All Posts Tagged With: "summer"
Five things to do this summer (besides nothing)
Prof. Pettigrew offers some suggestions
Photo by justinrussell on Flickr
If you have finished a year or two of university, it’s tempting to sprint into your summer months with abandon, not giving school work another thought until Labour Day. But what if you still considered yourself a student in between semesters? Surprisingly, there’s a lot to learn even when the sun is shining. Here are five things to consider for those lazy hazy days.
1. Take a course. Obviously, not everyone can afford the time and money required for a summer course, but if you can swing it, it’s a lot more pleasant than it sounds. For one thing, summer courses are condensed, so you get through the material quickly and it’s easier to remember everything when the final exam comes around. Also, if you ask really nicely, your prof may hold class outside.
Continue reading Five things to do this summer (besides nothing)
Trapped in summer school
…with a five-year-old teacher
My five-year-old brother developed an annoying habit this summer: asking me to ‘play school’ with him.
It’s hard to forget about the upcoming school year and enjoy my last week of summer vacation with Sam asking me, every single day, to ‘play school.’
Even worse, it’s school from the perspective of a five-year-old. Sam’s game involves colouring in pictures and cutting stuff up with scissors.
If we were playing ‘university,’ I could just, well, skip class. And go back to sleep
So you failed your exams, now what?
Understanding academic probation, what it means and what to do about it
As exams wrap up across the country, most students are looking forward to patio nights and a stress-free summer. But some students are dreading their final grades after a not-so-perfect year.
A failed class, a flunked exam, or a mediocre grade-point average are outcomes no student wants to have come May. But what are the actual consequences of an ‘F’ on your transcript? Or missing required credits to move on to your next year or to graduate?
While most students may have heard of “academic probation,” not everyone knows what it entails. The first thing to remember is failing a class doesn’t mean you need to pack up your textbooks and join the circus, and getting put on academic probation won’t necessarily cripple you academically, if you seek help.
“The whole point of academic standings is to identify students who are at risk and then make them aware of the services that are available in obtaining better academic grades,” University of Calgary’s associate vice-provost (enrolment) and registrar David Johnston said. “When we admit a student, we want them to graduate.”
Academic probation is just one of many possible academic standings a full-time student can be assigned at the end of the year. In many cases the bad outweighs the good. At most schools, the only desired outcome is “In Good Standing,” which means you’re in the clear. There are varying degrees of unsatisfactory standings that come with conditions for the following school year, ranging from meeting benchmark grade-point averages, to withdrawing for a year.
In addition to “In Good Standing,” most universities include “Academic Probation” and “Failed” as the three possible standings. And the conditions of these standings are typically outlined in the university’s academic rules and regulations. Students receive notice of their standing in the summer, after grades are calculated through a mailed letter or an online transcript.
At a school like Calgary’s, when a student’s grade-point average is less than 1.70, the equivalent of a C-, students are put on a probationary period. This is typical of most schools, though the grade-point average threshold varies.
“The purpose, of course, of the first warning is to get them on track academically,” Johnston said. He said it’s normal for first-year students to come into university unprepared for the heavy course-load and higher academic standards than they are accustomed. First-year students, he said, are the largest group his school sees placed on academic probation.
Since grades are dealt with at the faculty level, it’s not clear exactly how many students each year are put on academic probation at each school.
It’s often just a matter of showing students their current learning styles aren’t working, associate dean of the faculty of science at the University of British Columbia Paul Harrison said. “Universities are pretty selective of who they invite in,” he said. “Students deep down have the skills if they apply themselves. Unfortunately some of them don’t.”
He said students also usually come out of high school with limited exposure to their chosen program or knowledge of the university’s expectations for them.
Manager of the Student Academic Success Centre at Carleton University, Kathleen Semanyk said besides academics, there could be any number of circumstances that prevent students from meeting program requirements. “We hear everything from ‘We’ve had a serious illness in my family,’ ‘I’ve lost a loved one,’ ‘I had to find a second job,’” Semanyk said. “It’s really common for students to think they’ve hit the end of the academic road.”
Johnston said, what also tends to happen is students may find their chosen program is not as well suited for them as they had hoped. “It’s aptitude and interest,” Johnston said. “If you don’t have an interest it’s hard to apply yourself.” Just the same, students may find their skill set doesn’t match what their program asks of them.
Summer jobs that can change your career path
One Quebec summer camp for inner-city kids has produced generations of educators
When you think of summer camp, visions of campfires and canoeing immediately come to mind. But along with roasting marshmallows and nature hikes, one very special residential children’s summer camp in Quebec is doing much more. Summer might be over, but at this camp, the impact is felt year-round.
For some university students, Camp Amy Molson has changed their lives, or at least their career paths. But the camp is also creating some of Canada’s future educators.
Susan Chisholm knew she wanted to become a pharmacist. But after working at Camp Amy Molson for a summer, that changed. For her, after spending eight summers at the camp, going into teaching became a “natural progression.” Sue says the camp taught her to “know kids as people,” and today Sue is a teacher near Ottawa. She has no regrets about changing her career path from being a pharmacist to becoming an educator.
Located in Grenville-sur-la-Rouge, Quebec, Camp Amy Molson is a residential camp for inner-city Montreal children, with an outreach program offered from its Montreal office year-round. The camp recently celebrated its 65th anniversary, holding a fundraising reunion for past campers, staff and volunteers.
Kosta Hatzis, who first started working for the camp part-time while he was a student, has been a board member since 2006. He describes the camp’s target group as “socially disadvantaged inner-city kids.” For these campers, explains Kosta, Camp Amy Molson is a safe place, a place where they can “grow in ways that they could never grow in the city.”
All five of Debbie Gunn’s children attended the camp. She says it gave her kids a chance to experience things they never could in the city. “Where I lived (in the city) there was nothing for the kids to do. Camp taught them all kinds of things. They got to go boating, swimming, and have lots of safe places to play outside.”
Shauna Joyce, the camp’s executive director, hires dozens of post-secondary students to work for the camp each summer. She says many of the camp’s staff end up becoming educators. “Social work, teachers, and education. They’re all a big trend with our staff.”
Meaghan Higginson is part of that trend. She’s worked at the camp for nine summers now, while attending post-secondary education, starting at age 15 as a counsellor-in-training. Although she describes her first year working with underprivileged youth as a bit of a shock, Meaghan wasn’t scared away. After discovering that she loves working with kids, that first year cemented her future career choice: teaching. But the camp didn’t just help her find a career path. Meaghan says it also helped prepare her for the role, giving her the skills to be a teacher. Meaghan lists confidence and dealing with classroom management as important abilities she learned from her time at camp.
Summer job market just the last straw
Students have plenty of reasons to be angry and frustrated
The Toronto Sun ran an article yesterday on the really bad summer employment situation for students. Of course I touched on this topic here already, but the Toronto Sun does add a new note of hysteria to the situation. It presents students as very angry and frustrated. And it connects the problem with the cost of education.
First, an observation. I don’t consider the Toronto Sun to be trend-setting media by any stretch but their politics are well established. When the Sun starts reporting on high tuition and debt burden among students as problems then it’s time to pay attention. These are not their usual political sympathies.
The situation with the summer job market for students, however, is a slender hook for this story. It’s well understood that this summer was a very bad time for a variety of reasons and this sort of perfect storm won’t soon be repeated. So the real story isn’t that students are heading into the new academic year down however much money they might have saved over the summer. A few thousand dollars more or less, when compared with total educational debt, just isn’t a big deal anymore. The story is the situation in general.
Students are frustrated with the cost of education and their future job prospects because they’ve been fed a load of crap and they know it. Increases in the cost of education are continually justified with reference to future income potential but the job market for your typical bachelor degree simply is not what it once was. More than that, it’s flatly irrational to suggest that the competing trend – to send more and more people through post-secondary education – won’t have an effect on the marketability of the resulting credentials. Downward pressure on the job market is very well understood at this point. But you’d think educational institutions and their promoters have never heard of the concept.
Your average post-secondary student probably isn’t thinking about these things in quite the same terms. But students are aware of their personal situations. They were promised an awful lot when they signed up for university or for college. It was supposed to be the “right” thing to do. And now, partway through, they find they can’t even score summer jobs spinning cotton candy at the Exhibition. It rather does tend to bring all the other frustrations and doubts to the surface.
This is a big topic all around. It touches on a lot of what’s fundamentally wrong with how we market and present post-secondary education and with deeply held political illusions on the topic. The summer job market, this year, is just a lightning rod for the frustrations that students feel. Unemployment is scary and frustrating. And for some, unavoidably, it’s just a dress rehearsal for the real scare they’ll face upon graduation.
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Questions are welcome at jeff.rybak@utoronto.ca. Even the ones I don’t post will still receive answers, and where I do use them here I’ll remove identifying information.
Back to school.
The three most hated words by students everywhere
When I first realized I have less than a month of no homework and sleeping in left, my last three weeks of summer vacation instantly got sucked down that Back-to-School preparation drain.
I started playing a kind of switching game in my head.
Reading a good book. Switch that with a two-inch psychology textbook.
Sleeping in until 11 a.m. Switch that with standing at the city bus stop at 7 a.m.
Doing whatever I want, whenever I want. Switch that with a rigorous study schedule, attainable only through a strict eight coffees a day regimen.
I found it hard to enjoy anything I did because I couldn’t help seeing it through my I-won’t-be-able-to-do-this-once-I’m-back-in-school filter.
But yesterday I suddenly phased back into my summer vacation. And that’s because I really thought about what I was going back to this September.
University.
There are no bully students. There are no bully teachers. You’re in charge of your educational plan. You’re going to a place that’s built for you. University is an exciting place to be.
Maybe going back to school isn’t so bad after all.
August is almost over
But don’t worry. Be happy.
In less than three weeks, I’ll be sitting in an organic chemistry lecture. I’ll have a lab report to finish, midterms to worry about, and some pop quizzes to fail.
For every student feeling the symptoms of “August is Almost Over and I Have no Idea What the Heck Happened to the Last Five Months” syndrome, this song is dedicated to you.
Back to School
You knew it had to happen, right?
I don’t want to spoil the last month of anyone’s summer (I’m certainly still enjoying mine) but it’s pretty much that time. The stationary supplies are in all the stores, laptop manufacturers are hawking their wares, and it’s officially time for back to school. It’s time for the extended version anyway – like how Christmas starts in mid-November.
A lot of students head into each new school year hoping for better results. Unfortunately, however, many students pin those hopes only on renewed determination and vague resolutions to “try harder.” While determination and resolve are certainly useful they aren’t enough on their own. If you want a different result you’ve got to change the way you go about doing things. So if you’re serious about improving your grades and performance in school, next year, this is the time to actually sit down and figure out in concrete terms what’s going to be different this time.
I can’t tell you what needs to change in order to sort out your particular problems. It might be your sleep cycle and your social life. It might mean reexamining program choices. Maybe you need to lighten up on the work hours, create a more structured study schedule, or form a study group. Even if you realize you don’t know what to change that can be a good place to start. Book an appointment to visit your academic advising office and they may be able to help. If you can visit campus during the summer that’s a great opportunity to really sit down with sometime. They tend to have more time.
No matter what else you do, if you intend to make a change you need to figure out the steps that are needed to make that change and then follow through with them. Changing your results in school is not different from any other part of your life. Whether it’s exercise or diet or even saving money you can’t get anywhere just because you wish you were better at it. You start with the desire to see some change and then you settle on concrete steps. Write them down if that’s what it takes to keep yourself honest. Treat them like back to school resolutions.
One thing I really like to do before I head back to school is read some material for a class or two on my own schedule and with no rush. Of course that works especially well for English studies but it can work for any subject as long as you’re genuinely interested – and you are interested in what you’re learning, right? You don’t need to make a special effort to start a whole class early or to read what comes first. Just pick anything from your courses and read for the heck of it. If you aren’t sure what you’ll be reading try e-mailing the instructor. Most will have the reading list already sorted.
What I’ve discovered, from doing this, is that I have far better memory and retention for things I read just because I want to. I’m sure we’re all like that. Do you remember your course work from a year ago? I’d bet not. But the novel you read that you really enjoyed? That’s a whole different question. If you can trick yourself into reading course material for fun you get the best of both worlds. And it’s not as hard as you think. Once you remove the deadlines and the pressure, and you read just because it’s the book you happen to have with you, the material is often quite interesting. And you will retain and remember it, I promise. Even if you don’t get to the text for months you’ll know it better than your classmates who sped through it all the night before.
Finally, I really recommend to everyone you try to do at least something near the end of the summer that’s productive and intellectually stimulating. If you’re doing that already that’s fine, but if summer has been just one long vacation or if you’ve got a boring and repetitive summer job you want to break out of that pattern before the first week of September rolls around. Sometimes it takes a couple of weeks to shake the dust off. When you fall behind early you might find you’re playing catch up all year long. Some people are so used to that pattern it feels natural and inevitable. But when you break the cycle and stay ahead of the game everything just feels completely different – and a whole lot less stressful.
It may be a bit sad to contemplate the end of summer but just a little time and thought about the pending school year could make a world of difference. So invest a little now to reap the rewards later. And then get back to enjoying the rest of the season.
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Questions are welcome at jeff.rybak@utoronto.ca. Even the ones I don’t post will still receive answers, and where I do use them here I’ll remove identifying information.
The perfect summer job
No experience required
I just scored the perfect summer job.
For the rest of the week I’m babysitting. But this is a special kind of babysitting job.
There are no colouring books involved. I’m in charge of the remote. And they can never complain about me afterwards. My version of events is the only version of events.
They have to eat whatever I give them. There are no special requests, which means that I don’t have to make a peanut butter sandwich cut into a star shape. Or a piece of toast that’s half jam, half Nutella, cut into four pieces. I pour some food into a bowl, and they either eat it or go hungry.
I can completely ignore them for 24 hours at a time, and they’ll probably survive.
Their names are Tippy and Toby.
Unemployed? You aren’t alone
Student unemployment is at a record high
Anecdotally I knew this already and I think a lot of us did, but if there was any remaining doubt, the statistics are in: Unemployment among students is at an all-time high. The Toronto Star reported on the story just today:
If you were in the market for a summer job I think you’re well within your rights to give up at this stage. If you were waiting for permission from someone to do that you can cite mine. Your parents and family may have trouble understanding the situation but at least now you can refer them to some hard data that reflects the true nature of things out there. It’s bad.
Of course it’s all about the downward pressure. As more qualified people lose their jobs or can’t find stable employment they compete for lower level positions. I have friends with one and two degrees who are unemployed and I know people in law school who had a lot of trouble finding summer employment. With those people still on the market it can’t be easy for university and college students to pick up much of anything. And I don’t even want to think about high school students. The way things are out there you might as well set up a lemonade stand.
Now I really hate to start any sentence with “when I was a kid” but here goes. When I was a kid I had my first real job at 14 years old. I worked at a Harvey’s. In hindsight I’m sure I was a really bad employee but hopefully I was at least worth the minimum wage they were paying me. That used to be the economic strategy around teenage workers as I recall it. You pay them crap and accept that they’ll screw around at least some of the time and a fair percentage won’t work out at all. But provided you’ve got the kids doing lower-level jobs it works out in the long run.
These days those jobs are going more and more to adults who are simply on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder. Of course that’s bad for students who are looking for a chance to earn some money (as The Star’s article indicates) but it’s also a bad sign for the workforce generally. Instead of short-term jobs for people who presumably move onto other things, these low-level service jobs are becoming a permanent economic ghetto for immigrants and those with few credentials or other skills. And that’s a bloody shame. Though I guess that’s another topic.
For those who are in school and frustrated with unemployment I’ve got a bit of advice. First, don’t sweat it. It isn’t just you and it’s not your fault. You may want to engage in a little self-reflection and see if there’s anything you could be doing differently but if you’re satisfied with the way you present yourself and go about your job hunt there’s no need to worry this will be a long-term problem. Second, with only a month or so to go before school resumes, try to develop some positive routines a little in advance if you can. Because let’s face it, you tend to fall into some bad habits when you’re not working or in school.
If you’ve got a little too used to staying out all night and sleeping until noon you might want to snap that streak before the first week of classes. Get up at reasonable time in the morning – even if it’s only to watch cartoon for a bit. Read a few good books simply for pleasure. Try reading the paper every day. Establish a decent exercise schedule if you don’t have one already or make some changes to your diet if some are overdue. Do something you’ve been meaning to do that is definitely in your power – unlike finding a job which is out of your hands in many ways. Don’t set absolute or difficult goals for yourself such as losing X number of pounds. Just do something concrete and manageable. You want to head back to school in September on a high note, not all dejected from four months of fruitless job searching.
And yeah, don’t take it personally. It’s tough all around out there.
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Questions are welcome at jeff.rybak@utoronto.ca. Even the ones I don’t post will still receive answers, and where I do use them here I’ll remove identifying information.
Even university doesn’t earn me cool points
But being older and taller should.
I’ve realized something this summer. My younger brother David is cooler than me. Way cooler.
Actually, it’s not even a matter of David being cooler than me. He’s cool. I’m not.
David’s on his school’s wrestling team. When he throws a football, it travels more than four feet. When he kicks a soccer ball, he can control which direction it goes.
Back in high school, I was in the chess club. And part of Envirothon.
David has dozens of friends on Facebook. I have two. And one of them is David.
David’s coolness has also made me realize something fascinating: certain laws of physics don’t apply to cool people. If I wear a hat for more than 30 seconds, when I take it off, my hair looks like a dead squirrel. When David takes a hat off, it’s like he was never wearing one. His hair instantly springs back to vibrant and shiny life.
I’m the older brother. He’s in grade eight, I’m in university. I’m taller. But none of that seems to matter. His coolness is a direct violation of Sibling Hierarchy Rule #467. Which states that older, taller brothers are automatically cooler. It’s practically my birthright to be cooler than David.
But I’m not.
Last November, I tripped over a wet pile of leaves and broke my arm. When David broke his arm a few weeks ago, it was while playing soccer.
Yeah, even the way he breaks his bones is cooler.
Getting old sucks: University means becoming an old fart
Now I walk uphill both ways
Ever since I finished high school I’ve been slowly transforming into an old person.
I’ve been out of the public school system for just over a year now. Suddenly I’m hearing myself saying things to my brothers that my parents used to say to me.
“Don’t put your shoes on like that. You’ll ruin the heel.”
“Put a hat on. Do you want to have a heat stroke?”
“Stop crossing your eyes or you’ll weaken the muscles.”
I can’t sleep in past 8:00. When I catch Michael or David watching TV, I tell them to go outside and enjoy the sunshine. I can no longer pronounce words like ‘Bionicle.’ I notice birds when they chirp outside my bedroom window. I sometimes even watch them for a few seconds.
And I have to resist the urge to tuck my shirt into my pants.
I’ve developed a taste for weird foods. Like cold boiled eggs. And when I eat pancakes, I use chunky garlic syrup.
I swear, even my eyesight has diminished. I can’t make complete eye contact with people. I have a soft, wandering focus.
And I’ve started listening to the CBC.
-photo courtesy of JonDissed
The power of one
Being an Only Child has its advantages
For the past two months I’ve been living like an Only Child.
Unlike my younger brothers, my summer vacation started at the end of April. Which means each week day, between the hours of nine and three, I’m an Only Child.
Suddenly the TV doesn’t have to be split five ways. Dexter doesn’t have to compete with SpongeBob Squarepants. If I want to use the computer, nobody’s in the middle of a Runescape battle.
And those four toaster slots? All mine.
With four siblings in the house, using a water bottle is complicated. At the very least, it’ll migrate: a water bottle that starts on the top shelf of the fridge never stays on the top shelf. It’ll either get buried somewhere else in the fridge, or disappear completely. Or the lid will vanish.
Even worse, a layer of backwash might suddenly appear on the surface.
Taking a sip from a water bottle, putting it back in the fridge, and finding it where I put it. It’s a special kind of luxury.
And it ends in less than a week.
- photo courtesy of .jo.hardell.
I hate my summer job
At least I know what I DON’T want to be when I grow up
The best part about a summer job isn’t making money to pay for textbooks. It’s the fact that by the end of the summer, you’ll absolutely know which jobs you don’t want later in life.
And after two months of summer vacation, I’m not sure which is worse: lawn mowing or babysitting.
When my parents put me in charge of my three younger brothers, it’s easy. If David won’t give Michael a turn on the Xbox 360, I don’t have to reason with him. I don’t have to bother with any of that ‘time-out’ fussiness. I just punch him in the gut and say, “It’s Michael’s turn. Get off.”
But when I’m babysitting other people’s kids? Suddenly I can’t operate an efficient dictatorship. There’s no gut punching allowed. And if I’m babysitting kids under the age of five, there’s no escaping the Eight Million Questions game.
“Why does the fridge make a humming noise?”
“Where was I before I was born?”
“Do hamsters get married?”
That’s the great thing about mowing lawns. When I’m cutting someone’s grass, I never have to worry about their five-year-old interrogating me.
Instead, I have to put up with their dogs.
The first time someone told me, “Don’t mind my kids, they just like to run around the backyard,” I assumed they were talking about, well, their kids. But apparently, some people consider furry, ball-licking, ass-sniffing animals to be their kids.
The friendly kids are the worst.
Get out of the bubble
The Ivory Tower is great, but don’t lose sight of the bigger picture
The advantages of living near an university campus are many. Great night life, lots of fast food options, usually a good independent bookstore, cafe patios, and lots of attractive people to look at while enjoying a coffee. (Let the hate mail begin, yes, I’m human, I’m an university student and I enjoy looking.)
One of the advantages which cannot be immediately seen is an off-campus community of academics and intellectuals who gather to discuss ideas and issues. (You live in a student area, you get in a student bubble and forget the rest of the world exists.)
It is often said the best learning occurs outside of the classroom. I’ve found that I’ve often limited my non-classroom intellectual development to the university campus, missing a fountain of knowledge available just past the borders of the university campus.
As many of you have noticed, I’m not blogging as often as I used to. I became caught in a “routine” that didn’t see more than 48 hours in front of me. I spent so much time chasing breaking news, that I lost sight of not just things over the horizon, I lost sight of the horizon itself.
After a series of personal, professional, and academic shocks; I finally realized that I was failing to maximize myself. I was too busy living for today that I was failing to build tomorrow.
Over the past three months I’ve spent a great deal of time reflecting on all topics, reading lots of books, and digesting as much data as I can get my hands on. Much of it has been on higher education, much about politics (especially geo-politics), and plenty of philosophical/religion readings.
I’ve also spent time taking in new experiences and events.
(I went to a performance of the Canadian Opera Company. Those whom know me well were shocked that I actually went; I was shocked that I enjoyed it. I even wrote a piece for The Silhouette on my experience. Me writing on culture, who would have guessed. More shocking, I’m now a season-ticket subscriber to the opera.)
Why September isn’t the end of the world. Sort of
A month of summer vacation is gone. But that’s okay
It’s been more than a month since I wrote my chemistry lab exam, and finished my first year of university.
Initially, it was hard to believe. After eight months of labs, tests, assignments and physics class, it was over. My first year of university. Done. An endless supply of summer vacation ahead of me.
And now a month of that endless supply is gone.
Back in high school, this would have been cause for alarm. Summer vacation had to be carefully rationed. Spent efficiently. If I decided to watch Star Wars, I’d fast forward to the lightsaber battles and skip any scenes where Anakin opened his mouth.
There couldn’t be any wastage.
But this summer, for the first time ever, I’m not dreading going back to school in September. It’s one of those things about university that I would never be able to explain to my grade 12 self.
It’s a hard habit to break. Every summer vacation for my entire public school life, I went through the same pattern of enjoyment: three weeks of fun, five weeks of September Dread.
Okay, so maybe I’m not exactly looking forward to September. But it’s not ruining the rest of my summer vacation, either.
Archery is easy. Except when it’s not.
The perfect extracurricular activity for Legolas-wannabes
Back in high school, if you lacked any kind of athletic ability (like me) there weren’t many extracurricular options beyond the science and chess club. But at the University of Waterloo, there are 160 student clubs and associations.
Including a LEGO, rock climbing, and cheese club. Plus the People Who Think The Second Matrix Movie Wasn’t All That Bad club.
Last month I signed up for the University of Waterloo Archery Club. After lightsabers and boomerangs, a bow and arrow is the universally recognized coolest weapon on the planet. Ever.
I couldn’t believe my luck. A club that’s all about bow and arrows. And shooting them.
It’s the kind of club that could never be offered in high school. It’s scary enough to think of your grade 10 English class getting driver’s licenses. Let alone handling the same weapon as Legolas.
Everyone who showed up got to shoot three arrows. A kind of trial-run before committing the $20 membership fee. As I quickly learned that first day, the most difficult part about shooting an arrow isn’t… well… shooting the arrow. It’s putting the finger tab on.
The finger tab is a leather glove-thingy that protects your fingers. Or maybe it’s just a way to make your fingers look cool. You know, the Michael Jackson look of the medieval-weapons world.
The instructor told everybody that putting it on is simple. Then proceeded to show us the Ten-Step Finger Tab Usage Procedure. “You slide it over your hand, tuck it under your thumb, wrap it around your finger, point your right foot towards the north and your left elbow towards the east, and alphabetically list every character from Lost. And then connect the velcro straps.”
Yeah. Simple.
I knew there would be a bit of a learning curve to overcome. Which meant my first practice shot would probably smack somewhere at the edge of the target. But by the time I fired my third practice shot, I would have the muscle memory and technique mastered. Never mind hitting the target dead-center. I would ricochet the arrow against the back wall of the gym, shave the wings off the mosquito that was buzzing around the ceiling, and then catch the arrow mid-air. With my teeth.
My first shot completely missed the target.
So did my second shot.
And my third.
My arrows simply wouldn’t cooperate. I’d aim at the bulls-eye in the middle of the target, and my arrows would insist on hitting the back wall of the gym instead. Yeah, I had some seriously messed up arrows.
Bastards.
Final marks: stalling my summer vacation
On my chem lab exam, did I say fumaric and maleic acid are alkenes?
All my exams are finished. My summer vacation should have officially started April 24.
But it didn’t.
Because right now, I can’t enjoy playing Halo 3 with my friends. I can’t relax and read a book. When I watched Righteous Kill last weekend, I suddenly remembered question 14 of my chemistry lab exam, and then spent the next hour and a half wondering, “Did I say fumaric and maleic acid are alkenes?”
My summer vacation can’t begin.
At least, not until I know what my chemistry lab mark is.
Summer vacation is over- for my brothers
This is my last week of summer vacation- but it’s also the best week of summer vacation. Last week my 10 and 12-year-old brothers started back at school. As in, seven whole days before me. Suckers.
This is my last week of summer vacation- but it’s also the best week of summer vacation.
Last week my 10 and 12-year-old brothers started back at school. As in, seven whole days before me.
Suckers.
