@acomfysofa I mean… Canada’s like a solid 2 hours away so its not like this is Texas or something, we’re just having a unusually (bc of global warming) bad year.
It snowed 16 inches today here, thankfully we had a snow day! I hadn’t done any of my homework, so I’m glad. x)
My school had a 2 hour delay yesterday because of the weather yesterday morning and a snow day today because of the nor’easter. Some nearby schools had no school yesterday or today. lol At least we will get out earlier in June. I think all schools in my area are not going to have school again Monday because of snow. I hear we’re going to get more than today. Thank goodness it’s going to be clear tomorrow - I’m going on a school trip to Boston after school to play in the Berklee High School Jazz Festival Saturday! The last 2 years we were either snowed out because of a blizzard or left early Saturday morning because of (you guessed it!) snow. We weren’t able to stay in the hotel because we weren’t there Friday. We will this year!!! I’m so excited!!!
@frazzledazzle That sounds fun! I’ve always wanted to go on an overnight field trip. There is one in DC for regular US History students, but for some reason APUSH doesn’t do it. 
I am going on a different field trip at the end of the month, though! My Latin teacher got an anthropologist to speak to us at the Metropolitan Museum of Natural History, and how it relates to Latin and Greek (my teacher also teaches Ancient Greek, who are going too) and then we will have free time to explore either the Natural History or Art museums. I went to the Art Museum in 9th grade after reading The Odyssey, but this will be my second time in the heart of NYC, so I’m extremely excited! Plus my twin sister is coming this time, which is nice.
On an entirely different note, I didn’t have a snow day or even a delay today, despite virtually every district surrounding us having one! The kids with cars at my school were talking about how close they were to getting into accidents. My Latin teacher, who travels from MA to CT, nearly got into a huge collision! I live on a main road, so thankfully it was usable enough, but my friend who lives on a hidden away road had to trudge through the snow to her bus, which could barely move down the roads! I’m seriously surprised nobody got hurt.
I think one reason we may have had a normal day is because of the pep rally, which we have at the end of every quarter. The thing is, everyone I have asked isn’t going! I feel like I’m going to be the only junior there! x) I wouldn’t be surprised if some people will skip it just out of bitterness from today.
Sorry for all this ranting, but I’m running on 1 hour of sleep and I’m kind of losing it… 
Just noticed that the map on page 177 in AMSCO has the Apple logo from the iPhone to represent orchards on the map. Neat!
Do you guys hate how there are so many competitive students at your schools? Like literally, I have a class with our class’s predicted valedictorian and he literally talked about doing as many APs as possible next year and he’s currently ranked #3. I feel kind of envious, but if he wants to set goals for himself, he can. Honestly, I feel like the race for valedictorian is kind of overrated.
I also got my transcript yesterday and I’m kind of ecstatic. My predicted end of year rank put me 92 places up from where I was. I’m predicted to go from a 297/497 to a 205/496. The rank was based on each semester up until now. My grades are set to be even higher, since my finals are worth 20% of my grade, so it looks like I’m going to end out the year in the mid to low 100’s! 
I also talked with my counselor some more and she said that in order to graduate with the Biotech certificate, I need 7 science classes, even though I have six. To fix this, I’m going to be taking Earth Science online over the summer for free. The course would run from July to August and is self-paced. Since I’m currently taking a Geology college class, most of the stuff I would learn I would have already learned, so it’ll be pretty easy. Since the course is self-paced, it can actually be easily finished in anything less than a six-week period, which is how long the course would take. I probably won’t really look at the notes and just do the worksheets and finish it all in a month. This probably won’t conflict with my planned summer studies.
Speaking of my summer studies, all day, everyone has been saying how I’m going to die by taking AP Physics C, especially without already having taken AP Calculus AB. I was fairly close to dropping AP Physics C until I talked to the teacher. She assured me that taking AP Physics C was perfectly fine in my situation, especially since I plan to self-studying it over the summer. She even let me in on how she runs the class. She basically “babies” all of her classes. You are allowed to retake quizzes and tests and quizzes not once, but twice, homework and test corrections count for 10% of your grade. The reason why most of the kids are failing is because they are either taking a lot of AP classes or just don’t want to do the homework. I fit into the first category, which is why I want to study over the summer to at least have the Physics knowledge. I’m also planning to study Calculus to help. I personally really like the Physics teacher. She’s an engineer and also seems very nice, but pretty firm. She actually commended me for taking the initiative to actually study over the material over the summer and sees that I’m definitely a hard-worker.
My schedule now looks like this:
Summer: Earth Science
PLTW Digital Electronics
AP Computer Science A
AP Physics C
U.S. Gov
World History and Geography 2
AP Calculus AB
AP English Literature
AP Economics (Online) (Need to graduate)
@ak2018 My school isn’t competitive at all. Out of maybe 300 students in my class, there’s maybe 10 or less who take IB (and there’s no AP). And sharing high marks actually comes out as obnoxious, so I tend to not share my marks even when asked.
There’s no difference between someone with high 90s and low 70s in terms of college here asides from scholarship money since most students with those grades are enrolling at local universities where admission for most undergraduate courses is almost purely based on meeting or exceeding a minimum grade. Extracurriculars are good for scholarship money, but are nothing for university admissions (even for top schools in Canada) compared to top colleges in the US.
There’s no valedictorian, just an “Honors” certificate if you get 80%+ and a “Principal’s List” certificate if you get 90%+. There’s a cool medal just in my province if you have the highest mark in your class (which I might get!), but no one really knows about it nor is aiming to get it. There’s also no ranking here.
It might just be my province though. A lot of schools in Ontario have AP, so I’m guessing it would be different there.
When I took my SAT subject test, it was just me and 1 other person, so people from my province applying to Ivies or top schools in the US is very very low.
I kind of enjoy the competitive aspect of school. My school there isnt anyone super smart that stands out over everyone. The top 10 is pretty close so it helps keep me motivated in school.
Has anybody else noticed that AP Lang is basically APUSH all over again? Like how many times am I going to have to analyze political cartoons and documents from historical events?
So who is taking the ACT tomorrow?
@ak2018 We don’t having rankings, but I’m sure they would be a bloodbath at my school. While there is just a hyper competitive atmosphere in general, there is definitely a few kids that I look and just don’t understand how they manage all of their classes and EC’s.
@neptuna I’m taking AP Lang and APUSH right now, and the only similarity they’ve had is that they both covered Civil Disobedience. In APUSH my teacher basically just lectures and shows slides, while in AP Lang we read and analyze articles, alongside working on writing assignments.
@LeopardFire I heard APUSH had a lot of reading (especially with primary source documents) and then answering questions about those documents. Is that the case in your class, or does it vary teacher-by-teacher? Just curious.
@acomfysofa We have looked at primary source documents in the past, and we are starting research papers which will require the use of them, but for the most part we have lectures accompanied by slides. We had a few DBQ’s in the first quarter, and our midterm was part of a released AP exam, but that’s been that. However, my class doubles as a UConn ECE course, so my teacher has to adhere to both curriculums, which may make it a bit different from other APUSH classes.
So it’s 9:30PM, I haven’t done anything today, I have an essay due at 11:59, I still haven’t started studying for the SAT, I’m behind in APCS by three weeks and AP Bio by two, and everything sucks. I love junior year.
@neptuna Im also behind lol. I have a capstone essay due on monday, I have to read 6 chapters, do statistics homework, comp sci homework, ect ect. I honestly can’t wait for after AP tests
Apparently, the government in my province will be deciding on Monday whether or not to force the teachers by law to accept their contract that the teachers rejected a couple days ago. I wonder if that’ll lead to a full strike?
343 notifications… I LOVE IT!
So I made my schedule for next year and I went with
Calc 3
AP Lit
AP Physics 2
AP Psych
H International Relations (1st semester)
H Constitutional Law (1st semester)
So I’ll have a 4-2 partial schedule first semester and a 2-2 partial second semester so I only have to go to school half the day.