Tales From The Inside

"we're going to get in trouble"
we are apathetic.
nunu laughs
"if your ead this, we're probably already gone." and probably dead.
or high on caffiene, because we're not in the 6os, and being high isn't cool.
it's for stoners.
we should JUST leave.
rubix is spying on our narrative.
nobody says anything.
sal will NOT work on her novel.
no USB jobber.
gaygaygaygaygay. definitely not beinga ble to spell.
Nunu sucks at arabic computer-style.
the baby's name was tiny tim.
elevator.
beepbeepbeepbeep.
we felt dirty when we were eight and sung the dirty Miss Susie song.
loft...ooooh dirty.
SEXY TIME! in the loft!
pillow boys.
I DID A CALLIGRAPHY.
rubix makeded a drawing.
marijuana. THE INTERWEBS IS BACK!
bye.

[updated from: High School library during workday. in absence of the internet, we were forced to entertain ourselves with Notepad.]

IBy Any Other Name

I find myself constantly irritated at JF (temporary nickname for new player) because he's a well-read student of logic and debate and has a really annoying habit of not letting me say anything remotely unintelligent. He has been told countless times to "stop translating everything I say into stupid!" It's fascinating how a simple re-wording of a situation can make something that sounds very sensical suddenly seem like nonsense. Take, for example, this summation of dreaming. Or the fact that JF refers to Easter as "Zombie Jesus Day". IB is the same way. We unquestionably accept its weirdness until we have to sum it up to an outsider, and then the situation seems utterly ridiculous. Things I've said recently about my IB life (my mother has given up on asking me any variation of "how was your day?" or "what did you learn today?"):

"She can freaking suck it, and then cite her sources."

"I am taking notes on sensory perception and watching two moths try to bang."

"We're sitting in class arguing over what the "bases" are and studying for paper 2."

"I've been trying to convince HT that I didn't break anyone's jaw in two places by kissing them."

"Today I learned that animal crackers are math. So is throwing pens and shouting '9.81!!'".

"And I'm just really upset because the study guides are so easy and nobody ever told me the IB math exam was so easy and I am very angry about how easy the test is!"

"Just sitting in bio, listening to people yell about who isn't pregnant."

"What is ST talking about?"

"Naked indians in loincloths and how Latin Americans have Wal-Mart stores and the College Board can't re-schedule exams, and I think we're supposed to have our grammar books out."

and a straight-faced scolding from Roi to one of the Indians: "Stop humping K into the wrong desk."

All these things were said with completely unironic seriousness. Such are our lives. 

IB Arts and Crafts, Senior Edition

The last half of the third quarter really sucked. School dragged as we scrambled to finish CAS hours, said sad goodbyes to the extracurriculars that got us through the first semester, counted the days until spring break and plodded through massive amounts of homework that felt more and more pointless as the college acceptances, scholarships, orientation invitations, and other finalizations trickled in. We reacted to the misery the same way any group of frustrated, beaten people do: We complained, plotted rebellion, and in the meantime, created art.

These are play-doh superheroes one of my friends made in Spanish class (unfortunately for you guys, any amusing Spanish-class related rants violate my "don't publish negative stuff online" policy. Ah, Spanish class.)

It was my play-doh, which I brought because we were doing some Calc project on cross-sections. It was supposed to look like this:

But everyone agreed, this was the favorite:

Then of course there's the TOK Graffiti wall. We're learning about sociolinguistics in TOK and so we did an 'experiment' in which TOKT put up a big sheet of butcher paper and we were supposed to graffiti on it - anything we wanted. After a week we would analyze the graffiti. It ended up being a perfect self-portrait of IB - seethingly, angrily frustrated but somehow tolerant activism (obvious in the political and religious sentiments); comfortable familiarity and communal love (evident in the inside jokes and homoerotic teasing); and a large amount of pointless comedic non-sequiturs. I can't think of a better summation (barring Dante's Inferno) of what it means to be part of an IB class.

 These are pretty self-explanatory, but the "Make me a sandwhich, woman" was written by Stealth, the lovable pseudo-sexist of the class, but the girls figured his spelling mistake rendered it  the non-sequitur "Make me a sand, which woman?" and added punctuation accordingly.

 That's my "LOVE: we have bombs" (a reference to this). Note someone changed "bombs" to "boobs". The quote in red at the bottom says "nematodes are people too".

This may not be art, but it's a structure with a purpose (architecture?). This is the Contraption we came up with to hold the projector cord at a specific angle to prevent the screen from flashing yellow/red/green/blue/purple tints, after we gave up on using it to turn TOK class into a rave. The Juniors refer to it as the Projector of Doom. It took six of us to put this together (minds of the future, unite!).

SICKO

Blogger STILL won't let me upload photos. So I thought instead I'd try my luck with these word things for a little while.

Roi and I are working on a “framing” social experiment in a few days using some regular freshmen and juniors as our guinea pigs. What I realized from the “social science” unit in TOK is how we live and operate each and every day in a large social experiment code named IB.

Here, published for the first time, are some research results from the good folks over at Stressing IB Classes & Kids Out (SICKO):

Hypothesis: A stressful, “high-stakes” atmosphere will greatly decrease ability of participants to carry out simple tasks.

Procedure:

1. Ask participants to spell their names in capital letters in a space on paper designated “name”.
   
2. Ask participants to perform the same task again, reminding them that “THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT”, “THIS IS GOING TO IB HQ” and “DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES MESS UP!!!!”
   
3.  Record number of times during each trial subjects requested new papers, lost pens, required assistance, shouted in frustration, misspelled their own names, forgot how to write in capital letters, or exhibited other symptoms of distress or incompetence.*
   

Results: When asked to spell their names in capital letters, IB students fail miserably under high-stress conditions.

Hypothesis: Building on previous research (see above), those at SICKO planned to test how other situations affected IB kids’ ability to perform tasks. This experiment sought to investigate the effects of structured classroom environments and guidance on the completion of simple activities.

Procedure: Tell the class that a Socratic Seminar is planned. Request that they move their desks into a large circle.

Observations: Students took over ten minutes and still had not placed their desks into a circle. Observed behavior during the testing period:

•  Constructing a phallic shape out of desks instead of a circle
  
• Creating smaller circles with social isolation as the apparent intention
  
• Laying on the floor
  
• Gentle tugging or pushing on desks so as to move them slightly without offering any assistance whatsoever in the construction of the circle
  
• Loudly commanding peers to move their desks into the circle while not participating in circle construction themselves
  
• Wandering aimlessly
  
• Asking the teacher if turning in make-up work at the time was acceptable
  
• Discussing the inability of peers and themselves to successfully construct the circle
  
• Satirically behaving like misogynists
  
• Loudly complaining about other students’ misogynistic behavior (satirical nature of these complaints is unknown)
  

Results: The students failed to complete the task until the teacher directed specific students to complete the circle (this process itself took approximately five minutes). Researchers at SICKO determined that without strong guidance, IB students are unable to construct geometric shapes (excluding those phallic in nature) out of their desks for the purpose of discussion.

*you think I am exaggerating for comedic value. I am not.