Personal Update: Progress

The year isn’t even over yet and I’ve already won! Victory.

Two nights ago I submitted all of my college applications. I can’t pinpoint the feeling that followed – it was a mixture of hope, anxiety, euphoria, and relief.

I remember that at the beginning of high school, I had no idea who I was. I didn’t know my passions and I had no plans for the future. Self-deprecating thoughts consumed me and my fear of my mother  made me anxious to escape, even though I had no idea how I would do that.

But I’ve made it so far, as cliche and conceited as that sounds.

Are You Gay?

Around 1:15 PM, I trudge from AP Biology to AP Calculus. Three AP classes down, one more to go, I think.

“Thomas!”

I hear someone call my name and turn. It’s a junior, a friend of mine who I had a class with two years ago but had not spoken to for quite some time. I wait for her to catch up, and when she does, we continue walking to our classes together.

“What do you think of AP Bio?” she asked.

“It’s not as bad as I thought it would be,” I reply, “everyone is so quiet though, and there are a lot of juniors. What do you think of the class?”

She repositions her dark brown hair with her hand, and says, “It’s alright. Do you mind if I ask you a question though? Like, I don’t mean it in an offensive way, but…”

As she leaves her sentence halfway done and hanging in the air, I already know what she’s going to ask.

Personal Update: Summer’s Closing

It’s been awhile since I’ve published a post about nothing in particular. Dear diary, here I come!

Currently, it is the morning of August 25, 2012. That means that in ten days (or, the morning of the September 4, I can’t do math) I’ll be back in school. Where has this summer gone?

Who I Wish I Was

Sometimes, I wish I was a bird. Sometimes, I wish I was skinnier. Sometimes, I wish I was nobody and somebody else all at once.

People decide who they want to be by looking at other people. In society, those who are above us are our standards. If someone has a job that pays $100,000 while ours only pays $50,000, we want to be that person, or at least have their job. If someone has a gorgeous partner and we don’t have one at all, we wish we were that person. If someone has something that we crave but cannot have, we envy that person.

It’s like that in high school.

Life Isn’t Fair… But You Can Be

I’m not the kind of guy to get involved in high school drama. However, today, it happened. I won’t go into detail, though you can combine Glee (without the music) and Gossip Girl (without the attractive men) and you’re pretty much there.

Also, I ended up crying in a bathroom stall.

But this post isn’t about high school drama. Because that stuff is boring and brainless and I actually would feel guilty for going in-depth about it when there are people like this guy out there. This post is about something I learned in school today.

Teenagers in High School – What I’m Really Tired Of

Guys, I’m tired.

I’ve been getting five to six hours of sleep for the past two weeks, constantly studying and completing homework assignments for school, and dealing with family drama on top of all of that. I’m not saying that I have the worst life ever. I’m not saying that there aren’t people who have it a hundred times worse than me. And I’m not saying that, overall, my life is bad – because it’s not. It’s pretty great.

All I’m saying is that I’m tired.

But the thing is, in high school, almost everyone is tired.

The Right to Judge

I am a high school student. It’s not exactly something I’m proud of. Contemporary culture stereotypes high school students as inexperienced, indecent, and overall unintelligent human beings. Adolescence is the awkward middle ground between innocent childhood and mature adulthood, the experience that many look forward to but most would like to forget. It’s not surprising, considering the quantity of kids who are bullied and broken apart by their peers’ cruel and cutting comments – in fact, the one facet about typical teenagers I find underplayed is just how judgmental we are.

After googling "the right to judge", I realized research on the topic would be difficult as most people think of judgement in a religious or political sense. Not my intent right now.

I must admit something now. I judged someone today. I called this person a mean name, and talked about him to a close friend of mine. But the truly terrible thing is that I felt justified in doing it – this person cheated on a quiz, and my teachers had found out about him – so I assumed that I had the right to castigate him for his actions. Did I really, though? Did two wrongs – his cheating, and my gossiping – make a right?

There’s a reason high school students are so critical. Society forces us to conform to the standards of celebrities, to the untouchable yet so dearly-beloved stars in media. However, no one is able to reach these fabricated realities of perfection, so naturally, we become insecure and target those that are just a little below us on the chain of social standing. Or we just pick on the people that are, you know, different, because who gave them the right to live their lives freely? Who told them that they could not care about what others think about them?

Remember that post about why high school relationships fail I wrote last year? I was writing a shorter version of my argument in a post online for an English class I’m currently taking. One of my friends noticed and proceeded to give me her opinion.

“I totally agree with you,” she said,” but others will think you’re like, totally against relationships because you’ve never been in one and you’re just jealous.”

“I have been in a relationship, though,” I said.

“I know that,” she replied,” but others don’t.”

“I don’t care what other people think of me,” I said, cutting off the conversation in order to finish the assignment on time, and possibly because the situation was making me more uncomfortable than I should have been.

Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers is one of the best books I've read that deals with gossipping, rumor-spreading, and essentially, high school drama.

I’m sure my friend had good intentions for informing me of this, yet I was honestly hurt by her comment. Not by my friend, but by the truth that she revealed – that my peers, the people I spend seven hours every day with, would judge me for something as small as one of my beliefs without the whole context of who I really am. I’ve been on the receiving end of some nasty rumors before, but this made me realize how wrong it is to judge someone at all.

You may accuse me of being too sensitive, and yes, I am a very sensitive guy. But gossiping and bullying is an issue beyond me and my high school; it is a problem that plagues teenagers all over the country. Search “bullying suicides” on Google and you will receive more than one million hits. I can supply links to such upsetting stories that it depresses me how horribly common bullying is, how awfully unsurprising suicides like this one and this one and this one are.

Going back to the conversation I had with my friend today, I admit to lying a little bit. Frankly, there are peoples’ opinions that I couldn’t care less about, yet it’s hurtful to hear someone say something bad about me when I always try my hardest to be a kind and compassionate person. I have it easy though – can you imagine how it would feel to suffer from taunting and teasing every day over something insignificant like your sexuality or your religion? Something that doesn’t even affect other people, like your weight or how you look?

Judging and bullying go hand in hand. When one feels insecure they often resort to picking out and pointing out the flaws of other people. Sometimes these things aren’t even flaws, but are surface level qualities like how we look or what we wear. It only takes one insult to instill a sense of inferiority in someone, and only a couple more before they begin to wonder if who they are is even good enough anymore.

So please, please, please think before you pass judgement on someone. Think about how you would feel if someone were to say something like that about you, or how hurtful it would be if what you were saying would spread. Of course criminals deserve to be judged, but they also deserve to be punished. These days, too many innocent teens are condemned to punishments that they simply don’t deserve.

"Easy A" was a great movie about how rumors can damage one's reputation. I especially recommend it if you enjoyed The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

I apologize for the gargantuan post everyone! I honestly didn’t plan this, though the idea had been formulating in my head after that conversation I had with my friend today. It’s also anti-bullying week at my school, what a coincidence. I just noticed that you usually don’t see adults committing suicide because of bullying, probably because they’ve matured to the point of being beyond immature tactics such as taunting and teasing.

Who do you think has the right to judge others? Do you? What’s your stance on bullying and the effect of society on today’s teens? This issue has a huge place in my heart, so I’m really curious for my readers’ opinions.

All of You Who Enjoy Math…

Go away. Seriously. Just leave.

No, I’m kidding. Stay so I can use you to improve my grade share with you what I’ve been struggling with as of late.

I considered posting my failing quiz grade, but I wouldn't want to be accused of sharing answers if someone were to find my blog. So, here you go.

The first person to explain how finding the trajectory of a projectile will be useful to me as a future English major will receive a mention in my next personal post. I doubt anyone could pull off such a feat, so, it’s okay if you don’t try.

I mean, it’s not like I hate math – I appreciate all of the obvious things it’s done for us and how miserable our lives would be without it. It’s just that I’m horrible at it. As a self-proclaimed perfectionist, and as someone who comes from a family of math geniuses, my inability to perform well when it comes to arithmetic disturbs me. I’ve even created a list to count how many times Precalculus Honors has made me cry this year (which I will include in a future post… maybe).

I believe that it takes an innate disposition to be good at math. Sure, one can practice the problems repeatedly (like I do), but if they fail to implement the concepts correctly on exams (like I do), then they fail. This amazing article touches on the relationship between math and English, and let me tell you that besides the fact that they are both forms of pure logic and thinking, they do not have many other similarities.

I’m done ranting now. Do you like math or do you dislike it? Do you believe math is something that can be mastered with practice of does it require something that an individual is born with? I think I’m going to go ruminate over the fact that Justin Bieber is supposedly similar to me… thanks, Twitter.

My ideal and unforunately unattainable life.

I am Homework, Hear Me Roar

My handy-dandy agenda book, which I use to record all of my deepest and darkest secrets... I mean, my homework.

If it weren’t for rain, I wouldn’t be writing this.

No, really. Here in Virginia we received so much rain yesterday the streets flooded and no one could go anywhere – including school buses. The Facebook statuses stating some variation of “No school! lawlz!” were innumerable.

I guess you could say I’m happy about it. After all, having an extra day off allows me to catch up on blogging and book reviewing, reading, working out, etc. I must apologize once again for the infrequent posts, school has taken over my life so I won’t be updating as much as I used to. I know what you’re thinking: now how will Thomas release all of his teenage angst? Hm…

Back to the subject. I have a love/hate relationship with homework. Here’s the hate aspect:

Math is like my kryptonite, except without the actual pain and stuff.

And yet, despite how much time it consumes and the headache it causes (I’m looking at you, Precalculus w/Trig Honors), I’ve kind of come to… appreciate, homework. Before you chase me out of town with your pitchforks, let me explain why.

Humans crave routine. It’s been proven. I’m human. That isn’t proven, but chances are it’s true. Therefore, I crave routine.* The amount of homework I receive requires me to spend hours and hours completing it every day – and when it isn’t particularly difficult, I actually don’t mind it much. Like I’ve listed on Facebook, I enjoy intellectually stimulating activities. Besides, homework is a piece of cake compared to what other people have to endure on a daily basis.

So what I’m saying is, now that the first week (er, three days) has gone by, I’ve become acclimated to the workload and accustomed to completing it from day to day. Not having school today threw me off a little bit, as I now have to check blackboard (an online site for teachers to communicate with their students) and my e-mail for updated homework assignments.

Not like I’m complaining. Now I have time to waste on the internet get ahead on my studies.

What do you think of homework or the tasks you have to complete daily? Is it burdensome or do you enjoy the routine it provides?

*can you name what mathematical property I used to come to the conclusion “I crave routine”? Comment and let me know!

Effective Methods to Study SAT Vocab

Can you guess what that sheet of paper is on my treadmill? See #2…

Not all of us possess a penchant for utilizing intellectual vocabulary to perforate the SAT. Most people don’t. You can get every single vocabulary question on the reading section of the SAT incorrect and still score above a 600. However, knowing your vocab will help you out tremendously.

I’m aware that memorizing SAT Vocab is not the most titillating activity, but there are ways to reduce the tedium of it. Here are some methods I use that I don’t even have to think twice about. If I come across any other ideas I’ll add them to this post, and if you have your own study practices, please feel free to share!

1. Make lists. The totally untrained individual would study SAT vocab by randomly looking at words from his Princeton Review book when he has the chance. That’s not a bad thing, but it won’t help you as much as constructing a list. If you have time before the test, twenty words a week is good. If you don’t, maybe ten per day depending on how strong your memory is. You can type the list, but writing it will help you retain the meaning of the words more. Some people prefer to study words with similar meanings (aka, synonyms) at the same time. Here’s a great resource if you’re looking for words that frequently appear on the test.

2. Study your list… Everywhere. So you have your list, great. But when will you get the chance to sit down and study it? You would be surprised – there are many unexpected opportunities throughout the day you can take advantage of. Copy the list onto your IPod or cell phone and scan it every time you change songs or send a text. Bring your list with you while you work out at the gym (see my awesome treadmill up there?) Tape the list onto your wall if you have to. Just remember to constantly check it whenever you can.

3. Read, read, read. Read. A lot. It doesn’t have to be the New York Times or Frankenstein (though those are quite beneficial), but books that you’ll enjoy. As you’re reading, look up every word you don’t know. Not only will that ameliorate your vocabulary, but it’ll develop your writing skills as well. Guess who learned the word “irrevocable” from the book jacket of Twilight?

4. Use your words. Now that you know the words, apply them. An easy way to do this is to look back at old lists and write a sentence for each word – you can even create a short story if you want. If you want to take it a step further you can start incorporating your vocabulary into your everyday writing and conversations. Be careful with that though, as people may presume that you’re being pretentious.

It seems like a lot of work, but it really isn’t. I’m currently a rising junior in high school and I’ve used these tips since the beginning of sophomore year. They do help. In May I took the SAT and received a decent score on the reading section – a 730. I only got one vocab question wrong, and the word I didn’t know is permanently embedded into my brain: “mawkishness”.

Good luck! If you need a place to start, you can begin by looking up every word in this post you didn’t know. (;

Edit May 24, 2012: I took the SAT again in March this year, and received an 800 on the Critical Reading section! I memorized around 400 vocab words, if that may serve as an indication as to how important it is to know lots of words.