Back to school. Fun. I know all about it.
It’s better and worse than it was before. I don’t know if it’s a good thing, but I’ve been unable to maintain my Hope for studying and such. I excuse it by saying that I haven’t had as much work, but it’s just that: an excuse. I’ve done infinitely more math hw at home than I did during the first semester, literally. So I guess that’s something.
For those of you who shared my anxiety for testing results, it was good. I qualified for National Merit on my SAT, and Shellum gave an apparently generous curve on the exam, so I’ve managed to hang onto my A’s for another semester. Unfortunately, Shellum is also leaving.
True, I knew this about a year ago, but I had hoped that she loved our class enough to watch us finish. But she is neither staying, nor doing “Wasteland” with us. Oh well. Even as tough as that class is, I think I’ve managed to get more out of it than English for the past 3 years (Mrs. Jaime’s class was very good as well). Looking at what we do, it’s basically insane test, discussion, and essay. Not much different than the past 3 years, you might say? Tremendously.
It’s odd, how I look back, and I think, “Dude, I can’t believe we weren’t doing this in 8th grade. True, we didn’t know as much, but what we’ve done has prepared us not at all for this. I’ve gotten so much out of this class, and I think that I was at least vaguely capable of this work for awhile.” Taylor’s going down the drain.
Past school, my CSC team went to a contest, where we managed to pull in 2nd, which was quite nice, considering that we hadn’t done any contest programming for over 6 months. We got off to a slow start and had some difficulties with the judges, but it ended up okay. Unfortunately, there is more.
So yesterday, Mr. C, my CS teacher, comes up to me and asks me why I wasn’t going to the next contest (a week from next sat). I tell him that DNev has AD so we weren’t going to go, since we’ve only ever gone as a team, but apparently he had a problem with this, so he takes me into his office so I can speak with him and Super-Scherer. It literally took 40 min, so I’ll paraphrase (note, it was much more friendly than this translation and not near as harsh):
Mr. C: “I think you’re being arrogant by not going and programming only as a team. Where do your loyalties lie: to your team or to the Taylor CSC? You need to go to the next contest to help everyone, because right now, you’re not contributing enough. I’m going to threaten you with Code Wars if you don’t go to the next contest.”
Me: “…okay.”
As I said, it was significantly more complicated and respectful than that, and in the end, all we resolved was that I would agree to talk to my team. Well, that has transpired, so me and Willie are going to pick up our third man and go to contest. Wish us luck: we have no clue what’s going to happen.
I would write more, but there is distinctly a steel wall blocking my train of thought. Perhaps I’ll find the door and update soon. Mebbe I’ll wait my usual week.
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