I just finished day 1 of 3 community service days that I’m doing this weekend. I’m helping a church do Operation Christmas Child (it sends packages to kids in developing countries around Christmas time) and I really loved the atmosphere there! I even met a little deaf girl who was so excited to meet someone new that she didn’t even care that we could barely communicate. We worked together to figure out what each other was saying, and she taught me some ASL. It was so cool there. I didn’t know that my town was so diverse (or at least the surrounding area) until the kids of the church came for youth night at the end of the night. I stayed, and I was so happy that I did! There are so many cool and interesting people that go to this church in my town that I’ve never heard of!!! I can’t wait for tomorrow and Sunday!
@ak2018 the summer program. With my stats and the stuff they asked for I’m pretty sure I’ll be accepted to the class.
@snowfairy137 Due to the low participation number, all I need to do is be in the top 90% of the class. So basically, I need an A. The class will still be really competitive though.
Pray that I can finish all of my work this weekend because I literally didn’t do a single thing Thursday or Friday.
Just got my report card 
Not going to post marks, but I got an equivalent of Straight As in High School 
Seems like a lot of people here go to a school based on a quarter system. I would hate that. One test could make or break you and you would start fresh so often.
@kassh4 People obsessed with rank argue with teachers about every last percentage. (What’s the point of school if that’s all you do?). There’s also the issue of auto admission. If a student was only aiming for UT, they could take the easiest schedule possible and have admission preference over a stronger student. There’s more pressure with grades because schools know your specific averages. A 90 looks different from a 97+.
My school district also just moved to the quarter system. It’s less stressful because all of my grades individually count less. I could have a failing average for three weeks and still manage to get a B if the rest of my quarter went well. The only downside is if you mess up one quarter, you may have already flunked for the school year.
We used to be on a system of six 6-week grading periods. I absolutely hated it because everything felt rushed.
@Hamlon but the reason you can’t take the easiest schedule per se is if you’re aiming to get into the business or engineering program at UT which are very competetive the other parts of your application matter
@kassh4 At my school, we go by quarters, but only semester grades show up on your transcript, which are 80% of two quarters, and 20% of the midterm/final.
IK this because one of my dad’s friends sons was an auto-admit at UT but he applied for business which he didn’t get into so he’s an econ major at the school now
@Hamlon Lol kids already fight for every half point possible at my school
Does anyone else like looking up conspiracy theories on YouTube or learning more about them? I literally spent the last hour looking up multiple theories!
During my AP Chem class yesterday, I literally started an off-topic class discussion about the Mandela Effect with the whole Berenstein/Berenstain Bears theory. :)) The explanation that I personally think may be true is that time travelers from the future are travelling to the past (our present day) and accidentally changing little things in our present day (The Butterfly Effect). I’ve heard one more theory that says that it’s due to atom-splitting which is leading to little ripples in the space-time continuum, but I’m not so sure.
If anything, I always thought it was Berenstein Bears.
@ak2018 What are you guys covering in AP Chem right now? We just finished Big Idea 2 and have only 3 weeks for Big Idea 3 instead of the planned 6 weeks. :-S
@kassh4 We’re still on Big Idea 2. We have an assessment on Tuesday on the topic of Bonding. We’re kind of going pretty slow since we are in the middle of finishing a lab. We’ll be finished with Big Idea 2 by Winter Break.
Also, my teacher plans for us to do two graded AP Chem practice exams at the beginning and end of April, which I’m not looking forward to. After the exam, we’ll be working on a large final project/lab.
@ak2018 Are you guys going to finish all 6 Big Ideas by May? Last year they finished Big Idea 6 day before the test.
@kassh4 I actually just checked the syllabus and we are apparently suppose to be finished with all 6 Big Ideas by Spring Break, which is either the beginning or end of March, leaving the time after Spring Break and the exam to review. I don’t know if we’re actually doing this, but if we are, our class is going to move a lot faster once 2nd semester starts.
Another weird thing is that apparently we’re not going in order. Based on the syllabus, we already learned half of Big Idea 3 and after Big Idea 2, we’re moving on to Big Idea 6 until the end of January. After that, we’ll go through Big Ideas 4 and 5 and then finish the other half of Big Idea 3 around Spring Break. It seems like a really weird schedule, but since my teacher has been teaching AP Chemistry for 10 years, I’m pretty sure he knows what he’s doing.
@ak2018 That’s an interesting way of organizing the curriculum. My teacher has been teaching AP Chem for 28 yeahs; he’s ok but i feel like hes not preparing us for the AP test. We havent done any “real” free responses. His tests have free response but he makes them us and they seem a little too easy.
@ak2018 I love conspiracy theories!
Y’all I’ve said this like 600 times but AP Physics sucks. We’re supposed to be on unit 5 by now… we’re still on unit 2.
When you have no idea what you’re doing with your life