Of All Things School-like

[Angel]

Whether it's middle school, high school, college, university, whatever, I thought it would be nice to have a place to just chat (or moan, depending on what's happening) about our various places of learning.

To get the ball rolling, I'm now two weeks into Year 11 and officially feel like I never was on summer break at all (grr )

Anyway. Let's move on.

[Jaycee]

Just finished exams. We're on the semester sytem and i'm off for all of this week. On tuesday I start my 2 new classes. I'm in grade 8 by the way

[Angel]

I just realised today that I haven't posted in absolutely ages ... because of school. I've just been getting a ton of homework ... I haven't been in bed before eleven thirty all week, and generally then don't fall asleep until after midnight, so I've been pretty tired. Erk. I had to hand in an Ancient History assignment this week and one section was about the Punic Wars, and our textbook has about 80-100 pages of reading for that. I am so sick of Roman military techniques right now.

On an offhand note, at least I have two teachers who are spiffy beyond all spiffy for English Lit and Drama Studies. The first one goes off on tangents every two minutes and managed to conclude that the message Cinderella sends to readers is that men need women around to stop them from breaking things. The second one just says weird things all the time with a perfectly straight face while the rest of us pee ourselves laughing. Like "So, look for me when you get to the theatre. I'll be standing on the corner like a common prostitute." He rocks.

Okay, I'll stop rambling now

[Jaycee]

Yeah, I've been really busy with school lately too. I guess I'm one of the youngest ones here, so you guys probably get way more homework than i do but it sure seems like a lot to me. This weekend, I had to do three pages of research for a speech I'm wrting, a mini-project on one of the characters in the novel we're reading in english, find this wierd article thing for science and do a bunc hof really long questions for socials.

[Angel]

In my opinion, homework is relative. What I thought was a lot of homework in Year 8 would be a breeze for me now. I'm sure there are people out there who'd call me petty for whining about my workload now, but I feel the strain, and that's what makes it real to me. In other words, Jaycee: totally get where you're coming from.

I don't think that made a lot of sense. What can I say? My brain is frazzled.

It's our long weekend as of about two hours ago. We get Friday and Monday off (yay!). Unfortunately, this means that the teachers appear to think it's their personal duty to give us a ton of homework. Bummer.

But anyway ... guess who got an A on her English Lit and Drama Studies assignments? 'Twas me! ::is very proud and has over-inflated ego::

UPDATE: Aie. At the moment, I'm preparing for our first lot of exams ... my first full one is on Monday, although my French oral exam is tomorrow. It's totally insane; I have next to no free time (and really should be studying now). Yeah, I'm whining big-time.

On a totally different note, our reports came ot recently, so we had our parent-teacher-student interviews. I am so psyched -- my Drama Studies teacher told my parents that I have a natural talent for acting and could make a career out of it if I wanted to! Talk about a confidence booster ;D I didn't stop grinning all day.

[LittleLotte394]

Congrats on the compliment from your drama teacher, Angel!

As for me, I'm almost finished with school! 4 days *w00t*! (Whoa. I can't believe I just w00t-ed.) Anyway, that also means only 4 more days of my incroyable classe de Francais. I'm going to miss it during the 7-8 months before I take it again. At my school, you take one elective for a semester, then you take another one for the second semester (unless you're in band or chorus).

However, summer means no projects from my history teacher ;D.

[Jaycee]

You have GOT to be kidding! How come you get out of school so early? I have to wait until next month!

[LittleLotte394]

Well, I think I get out earlier because my school started back at the beginning of August. My friend lives in Washington, and she doesn't get out until next month, either. Something to do with district and starting time, I guess.

[The Black Domino]

Well all that I have to say school-related is that I'm just glad that it ended two weeks ago for me. Next year I'm going to a different school for, the one I was in ends precisely in the grade I was in. *sigh* But that's not what's bad, what *is* bad is that my 'new school' is very strict, which isn't bad if it weren't for that it's really, really, really (did I mention 'really'?) strict. Horror, horror, horror.

Oh well I have one summer before I literally die. I'm definitely looking for what happens in the summer (except the hellish heat), and I even may be seeing Phantom on June. Goodie.

By The Way, good luck to everyone on finals. ;-)

[Jaycee]

mademoiselle said:

By The Way, good luck to everyone on finals. ;-)

GAH! You said the word! I have to go die in a corner now!

[Angel]

Oh, I hope it's not that bad, Black Domino! Changing schools always sucks, but hopefully it won't be completely horrible.

As for me, I'm partying, because my exams are over! Finito! The end! (Until November.) I had Drama on Thursday morning, which went okay, I suppose. I'm a bit iffy about my essay on Australian drama, though ... I had to talk about verbal and non-verbal communication techniques I would use as an actor to establish the relationship between two characters from The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. What's annoying was that I could see it all in my head, but I had trouble getting my thoughts down on paper. But I'm pretty happy with my theory and script analysis. Unfortunately, no practical this time.

Anyway, I'm now on mid-term break, and head back to school on Tuesday. Aie. I feel so good at the moment, though, as I can bum around and do nothing without feeling guilty about it. I haven't felt like this since January.

UPDATE: Well, I've just got all my exam results back and ... I did good ::breathes sigh of relief:: Overall, I did best in Drama, and strangely enough got full marks for the Australian drama essay. However, my ego is supremely inflated because I got top of the year for Ancient History. (Yes, only nine people study it, but it's the principle!) Worst was Intro Calculus ... but that was expected

UPDATE: I'm a bit upset ... the best day of the school year -- Arts Day -- is over Basically, on Arts Day, we have no classes and instead compete in performing arts and/or ooh and aah over creative arts exhibitions. Overall, it's a contest between our school's six houses (I'm in Stewart, which is green ) Favourite. School. Day. Ever. Here's the lowdown on my experience:

Character Singing Solo: I sang 'The Simple Joys of Maidenhood' from Camelot ... boy, that sucked. I was first up and nervous as anything because it was early in the day and I hadn't had a chance to warm up my voice, so it kept cracking. And the more it cracked, the more frustrated I got, and the more frustrated I got, the more it kept cracking ::whacks head on wall:: Usually I can sing that song in my sleep, so it was kind of a bad start to the day.

Classical Singing Solo: I did 'Se tu m'ami' ... much better, although the first half was substantially better than the second, where I had trouble with breath support. I came second, which I was really happy about, given that I beat the established 'best singer' in my year group. Booyah. (The girl who won is bloody amazing, though, so I decided that she didn't count )

Piano Solo: I came second again! I played 'Toccata' by Khachaturian, which went reasonably well, although there was one bit where I started playing semiquavers completely out of control ... interesting.

French Prose Recitation: I won ;D Je suis très heureuse! I recited the Eponine death scene from Les Mis, which was a lot of fun ... well, not really, but you know what I mean!

Dramatic Monologue: I did a piece from Saint Joan by Bernard Shaw, which really was so much fun to do. I didn't place, but I wasn't expecting to, as I was up against all the Year 12 Drama students who are preparing monologues for their final exams ... and are amazing. Anyway, I liked doing mine muchly because I got to yell loudly and rip things up

Creative Writing: I entered three stories, and one, 'When Ollie Went Away' came second. If you want to read it, the link to my fictionpress account is in my signature </endshamelessplug>

French Prose Writing: I modified a story I wrote as a grammar exercise (when to use passé composé instead of imperfect) to fit the theme (backpacks), so 'The Wonderful Life of Miss Carrot and her Dog' became 'Miss Carrot's Mysterious Backpack'. Yeah, it was a pretty lame story, but it was completely grammatically correct, according to my teacher, so I guess that's why it won (yay!)

Cookery: Oh, dear, this was fun. My sister and I both wanted to enter another creative arts section to get more house points, so we basically threw together a packet mix cake, smothered it with green icing, then threw anything green we could find on it, then entered it in 'Cake Decoration'. In other words, it was a complete joke -- just for the house point. Therefore, we were stunned to find that our ridiculous mish-mash of green came third.

So, yeah. There's my highly long-winded spiel ... in case you can't tell, I like Arts Day a lot

[Angel]

::hyperventilates::

So. Much. Work!

Why do I leave all my assignments to the last minute? Why? Why? Why?

Okay, our exams begin in about a week and a half, which is scary enough in itself. But also, our teachers have decided to go assignment and test crazy over that week and a half, leaving us hardly any time to study for the exams as we're already up to our ears in assignments and test revision. Gah! I mean, today I had an English Lit in-class essay on An Imaginary Life (actually went surprisingly well, given that I didn't like the book much) and an Intro Calculus test (let's not talk about that). I've also got a Chemistry test tomorrow, a Drama in-class essay on Thursday, an Ancient History oral on Thursday, English Lit assignment and oral on the Monday next week ... and there's more but I can't be bothered typing it.

::whacks head against wall and slithers off to do work::

UPDATE: ... I am freeeeee!!

Summer holidays until 24th January! ::massive sigh of relief::

I had my exams which went ... okay. Not brilliant, but okay. Let me just say that it's a very good thing that I'm moving down to an easier maths class next year ... ::hates maths with a passion::

The sad thing is, however, that my uber-cool Drama Studies teacher is leaving us Seriously, it made me cry. In front of the entire school. (They announced he was leaving at an assembly, and all the drama students gave him a standing ovation and there I am sobbing my eyes out ... along with a couple of others, though )

But, yeah. Summer! Christmas! Rotto! <-- probably only makes sense if you live in Western Australia. So happy!

[LittleLotte394]

I swear, I'm going to be dead by the time the 1.5 weeks before my winter break are over. I've got 2 scarily large projects going here.

Project A- also known as "the fun project"- is for my science class. We have to write a story about a mad scientist whose experiment goes horribly wrong, and when we complete editing and all, we're getting them published into actual books. (For ourselves, though, not the public. I know you're sad .) My scientist was doing an experiment with plants, and essentially managed to create a 10 times more violent version of Audrey II. My teacher adored my story, she said .

Project B is for our school's annual History Fair. My group is creating an exhibit about the women's rights movement, and while we are enjoying learning about it, it's moving so slowly! And not just for my group, either- for everyone. Plus, one of the girls in my group, my friend Krista, broke her finger, so she can't do much writing. My other friend and only other group member, Erin, and I have to do most of it- and our exhibits need to have a two page report. Meep.

But to improve morale, we found a little poster of Rosie the Riveter that we keep in our information and research notebook. Rosie does a beautiful job of lifting us up.

[Angel]

Ouch ... sounds like you've got your hands full, Lotte!

I must say, though, the first project does sound really fun. (Lurve the Little Shop of Horrors inspiration! ) Why can't I get projects like that? By the way ... I'd love to read that story. You should post it on fictionpress or something if it's not being published for the masses And good luck for your History Fair project!

Well, today I got most of my textbooks for next year. This is insane. I've been out of school for less than a week and I'm already buying next year's books. Well, I mostly bought them so that I could read my texts for English Literature and Drama Studies over the holidays ... except the main Drama text, The Caucasian Chalk Circle (which I really wanted to read) wasn't in stock ::shakes fist at suppliers::

I am so scared of going back to school next year, though ... I'll be a Year 12! (Or a senior, whatever you want to call it.) I always thought that I'd be stoked to get to my final year, but I totally do not want to think that this time next year, school will be out FOREVER. No going back. Gah! (I also don't want to think about the fact that my marks this year will determine what I can and can't do at university ... meep!)