Due to the fact that I couldn't blog in England, things have got extremely backed up and now I'm a fortnight behind. I'm just so neurotic that I just couldn't let this slip by without panicking...quite a lot.
so, anyway.
Interestingly, jetlag is sort of a joy when you're comng back from England. The other way round, it's horrific, I go to bed initially in the middle of the afternoon and then really late, I feel like I'm living in a crack den. However, the other way round, and you do everything so early. I think I might be a morning person, if I get enough sleep. Waking up at 5 in the morning comfortably is wonderful, you feel like you have one up on the rest of the world and you just watch everyone waker up around you. This probably only works when it's warm. Also, it's not really a viable thing I can do the rest of the year, so I enjoy it when I can. First thing I did when I got home was check the mail for the all-important schedule, which reads
1st Semester--B1 English, B2 Algebra, B3 20th Century History, B4 Biology. 2nd Semester B1 B Gym B1 G Study, B2 Chemistry, B3 algebra, B4 Spanish. My initial reaction was severe disappointment that I was not in classes with anyone I knew. However, Eglish 1st block is good. Gym and study 1st blog? Not good. Not good at all. Chemistyr is a junior class that sophomores can take, but are advised against because the school has no money and the money they do have they are still keeping in schools, and even then they pay for it with paper clips or something. Remarkably, however, I did get into Chemistry so I now I get to be with scary people a year older than me. This could be a great opportunity to learn some fascinating things and meet some different people, or a horrible, horrible place where I’m embarrassed , humiliated, and perpetually confused. Time will tell. I couldn’t really see any benefits in the way my schedule worked out.
Over the course of the week running up to school, I became fluent in Inbetweeners references, purchased binders, listened to the National, frantically worked on my summer reading assignment at the last minute, went to the beach, picked plums and raspberries, bought clothes, went for walks, and ate bagels. It was refreshing to be able to wear summer clothes, proper summer clothes, not English summer clothes again. However, that didn’t stop the week from being extremely depressing. It peaked Monday evening, of course, packing my bag after I’d literally just finished with the reading questions (ten questions, ten pages, a good way to start the year). School isn’t horrific and autumn is cool and everything, I like autumn as much as everyone else, but I love summer too and I love the freedom and being away from people. It was tough to deal with. I’m probably hopelessly jetlagged, but I barely remember anything about that week at all.
I’ve become accustomed to the idea that no matter how late I stay up the night before, I’m always wide awake for the first day of school, ready to attack the new year. For whatever reason, this didn’t apply this year, and I had drag myself out of bed and get ready for a bus that was arriving a whole fifteen minutes than it had the year before. It became clear over the first day that after four + years of whining and begging for money, the school system had actually used some initiative and –woah—made some effort to save some money! Part of me was happy that had happened, but another was annoyed that my bus now had to pick up almost twice as many people in a really out-of-the-way route that got to the school twenty minutes later. Most everyone else was there already. I rushed to my locker, which isn’t as well placed as I would ideally have it, and saw one friend. I realized the sophomores had dived right in to their policy of being unnecessarily vicious to the (generally) innocuous freshman. Then, I grudgingly made my way to the English classroom, placed in the physical science hallway. The worst hallway in the school. I found one person in my class. I don’t know her well but we have an abundance of mutual friends. She’s the sort of person who seems outlandish and loud and obnoxious whenever you see her with others, but when you get her alone, she’s alright. The only significant amount of time I spent with her was about two years ago in gym class, where we walked to a joined last place when running the mile. In the hall I talked to some other people I vaguely know, and then we were let in. The room is painted blue! Thank christ, otherwise it’d be miserable. I wasn’t overly impressed with the selection of people I was to be with for the next five months. I have no friends, maybe five fairly close acquaintances? I’ll live. The best part of that class was getting a seat in the very back corner of the class! The teacher, to my horror, reminded me of my 8th grade English&Social Studies teacher...an experience I never want replicated again. We had to announce a fact to the class—and I got the I’m British thing out of the way, thank god, nothing more awkward than me talking in front of the class six weeks after school starts and everyone realizing my accent. The teacher seemed surprisingly into what we were talking about, giving out handouts et cetera, rules, and a list of books we’re gonna read. It looks...okay. Poetry and some stuff. Gatsby will make this entire class worth it. Gatsby can make anything worth it.
Algebra second block. My teacher, I was told by many beforehand, is evil personified. She’s also an old lady with a navely voice who is about four and a half feet tall. She let us sit wherever we want, however—something she has continued to do to this day. My feelings on the class members were initially mixed, but I warmed up over time. The female side of the room gets on very well indeed. No friends, maybe two or three likable acquaintances. There was someone who I’ve been trying to avoid for upwards of two years, as she brings on the most petty and vindictive parts of me. She has since switched out, due to clashes with the teaching style. (ha.) The only other person I outwardly dislike is the freshman whose parents are pushing her too much. She makes a show of sitting on the male side of the room every day, doing the whole “girls are so bitchy!” routine. (sigh). Oddly think this teacher might actually work for me. She goes at the perfect pace, and actually discourages group work! That is so rare, and I find nothing more hindering to thought and work than having to share it with others. We dived right into basic algebra for the first day.
20th century. For whatever reason we’re in a huge classroom built for combined English/SS courses. My teacher is intense and gregarious and has the biggest Napoleon Complex going on I’ve ever seen. He’s pretty cool. We were put into tables. I knew one person. We discussed the themes of the year. It doesn’t look interesting. A lot of economy and business and stuff.
This semester I have third, and last, lunch and it. Is. Hell. B Days I have on friend. G days, it seems like half the school is there. It’s so cramped and the tables are horrid and the food(cutscutscuts) isn’t good. Plus this year they had rodent problems so now we’re not allowed to leave the cafeteria at all ever—all 600 of us! I hate it.
There was a switch with my bio class but all worked out. My teacher is confident, eloquent, abrasive, and intimidating—much like last year’s physical science teacher. Her class scares me, but the content—genetics! Genetics! Genetics!—fascinates me. We did talk about the scientific theory yet a fucking again, for some reason. We understand it by now, damn it!
I’ve basically got into the school routine again. Some hiccups, but overall things are going nicely. People are decent and I’ve plenty of time to be alone this year, so I don’t do that thing where I feel, I don’t know, socially claustrophobic and take it out on someone and end up feeling very guilty indeed. English, we’ve read Maggie A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane, which was okay but had cool descriptions of turn of the century New York, and now we’re reading Hemingway’s not-so-good stuff. We’re put into groups and told to write poems and draw pictures, so basically I do anything other. I got a 95 on my summer reading essay. I also got a 95 on my first algebra test, best grade in the class, and my algebra teacher actually likes me. (I have a funny knack of getting math teachers to like me, whereas all other teachers generally dislike me. I’m not exceptionally good at math, especially not algebra). 20th century goes in no logical order whatsoever, like we started this week with Teddy Roosevelt, were at Stalin by Wednesday, and ended with the Great Depression. We talk politicspoliticspolitics like there’s no tomorrow, but luckily we only have one of those uber-politicized usually Republican ‘GAWD BLESS AMERICA’ people, which is half the only reason i avoid politics in the first place. The girl I sit next to is annoying beyond reason, I was arguing against her convoluted idea that global warming is a conspiracy for the government to make money, to the point where the whole class was staring at us. And I got a 94 on a Bio test(yay) and got lukewarm grades on a slew of labs.
Also, philosophy club us starting again. It’s where me and my friend go after school on Fridays and there are these two uber nerdy smart senior girls who wanna talk about culture and morality and reason, and I have nothing to say, and sometimes there’s this guy who’s into conspiracy theories involving Hitler and gays. It’s an endearingly dysfunctional little thing. They’re dying for new members, but then they seemed to deflate a bit when we’d peer-pressured a horde of vaguely interested sophomores to tag along. This week we talked religion, the head of the club spewed Dawkins and I tried to throw out some almost coherent stuff about it, as I at least paid attention to it in a Tim Minchin-fueled fervor last year. Despite this, I’m still horribly conflicted on the whole subject. (like, on the one hand, religion does all this bad stuff, but on the other hand it makes people happy/find meaning, et cetera...aaaand I guess I’m pretty into logic reason and all that jazz, but not everyone is, so I consider it a bit silly for some anti-thesists to just say a more rational lifestyle would be better. Also, I know someone people say just because it makes someone happy it doesn’t make it right and perpetuating something moderately gives room for extremists. On the former, I don’t really know or particularly care, it’s their lives and they’re not hurting anyone. On the latter, this is true of many things. Basically, I don’t know. I don’t want to get a reputation as a sort of Oh God Please Shut Up You Stupid Atheist Bigot type person, you know? I’ve been an atheist my whole life and never had it occurred to me that there was much wrong with religion till I saw all these comedians hating it. And sometimes I wish I’d stayed the type of atheist I was when I was younger, completely, with being 100% cool with theists. But now my thinking has been skewed way off by these other atheists, and I don’t like it. Basically I’ve just seen the whole thing get out of hand and it’d probably just be helpful if we A.) Stopped treating religion as an entity unto itself away so that both ardent critics and ardent supports can be seen as reasonable people and B.) Stopped calling each other stupid and making wild generalizations. Basically, let’s all be happy happy happy and let all the Christians and atheists hold hands and make daisy chains together. Bet it’s hard to see why I fear judgment from the senior girls isn’t it).
I saw the National on Friday! It was glorious. I mention this whenever I get the chance, but High Violet is my favorite record. If you don’t own it, you have got to buy it. Sometimes it can be really beautiful and elegant and it can also be this dark, clunky thing. I don’t know how they do that, but it’s the most brilliant selection of music I know. This is my second time seeing them, though first time I only went for the support band. This time, the supports did almost nothing for me. Wye Oak is lo-fi guitar music with a female singer wailing over the top. Think Warpaint mixed with a duller Florence Welch. and then there’s Yo la Tengo, who I thought would be really arty and trendy and happy and in college, but turns out they’ve been around since like 1985 and their music is weird beyond my comprehension and too hard for me to listen to. The arena is this summer-only half open tent thing really close to the coast, and behind you you can see all of Boston, it’s great. Plus, the crowd was great, really pleasant and tolerable and varied. Live, the National, they’re great, they’re all wearing suits and the lights are dark and my god, Matt Berninger’s voice. And just Matt Berninger in general. How can you look so subdued and have so much passion at the same time? Let me know of your secrets, you amazing person! They played a lot of old stuff and the night was really, really great. I’m just annoyed we didn’t get Lemon World or Mistaken for Strangers. But we got Runaway, Anyone’s Ghost, Bloodbuzz Ohio, Squalor Victoria, Conversation 16, Sorrow, and England, among others. Oh, and Terrible Love was great, Matt got into the crowd and all! They ended with Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks, which is a breathtaking song, and they played it was just a high hat and an acoustic and the whole crowd singing every word. That was inspired. Honest to god, one of the best songs live I’ve ever heard. Such a great gig, such a great band, such a shame I haven’t been into them for longer. Highly, highly recommend these guys.
Nothing else interesting at the moment. My interest in music has been briefly rejuvenated even more. The National, Leonard Cohen, Massive Attack, Los Campesions, The Stranglers, the Walkmen,, et cetera. Just finished reading On The Road and officially add it to my terribly contrived Favorite Books list. My Inbetweeners obsession then moved into The Thick of It obsession, which in case anyone is wondering is one of the best things ever because Armando Iannucci is the best comedy writer ever, and he doubles with Jesse Armstrong who writes Peep Show for this so it’s perfection. Also I’m still watching Doctor Who and am not really liking the fall weatherquite as much as the summer. Otherwise, things are alright. I’ve spent the weekends being stressed, watching DVDs, going downtown, going to a Greek Festival, and going into Boston.
Sorry for the tedious update and whatnot, I’ll post marginally less stupid stuff at some point.
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