(no subject)
School is so stressful. It's not even that I'm in really hard classes (though I'd rather be, ironically) because since I transfered here last year, I have to take a ton of classes required for graduation. So most of my classes are ruled by freshmen and sophomores and a few juniors who had the ability to take this class before, whereas I did not.
Our school only has 2 or 3 AP classes which are AP History, AP Statistics, and AP...physics or biology or something sciency, I don't know. We have Advanced Seminar in Literature which is kind of like an AP course (but not as hard, I would assume) and it's not even until next semester. Apparently our school has a lack of AP classes because they don't believe in "tracked learning" which makes sense. I mean, most people that go to ORHS end up going to really good colleges anyway (unless you didn't try or did badly, of course) but I don't know, I just wish I had more of a challenge. And what makes it worse is that AP U.S. History is generally a sophomore and junior course (AP Euro or AP Govt. & Politics are usually the senior social sciences AP classes) and when I got in and went to St. Thomas for those long 3 months before I switched out last year (because of the people, not the school itself), I had AP English Literature and AP History and the rest were all college prep and honors classes. Then I came here and all of a sudden, everything was incredibly easy.
Most of my classes last year were required as well, but this year it's even worse. I probably took harder classes as a sophomore than I'm taking now, it's that bad. Even though everyone else may get into good schools, I find it hard to believe that I will because of the fact that required classes are generally always the easiest and people who are new to ORHS really get screwed over and it seems like we're not challenging ourselves when colleges look at our transcripts, but we can't help it! I don't even have a free period because I wanted to get in a class I actually liked.
School Schedule for Semester 1
1st period: Poetry & Fiction
2nd period: AP U.S. History (senior class only)
3rd period: French 3 (unlike MHS, you don't take French 2 for a semester, French 3 the next, and so on, each one is a full year course)
4th period: Citizen Education (required)
5th period: Web Page Design (required)
6th period: Gym (required, and all gym classes are either freshmen or sophomore because you don't have to take gym beyond those years unless you haven't fulfilled the requirement)
7th period: Algebra 2 (because I couldn't fit in Algebra 2/Trig and I couldn't get any harder classes set up...so I'm stuck with mostly sophomores and juniors and a few scattered seniors...but then again our math program is one of the best and hardest in New England, so that's probably a good thing)
Schedule for Semester 2
1st period: Advanced Seminar in Literature
2nd period: AP U.S. History
3rd period: French 3
4th period: Economics
5th period: Honors band
6th period: Gym
7th period: Algebra 2
Wow, how exciting and challenging, right?
My schedule is jam-packed. This year alone I'm doing quiz bowl, tons of voluntary community service, drama (the play, the one act, and the musical...so all three seasons of school), maybe jazz choir, the literary magazine, possibly interact club, honors/jazz band on the side, The '07 Band (yes I joined a band, haha...we haven't practiced yet, oh and did I mention the incredibly clever name?! right), probably doing PIT, tennis, indoor track and field or indoor lacrosse, most likely going on the Russian Exchange trip in the spring, art club, cooking club, and probably something else like hiking club because it sounds interesting.
What's really dumb about this is I couldn't join these clubs last year (besides the sports ones, which I didn't have enough time to do, but I've done track before so it's not a big deal) because apparently you can't join many things in the middle of the year, so it's going to look pretty weird when colleges see my activities list and they see that I did a few extra things freshmen year, did A LOT of things sophomore year which I loved, did as many things junior year as I could...which wasn't many because of the reason above besides when I went to St. Thomas because I had a lot there, and then my senior year is like overwhelmed with activities. And the best part is, I'm not doing any of these because it'll look good for college, I'm doing everything listed up there because I genuinely want to do them.
So no, I could care less whether or not colleges would like them. The only way these things connect to college is that I'm worried that they'll think I'm only doing it for them, because it's kind of weird to have an abundance of activities as soon as you hit your senior year. But think about it, I have gone to 3 different high schools (MHS for freshmen and sophomore years, STA for about 3 months, and then ORHS for the remainder of my junior year and senior year) and all schools will obviously have different activities. I did as many activies at MHS that I could that interested me, including ones outside of school.
Then I went to STA, and when I first started going there, I obviously didn't anticipate leaving, so I did all the clubs and things I was interested in. Then I switched schools AGAIN and couldn't do most of the clubs here, because you're not allowed to just randomly join in I guess. And each school's activities were almost completely different and only had a few similarities to each other, so it looks like I just chose clubs and sports at random, when really I just joined whatever was available to me and interested me.
Not that I'm rambling or anything.
And then this summer I worked full time, and the latest I got up all summer was 9:30AM. I quit that job about 2 or 3 weeks before it closed (I was a lifeguard, and the place is only open in the summer) and got a new job at a place called The Works (formerly Bagel Works) in downtown Portsmouth which is a bagel/pastry/coffee/specialty drinks place, and we made all of our baked goods, including bagels and bread, from scratch which is pretty cool. I worked there full time until school started and now I can only work saturdays. It's pretty good money there though, $7.50/h plus tips...although my lifeguarding job was $7.75/h and would've gone up every year I worked there. So, here's my totally awesome weekend schedule...
Saturdays: Get up, work until close, find a way to do SAT homework, school homework, and hang out with Chris in that short amount of time.
Sundays: Sing at the Episcopal church from 9AM-12-30PM (which I get paid $20 for each sunday, and it's not even my religion) and go to my SAT class almost directly after until 6PM. This class also occurs on wednesdays from 6pm-10pm.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the math on the SATs, I'm totally lost, besides on the algebra section because you don't even need to do algebra on it, for "plugging in" is a high schooler's Messiah. Otherwise, I'm completely lost. I'm not good at math though, so I guess this was expected. Ugh. The other sections are fine, I assume, for the most part. And then I have to remember that I have to take 2 or 3 SAT II subject tests. I would've just done two, but the University of Toronto wants you to take three. So I'm taking the Literature, U.S. History, and I guess the World History ones. And then I have to deal with the stress of:
1.) Not doing well enough on the SATs, namely the math section.
2.) Applying early decision to NYU, application due November 1st and which I don't see the point in doing because I probably wouldn't get in anyway
3.) Applying for other colleges and narrowing down my list even more and risk rejection
4.) Finding time to do all my clubs and activities and sports and homework and boyfriend seeing and test taking and applying and studying all at once.
Basically I'm just a very tired girl who never sleeps and runs off Adderall and coffee to complete everything. It doesn't help that I'm also the master of procastination and goofing off when I honestly don't have the free time to do so, so I'm pretty much in negative hours and minutes here. Also I'm trying to balance also having and making more friends along with everything else, which isn't working because I'm too busy to ever hang out with anyone and the little free time I have (after 9pm on fridays and after 6pm on saturdays) I spend with Chris because I only get to see him once or twice a week since he's gone to college. Which is ironic considering he's in the same town as me (UNH).
And I auditioned for the play tonight, and only 16 people are going to get a role out of like 30+ that auditioned and there was a sign saying that since most people who auditioned aren't going to get a role, if you didn't make it you should do stage crew. So when I went in for my audition for the play "You Can't Take It with You" (I was the second to last person to audition, the last one being Chris' younger brother) and I did my monologue. After the audition I told the drama teacher (she's new this year! and awesome because she played Golde in the Seacoast Rep's "Fiddler on the Roof" which is basically the Flynn/Lyric Theater of New Hampshire) that if I didn't get a role, I'd gladly do stage crew and she said to me "Well I don't think you'll have to worry about that, you're audition was very very good." SO WOW. And also she gave me the script to the play and asked me to read for the main woman role while doing ballet (the main woman character is a weird aspiring ballerina who's like 29 years old) and when I asked some other people who auditioned if they had to read from the script, they said no....which could be a good sign on my part. I don't know though, we'll see I guess, I probably shouldn't get my hopes up because that's never a good idea.
I can't believe it's only about 3 weeks into the school year.
Our school only has 2 or 3 AP classes which are AP History, AP Statistics, and AP...physics or biology or something sciency, I don't know. We have Advanced Seminar in Literature which is kind of like an AP course (but not as hard, I would assume) and it's not even until next semester. Apparently our school has a lack of AP classes because they don't believe in "tracked learning" which makes sense. I mean, most people that go to ORHS end up going to really good colleges anyway (unless you didn't try or did badly, of course) but I don't know, I just wish I had more of a challenge. And what makes it worse is that AP U.S. History is generally a sophomore and junior course (AP Euro or AP Govt. & Politics are usually the senior social sciences AP classes) and when I got in and went to St. Thomas for those long 3 months before I switched out last year (because of the people, not the school itself), I had AP English Literature and AP History and the rest were all college prep and honors classes. Then I came here and all of a sudden, everything was incredibly easy.
Most of my classes last year were required as well, but this year it's even worse. I probably took harder classes as a sophomore than I'm taking now, it's that bad. Even though everyone else may get into good schools, I find it hard to believe that I will because of the fact that required classes are generally always the easiest and people who are new to ORHS really get screwed over and it seems like we're not challenging ourselves when colleges look at our transcripts, but we can't help it! I don't even have a free period because I wanted to get in a class I actually liked.
School Schedule for Semester 1
1st period: Poetry & Fiction
2nd period: AP U.S. History (senior class only)
3rd period: French 3 (unlike MHS, you don't take French 2 for a semester, French 3 the next, and so on, each one is a full year course)
4th period: Citizen Education (required)
5th period: Web Page Design (required)
6th period: Gym (required, and all gym classes are either freshmen or sophomore because you don't have to take gym beyond those years unless you haven't fulfilled the requirement)
7th period: Algebra 2 (because I couldn't fit in Algebra 2/Trig and I couldn't get any harder classes set up...so I'm stuck with mostly sophomores and juniors and a few scattered seniors...but then again our math program is one of the best and hardest in New England, so that's probably a good thing)
Schedule for Semester 2
1st period: Advanced Seminar in Literature
2nd period: AP U.S. History
3rd period: French 3
4th period: Economics
5th period: Honors band
6th period: Gym
7th period: Algebra 2
Wow, how exciting and challenging, right?
My schedule is jam-packed. This year alone I'm doing quiz bowl, tons of voluntary community service, drama (the play, the one act, and the musical...so all three seasons of school), maybe jazz choir, the literary magazine, possibly interact club, honors/jazz band on the side, The '07 Band (yes I joined a band, haha...we haven't practiced yet, oh and did I mention the incredibly clever name?! right), probably doing PIT, tennis, indoor track and field or indoor lacrosse, most likely going on the Russian Exchange trip in the spring, art club, cooking club, and probably something else like hiking club because it sounds interesting.
What's really dumb about this is I couldn't join these clubs last year (besides the sports ones, which I didn't have enough time to do, but I've done track before so it's not a big deal) because apparently you can't join many things in the middle of the year, so it's going to look pretty weird when colleges see my activities list and they see that I did a few extra things freshmen year, did A LOT of things sophomore year which I loved, did as many things junior year as I could...which wasn't many because of the reason above besides when I went to St. Thomas because I had a lot there, and then my senior year is like overwhelmed with activities. And the best part is, I'm not doing any of these because it'll look good for college, I'm doing everything listed up there because I genuinely want to do them.
So no, I could care less whether or not colleges would like them. The only way these things connect to college is that I'm worried that they'll think I'm only doing it for them, because it's kind of weird to have an abundance of activities as soon as you hit your senior year. But think about it, I have gone to 3 different high schools (MHS for freshmen and sophomore years, STA for about 3 months, and then ORHS for the remainder of my junior year and senior year) and all schools will obviously have different activities. I did as many activies at MHS that I could that interested me, including ones outside of school.
Then I went to STA, and when I first started going there, I obviously didn't anticipate leaving, so I did all the clubs and things I was interested in. Then I switched schools AGAIN and couldn't do most of the clubs here, because you're not allowed to just randomly join in I guess. And each school's activities were almost completely different and only had a few similarities to each other, so it looks like I just chose clubs and sports at random, when really I just joined whatever was available to me and interested me.
Not that I'm rambling or anything.
And then this summer I worked full time, and the latest I got up all summer was 9:30AM. I quit that job about 2 or 3 weeks before it closed (I was a lifeguard, and the place is only open in the summer) and got a new job at a place called The Works (formerly Bagel Works) in downtown Portsmouth which is a bagel/pastry/coffee/specialty drinks place, and we made all of our baked goods, including bagels and bread, from scratch which is pretty cool. I worked there full time until school started and now I can only work saturdays. It's pretty good money there though, $7.50/h plus tips...although my lifeguarding job was $7.75/h and would've gone up every year I worked there. So, here's my totally awesome weekend schedule...
Saturdays: Get up, work until close, find a way to do SAT homework, school homework, and hang out with Chris in that short amount of time.
Sundays: Sing at the Episcopal church from 9AM-12-30PM (which I get paid $20 for each sunday, and it's not even my religion) and go to my SAT class almost directly after until 6PM. This class also occurs on wednesdays from 6pm-10pm.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the math on the SATs, I'm totally lost, besides on the algebra section because you don't even need to do algebra on it, for "plugging in" is a high schooler's Messiah. Otherwise, I'm completely lost. I'm not good at math though, so I guess this was expected. Ugh. The other sections are fine, I assume, for the most part. And then I have to remember that I have to take 2 or 3 SAT II subject tests. I would've just done two, but the University of Toronto wants you to take three. So I'm taking the Literature, U.S. History, and I guess the World History ones. And then I have to deal with the stress of:
1.) Not doing well enough on the SATs, namely the math section.
2.) Applying early decision to NYU, application due November 1st and which I don't see the point in doing because I probably wouldn't get in anyway
3.) Applying for other colleges and narrowing down my list even more and risk rejection
4.) Finding time to do all my clubs and activities and sports and homework and boyfriend seeing and test taking and applying and studying all at once.
Basically I'm just a very tired girl who never sleeps and runs off Adderall and coffee to complete everything. It doesn't help that I'm also the master of procastination and goofing off when I honestly don't have the free time to do so, so I'm pretty much in negative hours and minutes here. Also I'm trying to balance also having and making more friends along with everything else, which isn't working because I'm too busy to ever hang out with anyone and the little free time I have (after 9pm on fridays and after 6pm on saturdays) I spend with Chris because I only get to see him once or twice a week since he's gone to college. Which is ironic considering he's in the same town as me (UNH).
And I auditioned for the play tonight, and only 16 people are going to get a role out of like 30+ that auditioned and there was a sign saying that since most people who auditioned aren't going to get a role, if you didn't make it you should do stage crew. So when I went in for my audition for the play "You Can't Take It with You" (I was the second to last person to audition, the last one being Chris' younger brother) and I did my monologue. After the audition I told the drama teacher (she's new this year! and awesome because she played Golde in the Seacoast Rep's "Fiddler on the Roof" which is basically the Flynn/Lyric Theater of New Hampshire) that if I didn't get a role, I'd gladly do stage crew and she said to me "Well I don't think you'll have to worry about that, you're audition was very very good." SO WOW. And also she gave me the script to the play and asked me to read for the main woman role while doing ballet (the main woman character is a weird aspiring ballerina who's like 29 years old) and when I asked some other people who auditioned if they had to read from the script, they said no....which could be a good sign on my part. I don't know though, we'll see I guess, I probably shouldn't get my hopes up because that's never a good idea.
I can't believe it's only about 3 weeks into the school year.