Summer School

I signed up for summer school to take the course "Introduction to Sociology, Anthropology and Psychology," and I chose this course partly because it sounded interesting and partly because the school that offered this course was close to where I live. However, just one day before the start of summer school, I got a phone-call telling me that the course has been relocated to another school!

This was just wrong. I calculated that because of the relocation of summer school, I had to spend about 30 minutes more on transportation each day! And, even if they wanted to move the location, couldn't they contact the students earlier? I heard that many (more than 10 in my class) students didn't get the phone-call and as a result went to the wrong school. I was lucky that I was at home at the time of that they phoned me.

Anyway, I'll now move on and describe what happened/ what I observed in the actual summer school class.

I'll start by talking about the teacher. The first impression that I got from her was that she was not very smart. She did not seem very alert and...she just didn't look like a smart person. I don't often get this impression from teachers. In fact, I think this was the first time that I have had this impression, so she must be very extreme...

And I was right (about she not being smart, not about she being extreme). She didn't seem to understand the material completely because sometimes when other students gave her answers that were clearly flawed or illogical, she didn't seem to have noticed the errors in their answers. She didn't correct them, and I couldn't spy any change in her facial expression, so I don't think she was just being polite. Also, she made various spelling errors, such as "hiearchy" and  "intellegent." "Hiearchy" I can still understand, but "intellegent..." (no comment). On top of these things, she used her cell-phone a lot during classes (when the students were assigned work to do). I wasn't sure whether she was texting or playing games, but it didn't matter—she was using her cell-phone. It was actually quite interesting for me to watch, because I have never seen a teacher blatantly using their cell-phone in class.

Fortunately, I don't dislike her. She seemed relatively friendly—she made you feel comfortable to raise your hands and ask questions. Also, she made her classes quite structured, as she always knew what she was going to do next. Now I hope that she is an easy marker...

To be honest I don't have much to say about summer school except the teacher. I haven't really talked with any of my classmates, and the things that I have learned so far aren't really that special or interesting. So I guess I'll end this post here.

Looking Back at Grade 10 French

Oh such a year of disappointment for French! At first I was doing very well in it, but then suddenly I started receiving bad marks for assignments and projects that I thought had good quality. I was fine with this, though, because perhaps it was just that I got complacent and in the process lowered my standard for "good quality."

The real disappointment came with the summary unit. My French teacher had very strange (and to me, unreasonable) expectations for our summaries that I simply couldn't accept. For example, she wanted us to paraphrase the original texts to an extent where "my neighbors" would become "the people that live beside me." This was intolerable. Not only was this unreasonable, it also made making summaries a much harder and more time-consuming task. As a result, I only got a 72% on the reading exam! I really didn't think that I deserved this mark, because I was positive that I didn't do this bad. Anyway, because of this horrible, horrible mark, my French mark dropped below 90% and I knew that with only the writing exam left, it'd be impossible for my mark to rise up again. That was probably my saddest moment during the first semester.

Perhaps it was hugely because of the frustration that I had in French, I have decided not to take the course next year. My time table was already filled out with other courses, and the discontent about the subject simply stopped me from trying to make space on the time table for it. So unfortunately I probably won't be improving my French skills in the future, and will probably forget all the grammar rules that I have learned this year. In fact, I don't think I would be able to remember anything that I have learned from this class a few years later. How sad (I am not saying this sarcastically). 

Next up: Looking Back at Grade 10 Science
Or, go back to intro and a list of all posts 

Looking Back at Grade 10 English

English:

Like last year, my English mark was my worst mark. However, unlike last year, I was very satisfied with my performance in English class and I had almost no regrets because I felt that I have (almost) tried my best. Also, even though the actual number of my mark was not very impressive, the mark was very good if compared to the rest of the class. Oh, why do I make it sounds as if the only thing I care is my marks? No, absolutely not, at least not for English.

One of the most important things that I have done in English class, or in the whole school year, was writing my reading journals. At the time that I was writing these journals, I couldn't think of anything to write for weeks, so as a result I really had to look into the tiniest things in my life and in the book (that I chose to do the reading journal with). However, now that I think about it, these things weren't tiny at all. They were all very important, just that they were the things that I had ignored in the past. Anyway, writing these reading journals had enabled me to really think through all the things in my life, and this has allowed me to understand myself and what I believe in.

Fahrenheit 251 by Ray Bradbury, the book that I read for my reading journals. Funny how this book was also about thinking...

It'd be unfair not to give credit to all the other meaningful assignments that I had received in English class. Each of these assignments required me to write an opinion paragraph on a topic that I have never really taken consideration of.  In order to write a well-justified paragraph on each topic, I had to really think through the topics, and as a result I would know my true opinion on the them. For example, for one of the assignments I had to write a paragraph on whether I think clothes are important to my identity. When hearing the question, I immediately thought "no." However, after thinking through the question, I realized that my answer would actually be a "yes."

Also, these English writing assignments/projects has inspired me to start writing this blog. Writing this blog may not be a big achievement, but it does allow me express my (unhappy) feelings and it is definitely a better pass-time than playing online games. Also, it can help me preseve information or thoughts that I will probably forget in years.

One more thing: I should talk about the speech that I did in the class. Even though I got a horrible mark on it—a 72%—I really had fun with it. I did my speech on game theory, a topic that really interested me, and I do not regret choosing it as my topic as I had learned a great deal about the topic because of this speech. Still, the mark should be low enough for me to realize that I must do better next year.

Oh, one last thing—I promise—one other special thing about my English class was that I met some really interesting people in it! Since we sat in little groups, we all talked a lot within our groups and as a result I have gotten the opportunity to know my classmates better and I realized that some of them are actually very funny and/or nice. I've even made friends with some of them!

Next up: Looking Back at Grade 10 French
Or, go back to intro and a list of all posts

Looking Back at Grade 10 (Intro+ Links)

I have been wanting to write this post since about three weeks ago. However, since I didn't know my marks for my second semester classes, I was reluctant to write anything at all, fearing that knowing my marks would make me want to change the content of the post.

Now that I know all my marks, I can finally start writing! I'll write about my first semester classes first, and then my second semester classes. Also, among the classes in each semester, I will sort them using the marks that I got in them, in ascending order. Interestingly, this way all my courses will be in order of the marks that I got in them, for my worst second-semester mark (careers) was higher than my best first semester marks (science and computers).

So here we go (I have decided to split it into several posts, since each section is very long, and cramming them all into one post is too unpleasant to read):
English
French
Science
Computers
Careers
Civics
Chemistry
History
Math
(Will update as I have more content)

Report Card (final)

I have never been very nervous to get my report card because in the past I could always calculate my marks beforehand by multiplying my course marks (my marks excluding my exams) and exam marks by the appropriate weightings.

However, this semester I didn't go to school on exam-return day, so I didn't know my exams marks, and as a result I couldn't calculate my final mark beforehand. Since I wasn't sure about my marks, I was anxious and nervous to get my report card and to see my marks. I especially wanted to know my history mark because my history teacher never gave out any mark updates and I had not the slightest idea about what my mark was. 

Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration. I could still estimate my marks using my assignment, project, and test marks, as well as approximating my exam performances. However, since some of my exam marks were quite variable, it was impossible for me to make an accurate estimate. Also, I actually didn't know my mark for my final project for history, which made it even harder for me to make an estimate

Anyway, as I anxiously took out my report card out of the envelope that I received, I couldn't believe my eyes—my marks were so much better than I had expected! My chemistry mark was at the highest that it could have been, meaning that I had to get a perfect on my exam in order to get that mark; my history mark was unbelievably high, meaning that I either got perfect or close-to-perfect on the final project and exam; what's even stranger was my math mark—it was a mark that I couldn't have gotten even if I have gotten a perfect on my math exam! I am guessing that it's because my math teacher has lowered the denominator for the the exam...

On top of all these excellent marks, my OSSLT (Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test) result was also extremely satisfying. I got 395 out of 400 points! I am not quite sure what this means, but if this were translated to percentage, it'd be a 98.75%! My school median is 345, and I am glad that my score is well above average.

This perfectly closes my grade ten year.

Strange Feeling

After I came back from my vacation, I finally got to use a computer. And since I wasn't able to get onto my favourite websites during my vacation, I had to spend a lot of time revisiting them one-by-one. Also, I couldn't refrain myself from playing my recently-downloaded pinball game.

As a result, I have been using my computer about 13 hours out of the past 22 hours. Sounds unhealthy right? Indeed. Just  two hours ago, when I was playing pinball, I had a strange feeling in my heart. It was a twitchy feeling that was slightly uncomfortable. I disregarded that feeling, but then it came for another three our four times later, and by then I simply couldn't ignore it. I was sure that it must be because that I was using my computer for too long. 

Therefore, to avoid having that feeling again, I must reduce the amount of time that I use my computer. I really don't want to have the feeling again! Well, I know that this isn't completely the computer's fault—I actually had the same feeling yesterday, when I was in the airplane—but I think there is definitely some relationship between using the computer and the having that strange feeling. When I was using the computer, I had the feeling about once every five minutes, which was way too frequent!

Anyway, because I have to reduce my computer time, I will also have to reduce the amount of time that I spend on this blog, which means that this blog will be updated less frequently. I will still try to have one post every day, but probably not a lot more than that.

I hope that this twitchy feeling wouldn't come again, and if unfortunately it comes a lot, then I will inform the adults around me.

I'm Back

I don't have much to say, so this will be a very, very short post: 
During my vacation I have thought of a lot of things that may be put onto this blog, and now that I am back from my vacation, I can finally start updating my blog again! However, I am very tired right now, so I won't be making another post until tomorrow.

That's it for now.