Brettia

Life’s been a whirlwind of events lately. Things are happening right and left; I barely have time to remember what I’m supposed to be doing, and I never know what’s going on with anyone else. I have seven books to read over the summer (that’s about one per week from May 20 through Independence Day). Not that I’m not looking forward to summer; it’s just that it isn’t the relief that it used to be. In elementary and middle school, you came home from school on the last Friday of the first week of June excited and happy, final report card in hand, thinking of all the neat things you would do over the summer. And the first month was always great, but then it was just boring after that.

I wonder why we even have such a long summer vacation. I think most kids would be happy with four or five weeks, instead of twelve or thirteen. As I’ve told numerous people, in Utah I was in a district that had a year-round schedule, where you went to school for a quarter (nine weeks) and then got a three-week break. Rinse and repeat four times, and you have a full 48-week school year, leaving four weeks for summer vacation. Not only that, but every Friday was a half-day. How can that not be awesome? Vacations in the middle of the year without missing school? Higher school capacities? (Only 3/4 of the students are there at a time with a year-round setup.) It seems win-win for everyone. Of course there are a few drawbacks, such as that parents would need to pay for day-care for their younger children in some cases, and year-round doesn’t work as well if its done incorrectly.

Cactus Shadows has four grades, 9-12. I thought I’d clarify that since some high schools only have three grades. Currently, we go to school from mid-August to mid-May. (Though it seems like it would make air-conditioning cheaper if it was from mid-September to mid-June, when it is cooler.) So each grade level would be one track, and sometimes freshmen, juniors, and sophomores would be in school, where as other times everyone but the freshmen would be there, and so on. Also, teachers would get a full year’s pay, meaning they no longer would have to worry about what job they’d do over the summer. I dunno why they don’t do it already.

But I should get back on track: I was talking about how I was so busy. Luckily, this is a good busy, a productive busy, not a “I feel like a rabbit chasing a carrot through a pit of vipers” kind of busy. So I suppose I’m not doing that bad. Anyway, Monday began with a feeling of excitement, since I was finally getting to switch my second hour class for 45 minutes of technological learning with Mr. Trapani. The first few days were kind of boring, but then I started following Brian and Greg, Trapani’s wonder-boys, around the lab as they fixed things.

A List of Everything I’ve Done So Far

• Helped mother of a middle-schooler figure out how to get to falconprep@ccusd93.org. No one seemed to realize that it was an email address, and not a website. I’ll have to remember to write a form to embed in the website and next year. Oh, and note to self: never recommend teachers in school->parent communication!
• Wrote next-generation school website homepage code. (Did this mostly at home.) I’ve been having some problems getting it to display correctly on all browsers. It looks fine in Mozilla Firebird and Internext Explorer 6 (SP2) on my machine, but the tabbed menu flurps out on Trapani’s computers. I don’t get it.
• Installed Fedora Core 1 (Linux) on an extra Dell box in the lab, hopefully I won’t be tarred and feathered by Brian for doing it, since it was a backup machine (though I had permission from both Trapani and Greg). FC1 is giving me trouble for some reason, first because I enabled the wrong network authentication system (LDAP), and second because no monitor seems to work; I’ve gone through four already.
• Slapped together a message posting system for staff members to post messages on the website weekly (or even more often).
• Fixed computer that had its refresh rate set to high, making it impossible to start the GUI without getting a monitor error message.

I’ve been busy, as you can see. And remember that I was giving up my English class to do this, so I was also having to work on a study guide for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a poem we’re studying. And then there’s the paper that I have to write about it later on. Rather than ramble about all this, another list:
Current and Future School Assignments
Assignment - Class - Priority - Due Date - Point Value

Neurofibromatosis PowerPoint Presentation - Biology - 7 - April 26, 2004 - 65

A very major project for Biology. I finished it Saturday, ready for presenting tomorrow.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Study Guide - Honors English - 5 - ? - ?

A study guide for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, with questions and definitions to complete. Takes about one hour per part, and there are seven parts total. I’ll be finished with it by Tuesday, hopefully.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Theme Essay - Honors English - 4 - ? - May 3, 2004?

The essay I mentioned earlier. I don’t know any details on this assignment yet.

Communist China under Mao Zedong Presentation - World History/Geography - 10 - 160 - April 29, 2004/April 30, 2004

One hundred and sixty points is a lot. Too much to blow off, by far. I’m about 75% finished, I just need to add some more videos and pictures to my PowerPoint and make a few formatting adjustments, and then I’ll be done.

AP European History Summer Homework - AP European History - 5 - ? - July 10, 2004

I have to read two books and do essays and stuff for this class. I probably won’t even get started for another month or so.

Honors English Summer Homework - Honors English - 6 - ? - ?

This one requires that I read five books. Now’s the time to sign up for a speed reading course.

Improve Athletic Scores - Physical Education - 9 - ? - ?

We’re graded by performance, in PE, not effort, so I get pretty crappy marks on exams and such, though I do fine on daily participation.

Thursday’s Homework Assignment - Honors Geometry - 8 - 10 - April 26, 2004

Missed part of class on Friday, had to make it up over the weekend. Did it Saturday.

Honors Algebra 3-4 Summer Homework - Honors Algebra 3-4 - 4 - ? - ?

Finished this in Spanish class Friday. Hooray for substitute teachers that give you too little work to be productive!

Communication Squares - Spanish 3-4 - 9 - 35 - April 30, 2004

Eight tasks that we have to do by the specfied date. All of them require speaking Spanish to the teacher, good old Mrs. Nasr. I suck at this.

Whew! This leaves me tired just thinking about it.

Spaghetti Bolognese