TOKherewego.

Just sat down to pound out the TOK essay. I’m attempting to get it done tonight so I can have the January exam break to, well, study. Not exactly sure how to start this paper or really even how to structure it. All I know is its nowhere near as mouldable as my English essays seem to be. Why am I having to put personal experiences in here? This is all very odd.

Trying to gather up the strength to put my phone, facebook, twitter, tumblr, pinterest and whatever other media on the shelf for the next month. I’m starting to get super nervous over all of these papers and such that keep piling up.  Hopefully my willpower will get the better of me soon so I can actually pass IB.

Have to start thinking about the historical investigation now. Let the panic commence.
-Elle

 

Priorities, Priorities, Facebook.

I may be an future English major, I may know hundreds of words, but I apparently do not know the definition of priorities.

Sorry, before I begin, let me apologize. I’ve been kind of AWOL the past month or so. Christmas came and so did the flu. I spent my morning lying on the couch with a blanket, ginger tea and a bottle of Motrin. By boxing day, the flu was still fighting as strong as ever and my lifeguard certification began; a gruelling eight hour, six day week of hauling people out of the water, administering first aid and “clearing the pool”. I passed the course (thank goodness) and am now proudly a lifeguard. I then flew off to go snowboarding in the mountains for the rest of the vacation. No homework was finished.

I got home at about midnight last night, the night before school started, with an internal clock set to a different time zone. Its pretty lousy getting up after six hours of sleep when you’re body is telling you its actually five am.

Anyways, back to priorities. So my TOK paper still isn’t finished. It was due before Christmas, but with all the crap flying around it never materialized. The planning is finished and all, I just have yet to construct it into paragraphs. I figure this should probably be priority one, although its closely followed by design labs in both chem and bio (I hate science.) I also forgot to read A Tale of Two Cities, so I Sparknote’d that shit … Charles Dickens is giving me hell from whatever literary heaven he’s hanging out in. It seems like no matter how I set my priorities, I always seem to drift onto facebook. Why? I think it has some sort of gravitational pull or something. Somebody needs to do some investigating.

New year, new resolution: Prioritize, prioritize ….. less facebook.

- Elle

P.S.  No, my extended essay isn’t finished either :’(

No, I haven’t died (yet)

Haven’t updated this in what feels like a million years. At this point I feel like time’s flying by at an unbelievable speed. Which in some ways is good, I guess because all I want is to be out of high school and move on to bigger and better things.
I’m pretty much exhausted at this point. Extended essay deadline was extended until January (THANK GOD; it was nowhere near ready on the Nov.30 deadline) but I’m still drowning in other schoolwork. I think my biggest downfall is my lack of time management skills. I really have none at all. For example, Friday and saturday were spent watching hockey games and doing pretty much nothing else… I’m a fail.
Have to get on reading the first book of A Tale of Two Cities for Thursday, along with another silly project for English. At least English is what I’m good at so I won’t be too depressed while trying to whip those off. Chem and math are another story… Started doing pre-calc in math studies which actually isn’t too bad. Until he told us he’s going to try and finish three units before Christmas break. /death/
On a slightly happier note, we made about $500 for decorations for IB grad! Pretty awesome. I have so many ideas for the night, I’m super excited to get the ball rolling with this one!

Happy holidays, all.
(I’m so happy to be able to say that finally!)

-Elle

Under the thumb.

IB teachers have an uncanny talent. It is the talent of taking an average sized, good spirited teenager and simultaneously crushing all their hopes and dreams with a single assignment.

Because I am so utterly fortunate (not) I have the pleasure of taking a math and chemistry test on the second and third days of the week respectively. As those are my two worst subjects, I was elated that I would have this lovely long remembrance day  weekend to study up. BUT NO. Thursday after school I am informed that we in fact have an Othello essay to write on monday. Uh, what? Haven’t we been finished Othello for three weeks? Haven’t you said that we weren’t going to write an essay? The other class isn’t writing one? WHAT IS THIS BULLSHIT.

Pardon my profane language but I am utterly frustrated. With an exam, a quiz, a lab, two papers, and a fundraiser running I can honestly say I am in NO SHAPE to write any form of essay on monday. I’m shaking with rage that they would throw this onto us. Come on now. I’m 17 years old and I barely have time for a social life. Most weekends I spend in doing homework anyways. Can I just be finished already so I can go off to university and have a rest? I’m so done.

 

On a side note, I would just like to take a second and say a quiet little thank you to all the veterans who’ve come and gone, fought, lost and given us the home we have. To my late grandpa and all those who have known someone involved in warfare, god bless and all my thanks.
-Elle.

Its called EXTENDED Essay for a reason….

This I have learned. It is not extended because it has many words, or because it will be many pages… It is extended because every single IB student out there seems to be dragging it out and killing themselves slowly with it. I had three weeks to write my world lit papers, which was fine; it sort of forced me to actually get on it and write the damn thing. But getting, what, five months to write the E.E. is like putting a gun to my head. All through the summer my thoughts were “I have time, plenty of time!”. Unfortunately I was saying that right up until October… I now have less than a month to get down 4000 words on a topic I’m still confused about. And because my supervisor already hates me (see earlier posts), I’m terrified to go and present my minimal progress. I shall attempt to get at least MOST of the words down tonight…. maybe I can leave it on said teacher’s desk with a stick note and a muffin. Teachers like muffins right? With my luck she’d  probably be allergic and I’d be in for another lecture…..

I’ve bought a can of lavender scented febreeze at my mother’s suggestion. “Its a calming scent,” she said, “it will help you relax with all your homework.” When I got the can back home, I released its fury upon every fabric surface in my room.  My room smells like it was hit with a nuclear lavender bomb which, trust me, is none as lovely as it sounds. Now I feel sick AND agitated. Great.

So much for the more-will-be-more-calming theory.

-Elle

I have mastered time travel.

Daylight savings is a catastrophe every year. Do I set my clock back now? Later? If I set it back now will everyone else or will I just be cruising an hour behind everyone else? So instead of running around trying to figure out if I ‘spring forward’ or ‘fall back’, I generally tend to just sit and wait for some pre-programed clock to switch for me whilst I pretend I’ve either gone back in time or cast myself into the future. And yes, the same principle applies when I’m traveling over time zones.

What daylight savings means to a regular person:
“One more hour to sleep in!”
What daylight savings means to an IB student:
“One more hour to work on E.E.!!!”

I have finally figured out the time. Of course I had to get a friend to tell me because I can’t figure today out for the life of me. But because I am an IB student, the extra hour will be devoted to extended essay and not sleep as regular people would. I have to say, I could use the sleep though.

All of last week I skimped on doing homework. I’m about 3 days behind in math and chemistry and my extended essay needs a good copy done ASAP. The crap that happened with the teacher just seemed to physically drain me of energy to the point where I can’t even enjoy my recuperation weekends that I previously have.

I also got myself a chemistry tutor (because I have the chemistry brain of an amoeba). Too bad he hasn’t shown up for two weeks. I think he may have remembered how stupid I was when he tutored me in math and has either purposely broken his legs or contracted the plague to get out of teaching me chem. I don’t really blame him though.

-Elle

Weekend to weekend.

Seems to be a mode of living at this point. I never really imagined I would be as busy as I am right now, and its horrifying to think it will get worse. I definitely need to find some way of channeling all this stress… I can feel it taking a physical toll on me. I feel like I’m 90. Fell asleep during my spare today only to go home and sleep some more. I just wait until the weekend comes in order to catch up on lost sleep.

On the bright side, I didn’t fail my Perms and Combs exam as I thought I did. I guess all that knitting beforehand helped ease my stress a little. On the dark(?) side, my English teacher still hates me </3 I’m writing out an apology letter to her in order to help get back on that good side… Hopefully all goes well.

-Elle