Coming back from Winter Break is always a struggle. Before leaving, you’re in a routine and have got everything nailed down. When you return it feels like starting everything from scratch. It’s hard to get back into school mode. This concept is what makes part of the second semester harder as a whole. Although we get more things to look forward to and more breaks, the academic part is more challenging. All of these beautiful breaks we get make the school part all the harder once the break has ended. In the first semester, despite it feeling like a never-ending marathon of school work, you find a nice rhythm in the consistency.
Additionally, what makes the back hard is having to come and live again by the school’s sleep schedule. Over the breaks, I consistently go to bed at around 3 am and don’t wake up until the afternoon the next day. Bering back at school and having to wake up at 7 am or earlier is a harsh reality check. All I want to do is sleep.
You know what’s interesting? All California high schools are required to have an 8:30 start time now. Go figures it began the year after I left. Anyways, I would much appreciate this enacted at OVS, after all, it is what Gavin Newsom wants and how can we be OK with disappointing him?
There are many things I would like to write about in this journal, but the reality is that not all of it is the kind of content that I would honestly show to the public. Every Friday comes around and I spend all day trying to wrap my head around what to write about, and the name of the blog. I can honestly say that I feel like I have already written most of it down.
Today I want to write about something I’ve been into lately. Before I came to this school, I had barely touched a computer. The computer I am using now is the first one I got in my life. To be honest, I feel like it is about to reach the end of its useful life, so I would like to get a new computer this winter break. Something that my roommate and I have been into lately is playing typing games. You get points for typing for 5 minutes. Before I came to this school, my highest score on that test was 32. But the other day, after a long time, I got 78 points. I think it is a big improvement for me. This skill will help me in many things in my life, both in my work and in my studies. I am now looking forward to my score going up a little bit at a time. My goal is to be able to do blind touching perfectly by the time I graduate.
I am terrified by the finals that I need to take next week. All year I’ve been talking about how I was going to make an academic comeback but instead, my grades just keep on dropping. This semester, my grades were pretty average and not too bad but I know that all of my grades will drop so far down once I take my finals. In English and ap world, I’m not too nervous because I understand what is happening. I am better at just keeping a summary of what we are doing. In chemistry and in Algebra II, I have no clue what is going on. There is way too much to memorize and since the first week of school, I have given up on these two subjects. Whenever I fail a test, which is a lot, I am always able to help myself by doing corrections. Unfortunately, there are no corrections for finals. I need to get lucky and hope that everyone in my class fails their exams so the grade can have the most insane curve.
With finals approaching, I thought it was only fitting to write another rant discussing my thoughts on finals. First off, I don’t enjoy how much emphasis schools put on them. Finals are meant to be a test of how much knowledge you have acquired during the semester or school year. However, what if someone was able to learn a very good amount of stuff and is proficient in the skills taught in the class but is not necessarily a good test taker. Because many teachers stress the final so much, that student is probably going to be a worse test taker when it comes to something as big as a final. And, even if the student has a high grade in the class because they are proficient in the class and understand the concepts, since they are such a bad test taker, their grade could plummet to a number that doesn’t represent their true understanding of the class. This can be true especially because some teachers make the final such a significant portion of the grade overall.
If I were to provide a solution for this issue, I would recommend the teacher to provide different methods for students to prove their understanding of the course. They could do a traditional written test, or maybe a presentation of some sorts. The means of displaying comprehension could vary in general based on the class, but I feel this would be a more fair way to test the student’s knowledge without completely erasing the finals system, as I do think it is important to some degree. Another thing is making the final count for no more than 25% of the grade. Finals that range from 30% and up are solely testing the student on how good of a test taker they are. One of the more telling aspects of a grade, in my opinion, are class participation and homework grade. Both of these demonstrate not only enthusiasm and effort of a student, but also how dedicated they truly are the learning the material.
To conclude, I don’t believe the current education system is exactly fair, particularly when it comes to finals and their impact on a student’s grade. If teachers could provide more means of testing, as well as not have it count for the majority of the overall grade, many solid students would not have their grades falter due to unfair and unaccomodating methods.
Thanksgiving is over and Christmas break is only 2 weeks away. I am amazed at how fast this week has gone by. In this blog, I would like to write about the highlights of this week. The biggest event of the week was the soccer game. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I would play soccer this year. One of the reasons is that until last year there was no official girl’s team. But having an actual game motivates me and makes soccer more enjoyable. I was only able to score one goal in this game, but I thought it was great to go for one goal with great teammates. The result was 4-2 and I enjoyed the game for the first time in a long time. However, there were many issues in these games, and I thought that I needed to run more and improve my physical strength. Today, on Friday, we are watching our recorded game on the tv. To be honest, when I look at my own game, I am embarrassed because there are many areas where I am not strong enough. If I have a chance in the next game, I would like to score more than two points. This weekend I want to prepare for the final exams and study so that I don’t choke myself. I want to get my driver’s license and finish watching a Korean drama that my roommate and I are currently watching. I will be on vacation in two weeks, so I want to give my all to everything I do.
Now, I’m not trying to get canceled nor reported, but I have very strong feelings about the way some teachers teach and I want to express them here. !!Disclaimer!! This is not directed toward any specific teacher or group of teachers affiliated with any particular school. Now that that’s out of the way, let me rant.
First off, one of the most annoying things on earth is when a teacher complains about the amount of work they have to grade and how difficult it is. I have a great suggestion for you! Maybe don’t assign so much work!! How do you think I felt doing it? Probably just as if not more bad than you feel now that you have to grade it. And don’t rebuttal with, “Oh, they have so many other students’ work to grade :(.” Sorry but not my problem maybe think about that when assigning such horrendous amount of work. Also, they act like I don’t have other classes’ work to do on top of the ungodly amount of horrific assignments I’m getting from their class.
Next, one thing I absolutely don’t understand at all is why teachers assign work over weekends and VACATIONS. IT’S CALLED A VACATION FOR A REASON. It’s not called, “Week Of School Where You’re Technically Not In School But Half Of Your Teachers Are Going To Assign Homework Like You Are.” Clearly it’s not called that, so what are we doing here? Also with weekends, like we for real just never get a break from doing work. ALSO, one thing that grinds my gears so so hard is when teachers give you – technically – a whole week and weekend to do something, but it’s an assignment that is entirely impossible to do during the week on top of the regular weekly spread for homework. So obviously I’m going to have to do it over the weekend, but if I complain, I just the same response of, “You had the whole week to do it.” LIKE SHUT UP I OBVIOUSLY DIDN’T.
Anyway, I guess I can end this off by ranting about teachers who don’t know how to teach. Again, not targeted toward any individual in particular, but sitting at your desk making us all watch a video of some random guy on Youtube explain the lesson is not teaching. In order to properly teach, you actually have to teach. It’s a mindblowing concept, I’m aware, but I’m sure you got it. And then, it’s the same teachers that don’t do anything the whole class and just sit there watching us get more and more confused by some random video that have the audacity to assign like 40 pages of reading or like 50 problems or something, all due the next day.
I know this was very aggressive, but I felt the need to really speak my mind in general, especially considering my last blog was so positive. As I’ve said before, thank you for listening to my Ted Talk and have a nice day.
For the first time since I came to the U.S., I am spending Thanksgiving with my friend outside of school. The thing I was looking forward to the most during this vacation was seeing my friend who graduated last year. When the holiday started, I thought it would be a bit long, as if I would have 10 days off, but now that it has started, I am surprised that it is already Friday. Friday is the deadline for this blog, which is a little depressing, but Friday and Saturday are my favorite days of the week, so I’m happy about that. To be honest, not going to school and not seeing my friends are the parts of the vacation I miss a little. This morning I went to Beverly Hills to see a friend who graduated last year. She was my roommate in my freshman year. She is very kind and has a beautiful heart. I was really looking forward to seeing her again. She usually goes to college about 5 hours away by car, so I can’t see her. We had lunch there. We had a variety of fish dishes, which were very tasty. After that, we walked around the area. There I bought a dog doll that I had been in love with for a while. I am sure I would have regretted not buying it, so I think I made the right decision. After that, we came home and made cabbage rolls. My mother’s cabbage rolls are one of her top 10 favorite homemade dishes. I couldn’t make it as well as my mother, but I was very happy that everyone liked it. After that, we watched a Korean drama while eating gelato, which I had been curious about for a long time. I was very happy to spend time with them after a long time. I hope to see her again soon.
Recently I’ve been realizing how much I have. I have everything. Right now, I feel like whatever I want to do with my life I have the means to do it. If I want to become an engineer, I can go to school for engineering. If I want to become a doctor, I can go to school and pursue a degree in that, not that I want to because med school sounds too intense and expensive for me. Also, I get really queasy. One time, this facial reconstruction surgeon showed me a bunch of before and after pictures from procedures and they were really disgusting and I passed out. In my defense, he was showing some pretty gross stuff- people with deconstructed eyeballs, two little girls who had their faces mauled by pit bulls, a girl who had a tumor in her head that made her eye stick out of her head, a man that got his scalp pulled off by a machine, a video where he pulled a nail out of a man’s face, etc. That’s a bit of a tangent but I meant that I have the privilege of being able to choose my occupation, my education, etc. I’ll obviously be in debt after college (unless I get a full ride) but I still have the privilege of going to college when so many people don’t even have the luxury of literacy. Wherever I want to go, I feel like I have the means to do it and I kind of feel guilty about how much freedom I have, because I didn’t do anything to deserve any of it. So many suffer so much and work so much harder than I do and never get the opportunities that I get, which feels so wrong. Therefore, my goal is to pay forward everything I’ve been given.
I have never liked listening to Christmas music until at least after Thanksgiving. I weirdly grew up thinking that it was bad luck and that it just shouldn’t be listened to until the right time. Recently, I have decided that if its at least November, I can enjoy it. I know this sounds ridiculous, because it is. Today I have been singing and listening to Christmas music with my friends and I can’t wait until December. There is something about Christmas music and the holiday season in general that just puts me in a happy mood. While listening to the Christmas music earlier this evening, one of my friends was talking about how they hate Christmas because they aren’t in a relationship, which is really funny to me. Praying they can find that special person.
I just arrived back at school from our 3-day camping trip to Santa Rosa Island. It was my second time going to Santa Rosa, but this time was even better. The best part for me was that my best friend was on my trip, as well as my mum. We did a lot of hiking, which was a little difficult, but games and stories along the way made the journey easier. I feel like I got closer to a couple of my friends, which I am really happy about. I learned how to play so many card games, which was definitely a highlight of the trip. We also saw many whales and dolphins during both boat rides and saw the whales’ incredible breaching. I also really liked the fact that the camping trip was not too long, I don’t think I could go another day without showering. Overall, it was a beautiful trip, and I highly recommend that you visit Santa Rosa Island if you get the chance to.
OVS Journalism Blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.