ACT SAT NMSQT LMNOP

Standardized tests are REALLY unfair.

I just took the SAT the other week.  I thought I rocked its world.

At least I hope...because I didn’t do that hot on the ACT.  I consistently reassure myself by telling myself that I took the ACT on the day that I got sick with something that made me lost 5 pounds over the course of three days.

Regardless.  I’m aware that they’re “standardized” for a reason...To compare every potential college student against one another.  But different schools teach different things.  We’re all prepared differently.  There’s this whole array of different things that the colleges want us to know...but at the same time, our teachers have to teach in order to meet the state requirements.  We can’t satisfy everything.  There are only so many hours in a day.

The science section of the ACT is probably the most unfair section out of both tests.  The questions and scenarios are ridiculous.  The only reason I get through it and score well is by skipping the setup scenario and data ENTIRELY and going to the questions, then looking at a specific set of data and answering the question.  And only look at what the question is asking.  Because all of the information they give you is completely unnecessary, and I would not be surprised at ALL if they are just testing your ability to sort through BS.

That’s what a lot of life seems to be, though, so maybe it’s an applicable part of the test....

Again, it’s just completely unfair for them to judge us and basically determine our future based upon what they think we should know.  Going to college should be determined by our ability to gain knowledge and retain knowledge...not guessing what we’re going to need to know for a  test.

AGT pairs with TCA

“You are your parents.”

In bio we keep talking about this...and how no matter how much we try and say otherwise, we are a product of our parents.  They made us.  Everything that was inside of them is now inside of us....without them, we are nothing.

Thinking about that scares me.  I don’t exactly have the best genes.

I’m assuming that no one reads this and I dearly hope I’m right.

If we are our parents, then I feel as if you can just look at where they are to know where you’re going to go in life.  I know this isn’t exactly accurate, but if you look at families, they all generally resemble each other.  Of course there’s always the black sheep, but in general...families are patterns.

I can’t exactly go too far back with this seeing as my real family is all probably dead in Vietnam.  My mother and uncle were adopted twins.  My adoptive grandmother...well, I guess she’s also my mother because of some legal family matters...weird...but she’s generally not what I want to turn out like.  She’s uneducated, and uninformed, but she acts as if she is both well educated AND informed.  In reality, she’s not.  She’s a highly bias conservative that claims to be an independent.  My grandfather is someone that thinks he’s much smarter than he is because he got into a big corporation before there was a serious stress on education.  My mother didn’t even go to college and instead danced around poles until ten or so years ago.  My dad is/was a conman that we ran away from for a plethora of reasons.  Everyone I grew up around and everyone I’m a part of is someone I don’t want to be like.

Abused children always say they’re not going to be like their parents...but most of the time, they just end up doing the same things.  Am I going to be like that?  Does my extreme duress over worrying about this make it less probable that I’m going to turn out like them?

I don’t want to be a product of my genes and I don’t want to turn into the people I’ve come from.  I’m dedicated to changing myself as much as possible to be as unlike them as possible.  But in trying to change myself so drastically, will I even be myself anymore?  Or will I just lose my identity?  Is that better or worse than just becoming a screw up, if that’s who I am?

F genetics.

gtfo.

This is going to be a short spew of frustration..... :|

When I was at the gym today, there was a woman walking on a treadmill....and talking on the phone.  I don’t understand what the heck she thinks she’s doing, but obviously if you’re able to talk on a phone in completely comprehensible speech, you’re not exactly working hard enough.

But some people go to the gym and workout for completely superficial reasons.  I feel as if half of the people that “work out” only go there and put in as minimal amount of work as possible just to make themselves feel better about their bodies.  If you’re not there to do yourself any real good, then you might as well get out and stop using something that some of us could be putting to better use.

I go to the gym because it makes me healthy.  It gives me confidence.  And I’m just better off physically, because goodness knows I didn’t exactly start off with the best health.  But people like that...who can completely disregard that they’re not doing anything to better themselves...make me mad.  You’re already there, you’re already on the thing, at least put in some real effort.  Or lift some weights.  I love weights.

It just seems like a waste of time.  Go read a book instead.

There’s also a man that always goes on the stationary bike and reads...I meet so many interesting people at the gym.

Like the man that takes the clock off the wall.  But that’s another story.

2012 may only be a little off....

The apocalypse is going to basically just be a massive world war over food.

By 2050, the world population is predicted to be 9 billion.  We’re going to have to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the past 8 thousand.  That’s a lot of food.  The only reason we’ve even been able to produce as much food as we have is because of genetic engineering....and even that can only be taken so far.  HOW are we going to produce enough food to feed 9 billion people?

We’re all going to go insane.  And kill each other over food.  I wish this was a joke, but in all seriousness it’s completely plausible.

However, I suppose it’ll bring back a sense of “survival of the fittest”.  Ever since we started inventing things to accommodate the less “superior” people, humans have been passing on less efficient genes.  People who lacked cleverness or strength used to be taken care of by predators, or starve because they couldn’t fend for themselves.  But we accommodate for those people in modern society.  But if we literally have to fight to eat...then the less genetically fortunate human beings are going to be picked right out of society all over again.

Well, I guess it’s just another form of population control.

Welcome back.

Recently I’ve become reacquainted with someone that I wish had stayed part of my life during the time that our friendship was nonexistent.

We were friends a while ago, and a chain of events severed that.  However, now that we’re older and more mature...things are starting to work again.  We’re starting to work again.  I don’t know them very well anymore, but at the same time, I feel as if I know them better than anyone.  Because we began with each other...our start through the journey of adolescence began with each other.  So in a way, we helped to form the people we are today.  We both know who we were before we were who we are now...if that makes any sense at all.

Regardless.  I feel as if I can’t go where I’m supposed to go in life without remembering where I’ve been.  So this friendship, come back to haunt me from wherever it was hiding, is probably a good thing...I hope.

I wish we’d kept being friends.  I don’t trust many people.  But this person knew more about me than anyone at the time.  It’s hard to live without someone you can confide in.  I guess when I lost that friendship I also lost that convenience.  Maybe that’s why I’m crazy.

Living in isolation is impossible, but I tried....and I tried hard.  But it ended up doing more harm than good.

This is a lesson in remembering what’s truly important, and how nothing should get in the way of those things.

The person I've known the longest is the person I tell the least.

I’ve been friends with a certain girl for fourteen years, and she is the last person I would ever confide in.  I had to explain this to one of my close friends, because to him, the concept was incomprehensible.  But I’ll attempt to relay this again.

There are a few reasons, I suppose.

She’s known me for almost my entire life.  She’s known me throughout my childhood, and we grew up best friends, and I was almost always around her.  So I just feel like she should have noticed the things that started happening, and the things people were doing to me, and the ways in which I drastically changed during a certain point of my life.  I hold contempt for her because she didn’t notice anything.  She never commented on small details that hinted to something being wrong in my private life.  And I’m aware that she was young, and naive, and unaware of the evils that exist within this world, so I’m overly aware of the fact that I shouldn’t blame her for not questioning the changes in my behavior or dwelling on them.  But I’m human, so I still hold a sort of contempt for that.

Another reason being, she’s extremely judgmental and is overly concerned with her image.  Let me annotate....when I was in 6th grade, I started going to Aurora’s High School football games.  I was going to transfer to Aurora in the next school year, so I figured I should try and meet some people.  I was also in my goth stage...I’ve been through every phase that there is...as embarrassing as it is.  But when we got to one of the football games, she went off on me, and told me that she wouldn’t be seen with me because of the way I dressed - I was going to ruin her reputation.  And then she ditched me.  I was a 6th grade girl, alone in a stadium full of people I didn’t know.  It was pretty traumatizing, and I don’t really even remember how I got home, since this was the pre-cell phone age.  I’m not mad about this anymore, but it just reinforces the opinion of her that I have: she’s overly concerned about the things that people think of her and lets them dictate every action.  She’ll be friends with someone one day, and not the next, because of factors that shouldn’t matter.

She’s two faced to an extent, but I suppose we all are.

At this point, my friend told me that he didn’t see this about her.  And, I understand that.  I know her better than anyone else in the world knows her.  I’ve seen everything about her and I’ve seen her for who she really is.  I know so much about her, and I know that people never completely change.  Yes, they do change, but the most internal things about them don’t.  My hate will never change.  Her concern with image will never change.  She won’t be friends with certain people because she doesn’t want it to affect how other people view her.  I love her, trust me, and she and her family are the closest thing I’ve had to stability.

But I know her.

It keeps me from confiding in her because when you love someone as much as I love her, the thing that will break you is having that person reject you.  And I know what it feels like for her to do that, so I avoid it at every cost.

She’s refused to let me confide in her in the past; she’s called me a liar, she’s blatantly showed that she doesn’t care, and she’s changed the subject before I can even finish expressing myself to her own problems and disregarded my distress.  And if she did that to me once more, I know how I would feel.  Thus, I avoid it.

She’s aware that she cares too much about her image.  But the thing is, she just doesn’t care that her lifestyle is flawed.  At least, she hasn’t until recently.  Recently, she’s been trying to change....but like I said, the deepest things about our characters never truly change.  Alcoholics will always be alcoholics; they’ll always live with the temptation.  She will always have that nagging concern of how people view her.

My friend said, that if she gets a little better, I could at least see her in a slightly different light.  And you know, maybe, maybe not.  It would be as hard for me to change my views of her as it would be for her to change her manner of living.  With that logic, her efforts deserve equal efforts on my part.  However...I know myself and I know my internal mechanisms for self preservation.

Sometimes my extreme rationality prevents me from developing friendships and general relationships, and that is the flaw that will lead to my downfall as a being if I don’t learn how to let myself be influenced by emotions when the situation calls for it.

It’s what prevents me from saving a friendship that I fear I will someday analyze until it becomes meaningless in my rational eyes.  However...maybe that fear is the driving force which will trigger my change.

You treat me poorly for the way that I am and the things that I do, but you will never change me.

I’ve always been treated fairly badly by the male gender.  Of course, there are individuals whom have kept me from viewing males as a whole in a negative light.

Teenagers are extremely insecure, males in particular, even though women are considered the more fragile of the sexes.  It stems from centuries of male dominated societies.  Men are used to being in control.  Women, in their eyes (at least in general), will always be viewed subconsciously in a subservient light.  We always have to prove ourselves, over and over again, no matter how many successful women have existed.

And so when women exert independence, it intimidates the men whom are used to us being so dependent upon them that they can dictate our lives.  When we surpass them, we intimidate them.  Thus, they retaliate.  Men try to assert power over strong women by condescending them.

I’m aware that I’m an intelligent girl.  I know that I’m far from being a genius, and I’m aware of the plethora of both women AND men that are smarter than me.  But I’m equally aware of the people that I’m more intelligent than.  It doesn’t make me a better person by any means, intelligence just a part of my character and a part of their character, no matter to what extent that we have it.

I’ve always been treated fairly badly by the male gender.  I’ve been told that I’m intimidating, and even if I don’t see it, other people do.  I’m extremely independent.  In relationships (as pointless as I may believe they are in high school, I still have them....hypocrite), I never rely on my partner for anything.  As long as they don’t try and inhibit me, I don’t care if they don’t agree with my views or my actions.  But because I’m so proactive instead of reactive...I guess I just don’t fit the subservient woman that most boys secretly would want.  I don’t heed to their desires and I act for myself.  (That's not to say I don't do things in order to make them happy, because I do...but you know what I mean.)

And it’s caused me to fall victim to quite the round of criticism.  I’ve heard it all.  That may be hard to believe...but I’ve been called things so emotionally abusive and so degrading that it would crush a lot of people.

But like I said, I don’t care if they agree with who I am or not, I’m my own person.  And maybe a little emotionless...

I started thinking about this because someone actually asked me to be their valentine this year.  I’m not used to that.  I’ve always been treated poorly because I cause males to rethink their roles and their views.  But, like I said, exceptions have been ever present in my life to keep me from thinking negatively about the male gender as a whole.

And I really appreciate those people and our friendships.  So thank you.  Thank you for being a part of my life.