Cyclical Concerns & Condemning Classwork

I am in an alliterative mood, which means that I am most likely sleep deprived.

My final assignment for my Masters degree is to fill in a chart of grades I received this semester, when I posted to the message board, and names of people who I 'collaborated' with (aka, commented vaguely on their postings).

Boo Hoo, my class is too easy. Perhaps I should not tempt fate with my bemoaning of mundane problems.

My main fear is that I am not prepared to go on to my doctorate. If the work I am doing is reminiscent of a middle school class...will sink when I go further in my education? Armed with a high GPA, did I really earn the title of MEd?

Upon further investigation into the scary depths of my memory, I realized that I had thought this before. Digging up the dreaded old OpenDiary, I found an entry from 4/24/2001. A week shy of a decade ago I penned:

is it better to fail a really hard test or pass an increadibly easy one? in history after all of the realy hard test, she gave us a super easy test that a 4th grader could pass. which is better, failing and getting a low grade on you transcript, or passing and not being challenaged or prepared for next year? just wondering.

My sense of spelling and grammar was atrocious; I guess I should be less judgmental of the middle school students I encounter on a near daily basis. Was spell check available back then? I was only allowed five minutes of internet time back in the day... maybe I sacrificed mechanics in favor of philosophy.  Errors aside, my thirteen year old angst ridden self had a point...I would have never guessed that I would have the same doubts and concerns upon contemplating a doctorate.

I graduate in 20 days.

Cynicism

Found this from the old open diary, its about 10 years old (ok, a month shy of 10 years). Yes, I was 13. This was written as a response to a middle school history teacher telling the class that we were all to fail in high school, and in life. Not that she ever saw this bit of writing...reading it over still conjures images of her <shudders> how or why she ever taught will always be a mystery to me.


No, I do not believe in myself.
I don’t think I’m here.

Forced to jump through hoops like a circus dog,
Forced to “understand,”
I have lost myself within a wasteland of bodies,
School

After all, our self esteem low,
Told we are going to fail,
Why then bother,
Why torture us,
Screaming at us to succeed when you ‘know’ we are all going to fail?
Yeah, I know you don’t expect the impossible,
But you won’t explain the possible.
Our standards lowered,
Our images shattered,
How can we be expected to succeed when you don’t believe in us?
Since youre ‘authority’ everything you say is true,
If you don’t believe in us,
Why should we?
How could we?
How could we possibly be expected to keep our self-esteem and our grades
When we are continuously reminded that we will fail
How can we live day and night receiving orders to be carried out to help our future.
What future?
You’re always preparing us for some adventure planed for the following year,
A year to fail
FAIL, FAIL, FAIL, FAIL.!!!!!
How can we not help but fail when conditions are so negative
Lacking any sense of trust within one another
Or a sense of self being,
The sense that should be free,
The natural right of believing
That you exist.

It has been a week...

Cant sleep.

Somehow I keep on finding myself in this position...wrote another 11 pages tonight, did it in a few hours. Not my best work, by far, but enough for this class. It kills me to write that.

Lets see....

Monday: Subbed a class, sleep deprived, somehow got through 4 sections of Japanese. Went home, slept, woke up and went to second job for three hours.

Tuesday: Stayed home. Slept. Wrote a cover letter for an application to be a *real* teacher. Applied. Went to second job. Saw the movie Beastly with elealanea...first movie in theaters in near a year!

Wednesday: Taught middle schoolers. Confirmed my beliefs that they are a very difficult population to work with. Went to second job. Had a great dinner at elealanea's house.

Thursday: Subbed high school, had an intern, chill day.

Friday: attempted to clean. did homework. spring break for the k-12 schools start

Saturday: work. elealanea's bday celebration downtown which is why i spent most of today sleeping

and goes back to now

which is probably why i cant sleep.

1.75 down 1.25 left

1.75 + 1.25 = 3, the math of essay writing

TV is pretty bleak at this point...but keeping a constant stream of noise in my apartment...right now its Elvira's Macabre presents Teenagers from Outer Space...

5:26...usually I wake up at this time to find a subbing job...

I should probably start the third essay, the .75 of the essay will be finished once I read 4 pages of an article in the library tomorrow.

man this movie is awful.

There are way too many numbers in this post!!!

18 hours later...

I have four essay topics, and have to respond to three of them by Sunday.  18 hours after my last post and I have a whopping total of 1 paragraph of work done (granted, I also have 4 awesome articles/reports to cite for one of my essays).

I procrastinated a lot when I was a kid...I always thought I would grow out of it!

Hopefully I will have something accomplished by the next post!

Chinchilla Ghosts

The request of a friend who was reminiscing about the days of freeopendiary (which was over a DECADE ago) to create a blog, coupled with the need for something to keep me from doing my real work spawned this blog. Separate from my London blog, and very far away from my ramblings as a middle schooler.

So what should I be doing...

I should be:

working on my Masters level comp exam (due sunday)
working on homework due tomorrow
reading for homework due tomorrow
sleeping off sleep deprivation
cleaning my apartment

Instead I am going to play around with my template, and maybe start writing at 4...that seems like a good time to start my paper...

Oh, as for the chinchilla ghosts...I was hearing strange noises in my apt...and a friend suggested that it was random chinchilla ghosts...