Oct 25
I'm getting ready to turn the page as far as journalism goes. Even
last year when I was my maddest, I still had some fire in me, something
in me that refused to resign, that was angry ó a fighting sort of angry.
Now I'm angry and upset, but it's a passive, resigned sort of anger.
I'm not beat ó I could still fight ó but I don't know what I'm fighting
for. What do I gain? My heart is not longer in it. It's
too early to say too much ó if I've learned one thing in high school it's
that emotions fluctuate greatly ó too greatly. So I'll bide my time
and keep my options open.
The Speech and Debate Club looks like it might be going somewhere this
year. I'm really exited as I see how excited other people are in
the club. It could really be a lot of fun since I enjoy debating
so much. I just hope that the mock debates that we are doing turn
out OK. I can't schedule them for Monday because I have Choir Council,
Tues. is reserved for some ASG thing and Fri. seems kinda early.
Oh well.
Oct 23
5:57 p.m.: HmmÖ looks like it's been a while since I've added
anything to my page. Well, here's something (if there's anybody still
checking this).
Everybody likes some type of music (I think). And almost everybody
has a type of music that they simply can't stand. For most it's Country
Western. Now imagine what it would be like if you were forced to
listen to CW wherever you went because you lived say, in New Mexico.
If you can do that, then you know what it's like for me. Except with
me it's the exact opposite. I listen to Country but unfortunately
live in California where I am forced to listen the trash that all you kill
your hearing with.
I went to a dance sat. night. It was pretty cool, my date was
pretty cool. The only problem is that they weren't playing country
music, which for you would be like their only playing country music.
Now how much fun would you have in that circumstance? Well, I still
had fun ó I've learned tolerance if anything from living the Bay Area (that
applies to tolerance of other people's political positions, something I've
noticed that hard-core liberals tend to be a little short on). But
it's not the same as going to a dance where you enjoy the music.
Tolerance and enjoyment are merely distant cousins ó very distant.
But of course, dances aren't just about music. They're about people.
And on that side, the dance was great.
Oct 14
3:35 p.m.: AhÖ that wonderful test that almost every college-bound
high schooler must take. The good 'ol SAT. We're told over
and over by many different people that your score on the SAT is not an
accurate measure of your intelligence, your grades, or your ability to
succeed in college and much less life. Yet despite this repeated
warning, many of us value our score on the SAT ó it's the most common benchmark
for measuring intelligence among high school students. I just took
the SAT II today. Did pretty well on the Writing Exam, miserably
on Math IIC, and so-so on physics. I guess if you add one point to
my grades they pretty much match my SAT scores. Well, not really.
I'm working on my photos page. So far I've uploaded over 20 photos.
I'm just not sure exactly how I should display them. Suggestions,
anyone? Oh yeah, you need a guestbook for those.
Oct 12
7:14 a.m.: I just watched the presidential debate last night.
A CBS snap pole said that Bush did better, but I think that Gore actually
was teh winner. Or rather, he did better in policy, but Bush still
has a better demeanor. Gore should get credit for getting rid of
that irritating habbit of sighing and rolling his eyes ó he was much less
arrogant this time. But Bush was a little more personable.
School ó it's crazy. I can't stand it any more. Right now
in the early morning I'm find. But once I step inot a certain room
(Journalism room to be precise) then I go crazy. All I want to do
it just sit there and work on this web page ó who cares about teh paper.
All we do is talk about it, not actually put it out. Working on the
paper doesn't mean spending hours after school discussing, it means hours
after school actually working on the paper (layout, etc). I did a
free write a couple days ago in Journalism. It says a lot of how
I fell. Click here to read it.
Oct. 9
Iíve come to the conclusion that I need to be slightly depressed in order
to be amusing/funny. Life is a much more interesting thing to write
about when you can view things from a cynical perspective. I went
biking yesterday. I figured that maybe I also needed to be a little
tired also in order to be funny. It didnít quite work all that well.
I went biking on a route that Peggy Chou had shown me. Itís really
great because itís got a lot of uphill so you are really tired out.
Not that steep, but still rigorous and fairly long. Then at the very
end there are several very steep downhill stretches. Unless you do
it, you canít know what itís like. To feel the wind on your face,
blowing against your hair and flapping your shirt in the wind when youíre
so tired you can hardly keep your grip on the handlebars. When youíve
been feeling for a while now that you canít peddle any more ó now you finally
donít have to. Itís glorious. Of course when I got back home
I was completely exhausted.
Oh yeah, I made the link to the mastheads (for The COUGAR) work.
Check it out and tell me which one you like best.
Oct. 5
There was a Speech and Debate Club meeting today at lunch. Far fewer
people came that I would have wished, but I guess that's just the way life
goes. You can't get everything you want, can you? Just like
today I didn't get to do the Republican party for my project in Government.
Or the Democratic Party either for that matter. I enjoy practicing
arguing both sides of an issue. It's really good practice and it
helps you see how the other person thinks ó which is important if you are
trying to negotiate with them and is useful if you are trying to argue
with them. If you understand how someone thinks, then it's that much
easier to convince them ó you can better match their arguments. It
also enables you to give the pretense of not being biased, something which
very few people can do. That became very apparent to me in Government
class when we had a discussion of the Presidential Debates.
Now I know that I'm biased, but I like to think that I have the ability
to toss aside my personal bias and somewhat objectively assess the debate.
Unfortunately, the majority of my classmates were unable to do this.
They instead were interested in finding reasons to trash Bush. Instead
of saying "let's talk about how each candidate did" they were doing something
like "Bush is crap. Let me watch the debate and find reasons why."
It really irritated me. At first I was going to try to give a semi-objective
analysis of the debate and say the good/bad points of each candidate, but
I abandoned it when I realized that no one (not even the teacher) was attempting
to do the same.
Oct. 4
Just got home from school. The first time in a while that I haven't spent
an unreasonable amount of time in the Journalism room. Mostly it's not
spent doing work. It's spent having a discussion with the advisor. And
that really irritates me. I can't stand just sitting there talking for
about 45 min. on how to put out the paper instead of actually putting out
the paper. It wouldn't bother me so much if we were putting out a good
paper and I wasn't doing it all myself. But while I certainly am not doing
it all myself, that's only because there's nothing being done. We canceled
issue one because the articles were too dated ó reporters took too long
to get articles in and articles took too long to edit. The solution? Extend
the writing process so the articles are even more dated when they come
out and add extra steps to the editing process so that articles spend even
more time in editing. Am I the only one who thinks that doesn't completely
make sense? Well, enough on the paper. My family says that I spend too
much time thinking about it/talking about it. They're right. It an obsession
with me. I don't want to end up putting it out alone, but I can't help
it if there's something in me that wants a decent paper, that doesn't want
to see my name next to the title EIC in a four page rag.
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