In my last entry about my first semester grades, I presented the numbers, but here I want to explain what they mean to me:

Japanese I - A

Japanese is a mixed bag. The teacher is a indeterminately aged women, old enough to be the widow of an American World War II G.I. She’s completely, well, foreign to American social interaction, and because of this find it hard to manage her students. My classmates are the worst part: All anime fans, they refuse to accept Japan as a real living part of the world. None of the group wishes to actually learn the language — at least not anything more than the stereotypical american-otaku pool of “KAWAII!!” and “SUGOI!?!.” So, I’m content to sit in the back and learn, but I suffer the moral quandry of wether to let Sensei police the class herself, or put a hand into maintaining the classroom.

Algebra II - B

Algebra is one of those classes where I must comprimise between grades and ease of life. The teacher is actually intelligent, and knows her material, so I respect her as a person. Luckily, the respect is reciprocal and she realizes my desire to learn. Once again, the fellow students of the class, particularly the few that are adjacent to my seat, don’t find the class worthwhile but that seems to be a decease rampant in public school. Concerning grades, this class requires more effort than I put into it last semester.

Physics - A

Here is a good one. Very little schooling goes on in this class, as the teacher rarely requires us to do any busy or pointless work. She gives us stuff to learn, I learn it, and I show her I learned it on tests. It’s simple, it works, and I know how to find a spring constant now.

AP Art History - C

The teacher of this class doesn’t know shit from cake, and it shows. *sigh* The cheerleading coach of my school, she only manages to show her awkwardness of the subject. The class keeps a running list of her mispronounciations. Some charms:

• “Menorah” (men-OR-ah) as men-er-AH
• “Meander” (ME-and-er) as min-DER
• “Charlemagne” (Shar-LA-main) as “char-le-MAG-nuh”

So yeah. The 20 pound book and the 20 page study guides don’t help either. Something is going to have to change in this class.

AP US History - B

The teacher of this class has the amazing ability to turn a diverse, exiting subject into subthing like a high-school football game, pep-talks and all. I guess that’s why he has “Coach” in front of his name. Really, I’ve been learning a whole bunch (WaAdJeMaMo AdJaBu HaTyPoTay FiPiBu Lincoln. First 16 presidents.) but the supposedly father-like talks are a bit heavy handed at times. I think he does it to endear female students and act macho towards the male ones. It seems to work, but just brings out the mischievous side in me. I’ve ended up doing stuff like folding a bajillion cranes and leave them on the desk, or just keep my hand up the whole class until he refuses to call on me. The work is easyish, I just need to do more of it.

American Liturature - C

Ergh. Not even AP and I get a C. I do well during class, but I find it hard to produce work that the teacher deems worthy of good marks. I really should devote more work into this class, but I’m not sure how much of it would show in the report card. The teacher makes herself purposely hard to contact and talk to, but I have to put forth a special effort to force her to recognise my needs. There must be some method to her class. Other students do both extremely well and extremely terrible.

That’s my schooling. We’ll see what the second semester brings in life.