<p>For a test next Friday. Plus an essay thing due Monday. And a quiz this Friday.</p>
<p>Canadian, did I ever send you my essay about Canada for the Scholastic thing last year?</p>
<p>You did.</p>
<p>Did you find it entertaining?</p>
<p>Yes, you’re a good writer. I will admit it. Even though you’re an American.</p>
<p>Because I wanted to start a portfolio of sorts. Just to bother colleges when I apply.</p>
<p>You love me.</p>
<p>I suppose their father knows best where the wind goes.</p>
<p>I cannot feel love for an American. At most, I can feel resigned spite. At most.</p>
<p>You give me nothing to go on, you know.</p>
<p>I give you plenty, child.</p>
<p>I’m probably older than you.</p>
<p>No, you just celebrated your fourth birthday this year. Literally.</p>
<p>I’m serious. </p>
<p>If you think of a year as 365 days, I wonder when my actual next birthday will be. If that makes sense.</p>
<p>The 25th, I think.</p>
<p>My birthday is on September 30th.</p>
<p>So you’re going to be 17?</p>
<p>September birthdays make me think of Hermione.</p>
<p>No, 16, I’m young.</p>
<p>As we sift through the bones of an idol.</p>
<p>One of my senior friends just turned 17. September birthdays are awkward.</p>
<p>Nothing. You give me nothing.</p>
<p>Wow, you are young. What were you doing on CC just after your fourteenth birthday? You silly Canadian, you.</p>
<p>There’s this commercial in the US right now about education reform. It shows this American kid raising the American flag on a flagpole. Then it goes into a bunch of hoopla about education. Then, at the end, it shows the American flag below sixteen other flags, and I think Canada is second from the top. Then the voice over says “The United States is seventeenth among other industrialized nations in education. When other countries have better education, they attract more jobs, meaning less jobs for our kids at home. We need education reform.”</p>
<p>It’s probably schools like mine that are the reason for that. Well, on second thought, those inner city schools are pretty bad too.</p>
<p>Next year will suck beyond belief.</p>
<p>Yeah, Canada’s education standards are actually relatively high. However, I would say that American students have more possibilities, in a number of ways. Most Canadian schools don’t have AP or IB. I didn’t even know my school had it when I started going there. But yeah, the problem with the IB is that it’s very structured and you don’t have as much freedom with the classes you take as you would in the AP program. Students who aren’t at least fairly well-rounded generally struggle with the IB, because it requires you to be good at basically everything. And then 150 hours of community service/a sport/something creative (50 hours of each) are required.</p>
<p>I am abnormal and I took an SAT subject test as a freshman. Leave me alone.</p>
<p>A tape recording with the sound of the Velvet Underground</p>
<p>NOTHING.</p>
<p>And good night. I did nothing tonight. Jeez.</p>
<p>You could easily use Google and pretend. But noooo.</p>