secret until information of it leaks out somehow and we all have to up the pace even more to get all this crap done by the end of the school year. I think I got it all finished, but really I can't be sure. I got a B third quarter (it's a semester class), so I don't have any hope for exemption. I heard the exam is another project, and it takes about fifteen minutes, and the rest of the time you just sit around. I'll bring a good book.
-In two short hours I'm leaving to go to the band room. The current time is 0047. We're assembling for the trip to Washington, DC to march in the National Memorial Day Parade on Monday. Ah, what fun! Ah, what good times! Why in the hell did I ever sign up for this trip? I'm going to be in a cramped bus with probably a minimalist approach to air conditioning, and I'll be unable to stand up for upwards of nine hours at a time. On Monday at about noon we all get to march for what according to Mr Canter is a mile, but according to Matt (who has Google Earth) 1.3 miles. If you've never marched in a parade before, I don't know if I can describe the pain that comes with roll-stepping unceasingly on hard pavement. It comes in your calf muscles, like hot irons left to glow red inside your leg. Then it spreads, into your shins. Then you're walking through a thousand-degree fire for the rest of the parade, everything below your knees left to smolder. I believe I've mentioned how much I hate it when it's hot outside, and down in the South it's supposed to be a high of 84°. Temperatures are measured with the thermometer in the shade. We will be in the hot sun in the middle of a street with long-sleeve thick-cloth uniforms and Triple-Itch™ Brand long black pants.
-It's summer now. We had a nice delay with that two-week rainstorm system, but it's summer now. When it's cold outside you can layer yourself against it. When it's hot there are no air-conditioned clothes. If you're outside there's no escape. I put on the least I can find--shorts, T-shirt--but I still get hot and sweaty and my clothes stick to me and I'm miserable. I need to get out of here. Yes, it's true: St Paul has a forecast high of 91°. But that's not usual. The next day, the high is a lot lower, and then there's a lightning storm predicted. Moreover, Minnesota has lakes. In Finneytown there are only swimming pools. I don't much care for swimming pools. They are full of chlorine and the urine of little kids and they are small and rectangular and they have absurd sets of regimented rules and nothing to offer once you get in except a chance to submerge yourself. The submersion is the only benefit. A few days ago I took a drysuit class in the indoor pool at the Y, and while I was drifting around underneath the surface in the process of increasing the indeliblity of the acrid chlorine smell I realized what swimming in a pool is like: it's like being able to fly, but only while confined in a small, featureless room.
-But I have to take what I can get. And, this year Crowduck isn't until August. Plus, I have to do all this college crap this summer. The time span between now and next December is shrinking at an extremely worrying speed. I don't know how anyone manages to pick out one single college before the deadline. I'm going to have to concentrate and take it one step at a time. Meanwhile I won't be able to enjoy the summer with no responsibilities like I like to do. No matter what I'm doing, I'll always have that nagging voice at the back of my head: "You should be working on college stuff." And what's more is the voice will always be correct, until I narrow the field down to ten candidates. It seems impossible. How do I eliminate 2990 colleges across the entire country NAY the entire country PLUS Canada (I'm looking into the Canuck factor)? What could be the possible problem with all of them? That they're in the South? That's one. But beyond that, how am I qualified to make a decision on their credentials when here I am, some dumb junior-going-on-senior, knowing so little about this higher education stuff? But I have no choice. I have to do it.
-Well, with that, I'm going to go take care of a few things before we leave to the band room.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Month and some
What is there to say when someone dies? Everyone stops their life because someone else's life stopped. Very often, this is good. It helps to step back from where you've been and think about it: to pull off the road and look back from where you and everyone else came. On April 4th, a sophomore named Chevis Jackson was at home in the Galbraith Pointe family of condominiums, and some guys came over and got in a fight with him and shot him. He died. I found out about it the next day in school. That day, we were silent. In first bell nobody did anything: we all sat and stared at the wall, or at our desks. I knew Chevis from photography, which was second bell. He was the guy who always turned his iPod up way too loud and sang with it even louder. That day in second bell, people were crying, and some of them were guys. Some people were hugging each other and people were just losing it. Throughout the rest of the day we learned to talk again, but it was a day with a shadow over it.
I am glad that I'm going to be going to college someplace far away from Finneytown. Earlier this year, another student from my school, Derwin Murphy, was walking home from Kroger when (I think this is correct) he got mugged and shot in the leg. He survived, but it's clear that we're not living in a safe place when two students from my school have gotten shot within one year. And it doesn't speak very favorably to society in general. What kind of species are we that we kill our own when they've done nothing to merit it and can do nothing to defend themselves? Animals kill to stay alive, or (in pack systems) to avenge treachery. Humans kill for fun or out of rage. Sometimes I don't feel very proud to be a human.
Recently AP tests were the story of the day, every day, for several weeks. I only had AP history, so I got off fairly light, but next year I have five nationally-administered AP exams. History is a very hard one. It's not solid fact that you can arrive at by logic, like calculus, but there again it's not a field composed of opinions like psychology is, so you can't just BS your way through the test. We had four after-school study sessions, and I went to the last two, because (1) I needed to study and (2) there was pizza. The test was on May 5th, in the library. It was hard. There are 80 multiple choice questions, and Mr Volz has advocated leaving about ten of them blank, because the test is created so that no one can get all the answers. The knowledge is just too obscure. The good news is that under Mr Volz's excellent coaching, Finneytown is well above the national average for how many pass the test; the average is about half, though I don't recall our figure. I think I did quite well on it. I don't know if hoping for a 5 (highest) is too ambitious, but a 4 is well within expectations.
-Hm, let me browse my journal to see what else has happened recently.
-Oh yes: the band went to State contest. Of note is that just like the Marching Band State Contest, this was in Columbus, so we had an invigorating two-and-a-half hour drive in buses that produced an incessant 80 or 90 decibels, without even counting the 40 or 50 kids jammed on each one and contributing an extra 20 or so to the average. I hate buses. I also hate staying in large crowds or crowded places for a long time. Whenever I do, the words of Agent Smith come back to me:
"I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it."
We got in the building, which was the colossal Gahanna Lincoln High School. I'm going to be frankly honest here: we weren't ready to be at State competition. But we got into some sort of groove, or at least kind of felt like we did, when we were in the warm-up hall (a gym). Then we got on stage and did what we could.
-Fun fact: our State concert program was 27 minutes long, and was followed by the sight reading thing, which was an additional, like, six. The sight reading judge was weird. He was a last-minute replacement and he reminded me of a priest. He said all these vague emotional things like "So just make that note come up and... hold the next note's hand." He talked at us for about ten minutes, and then we left that room too.
-Back in the rooms where we left all our cases, Mr Canter broke from tradition and told us not that our performance was totally perfect, but that he heard some intonation problems where he was. He did think our sight reading was the best we had ever done, but he also said that with the way Father Bandjudge was talking and all the esoteric stuff he was criticizing, he expected a III from him. Anyhow we went back to the cafeteria. We waited, and then we got our rating. It was an overall III. An overall III. Like I said, we weren't ready to be at State competition.
-Now, we are a resilient band. We got over it pretty quickly, though I think Mr Canter took a lot longer. We were having fun on the ride home. (By "we" I mean everyone else, because I hated it on the bus, for two and a half hours.) Then back in Finneytown Mr Canter let off a lot of steam by yelling at people for being rowdy on the buses, and then we went to our respective homes.
I have other stuff to write, but it's coming up on three o'clock, so I'm going to go to bed and tell you about it tomorrow.
I am glad that I'm going to be going to college someplace far away from Finneytown. Earlier this year, another student from my school, Derwin Murphy, was walking home from Kroger when (I think this is correct) he got mugged and shot in the leg. He survived, but it's clear that we're not living in a safe place when two students from my school have gotten shot within one year. And it doesn't speak very favorably to society in general. What kind of species are we that we kill our own when they've done nothing to merit it and can do nothing to defend themselves? Animals kill to stay alive, or (in pack systems) to avenge treachery. Humans kill for fun or out of rage. Sometimes I don't feel very proud to be a human.
Recently AP tests were the story of the day, every day, for several weeks. I only had AP history, so I got off fairly light, but next year I have five nationally-administered AP exams. History is a very hard one. It's not solid fact that you can arrive at by logic, like calculus, but there again it's not a field composed of opinions like psychology is, so you can't just BS your way through the test. We had four after-school study sessions, and I went to the last two, because (1) I needed to study and (2) there was pizza. The test was on May 5th, in the library. It was hard. There are 80 multiple choice questions, and Mr Volz has advocated leaving about ten of them blank, because the test is created so that no one can get all the answers. The knowledge is just too obscure. The good news is that under Mr Volz's excellent coaching, Finneytown is well above the national average for how many pass the test; the average is about half, though I don't recall our figure. I think I did quite well on it. I don't know if hoping for a 5 (highest) is too ambitious, but a 4 is well within expectations.
-Hm, let me browse my journal to see what else has happened recently.
-Oh yes: the band went to State contest. Of note is that just like the Marching Band State Contest, this was in Columbus, so we had an invigorating two-and-a-half hour drive in buses that produced an incessant 80 or 90 decibels, without even counting the 40 or 50 kids jammed on each one and contributing an extra 20 or so to the average. I hate buses. I also hate staying in large crowds or crowded places for a long time. Whenever I do, the words of Agent Smith come back to me:
"I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it."
We got in the building, which was the colossal Gahanna Lincoln High School. I'm going to be frankly honest here: we weren't ready to be at State competition. But we got into some sort of groove, or at least kind of felt like we did, when we were in the warm-up hall (a gym). Then we got on stage and did what we could.
-Fun fact: our State concert program was 27 minutes long, and was followed by the sight reading thing, which was an additional, like, six. The sight reading judge was weird. He was a last-minute replacement and he reminded me of a priest. He said all these vague emotional things like "So just make that note come up and... hold the next note's hand." He talked at us for about ten minutes, and then we left that room too.
-Back in the rooms where we left all our cases, Mr Canter broke from tradition and told us not that our performance was totally perfect, but that he heard some intonation problems where he was. He did think our sight reading was the best we had ever done, but he also said that with the way Father Bandjudge was talking and all the esoteric stuff he was criticizing, he expected a III from him. Anyhow we went back to the cafeteria. We waited, and then we got our rating. It was an overall III. An overall III. Like I said, we weren't ready to be at State competition.
-Now, we are a resilient band. We got over it pretty quickly, though I think Mr Canter took a lot longer. We were having fun on the ride home. (By "we" I mean everyone else, because I hated it on the bus, for two and a half hours.) Then back in Finneytown Mr Canter let off a lot of steam by yelling at people for being rowdy on the buses, and then we went to our respective homes.
I have other stuff to write, but it's coming up on three o'clock, so I'm going to go to bed and tell you about it tomorrow.
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