Quote of the day

I am so stressed. I'm constantly swearing in my head about all the things that I have to do for school and all this other random shit. I just need a break. Sometimes I just want to get in my car and drive away. I don't want to care, but in reality, I do. So here's a little something that I found to try to get myself back on track.

And isn't it kind of funny that an eight year old said this? I found it amusing. 

I'm going to go take a nap.

Tick-tock

I NEED TO LEARN HOW TO MANAGE TIME.

My resolution for this year was to stop procrastinating and basically use time more wisely. It lasted for about two weeks.

Let me explain. You see, I suck at managing my time. I start my homework reasonably early, but it takes me forever to finish it. I'll start a problem, become bored, and then just sit there thinking about something random. And then twenty minutes have passed and I've only finished four lines of my math proof. Or two parts of my chem problem. Or five sentences of my essay. I just cannot focus. But I really, truly need to adjust my study habits.

I need sleep.

Does this happen to anyone else? Am I the only one that spends two hours doing a math assignment that is supposedly pretty simple?

Gah. So frustrating. I need to do something about this. Like invent a machine that starts pelting bouncy balls at me when I start to lose focus.

Anyway, gotta go. I need to go barrel my way through chem problems and US history. Oh joy.

What I will remember from AP Comp

***I don't know if I did this correctly, this is a VERY rough draft. I didn't do all the letters though...there were some where I couldn't think of anything.

Analyze
     Analyze, analyze, analyze. DO NOT SUMMARIZE, 1-145
Arguments
    and how they are everywhere. you can't hide from them 34, 128
B
    on a quiz? Quick- someone call KARE11! 5
Bitzer
    class mascot #2 (see Orwell) 88
    ...What did I just read...? 54
Blogging
    I love it. 39
    Yeah, write 119
    Hey! It's Me :) 122
BLA
    Reviving Ophelia 17
    The Male Brain 100
     "If your love life were an ocean..." 135
Claim, reason, warrant
    The building blocks of life 33, 87, 120
Cursing
    In my head 11, 24, 37, 46, 67
D
     apparently this is Mrs. Cardona's most common answer for multiple choice questions. 78
Desk group
     Laura, Matt, Jason 23
Essays
     Rhetorical Analysis, Gah 14
     Revision, I can do this 98
      50 essays 3
Friendships 25
Failing
    almost every single quiz 2-18
    and then learning from it 10, 15, 23
Google docs
     "Wait, can the other people in our group see our convos?" 22
     "I'm so hungry I could eat a unicorn." 65
      Massive study guide 142
Hyperventilating 127
Intervention
    "Becky, you can do this."
Juxtaposition
     My favorite rhetorical device. Mostly because it's fun to pronounce 103
     "I have a dream." MLK jr.
Laughing
    All the time 11,14, 28, 49, 100, 117
Love/hate this class 7
Late nights 131
Moist
    and thrust 115
N
Orwell
     class mascot 56
Perseverance
    And a lot of it 9, 23, 55
Procrastinating
    And regretting it, 32, 48, 66, 98,102, 109, 123
Peer-editing 127
Power writing
     everyone for themselves, must get those stamps 44
Proud 156
Quiz
    corrections 12
    reading quizzes 1, 3, 5
Rants
    with Laura 35
Rhetoric
     Pretty much sums up this class 1-234
Stress
     Meltdowns 122
     "I'm going to pull my hair out" 66
      Every time a new project is assigned 82
Self-doubt 46, 49, 53, 81
T
U
Voice
    Struggling 20
    Finding my writing voice 89
Vocab
   "I can't remember what pejorative means!" 102
Writing
    Improving big-time 131
    and learning to enjoy it 77
X
Y
Z

End of term.

Boys decoded? Not really.

My BLA book this term was The Male Brain by Louann Brizendine.

I can believe everything that is said in this book because the author, Brizendine, is a psychiatrist and also a Harvard graduate. She also backs up all of her claims with solid hard facts and personal examples.

I'm going to be completely honest...It's not my favorite book ever. The reason I did not enjoy it is because I feel like she makes her argument seem really redundant. My group discussed the exact same things over and over each week; there wasn't anything new that ever showed up.

For example: 

Did the anecdotes she included contribute to her overall argument and how? Yes. They made it easier for the audience to relate to certain situations. 

Do you think that her scientific evidence contributes to her overall argument? Yes. It gives solid evidence to explain why boys do what they do. 

Etc etc etc.

The main argument of the book is that boys are far more complicated than they seem. They aren't always thinking about sex and they do have emotions. Males have to deal with a lot and go through different phases, just like girls.

 Brizendine tries to refute this stereotype:

This book can be for both males and females. It gives males a chance to understand why they act the way they do, and it explains to females why boys do the things that we don't understand. I've seen girls, myself included, analyze for hours one thing that a boy says or does. Girls, don't deny this. You know you do it. (Maybe reading The Female Brain can help me figure out why we do this). It's quite frustrating. Anyway, The Male Brain is supposed to be a book that's the best of both worlds. 

But I still don't understand boys. 

Dear Future Becky,

I hope that you are doing well. I know that as of now, I have big plans for you. Hopefully you went to one of those colleges that I love and find myself dreaming about from time to time. I'm so jealous that you are already done with the ACT and SAT. Those make my stress levels shoot up. It makes me nauseous to even think about it. Are you still sticking to my "no procrastinating" goal? That was one of my resolutions this year. This is the last piece of homework that I have to do this weekend. Besides the AP Chem magic show script, but that isn't going to take long. Impressive, right? Hopefully this new habit carries on.

Where are you living right now? I'm guessing not in Minnesota. I've never liked living in Minnesota. Maybe you are living in New York? Or Chicago? Or are you living somewhere totally random, like Nebraska? Either way, I hope that you are happy. I'm happy right now. I love being 16. I have concluded that this is probably the best age to be. I have freedom because I can drive myself around and stuff like that, but at the same time I don't need to worry about stuff like mortgage and insurance. Although I can't wait to be done with high school.

Oh yeah, did you ever get over your fear of other people's blood? I hate blood right now. Or at least other people's blood. Watching other people get shots and IV's gives me the heebie-jeebies. And considering that I want you, or me I guess, to be a pediatric pulmonologist, I probably had to have gotten past that in order to achieve that goal. Gosh I hope I got over that. It's making me slightly queasy to even think about it.

But if you didn't get past that, are you now an interior or fashion designer? You must remember how people laughed at you because that is so different from being a doctor, but I (We?) need to do what makes me happy, right? I can't go through life doing something that I don't enjoy. But this is Plan B. Pulmonologist is still Plan A.

Or maybe you are a kindergarten teacher? I love kids, and you probably still do. They are just so cute. It would be such a rewarding job to help them learn.

But really, are you happy with how your life turned out?

I always am thinking about my future, but now that I am typing this up and sharing my aspirations, it's making me a bit anxious. I'm still not fully sure what I want to be yet. I'm so indecisive! Good thing you've already chosen. Remember those shopping trips you took when you were a teenager? And how it took you 15 minutes just to figure out what color shirt you wanted?

 I guess I'm scared that I will fail at reaching my dreams and just settle for some mundane job that makes me unhappy. That thought scares me. Hopefully that doesn't happen. I'm not going to let that happen. I will try my best to do what I love to do and make something of myself. I really wish that you could write me a letter or something to calm my fears and give me some words of advice. But writing letters to myself is not as easy as it seems.

Wishing you the best.

16 year old Becky

P.S. Let's keep our fingers crossed that someone in my time or your time invents a time machine so that we can meet each other.

Inside the Child Sex Trade