In the words of Trekkie Monster - "Oh, me sorry"

So yeah, I haven't posted in a few days. I don't think any of you died. If you did, please send me an email right away to announce your death..

*checks email*
 
kay good.

Just a sec. I have to pee.

Aah relief. So, chillins, boarding school. What has happened since Monday?

• Classes. It's been good having a free period, but I've got to stop relying upon it. If i get my homework for the whole day done the night before (near impossible when you have 4 hours of homework and 2 hours of study hall) then I can work on my homework for the next day during my free period. I hope I can stick to that.

• I got second place in a Rapidan challenge about map reading. I didn't win because I didn't run in the last challenge as it was Yom Kippur and I was exhausted. Hooray for Remote Sensing skills!

• Yom Kippur. So I decided to fast, as did one other kid. Well dinner happens from 6:15-7. Sunset was 7:05. Becuase of this, I thought, whatever, I'll fast all day and eat dinner because if I were at home I would be having dinner post-sundown. But Brett, the other kid, had eaten breakfast without remembering Yom Kipper, so he felt like he should fast during dinner to make up for that. I didn't want him to have to suffer alone, so I fasted during dinner too. It was Thursday. That's seated dinner. You go in at 6:15 and sit down with other boys and a teacher. You are served something dinnery and then a dessert. By 7 the tables are cleaned and there is no more food. Not eating at seated dinner is, well, a bit difficult. I was lucky in that our teacher did come today so I didn't have to serve the food (I seem to be the only student at the table capable of feeding himself), but I still sat there the 45 minutes just watching the others eat. It wasn't that bad; they had ribs. blech. When asked why I wasn't eating, I simply replied that it was Yom Kippur and the AWESOME latin teacher who sits at my table understood. Now here's the cool part. Mr. Brewster (Latin teacher) was finishing up scaring the prospect students at our table ("What language do you take?" "Spanish" "Oh really? You should take Latin. They don't offer Spanish here. In fact, they beat up anyone who wants to take Spanish. If you don't take Latin people ridicule you forever.") he came to me and asked

"Do you want me to save you a vegetarian meal?"
"Oh, that's alright sir. I think I'll just go to the Fir Tree after second study hall and eat then. Thank you, though."
"That’s bullcrap. Vegetarians can’t eat anything at the Fir Tree. I shouldn't have even asked you. I'm getting you one. That kid, over there, is he fasting too?"
"Yes, but you really don't hav-"
"Okay, then I'll get two."

Twenty minutes later, Brett and I were in my room, pretending to blow a shofar and eating our vegetarian meals. The lesson, chillins, is that Latin teachers can kick major ass. I love Mr. Brewster and will be sad to leave his table.

·         Homework. I had damn lots of that.

·         I found my iPod!!!!!

·         I jammed with James (kid who looks like Heath Ledger) for like 2 hours just figuring out songs on bass and flute (he plays flute :D). *sigh*

·         Dr. Campbell congratulated me on my article! He was like (please say the following in a very silly old man voice which you think of when you hear the word Headmaster) “That was a fantastic article! You can talk to me anytime you want, Dennis. Really great.”

·         I decided the best way to motivate myself would be to get pictures of MIT and Anna and post them to the window in front of my desk. I now never need to question my motivation to get up at 5:30 every day and go to bed at midnight every night.

·         I ordered Brisingr, the Eragon and Eldest book, from Amazon. Christopher Paolini now writes like a demented 16 year-old, not just one obsessed with D & D. Whatever; it’s like a MMORPG in a book. I’m having a good time.

·         I started getting daily SAT questions. So far I haven’t missed any (woot).

·         I started the process of college decisions. I don’t just have to look at different schools; I have to fill out tons of surveys about dumb shit so they can try to pinpoint my personality. If I get into MIT I’m stopping right there. My life will be complete.

·         I didn’t receive any mail from Katherine. Hmmmm.

·         I started thinking about my summer. I want to go on a road trip about the country (mostly the East Coast) looking at schools. Noticed how my life revolves around college now? Yup; that’s boarding school!

·         The ruling on pants was changed. Students can wear jeans in good condition to the buffet meals. Woot.

·         I had a great meeting today in our secret GSA. We’re having a meeting next month with Dr. Campbell and we’re going to try to get a gay speaker to come to Woodberry.

Well that’s about it. Like I’ve said, life here is pretty status quo. I’m learning a lot, but my life isn’t really packed full of interesting tidbits. Therefore I regress again to analysis:

            This school does many things better than North, but it still isn’t perfect. No school is, and part of that is simply that my idea of perfect education doesn’t include schools. Some things that happen here could never be applied to North; North can’t kick people out based on their lying, North doesn’t have half the money this school does, and North has little control over what students do when they leave at 2:30. That being said, there are a few things that I think could improve education not only at North but at public schools.

            1) Rotating schedule. I have said it since beginning of sophomore year. Here’s what it would look like :

And so forth. That’s the easy schedule. Let’s just give someone 8 classes and see how it plays out:

Week 1

Week 2

or

Week1

Week 2

and so on. It’s a 4 week rotation. These are two models out of HUNDREDS. The point is, you don’t always have Chemistry after lunch. You don’t always get to school at 8:05 because Portle doesn’t count you tardy and you have him first period. You aren’t always tired by the time you reach English because it’s the last period. Teachers don’t leave work early every day because they have their prep period last. All of these problems go away. Sure, it looks more confusing. But if you can’t handle that, you shouldn’t be able to handle.. I don’t know. Life.

Well that’s all I’ve got for right now. This is like 5 pages in word, so I feel that anyone who actually reads this has been sufficiently updated on my life. To end my post, here is a link to a picture of James which you should all see:

http://photos-e.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v295/118/51/655950446/n655950446_3562460_1130.jpg

Oh god.