I really like when people integrate their creations into nature. An example:

Hot springs placed in street.
high res (1600×2100) or low res (800×1050)

It’s once of those methods that depends on balance. On one hand, you don’t want to blemish what the world has provided, on the other, you must make something that is different from what surrounds it. You want to make something that is not natural, but still has that essence.

Eventually, many human-crafted artifacts end up back in nature. When a house is abandoned, ivy sneaks in the windows, trees grow in the yard, and crickets make home in the fireplace. It collapses, the wood is eaten away, and everything is how it started.

I’ve had a very strange history of switching between schools. It’s never solely been that the schools have been bad, or that I was a crappy student, or outside factors, but a combination of the three. I want to take a look at the schools I’ve ever been to:

• Pre-K Ages 3-4: Glen Memorial

  Its wonderful playground is my clearest memory of the school. Massive and with plenty of fun play structures. The equipment has since been dismantled, presumably for safety issues.

• Kindergarden: Saint Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

  My first experiance with Christianity. Not so bad, really, I had a wonderful teacher. Ate lots of cookies and learned to write (and haven’t really improved much since then ~_~).

• Kindergarden (Again for 4 months): Regina Howell Elementary

  The public school system wouldn’t let me into 1st grade because I started school earlier than most and the school said I was too young. Unlike my last school, the teacher in this one was certifiably insane. She splattered the walls with any sort of clown-related-imagery she could get her hands on. She even looked like one of them with her garish artifical red hair.

• 1st: Homeschooled by Mother

  My first experience with homeschool. I don’t remember much of it really. Not suprising since homeschool (as I later learned) makes an incredibly empty life.

• 2nd, 3rd, 4th: Regina Howell Elementary

  They let me in this time. My first experiance with bullying and the Texas disciplinary system: If you were ‘bad’ you ‘got the paddle.’ I never experienced it firsthand, but I did know lots of kids who it is very easy to imagine growing up into mentally damaged people.

• 5th, 6th: Briarlake Elementary

  Back in Atlanta. A very nice school, but also the one where my problems with educational institutions came out. I was never rebelious, but I just never did homework. The teachers were nice, but they sure as hell didn’t know how I could manage to flunk math in 6th grade. I didn’t know either, but later found out that chronic anxiety does not blend well with school.

• 7th: Shamrock Middle

  An awful place for anyone. The entire system was designed to crush any sort of individuality or expression from anyone who came into it, faculty included. The defining moment was when I recieved a lecture from a balding teacher explaining how he feels horrible for protesting against the Vietnam war, so therefore I must unquestionably follow all school policies. I left as soon as the year was over.

• 8th, 9th: Galloway School

  This was the time when my conciousness kicks in. I got my first serious girlfriend, a new batch of friends, and an atmosphere I truely loved. Theatre took up a huge amount of my time, and endowded me with a large dose of self-esteem. The administration of the school fucked it up by not only removing me from classes and theatre activities without my permission, but personally insulting me and breaking written agreements concerning my academics. I left because I didn’t feel I could continue in the poisoned atmosphere.

• 10th (for 7 months): Homeschooled

  This is where my life hit a new low. Still reeling from Galloway and suffering from intense depression, I pretty much layed in bed 18 hours a day: not healthy and awful for mental healthy. After hitting a true low, I healed myself and decided that homeschool wasn’t going to work.

• To present: Lakeside High School

  Despite the school being intensely mediocre, I’m intensely enjoying my life. Although I lost alot of friends to Galloway, I have wonderful pool of friends now, and I feel much more complete and secure. I’ve come to grips with my academic problems, and pretty much learned how to work with them.

It’s kind of sobering, considering many people never go to more than 3 schools in their entire life, but I’ve learned alot from it. I’m doing well now, and I heading into college I can continue that. Ultimately, schools are supposedly designed to facilitate learning, and I want to take advantage of that.

As a footnote, this summer, I’ve enrolled in the Dekalb County School’s Online Academy. The website uses some sort of prepackeged software, but the neither the teachers nor the people running the school seem to know how to use it. Online school can be done better than this.

Thank you for reading this entry that consists solely of a single person’s memory-wankery. The author of this piece apologizes for the overuse of the first-person and will take measures to prevent this in future writings.

Creepy Mannequin I found somewhere in Florida

My girlfriend is like a bajillion miles away in Peru on vacation with her mother. I just got a wonderful e-mail from her. An excerpt

¡Fergus! […]

The keyboard I’m using right now would make you crazy. Everything is moved around. It took me 5 minutes just to figure out how to get the @ symbol. I’m having a great time […]

Tomorrow we go to cuzco! I love you, Fergus. Hug your sister for me, will you? ^_^

Cariñosamente (affectionately),
your very own personal Hannah

I really, really do miss her. Glad to hear she is having a good time, but I can’t wait her to get back.

In other news, the MIT Media Laboratory is doing a study of weblogs, if you have one (yes, that includes LiveJournal), take a few minutes and fill out the survey. At the end you get a fun comparison of your blogging habits compared to everyone else who took the survey. Take a look:

And to finish everything up, have a few mindlessly cute pictures of animals:

Chinchilla, crow, grub, isopod, kittens, porcupine, sloths