Friday, May 18, 2012

School Stuff and Things

So.

SCHOOL IS OUT!

Haha to all the losers still in school.

But also, I need to tell everyone about my AP testing experience. It was not pleasant at all. In fact, on my list of Top Ten Least Pleasant Things To Do, it is right in between Hanging Out With Relatives On Days When The Banks Are Open and Going Grocery Shopping On Black Friday. And those are pretty unpleasant.

First, they take you to this room, and it's this ugly Pepto Bismal color, and it smells like expired Scentsie smell. GROSS.

Then they make you sit at these squeaky old tables. And everyone has to be exactly five feet apart. In case the AP Test Inspectors arrive to do some, uh, Inspecting. I'm sorry, but HOW, exactly? In a room in which the total square feet do not amount to a number divisible by five? I'm not taking an AP math exam for a reason, lady. Who died and made you the contractor?

Then you put stickers on your booklet and fill out bubble sheets and so on. On any test, I hate doing that. Like, why do they need to know what my race is, or what religion I practice? I mean, I can understand being concerned if English wasn't my first language. But my religion? My RACE? Why don't I just come up with a short autobiography and submit it in triplicate for you? Wanna know my favorite TV show? What I ate for breakfast this morning? The clothes my parents were wearing the night I was born?

And why do they need to know what your race is, anyway? Doesn't that present bias? Do they favor different races? What if they look at the grades of races and found out that in the past, this certain race is dumber than the others, so they cut them slack when grading standardized tests???

Food for thought.

So you're sitting there feeling thoroughly discriminated against, and all these conspiracy theories are running through your brain, and there's a whole bit about not being allowed to have electronics, and don't look at your neighbors' tests, and if you are suspected of cheating your test will be taken away, and you are not allowed to stand up, make noise, breath, or look happy at all during the test. You also can't talk about the questions on the test, because there are Spies Watching You, and the AP Test Creators Have Eyes Everywhere. If you talk about the test, they will Come to Take You Away. So, Live in Fear.

Right.

Then you take the test, and then it's over. And you wonder why they all get so uptight about everything when one of the words in their questions was misspelled.

(All right, no, but you get the idea. We're in POST-Cold War America, people.)

(Those test creators sure love to flatter themselves, don't they? I think it boosts their self-esteems, especially since clearly they spent their whole childhood without friends. Who wants to be friends with the guy who tucks his shirt into his jeans and always has exactly two sharpened No. 2 pencils for standardized testing?)

And then Awards Ceremony.

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I hate that Time of the Year. I really do. I never got awards for anything at Yukon, because I wasn't involved in sports- *coughcough* - WOO, sorry, I mean *theonlyavailable* extracurriculars. (C'mon, guys, you KNOW it's biased.) So during Yukon assemblies, I was my normal sarcastic self.

At Harding, I didn't want any awards either. Because getting an award means you have to go onstage and smile and try really, really hard not to fall. And you don't want to make eye contact with anyone in the audience, or you'll totally lose it.

For the rest of us, it's completely boring. Like, "Woo-hoo, you have the highest math grade in the Freshman Class. You might wanna count your friends when you get home. Only the ones that everybody can see count."

But I still got an award. In choir. Which was nice. Because after school my parents to me to my favorite Chinese place for dinner, and then we went and saw The Avengers all the way through, right down to the last scene where they all sit there and eat awkwardly.

Which was pretty awesome.

Last, but not least, Graduation. The Big G. The one everyone's waiting for.

*sob*

Okay, so I only went to the robing, and I only went to that because it was a required school assembly and I was stuck at school till 4:30. And I was way in the back so I couldn't see anything, and I was playing with a paper fortune-teller the whole time.

SO WHAT???

The principal got up and made about the worst metaphor possible:

"Parents, eighteen-some-odd years ago, you swaddled these young men and women...."

And that should give you some idea of how the rest of the ceremony went. If there is any one way to completely lose an entire audience of four hundred and fifty high schoolers, plus there parents, that's it. And she executed it perfectly.

After the seniors were swaddled into their robes, there were awards for them too, which I only remember vaguely. Because when I graduate, it'll be a home schooler ceremony.

My PARENTS have to give me the diploma.

There will be tassels and stuff.

I'll have to be swaddled in a robe. On stage.

Worse. They don't let you wear sneakers to a graduation ceremony.

WHY???

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Love Your Mom

In honor of Mother's Day- and also because I'm incredibly bored- I have compiled a list of the World's Greatest Mothers. Even though it's incredibly cliche. Oh well. GET OVER IT.

10. Lorelai Gilmore- Lorelai Gilmore is a great mom. Even though she got pregnant as a sixteen-year-old, she is still a GREAT mom. I mean, she could have gone crazy and moved to a trailer park and started smoking and wearing housedresses. But she didn't. She got a job, and took care of her kid, and she doesn't let anyone tell her what to do. She's what all teen moms think they'll be, when they move "temporarily" to a trailer park.



9. Frankie Heck- Frankie Heck is a superhero. She also kind of reminds me of how my parents are, because they're always saying, "Oh, we need to change this, we need to do that, we need to go on walks together and stress out about laundry." And they spend so much time worrying about all that other stuff that they don't realize our family is okay the way it is, no matter how much we have trouble getting along. Frankie does the same thing. She tries to force memories on her family and make them like the Donahews, and then she realizes, her family may keep clothes in the dishwasher, and have to turn on the toaster to make the TV work, but they're still a good family, and they still get by in their own way.



8. Sally Jackson from the Percy Jackson Series- Sally Jackson is a single mom phenom. I'm serious. First, she had a kid with freaking Poseidon, which is already totally unfair. Next, she's really, really pretty. Because moms who date Greek gods have to be pretty, even after they have a kid. And then there's that whole bit where she stayed in abusive relationships to protect her son from evil monsters and things, which sounds kind of twisted, but this is fiction, so you have to not think about it. And of course, the blue food. Which is awesome. I wish I could go into a grocery store and just buy a bunch of blue food and be able to live on it. That would be amazing.



7. The Mom from Burn Notice- I don't watch that show all that much, but I LOVE her. I think her name is Madeleine or something. Anyway, Micheal Westen's mom is awesome. Whenever he needs help, she's always there, but she rags on him the whole time anyway. I'm surprised she hasn't keeled over from lung cancer by now from all that smoking. But she's probably the most realistic portrayal of a mom whose kid is a spy that there is.



6. Mrs. Hudson from BBC Sherlock- I know she isn't technically Sherlock or John's mother, but who cares? No matter what she says, she's more than a landlady. She looks after those two more than any of us know. The whole time she goes around cleaning 221B in her British Old Lady Nanny Mcphee dresses, she's always saying, "I'm not your housekeeper." But she does it anyway. She's smart, she knows where all of Sherlock's secret hiding places are, and when that American thug broke in and tried to hold Mrs. Hudson hostage, Sherlock pushed him out of a window. Twelve times. You know what Sherlock says: "Mrs. Hudson, leave Baker Street? England would fall!"

Plus she totally ships Johnlock which earns her coolness points.



5. Marmee from Little Women- Okay. Fine. Call me a sentimental classics-loving teenager. I don't care. She's one of the best moms in the Lit World. Marmee was an understanding mom, her advice actually worked and made sense, and she was always there even when one of the girls did something really stupid, like burn off their hair with an iron. And Marmee was always very calm and incredibly open minded for a Civil War woman. So there.



4. The Mom from The Blind Side- First: She's Sandra Bullock. Second: She's southern. THIRD: She's a football mom. I mean, it's kind of a law that she has to be a good mom. And if it's not, there should be. Every mom with teenagers totally aspires to be her. And Sandra Bullock. Even if blond hair doesn't exactly work for her.



3. Cheri Hamilton- Her daughter was attacked by a shark, and she totally saved her daughter from depression and going through a manic goth stage. She even used that statue of Venus to make her daughter feel better. She's a great role model, and Helen Hunt plays her really well in the movie.

 
                           (Helen Hunt)                                    (Cheri Hamilton)

2. Mrs. Weasley- Um, she killed Bellatrix Lestrange. 'Nuff said.

 
1. Whoever Your Mom Is- You owe a lot to your mom. Namely, your very existence. She does your laundry, she feeds you, she lets you live in her house, or did for about eighteen years. So don't screw it up, because if they all quit one day, we'd be completely lost. We would have to make our own food! And clean! And do all kinds of other stuff we're normally too lazy to do!

All of which is just to say, be good to your moms. Show them you care. Because one day, you'll be doing your own laundry, and they'll be laughing at you.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries- AWESOMENESS!!

So, if you know me, then you know I like Pride and Prejudice. Yes, I know that Jane Austen is mainstream. Yes, I know that liking that stuff automatically gets you labelled "dork" in the high school cafeteria. Good thing I'm not a hipster. Good thing I stopped caring what any of the other hormonally-imbalanced teenagers that I am incarcerated with for eight hours every day think.

Anyway.

Last year, for the lulz, I read P&P and ripped it to shreds on my facebook notes (I didn't have a blog then), and since then it's become one of my favorite books of all time. I am seriously considering moving revised analysis of that dearest, darlingest book over here to this old blog, but who knows? I'm a bit lazy for that sort of thing. Maybe I'll do Sense and Sensibility. (Don't even get me STARTED on the redundancy of the title.)

And I was perusing Tumblr, because ordinary people peruse things all the time, and I found wonderful awesomeness.

Lizzie Bennet has a TUMBLR. I am not even kidding you right now.

Okay, obviously it's not the real Lizzie Bennet. And it's very nerdy. But SO WHAT??? I LOVE nerdy things! This is the type of stuff I thrive on. It's like if fanfiction were suddenly well-written with a plausible plot and good character development!

So, in short, somewhat akin to dying and going to heaven. :)

Here is a link to the awesomeness. CLICK IT.

The End, for now.

Love Sarah :)