<p>I loved the Book Thief as well :)</p>
<p>And I’m guessing Cabaret will only be on in the UK, but I’ll have to have a look.</p>
<p>** SPOILER ALERT- talks about the ending** I was thinking The Book Thief, too. I love that book, but I probably wouldn’t have ever read it had it not been required summer reading for my English class the summer going into 9th grade.
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I cried when Rudy died, he was my favorite character. I did cry when other characters died, though, but not as much. Great book.</p>
<p>The whole last few chapters/the ending is really the best part, as well as the saddest, which is what makes it awesome. But there`s also a lot of other great books I like. </p>
<p>Two hour early dismissal from school + Friday= Happy me</p>
<p>4 hours sleep last night + left over emotions + too much work = tired me</p>
<p>Yeah, well I feel like I should`ve put a * besides the happy part…SO much work to do over the weekend. I literally slept like 45 minutes on Wednesday/Thursday night.morning, so going t bed at 10:00 was definitely good.</p>
<p>Excuse me while I rant…</p>
<p>I<code>m so mad, because I</code>m probably going to end up with a B in math and in AP W. History. First off, getting a B in math is actually good for me, but I feel I can definitely get an A. But the teacher! And yes, it truly is her fault, because the majority of other people<code>s grades are even worse than my 91. But she always makes the students feel stupid by rolling her eyes when we ask a question and stuff like that. And when we take tests, she</code>s always like, “You should be about finished by now…” when I`m not even half-through. And today we took a test that I got an F on. I know WHY I got such a bad grade. (Besides the fact I obviously got the questions wrong):
1) Because half-way through my test, I realized we only had about 5 minutes left and I still had to do 6 problems.
2) I didn`t even get to finish the last couple.</p>
<p>She took it up and won<code>t let kids come during lunch to finish, and I</code>m a somewhat slow, but steady worker in math, because it<code>s not my best subject, so I usually work somewhat slower to get a good grade. I know th material, but the teacher makes it impossible to do well on tests when saying every 5 minutes, “You should be about finished” and when I don</code>t even have the time to finish, let alone enough time to go through each problem to see if I did it right!</p>
<p>So now history. Ah, history. My one class where I have ALWAYS gotten an A, every since I was 5. MY own personal self-satisfaction is that I always should and will get an A. Right? Wrong. 90.3, and SO mad. 94<code>s the lowest A on our grading scale. What all my friends keep saying is that a B is good, considering it</code>s an AP. Well, true, for some, but for me, I don<code>t care how hard the class is, no excuse for not having an A. And other kids have A</code>s, so it<code>s obviously not impossible. Plus, I want an A so that extra point to my GPA will make a difference, not just make it look the same (B+1 will be an A. A+1=…better GPA). So I</code>m so mad right now, and our grading period ends in the middle of two weeks from now. I<code>m just not used to it. Went from never studying to studying, plus the tests have stuff that</code>s not even in our notes. </p>
<p>So that<code>s my rant. Thank you. Any comments are welcome. Especially advice for math, because I always get stuck with the bad teachers. And class. The students in my math class? Oh so horrible. Reminds me of what detention would be like. Today, students were (as usual) talking, and the teacher just sat there, because she wouldn</code>t hand out the test because people were talking, understandable. And I needed every minute I could get, so I said, “Sshh” to the kid beside me. So the girl behind me…who is really truly a jerk, said, “Ssh? Why do you say that? What did you say that for?” As I if I personally offended her. And I wasn<code>t even talking to her! She even said it in that kind of tone like, “oh-no-you-didn</code>t”…so I said, “Mrs____ won<code>t hand out the test until we</code>re quiet”.</p>
<p>“I don`t care.”
Well I DO care. Only I didn`t say that.</p>
<p>A long rest of the semester still lies ahead. </p>
<p>OK, official end of rank.</p>
<p>So, who’s ready for the PSAT? Here it’s required for all sophomores to take it; I would’ve taken it regardless however.</p>
<p>Taking the 17th…need to study. But at the same time, need to study for my classes. Hopefully I<code>ll do well. Yeah, here I thinks it</code>s required as well…they handed us those little prep books and said, “Taking it the 17th.”</p>
<p>OK then.</p>
<p>@CE527M- We could be twins. I basically have the same rant about my math class</p>
<p>It<code>s ridiculous that I can</code>t really do anything about it. The other day she threatened to give us more homework for talking.</p>
<p><em>Me, raise my hand</em>: The handbook states homework can`t be given as a punishment."
Teacher, "Im not giving it as a punishment. Im giving it because you all won`t stop talking."</p>
<p>WHAT THE HECK??? That is a punishment. No big deal about that, but the way she says it, and the look on her face is like I<code>m stupid. I</code>m the smartest one in there (It`s with a whole bunch of idiots, no joke).
SIGH I best if I asked her for more time to take tests, shed say I should be able to finish. She doesnt get that some people work slower because they aren`t that great at it, but can still do well*.</p>
<p>*They can do well if given the chance.</p>
<p>Aye, aye, aye. We had a substitute yesterday (And I understood math yesterday. What a novel concept.) and she said this teacher has two more years and then she`ll retire. A lot of good that does.</p>
<p>Okay, I’m honestly not trying to be rude here, but I’ll honestly say I don’t think you have a reason to be mad at her for somethings.</p>
<p>About not getting enough time to finish the test, you can’t reasonably expect the teacher to give you more time just because you’re a slow worker. It’s really unfortunate, but for a 14/15/16 year old you should know that people can’t just adjust their criteria to “give you a chance”. Maybe it’s because her tests are too hard, but that’s something you need to talk to your teacher about. Talk to her about not saying anything during the tests because it distracts you. You need to communicate.</p>
<p>Secondly, it seems pretty…pretentious, for lack of a better word…for you to point out something as obscure as “homework should not be given as a punishment” in the student handbook. I mean, you’re not wrong for doing so, but just keep in mind how that makes you look. You might not care, really, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Just pointing it out.</p>
<p>Ha, I deserved that. Like I said, I was just venting, so I<code>m not really that…self-centered/pretentious but I</code>ll clear a few things up.</p>
<p>I should<code>ve been more clear though, when I was writing my original post: No, I don</code>t think I should deserve “special treatment” or whatever you<code>d like to call it…more time, etc. Actually, normally I finish before the end of class (we start tests half-way through and get the rest of the class to finish) and there are others who are usually still working. Today, I was among I</code>d say 30-40% of the class who didn<code>t finish. Maybe even 50%, but I</code>ll be extremely objective and give it the lesser amount. So I<code>m not really in the minority of those not finishing. And also, I said “somewhat slower”. Definitely not the slowest, and didn</code>t mean slow, I just meant slower than normal, because I<code>m a fast worker usually. Should</code>ve been more clear. And just for the record, this is NOT any sort of honors math class…very dumb kids in here, if I may be blunt. You<code>d have to experience the teacher to know what I mean, but I</code>ve got one of the highest grades, and mostly because the teachers is such a bad one. It<code>s still my fault, can</code>t blame my teacher, but when everyone is doing poorly, there must be something going on that<code>s other than me. And communication…she</code>s, i guess over-confident. Thinks she<code>s a great teacher. When people actually ask her questions about the homework, what we</code>re learning, she doesn`t even answer the question correctly.
And, yes, I know about me saying the homework thing was definitely pretentious. I was giving a smart a** answer, because, in all honesty, I was fed up with the class at that point. And I even said it in somewhat of a joking tone. And in all honesty, Im still the best kid in there, and she knows it. I rarely talk in that class, unless Im answering the question. She only know the "bad" kids names that she always has to tell to be quiet, and she doesnt know my name, so thats a good sign. So while on the internet it sounds quite pretentious, the way I portrayed it wasn`t really. I just had flipped through the handbook once and saw that, and had always wanted to say it, and it seemed like the perfect time to say it. </p>
<p>So maybe I don<code>t have a right to complain completely, but I just wanted to clear that up. I think I made it sound like I was a slow worker and I was the only one who didn</code>t finish. NOT true. Normally, I do. All the time, there are people who don<code>t. Just wanted to clear that up. Personally, I think I should be able to expect as much time as I need, because as a non-honors, non-anything class, teachers have always given kids as much time as they needed to take tests. The ONLY class I</code>ve ever had where we had timed tests is my AP class. And all I needed was about 5 more minutes. And we had a two hour early dismissal, so classes were shortened. So she (IMHO) should<code>ve given a little more time. But people have the right to their own opinion, and that</code>s fine.</p>
<p>And also, just thought I might add, so you all don<code>t think I</code>m really like this in real life, I RARELY say ANYTHING bad about a teacher. I mean, you know how much kids complain, especially if they<code>re the ones who are at fault, so they have to hate the teacher. There</code>s a lot of kids who<code>ve complained about teachers I have/had and I have loved those teachers and feel the teachers were good teachers, even if they gave me a bad grade or whatever. Originally, I thought this teacher was OK, even tough others didn</code>t like her. But this time, I have to agree with the other kids. And I have met NO ONE who likes this teacher. </p>
<p>Just putting that out there, so you all don<code>t think I dislike this teacher because I</code>m not doing well in the class.</p>
<p>I disagree with th second part of woahitzmes statement. I hate injustice and abuse of power. If your school doesn’t allow homework for punishment, then the teacher had no right to give it. </p>
<p>something similar happened to me today. We had a test in Euro. Today is the day of our schools weekly news broadcast. The teacher told us to vote about whether we’d want to watch of and lose 15 minutes off of testing time or not watch it. I voted against watching it. However at least 70 percent of the class wanted to watch it. The teacher was like “the majority voted against it.” That was really upsetting because even though I didn’t want to watch it the majority of the class did, and she just disregarded the vote that she asked for (I think she was expecting everyone to vote against)…sorry about th rant</p>
<p>That<code>s OK. Fridays are supposed to be good days, but I guess they became messed up for some of us. I had like 3-4 rants (long ones) going on. That</code>s totally unfair. And good of you for being fair and saying that was unfair even though you voted against it.</p>
<p>Ha, speaking of news broadcasts, at my school, the TV Productions class puts on the announcements, so we can watch it, and today, they had a Karaoke video, where they went around and had people lip-sync “Party in the USA”. Funniest thing ever.</p>
<p>Haha our schools done that before with other songs</p>
<p>Yeah they normally do a karaoke every Friday. And the guys especially like to ham it up. Call Me Maybe…wow.</p>
<p>just got back from pep rally! pretty fun. my friend played the cymbals in the marching band and spent the rest of the rally parading around the bleachers crashing them together. lol</p>
<p>Surprisingly, a ton of AP homework that I have due Monday that I<code>m doing isn</code>t as bad as I thought it would be…of course, I just started. By tomorrow evening, it<code>ll be crunch time and I</code>ll be a mess.</p>
<p>I’m in the middle of an essay about the description in the beginning of Of Mice and Men. It is very dull (not the book, I enjoyed reading it) and also my weakest thing. Basically I can’t do close analysis of text, and I’m not particularly good at literature as a whole.
Are there any other English haters out there?</p>