Thursday, September 11, 2014 "My Math Teacher's Breaking Me Down."

Thursday, September 11, 2014
Week: 4
Songs to Remember: Hip Song - Scarlet

        I don't know how people can handle taking ap classes, 'cause right now, I'm sorta breaking down over the stupidity of my math teacher's "teaching".

        So my World History teacher has us do another project, this time, it's a group project some I'm like "Ffffffff***, my back's gonna break from carrying my group in this project". The project's about the researching a person from the time period of the Enlightenment, and having a mock discussion with people playing the roles as those people and stuff. The teacher then tells us the 4 roles in a group and I was like " Fffffff***, there's assigned roles now? Which means someone's gonna have to do most of the work (most likely me) and someone's gonna get a free pass?"

        She starts calling off peoples names for groups and I was just praying that hopefully I'd get at least one smart girl in my group so she can share most of the work with me. Aaand I'm sitting there waiting for my name to be called, aaand she doesn't call my name. Then she's like "Is there a boy that I didn't call" and I'm just like "*sigh*". Like, come on Ms. "Bugatti" as this one dude in class calls her.

        So I get stuck with a not-so social girl, a delinquent who reminds me of Nasri from MAGIC!, a random girl who sits behind me, and then there's me. The roles are speaker, researcher, question-person, and introducer. Guess which one is the easiest? Introducer, of which the dude chose to do since it's the "easiest". The random girl picked to do the questions, which all you have to really do is ask questions during the whole discussion thing, then I asked the not-so social girl if she wanted to do the research or be the speaker, aaaaand she picks research, since she doesn't really good at speaking. *sigh*, f***ing group projects, man.

        Why, why is there a need for group projects? Like, why have people who don't put in any effort drag down the people who do? Why. Why is the sky blue. Why?! Answer me question!

        So for English, we had another discussion on plagiarism. We talked for a bit, and then the teacher put on a video for us to watch, another YouTube video on the different types of academic plagiarism, ranging from the "ghostwriter" to the "404 error" types of plagiarism. Seriously, who comes up the names for these?

        The video was, pretty bootleg. It started off with like a dude pretending to be like, a public speaker person, and he's saying a whole bunch of plagiarized stuff, which, when put together, doesn't really make ant sense. Like, he's talking about cowboys, a rose without thorns, how he has a dream, I mean, he's white.

        The next part was this girl who seems like the stereotypical teen girl (which, is not so stereotypical anymore, it's, kinda become a majority now) who speaks like a high-schooler (using the word "like" a lot, like me) and then somehow starts speaking like she's Obama and doing a speech. She even talked about Africa and how we got to help, on which that had nothing to do with what she was even trying to prove, which is an example of "remix" plagiarism. Ehhh, it's pretty hard to explain what's going on, you got to watch the video for yourself.

        The next part was beyond bootleg, o cries a little on the inside. This part was supposed to show thus type of plagiarism where you buy your plagiarized essays. This technique is called "The Customer", and I was just like "Oh this is gonna be good. But seriously, who comes up with these names?" It started off showing this dude who looks a little bit too shady. Don't know if it's the dark sunglasses while he's standing in the shade, or his abnormal long tenchcoat.

        Then this girl walks up to him and she's like "You got a 12-point double-space?" And I'm just like "What the f********". Like are code words really necessary? "12 point-double space"? Really? Beyond bootleg. Go on. And so the dude just opens up both sides of his coat like the merchant from Resident Evil 4, like "What are you buyin'?" He's like "I got what you need" and starts spewing like a whole bunch of slang words for different types of essays. And the insides of his coat are like, filled with f***ing essays clipped to his jacket. The girl's like "How much for this one?" And the dude's like "For you? 15" What, so if it was a different person he'd charge more or less? What is he world coming to?

        So at the end of the video, there's this bootleg clip of this dude using a "remixed" plagiarized speech so he's talking about like, Ronald Reagan's plan, he's like "Ronald Reagan's trickle-down economics plan? What's with that? What I really want to know is when is that Berlin wall coming down, huh?! We got to get them Germans back for Pearl Harbor" and I was just like "Okay, okay, that is enough bootleged-ness for today, I'm done". Like, what? This is comedy gold. Anyways, the video is called "A Quick Guide to Plagiarism" (oh, it's a quick guide alright). It's on YouTube if you want to watch it.

        So uh, chemistry was ehh. We had a sub, did a worksheet on percent mass and percent numbers, pretty relaxing period. Volleyball. Our class just outright sucks. Some of our "best" players can't even serve the balk over net. One of those people was a girl who's on the Volleyball team. Not to be negative or anything, just agreeing with what the teacher said. We all suck. I agree. We played a few more rallying practice games with new teams today. Pretty okay-ish, I guess.

        Oh my god. I am seriously thinking about switching out of Algebra II/ Trig, just for the teacher. Like, her teaching does not help in our learning. She gave us back our tests today, I was pretty eager to see it KNOWING I did well. I got it back, took one look at it, slide it under my binder. A f***ing 60/80. Now yo might be thinking "But Drew, that's a C. That's still good" Yeah it's good, for a loser. I'm a f***ing B and up student. If I get C's, I'm not going anywhere. If I accept C's as good, I'll be like "Ehh, a D? That's close enough to a C, it's fine" and then the cycle continues and the next thing I know, I'm a master of the custodial arts.

        The teacher marks me wrong and everybody else on the test, wrong. She deducts points for the stupidest reasons. Some people showed too much work, she thinks it doesn't make sense? Deducts points. People panic and puts equal signs at the left of every equation due to the teacher requesting evrybody puts their equal signs like that? Deducts points. People showed the work, got the answer correct, and she deducts points not for the right reasons. It's so unjustifiable.

        Tests are meant to be, well, tests. They're supposed to "test" you on if you understand the lessons or not. People do, they understand, but the way they understand is not to the teacher's way that she wants people to. She also acts like this is f***ing calculus and that we're supposed to like, devote our lives into doing math. She's like "This is stuff from Algebra and Geometry, you're supposed to know this already" and I'm like "We did not learn anything close to this. The lesson does not state that it is a review of a previous math section, it's something NEW.

        Towards the end of class, people were talking to each other like " Oh, I can believe I did so bad on this test! Ugh! This class is so hard!" And because a lot of people are talking, the teacher's just sitting there waiting for people to stop, and then the T.A just has to suck up for the teacher and be like "Hey! Quiet, you guys always do this!" And I'm just like "Woah, Woah, Woah, woah. Aren't you supposed to be grading papers? You took 3 years of math and decided to be a T.A? Enjoy your free period, but colleges aren't gonna even glance at how you were a T.A for a whole year.

        I always see this dude on his f***ing phone, not even doing anything. He also plays his music abnormally loud, I could hear it through his earphones and im like, 2 seats away from his desk. And when people talk on class and the teacher gets pissed off and has her T.A shout to quiet everybody down, she acts like EVERYBODY's talking and threatens to take away our time for as long as people keep talking. Why do teachers do this? Falsely accusing people, man. I might just want to be a lawyer just so I cab sue for stupid s*** like this. My mother always said I'd make a good lawyer.

        And so the teacher gets into this lecture about how if you do well, you won't have too much pressure, and I'm just like "Really? Really? Post-pubescent teens with 5 other classes and a semi-advanced math class with a teacher whose teaching morals are upside-down, along with extracurricular activities, clubs, social life, and worrying about what job we want for the rest of our lives  and you're expecting us to not worry about any pressure if we do well on your class? I'd really like to witness that".

        There is one thing that she is right about, and I'm surprised she's even right about anything, but, she said that when we talk, we don't use our minds and that is true. I don't see how people can hold conversations for so long. Probably why they're called "mind-less conversations".

        Anyways, that girl I sit next to now in Chinese actually talked a bit today. Making progress I guess. We starting reading lesson 2, which focuses on asking people for their names. And, I still got work to do. Seriously, this "pressure", is breaking me down, and I'm only on the 4th week of school. If I don't get at least a B on the next test for math, I'm switching to Algebra II. I don't even care for Algebra II/ Trig. Colleges skim those semi-advanced classes abyways, they don't care if you were in Algebra II or Algebra II/  Trig.

        So yeah, that was my rant on how my Algebra II/ Trig situation's going on right now. I don't mean to be derogative to my math teacher, just, that I don't appreciate her teaching abilities. What am I really saying? I could teach way better. Give me one day of teaching in her place, and grades will sky-rocket. For real. Also, she's got to stop trying to relate to us. She makes up situations like "If you don't improve your penmanship, your boyfriend or girlfriend won't be able to read your letter to them, and they'll throw it away". Like, stop.

        Alright, I'm done for now. I got to get some sleep. Oh right, I'm in her class, I'm jot gonna be able to get any sleep. I'm sorry, I'm done for real now. See you tomorrow. Oh and I almost forgot. My heart goes out to all those who lost their loved ones during 9/11.