ib Kid

Wait. What do you mean no homework????

2008-04-24T20:51:00.000-07:00

So we don't have any homework tonight. I mean if you want to get technical I could be studing or starting my research paper but quite frankly i'm in a bad mood and I would rather not. We have been testing for the past two weeks. Stupid Stupid Stupid!!! They aren't even intelligent enought to give all of the tests to us in one week. No they have to drag it out Tuesday and Thursday for two weeks. Which screws up our whole schedule because they organize it so you only have your odd or even classes and it's really dumb. Nice adjective I know.

Earth Day

2008-04-18T22:19:00.000-07:00

My Freind pointed out that Earth Day this year is *drum roll please* ...April twentieth....Ahhhh let that sink in... Do you find it utterly hilarious that it is on 4-20? I got a huge kick out of this. I mean earthy hippies and pot. Maybe I'm being immature but I mean come on "ib learners" are supposed to be (this is straight from the handbook)
-Inquiers (I love learning random facts )
-Knowledgeable (If someone asks when Earth Day is I can surely tell them)
-Thinkers (I thought about how hilarious it was)
-Communicator (I'm telling you)
-Principled (hmmm...I take responsinility for spreading the fun)
-Open-minded (hahaha I'm open-minded but uhh I am not into illegal)
-Caring (Of course I am.)
-Risk-takers (Hmm I don't know that I can relate this one...I already told you I am not into illegal)
-Balanced (I'm balancing this blog and ib and theater)
-Reflective (I think Earth Day and 4-20 are a good match)

Theater and IB have stolen my life....

2008-04-16T16:47:00.000-07:00

They have taken it and ran away with my life. It's really sad actually. I also found that I forgot quite a few books in my death count so I will have to update that post later when I have time.

I'm totally disgusted...

2008-03-22T15:43:00.000-07:00

In ib there is no such thing as "break". It is spring break, and do you know what I have done? Work . I have done Aleks which is this stupid math website that is required work for you to do and it's annoying . I also read the book Night by Elie Wiesel. That was no problem because I like to read, but my teacher decided to give us a packet of "Study Guide Questions" and I still haven't even started those. I mean she wanted us to read and answer the questions at the same time but I just can't do that. That reminds me every book in ib someone dies. Every Book.

Book I Have Read in IB and Who Died
1. Of Mice and Men By:John Steinbeck
Death Count: Lennie, Curleys Wife, A mouse, and a puppy.
Total:4

2. Black Boy By: Richard Wright
Death Count: A kitten, Richards Mom (okay I'm pretty positive she dies but I need to look it up)
Total:6

3. All Quiet on the Westren Front By: Erich Maria Remarque
Death Count: Leer, Bertink, Muller, Kemmerich, Paul Baumer, Haie Westhus, Stanislaus Katczinsky
Total:13

4. The Great Gatsby By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
Death Count: Myrtle and Gatsby
Total:15

5. The Tortilla Curtain By: T.C. Boyle
Death Count: Socorro
Total: 16

6. The Scarlet Letter By: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Death Count: Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and Hester
Total: 19

7. Taming of The Shrew By: William Shakespeare
Death Count: The shrewish Kate (okay maybe no one technically died but...)
Total: 20

8. Night By: Elie Weisel
Death Count: 11 million died in the Holocaust
Total: 11 million and 20

Pretty depressing stuff. I wish we could read a happy book. Just one that's all I ask . One lighthearted book.

Ghetto pi

2008-03-14T16:39:00.000-07:00

Okay so my Mom is having Pi day on her blog and she said that this one person said they made "ghetto pie", and it said something along the lines of

"What would be the number for ghetto pi ?"and do you know what I said?

"4.20. ahahahahahha..."

(If you don't get it you have been out of highschool for way to long and you need to visit UrbanDictionary I will provide you a handy dandy link at the bottom of the page.) Ib kids know about about these thing we are not as naive as the world thinks. Today is also Albert Einsteins Birthday so yeah useless piece of information from my math teacher.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=4.20

Freakin A!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-03-13T16:13:00.000-07:00

Man the problem with ib is that you have so much crap to do that when you have time to do things that you like (like writing this blog for example) you just want to sleep. I haven't even read much lately because if I read I won't sleep. It's a terrible cycle but it's worth it I suppose.
Today I was freaking out because I had my chemistry semi-final and well you all know about my chem grade, anyways, I get into class to have the most pleasant suprise we get two day to do it!!!!!!! Do you know what this means? This means that you try to develop photographic memory so you can uhhh... well I wouldn't say that one nasty word that starts with a c and end with a t. (haahah not the Jane Fonda word the other one!) But basically you just use it to uhh... help you study Ya that's it! Hopefully my grade will be a C- that's a terrible grade to aspire to but....well it's the technical passing grade in college so whoopee! You know what Mrs. T says "C's are better" as in: If your going to be a slacker in ib you better at least get C's because in college if you get a D you fail the course so if your going to be a slacker you better be a God damn college level slacker.

Continued from my first post...

2008-02-29T17:14:00.000-08:00

Involved people:
The Coordinators
Mrs. T- scary women, by scary I mean she is slightly taller than me (I'm 5'1) and has this look of determination in her eyes that always makes you feel like you have accomplished nothing. Now this sounds kind of mean but that look it really keeps you in shape. Then when you talk to her she's pretty great. She knows every kids name in IB-and how to spell most of them too. I find this A-mazing but then again I'm easily amused.

Mr. T- Mrs. T's husband. (He used to be the IB coordinator) He is slightly taller than Mrs. T and he is hilarious. ( why does snoop dawg carry an umbrella-dramatic pause- fo drizzle! Man when I heard this I was CRACKIN UP I mean he is this small white guy with big glasses who is always dressed nicely and wearing a tie telling a snoop dawg joke,he's great)

Mr. P- He is also a coordinator and he teaches TOK (theory of knowledge more on that later). Well he is TALL. Really tall, he has a goofy smile, and he's bald. I don't have much more to say about him because if i have i problem i usually ask Mrs T or...

Mrs. Basketball Player S- She is the IB counseler and she is also TALL and really cool. She is very down to Earth and she cracks me up but like all of the other Top IB people she too can be scary.

Miscellaneous IB Teachers
IB Upperclassmen

So at warm-up week they drag you into the library :
They start off by making everyone sit down and then they tell everyone to stand. Now when this happened I was all eager to please because i was an incoming freshman all naive and excited, so i jump to my feet.. okay maybe i didn't jump but you get the idea and then they tell us "Okay so you can sit down but only once you have said one thing that is unique to yourself like my dads an astronaut or i'm the only one who ate glue as a kid!" (okay maybe i'm exxxxagerating a little they didn't say that but it was a back before i was technically a freshman and I'm a sophomore now so...my meomory is...ya) So everyone is standing there alienated because duh we were incoming freshman, and I failed to mention that there was a bunch of IB upperclassmen watching us because they volunteered so we would feel like we knew people and you know they wanted to be the first to snatch up the "cool freshmen" and take them under their wing and teach them. ( they didn't mind watching us do the embarrassing things they had done before in their life though it wasn't all for charity) Well you have all of these kids standing up scared to answer so we are all just looking at each other so Mrs.T asks (Mind you she's not quite so scary in the beginning it's just when she's really serious.) one of the upperclassmen to jump in .... to be continued

The Letter

2008-02-24T21:17:00.000-08:00

So in IB they make you write an essay explaining why you want to be in IB what you expect from it ect... So here it is...They read this and decide whether you can stay...

Writing this essay was much harder than I expected. I would start to write something and get three-hundred words into it and realize that it was terrible and cliched. All I have to do is write about IB, which should be quite simple, I know how to write, my teachers have assigned me much harder things to do, I am passionate about IB, so why is this such a problem? I have a page filled with brain storming, ideas and reasons why I want to be in the IB Programme and what I expect from it. But for the first time in my life I truly have writers block. The words do not seem to string together right and everything sounds terrible. Then it hit me. I am afraid. Afraid that IB will not like what I have to say. Afraid of not being the perfect IB student. I did not want to seem like a fraud when I say that "In IB the only thing you truly need is drive.", because to be quite honest that is something that I had lacked until very recently. When I received my progress report in the mail and saw that I had an F in Chemistry and a D in Algebra. That was the exact moment when I realized how important IB was to me and how lucky I was to be apart of it, and how stupid I was to not realize it. That was the moment when the drive started to kick in and when I felt something starting to shift. When that shift started happening I went to school the following Tuesday and asked [a person whos name i cant mention on my blog] if she could tutor me. I wanted to be in IB, I want to go to a four-year college, I want to be a leader, and I ultimately want to be satisfied with myself and I was definitely am not satisfied with myself.
IB was not something I was forced into. It was my choice and my father, Matt, loves to mention that anytime I get frustrated with it. He was not very fond of the idea of me attending the infamous Franklin in order to go to a program that he saw as no different from the AP courses at Saint Mary’s. He went on and on about how someone would beat me up, how it was not safe, and how overwhelmed I would be. To which I argued that IB and AP were two totally (This was before I had my shining IB vocabulary) different things. I told him that I would rather get beat up a couple of times than to go to Saint Mary’s and be unhappy. The more he learned about IB the harder it was for him to oppose the idea and eventually my mom and I convinced him that IB was my best choice. I was ready for the challenge. I wanted to be in a program where my teachers cared just like my teachers at Commodore. I also did not want to become a typical teenager who is oblivious to the world outside of their high school. Community was important to IB and it was important to me. What I want from IB and why I choose IB are pretty much the same. I want to be a knowledgeable person and I want to not only get accepted to a four year university but also be successful there. I understand that this can only be accomplished by being committed
to the program and willing to work for it.
That progress report was a slap in my face. It made me feel like I was a whole lot of talk but not a lot of results. People tell me that I’m smart and assume that I have straight A’s and that progress report made me want to live up to their expectations and more importantly to my own expectations. I remembered the commitment I made when I entered IB. I wanted to do the best I could and the IB diploma would be proof to myself that I had. My reasoning is that if I can get through IB I will get through college. To me, this didn’t mean straight A’s. It meant doing what my teachers asked of me instead of fighting laziness and making myself struggle.
I consider myself a leader and I try to make my teachers jobs easier by being enthusiastic in class which hopefully in return makes others enthusiastic. I try to make sure that other students do not need a progress report like mine to kick them into gear by telling them not to make IB harder than it needs to be by not doing the work and having to play catch up. There are plenty of resources for IB students and they should take advantage of them. I’m a perfect example of what not to do and how to fix it, hopefully the freshman I talk to will take my advice and understand that you can get through IB if you are motivated and you want it. I’m more motivated than ever now and I am willing to go get it.

Problems with having a blog on IB...

2008-02-12T17:00:00.000-08:00

You see i really want to give you a full post but IB has forced a ton of homework on me so you must suffer with me.........

Quote From a Real IB Kid

2008-02-10T22:22:00.000-08:00

"You've gotta be hella smart to be in IB, but hella dumb to stay in IB."
Won KimClass of 2000(?)Mira Loma High SchoolSacramento, CA

Ahahahahahahahaha I totally agree.

"You guys are data bulemics. You just swallow it and then spew it out for the test. It's disgusting."
Mrs. LordTeacher, IB AnthropologyMira Loma High SchoolSacramento, CA... complimenting her IB students on their excellent test-taking skills.

Dang skippy we just dont have group therapy to fix it.

IB Kid

2008-02-10T18:11:00.000-08:00

I'm a student in IB or the International Baccalaureate Programme. Which is decribed on urban dictionary as:

1.
IB

528 up, 33 down

A.K.A. International Baccalaureate - A malicious program aimed at the unnaturally brighter population in an attempt to overload their brains, thus reducing them to vegetables without lives. However, a true IB student will respond by adapting and bsing their way through.
IB, therefore I BS.IB - Teaching students how to turn shit into gold!
by h!$ 0wN Feb 27, 2005 email it

2.
ib

186 up, 26 down

A program created in an attempt to control the minds of the youths of the future, implemented by Swiss lawn gnomes, by preventing their exposure to the outside world.The state goals of the program are to provide students with an education rounded out accross five program areas ("groups") - including Language 1, Language 2, Social Sciences, Science, Math, and Art/Option. Additional elements of the program include CAS (a system used to force students out of the house once in a while), ToK (philosophy) and Extended Essay.In an attempt to shove too much information down the throats of students, the program ends up significantly improving the core skill required to succeed in IB: Bullshit. The phrase I.B. therefore I B.S. comes from this.
IB teaches students to turn shit into gold.
by xypher Apr 22, 2005 email it

This is a bit of an exageration, but hey it gets the point across. You see they start off by talking you (actually your parents) into signing up making it seem like it's the best thing evvv-a, which inthe public school system it probably is. The next step is to send you a paper telling you to read two books in my classes case Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck and
Blackboy by Richard Wright. This is all fine and dandy I've read books before noooooooo problem right? Wrong! So wrong it's not even funny. You see you don't get to read the book and write a response to literature or anything like that no you get to make a reading log that follows this criteria:(this is staight from the web site)
1. Write down a minimum of two quotes for every ten pages. We are looking for quality not quantity.
2. Quotes should be no longer than three sentences.
3. You must analyze the quote: tell us what it means; don't just put the quote into different words or summarize it.
4. Tell us why the quote you chose is important.
5. Consider the relationship between characters.
6. Predict what will happen next based on what you just read.
7. AVOID:
-personal opinions (I think, I would, I wonder...)
-personal stories (e.g., "That happened to me once, too.)
-too many questions: If you use questions they must relate to the text
It was ridiculous. I was reading and trying to analyze at the same time, not knowing whether i should read it first and then go back and write down qoutes and analyze them or what, so i started out reading Of Mice and Men first because it was shorter. I read the whole book and then I went back and analyzed it, easy peasy lemon- oh crap I still have to do another book that was three times as long and complicated -squeezy. I'm not going to try to relive that by telling how much it sucked because it was so time consuming, I think you get the gist. After, actually during this time depending on how much of a procrastinator you are, they take two weeks of your summer vacation and make you come to the stinky school library and do cult-ish things... To be continued...