St. Vincent! Is really really good and I love her. And this song is wonderful so listen to it.

My god, I have had one awful week. It always happens this time in December and I don’t know why, but all I know is that you’re practically counting down the seconds until days are done and until you can have Christmas break and just not care at all. It’s tough and you’ve no idea how relieved I am that this is over with.

Interesting day Monday, ‘cause I woke up with a  headache and a ringing in my ear, and although my mother takes the typical English attitude to sickness(which is, you will go to school unless you are about to die) most days, for some reason I got to sleep in this day. Hoorah! And she had to go out Christmas shopping which for many a fifteen year old means loud music And it was pretty fun and almost lucid; I dressed like it was summer, ate food on a strange schedule (I’m usually very scheduled), read books, and listened to the Killers. It was fantastic and I’m either easily pleased or far too hard to please at all.

 And then not to be melodramatic or anything—who? Me? Never!—but the rest of the week was like the worst thing ever. Looking back on it, I’m not entirely sure why but, you know, there you  go.
I’ve been essay-writing in english for a book I didnt’ care for at all. I really go in for specifics and am kinda hyper meticulous with essays so to not enjoy the book I’m reading makes it all too difficult. It truly was a terrible book. And it was just another shitty thing to do even when I had no time to do something like that, what with studying and work and being so incredibly tired and frustrated. The essay rubric doesn’t make any sense, either, and my teacher is the mockery of the class because of it. Interestingly, we also had a power outage on Thursday. We were typing in the lab. The first story was of a squirrel getting caught on the power lines, although later that squirrel became a branch. We were shuffled outside and then shuffled inside and the power didn’t come back until about an hour and a half later. Which is fine unless you cannot type the essay without the power and you don’t have time to type it after school and your teacher doesn’t moie the date back. So, yeah. The first draft was awful and surprise surprise no time to edit it much over the weekend, and peer editing is just such an awful exercise for everyone. Fucking educational system. Apparently not having a thesaurus.com tab constantly open on your computer while you write constitutes bad writing. Repeat a word once and you are just terrible. Hmmm.

This week on algebra, I got a very bad grade on a test. I was still sick, I was exhausted, I didn’t have time to study, I missed the review on Monday which meant I was probably at a bit of a disadvantage. We were tested on things that we went over once, things you wouldn’t think to study if, like me, you hadn’t been told to. As you’ve probably noticed, if I don’t find a loophole out of lackluster grades it absolutely kills me. I have bipolar self-esteem, if you excuse my using the word bipolar in that context. Stuff like this just feeds into the cycles, you see. But this has a few other repercussions that are more awful. Most other teachers would judge you on your entire performance in a class, which for me has been consistently above average, but my teacher doesn’t seem capable of this. I am now wearing the metaphorical dunce cap. This is very hurtful. She’s also moved me away from everyone I know and talk to sometimes, to the front of the class. And I find it very difficult to function at all at the front of a classroom, I always have: whoever thought moving kids to the front of the class will make them contribute and learn more had no idea what they were talking about. She made us take notes too quickly, while I was moving seats, and didn’t give me enough time to copy anything down and then interrogated me for answers as she went around the classroom, picking on people, having us work on questions as a class. She picked on me. She did this a couple of times, still without the proper notes to answer questions. I think teachers need to learn that “I don’t know” means just that. I believe putting others through public humiliation is unacceptably cruel, especially people who obviously don’t wanna speak in front of the class and who are most affected by things like this. But no, this teacher and most all of the others will just keep pushing away until they give you an answer. Even if the answer is nonsense. “Tell me, what’s the capital of Poland—you!” “I...i don’t...I don’t know” “Just say anything” “The square root of sixteen?” “Well at least you answered” (the imaginary class laughs at you from this time—you self-loathe until the bell rings and you can leave).  This rule applies even if answering makes the speaker want to cry and just get the hell out of the room right then and there. It’s all about noise for the sake of noise, doing things quickly, not caring about anything, and going through humiliating hell each day. I fucking hate the education system here, really. Even when I’m doing well at something it’s all just so awful, depressing, and humiliating. My teacher’s attitude in this class has yet to change and every day I dread the class.

I miss an easy day in 20^th century, watching a video, and the following Tuesday and Wednesday were shitty discussions. Then on Thursday, I should have studied my brains out for a test by then but alas, could I be bothered? Debate days are weird. One of the many high school events that seem to exist even though the explanation for why they exist seems to have been lost long ago. And we were made to sit by class, so it was kinda impossible to do anything useful with the free time. The girl next to me reads Catcher in the Rye and narrates her thoughts to me; I don’t know her very well. There were two debates: the first about emphasizing science and technology in schools to get an advantage over other countries, the second about the national slogan. I could have landed worse debates, true, although try as you like to hide it it’s too difficult to cover up your personal opinions on the topics entirely. I tried. My teacher, who plays devils advocate like you wouldn’t believe, made all these snide comments about the debaters now that they were outside of ear shot. Slightly unsettling. And! Some person asked questions who talked so painfully slowly it was embarrassing for everyone in the room. I don’t know why I’m complaining. Could have been a worse class, you know? But damn it, debate club doesn’t make much sense to me and yet I’ve gone before and not entirely against going again if I ever have an evening with enough time? It’s so odd. Actually, one main problem: overuse of the word decorum. Decorum! Jesus. Some of these kids are scarily college-oriented; the whole decorum business kinda gives it away. Ah Jesus, must stop being so judgmental of literally everyone. But not before I mention how absolutely terrible Friday was, because it was review for a test, and for some reason my teacher is one of those ones that managed to pick up the (incorrect) idea that playing jeaopardy is a good way to review things. And we were kinda roughly put into teams, and our team was about a third of the size of the other two, and the big team has all the loud people and god I don’t know about fucking war; this unit’s been awful. Take this, plus the typical deterioration of questions to asking about America’s Next Top Model, plus being with someone who, after getting the dates of Wilson’s presidency a few years off, continues to spend the next three quarters of an hour telling you how he doesn’t care, and you become so incredibly frustrated and tired and sick of everything. See, fucking jeopardy, this happens every single time with this game. Last time I was stuck between Potterheads, the raving lunatic fringe of the fandom types, and if it weren’t for some pretty snappy knowledge of the stock market lord knows what I would have done to them.

 The only problem with bio is the quizzes. Cause they’re too hard and it’s too time consuming to study for them, so even if the classes themselves aren’t awful, as is often the case, then just having to do the work makes everything much worse. Too many labs this week. First, we cut up flowers, then the next day we looked at photosynthesis in old leaves vs new leaves. Usually we can pick our lab partners, but for whatever reason they were randomly assigned this time. I was with three girls who I don’t know very well. It wasn’t much fun. We also had a quiz this week! Fun fun hell. I did okay but it’s irritating, what with everything else I seemed to think was going on. It’s pretty sad if the best thing that happens to you in a week is some person commenting on you getting a slew of good grades. These grades, incidentally, have been down to luck and perhaps the heightened since of value that comes with everything when you’re sleep deprived. We’re talking about cancer no in that class.. My teacher says it’s kinda weird to do right before the christmas break.

It’s the weekend now, thank Christ, and next week is the last week of school, I have a huge test on Monday and a piano recital on Sunday. This week has been terrible and blah blah blah I’m going to bed goodnight.