Orientation week.

So much mindless socialization, I'm screaming inside. I made friends with a few other introverts and we've been bonding over our shared dislike for name games. We rarely have any time to ourselves before 10 PM and each hour seem to be placed in larger and larger groups. Tonight was Playfair, an icebreaker involving all 1,000+ members of the freshman class. Rowdy crowds, applause, confined spaces, static playing over the speakers, all sorts of things I don't do well with... I somehow avoided overload by focusing on a red light in the distance and trying to project my consciousness into it, but I can barely remember what happened around me from that point on. Crossing my fingers tomorrow won't be so chaotic.

Nothing has changed.

Everything has changed, but still I am the same.

You can't run and you can't hide from the demons eating you from the inside.

Anyway, I'm sitting on the step of Wigglesworth H at Harvard and typing while listening to noise off the street. No, I'm not locked out, I'm just sick of being locked in. Thank you for your concern.

I love it here. Everything is so much more human, and it's impossible to feel like you're not. I really am learning here. I've become that person who sits in classes they're not even assigned to just because they're interesting.

You know, the best things about knowledge and imagination are that they keep you company when you're virtually confined in a box. Boxes include, but are not limited to, dorm rooms, lecture halls, classrooms, houses, any place with four walls and a ceiling.

Why do I need an escape from my escape?

Here it becomes circular. I'd like to talk with my philosophy professor about the nature of escapism. I think it would be an interesting discussion.

This is why I can't become attached to anyone or anything here (sorry). I don't want to make it harder to leave when it's time to. I don't want an anchor anymore.

Day by day, I fight the fever alone.

Back-to-School Blues. (Draft 9.1.12)

I suppose I've been living in some sort of a bubble this summer, some sort of selectively permeable barrier that only my geeky old friends, my geekier new friends, and all their geeky influences can cross. (And clearly it's affecting me. I just said "selectively permeable".) And now that school is impending, I've been trying to figure out what everyone else has been up to. I don't want to be completely left in the dark come the first day. I expected the usual- long weekends at the beach, basking in death sun rays, lots of swimming and internet surfing... But it's taken one awful school football game and about two hours of Facebook stalking to figure out what everyone else has really been up to.

So now you want to know why I've been in my own little bubble rather than with everyone else at the mall or the pool? Because I don't share their interests in

• dancing around stripper poles
• discovering what a rush 4LOKO gives
• grinding on each other
• drinking, a lot, and then possibly driving
• taking pictures of my own ass
• saying "luhhh youuu" to each other
• fishing for compliments from horny and hormonal teenage boys
• hooking up with mediocre football players, and then showing up to games with their name painted on their stomach

(For the record, not everyone did this. My friends and I spent the summer either at marching band or doing our homework. The only parties we went to involved lightsaber duels and takeout Chinese food.)

I know my essay is supposed to be black Times New Roman on a white background... but this makes it so much easier to look at.

Never go to class without having something to kill time with.

I should have learned.

NO MORE CHEMISTRY.

Standardized testing.

Orchestra...

When the lead cellist doesn't know his solo and the concert is tonight.

Irony.

Today our school is having some sort of a day of action where faculty wear white shirts with their greatest  weakness printed on them.

My chemistry teacher is out today, and we did not have a sub assigned. Another teacher stopped by, realized we were unsupervised, and went to find out what happened to the sub.

It turns out our sub forgot she had a class to cover this period. Her shirt read, "perpetually late".

Words of wisdom from my band teacher.

(When marching in a parade,) "Don't step in the poop."

Dear dumb girl in my English class,

How the hell does a dead bug fly into your mouth?!

First World Problems.

"We have to bubble in the AP exam answer sheet?!"

History class.

"The Scream by Edvard Munch. What art period do you think it's from?"

"Expressionism."

"What makes it Expressionist?"

"Well, Van Gogh drew it..."

How to be a bad teacher.

Are you a brand-new teacher who already hates your job? Well, don't let that bring you down. If you're loaded with piles of grading or bratty students who interrupt your free time with e-mails, friendly visits, or complaints about your unprofessionality or grading, or even if you're plagued with THAT CLASS- you know, the one that constantly asks questions about the subject matter and turns things in early, there's only one thing you can do to make your job easier. Be a BAD TEACHER! Studies* show that BAD TEACHERS have the most stable jobs and last the longest in the public school system, not to mention having the EASIEST JOBS- what can be easier and more enjoyable than watching a snot-nosed child squirm and squeal under your awesome stare? Here's how to be a BAD TEACHER:

1. Get a degree from the least reputable college you get into. Bonus points if it's not in the subject matter you're teaching. Extra bonus points for switching career paths after failing out of a more respectable program or profession.
2. Make sure you know NOTHING about your subject matter. If a student asks a question that isn't covered in the curriculum, vaguely answer "I dunno... I'll check it out". Copy class notes from Wikipedia or Sparknotes and your answer keys from Yahoo Answers.
3. Bad teachers don't teach. To make sure your students are somewhat up to par for the standardized tests, lecture them daily in a flat, monotone voice. If you insist on using notes instead of making the class copy you word-for-word, use the publisher notes included with the course textbooks. Insert typos into Powerpoint slides and read them word for word off the screen. Do not elaborate. Extra points for teaching with your face to the board. (Der Drache.)
4. Grading is easy. The students who bake you cookies and give you Christmas cards get A's. Everyone else can pick out of a hat. (Der Notenlotto for everyone in my German class.) If a student disagrees with you on any level, give them an automatic F.
5. Always choose the dumb, slutty girls as your favorites. Hold them up to the other students as examples. Remind them that if their life goal was also to be the trophy wife of an 80-year-old, they would also be successful in your class. 
6. NEVER SPELL NAMES RIGHT. No matter how many times you might be corrected by an outraged student, don't change your spelling or pronounciation. You're right and you know it. Extra points for "recorrecting" their names on class rosters and assignments.
7. Never spell anything right. Insert typos and blatant grammar errors into all assignments and paperwork. Extra points for "accidently" writing something dirty- I think of the history teacher with the habit of writing "hoe" instead of "how". (He was a good teacher, though.)
8. Don't dress professionally. And despite what fashion bloggers around the world might say, sneakers do go with collared shirts and ties.
9. Give insanely hard and pointless tests. If you're an English teacher, quiz students on minor characters and vocab that was never taught in class. No matter what you teach, you can make up a multiple-choice test with answers that can all be justified and essay prompts that really have no plausible answer. (I just took one of these. I got a 67.)
10. Finally, if a student has the nerve to complain directly to you, use the age-old answer: "Life isn't fair." It's true, for them. For you, earning a decent salary on a career of leisure, procrastination, and doing whatever the hell you want, life has never been fairer.
11. Bonus points for having plagiarized your way through college to get your Education degree.

*my own observations through 10 years of public school

Cover the Night: Update 2

"Kovy: The Invisible Goalkeeper."

Are you serious?!

But still, touche.

Cover the Night Update 1.

People are ripping down posters by the entrances.
It just makes me mad that people will just oppose anything without knowing the full story.

Would someone from UM care to explain this?

What the hell, Upper Merion?

That amazing moment when everyone in the hallway is walking in step.

True stories from AP Euro History.

"What's diplomacy?"

"Don't laugh. I bet half the class was thinking the same thing."