Breathing

Well, that's that. The last full week of school come and gone. I doubt that my stomach will be in condition for even a brief nostalgic glimpse at the bastion of evil. If all goes according to plan, as soon as the eighth block bell cries freedom (or, perhaps, sooner), I'll launch myself into a vehicle and venture as far and as fast as possible in an outward direction, away from the home of the slow, paralyzing, mind-numbing destruction of my sanity. It's going to be a good week.

I'm somewhat back to normal. We've been, miraculously, keeping up with the schedule, and we're set to film again today -- the last time for the weekend. On Monday we're in a classroom to film two scenes and then in the auditorium after school to capture Kevin's presentation. We're taking the day off on Tuesday (see previous paragraph), filming a few scenes with Eric posing as a doctor in the afternnon on Wednesday, and getting the massive chunk of scenes that take place in the boardroom done on Thursday. That's as far as I can remember into the future, but we're getting there. Although we're behind schedule and we won't be done on June 23 like previously hoped, we will be down to the last 10-15 pages in the script. Unless, you know, we get father behind, which is always pretty likely.

I'm quite pleased that Economics and Statistics are done. My plan is to take Sunday (or maybe Saturday afternoon as well) to do the English paper and finish the Biology projects, turn them in on Monday and call it a year. Alright, enough with the boring specifics of my life and on to the boring general musings...

I've noticed, personally, the last few days of school that most teachers completely ignore the mental and emotional state of students when assigning work, or in dealing with students in general. Melissa made an observation the other day, saying that teachers like to think that stress in student's lives is completely unrelated to school and only connected to some abstract social problem that they have no control over. She went on to say that this is a false sense of separation. That makes sense to me. Teacher's are very in to their jobs -- they're professionals. They want to push students really hard and, as Mr. Borland said, they feel guilty when they don't assisgn a lot of work. He, Mr. Borland, also said that most teachers relieve their guilt by assigning busy work because they don't have the confidence to separate the work that needs to be done from the rest.

The whole thign is your average: "Am I going to get everything done in the amount of time I have?" versus "If I use all the time I'm given to the maximum, things should turn out okay." Those are the two ways to look at it, I think. One, you think about all the things you want to get accomplished and try to schedule them in. Or, two, you're not focused or disciplined enough to organize what needs to be accomplished, so, instead, you do the next best thing: make sure you're using all your time, hoping that that'll accomplish the same thing. Number two is significantly less taxing and downright easy, but not nearly as effective as number one. In my ever-cynical opinion, which method do you suppose I imagine most teachers utilize?

I hate hearing things like "I have to give you a final project" or "we're supposed to have a end of the year examination." Do you agree with it or not? If you don't I certainly hoped you discussed your aprehensions with the school administraters. Or, if you agree with it, why don't you take credit for its existence and drop the have to's and supposed to's. I feel relatively cheated by the whole high school experience. I feel it could've been so much more. So much more focused and effective. I guess that's what I get for going to public school. I think I would've really enjoyed a boarding school, one of those really expensive private ones where academics rule your life.

Instead I got most of my education from discussions and arguments with my group of comrades. I give very little credit for anything I know, as arrogant as that sounds, to the teachers I've have, a handful of amazing teachers excluded. Most of the credit goes to Eric, to Dan, to Kevin, to Tony, to Schreiber, to any number of real teachers I've had, friends who've joined us in a heated battle of wills, arguing an abstract points over and over again. Not because they were people that knew more than me starting out, just because they were people that were somewhat invested in me as an individual and willing to learn in an indirect way.

I mean, what are the things I'm best at? Writing, filmmaking, history...The writing comes directly from Dan, working on I-don't-even-know how many projects over the years as well as a constant stream of book recommendations from Eric over the years. The whole filmmaking thing is directly routed in the old Inner Cirle, Dan, Kevin, etc., and the Scream Project. I mean, if it didn't begin there, where did it begin? And history -- that leads right back to the heated discussions, usually of a political nature and always with more historical references than probably appropriate. But there it is. We created our education, I think. And I'd just like to note that here before Eastridge High School, blue and white, gets all the credit for our success someday.

And as much as some of those arguments get on my nerves now, I really appreciate them. I think the problem is that they're really hard and really taxing now. We've all gotten kind of good at it...and we take less recovery time than ever. It's sometimes, somedays, a constant stream of arguments. There are days when one can't make a stament without having to defend it to the ground. Something as simple as expressing a personal desire needs to be justified. But I digress, I meant to say thank you, but, instead, I said a lot of other things.

Thank you.