the ADMIN pages

It's official: I am a second-semester senior. And just as the wonderful feeling of a looming graduation starts to kick in, a class like "Written Expression," my semester English elective, comes along to kick my ass.

The first semester of my senior year was a horrible joke, both literally and figuratively. This was the kind of joke that goes on and on, and you can tell right away that it isn't going to be funny, so you just want to tell the self-appointed comedian to shut up. That's how I felt.

The best period of my day was the one I didn't show up to most of the time (it being the first period of the day and all). Being a teacher's aide for Mr. Workman, a biology and chemistry teacher who I really got to know when he had me suspended in my sophomore year, was an awesome experience. He's an intelligent and funny guy, and from what I can tell, is a great teacher. Sitting in his office, along with a few other biology teachers, shooting the breeze, was the most engaging part of my first semester. It didn't matter what we were talking about, be it education, the newly-selected incoming principal, or technology. All that mattered was that I was doing something. Having to grade his quizzes and worksheets (the actual "work") was just an afterthought.

"Realms of Possibility," a semester-long English elective that focuses on science-fiction and fantasy literature, was a complete pushover. Case in point: Me, the textbook underachiever who does as little work as possible, got a 100% grade. Both quarters. I did not lose one point the entire semester. The teacher is a lifelong educator who has won a bunch of awards, so I'm not sure if he's actually just a bad teacher who gets all his students to like him (by making his class as easy as possible), thereby winning popularity contests, or if he actually did engage me, and I just haven't realized it. The jury's still out on this one.

AP Statistics: The easiest "math" class I've taken in high school. A friend of mine likes to say this class is an English class in a math wrapper, because of all the writing (he's a math nerd, and hated the class). Sure, I'm learning new things, but quite frankly, I'm not really enjoying the class. The knowledge I'm gaining just isn't interesting or relevant to me. That's just a personal thing, though--I like the way the class is structured, and the teacher is great. It's a full-year class, so I'll continue to trudge my way through it.

Archery/Fitness/Bowling: The state-mandated P.E. class. As always, what's to say? I've never found an engaging P.E. class. Although, this class was the first time I had a truly good teacher. A former department chair, he seems intelligent and competent enough to teach something other than P.E. He isn't the most popular teacher, because he runs his class relatively strict. That being said, I liked him. Not as, um, weird as most of my former P.E. teachers.

So, onto second semester, which started today (with a shortened schedule).

I've got "Stress Management" (yet another P.E. elective) during first period. As I said, I rarely showed up to school on-time when I was a teacher's aide, so this is going to be a wonderful wake-up call (literally). I've heard bad things about how strict the teacher is, but it's classroom-based (as opposed to dressing out for "physical activity") on two days a week. I'm cautiously optimistic.

Second period, I return to being an aide for the MIDI Music class. I took the class last year, and have helped develop a lot of the technology side of things for the teacher since then. Scheduling conflicts prevented me from having a formal aiding capacity last semester. There appears to be a shortage of computers... so I may be spending my time in a different room down the hall or something.

AP Statistics stays the same. The teacher gave us his "No Senioritis" speech today, although he conceded that after May 7th (the AP test), he won't care what we do. This is a common thread I see among teachers, though: they care almost too much. Sometimes, they fail to realize that there are students who legitimately, truly don't care about their class. Sure, to him, statistics is the most important thing in the world. But to me, it's just a filler class to fulfill the minimum number of courses mandated by the school.

And... my second-semester English elective: Written Expression, billed as a college-level writing class. From what I've heard and witnessed on my first day, the class is very demanding. Since this is the only real class I need to pass to graduate, I should probably be concerned. However, I've been told the teacher is very nice, and she does seem that way. And she did mention that she grades on the ability to write, not just for the mere presence of a grade (or something to that effect). Still, it's all rhetoric until I see it on my grade report.

If my gut reaction is correct, I won't as easily breeze through this semester, but at least now it's acceptable normal for me to have "senioritis." Even though I've had senioritis since about freshman year. I apologize to all my teachers in advance: I'm a textbook case of a student being apathetic about their education. What's the big secret? How do you fix that? Engage me.