Author Archive
I was applying to a college, and the big essay asked me how college admissions have made me reconsider myself. I wrote this, but then I decided that it was stupid and started over. I did, however, think it had enough merit to go in a post instead! Needless to say, it is too insecure.
College admissions have seriously made me rethink myself. Once upon a time, I was pretentious, cocky even, until I began working at my future. I realize now how unsure of myself I truly am. I don’t know if it is even worth it applying to prestigious schools such as Harvard or Brown because I don’t know if I can get in, or after that if I can pay. I am eighteenth out of a class of two hundred fifty-one. I am in the 93% of my class; the problem is that it isn’t the 99% of my class.
I feel that colleges, especially prestigious colleges, look far too much into grades and scores. My grades aren’t stellar. I have a 4.0, but I haven’t been through high school without ever seeing a B. I take the hardest classes, but I am rarely at the very top of them. What colleges do not look far enough into are the extra-curricular activities. What I lack in grades, rank, and test scores, I make up for in extra-curricular activities. I have been an active member of 4-H since third grade, being both President of my small community club and Vice President of my County-wide club, an avid band member since fifth grade, the vice president of both Youth Alive, our Bible school, and Key Club, and the Secretary General of Model UN, which I have been a member of my entire high school career. My grades aren’t because of laziness, they are because of business. I am too busy to make straight one hundreds on every single test in AP Chemistry or AP History. I am too busy to study for the SAT or ACT with band competitions and football games every weekend.
But maybe, just maybe, I am making up excuses for myself. This is where the insecurity comes out! Should I have worked harder in high school? Should I have quit band, 4-H, Model UN, youth alive, Key Club, CIU, and National Honors Society to pursue higher, more elite education? Is it my duty to serve my community or to serve myself? Should I try to benefit the school or my future?
With these college admissions came, in an emanating crash, a series of mistakes and problems that I had no idea even existed when I was thirteen years old, when every choice I made started to become tracked.
Most would say that college admissions have made them find themselves; however, I am experiencing the antithesis of that. College admissions make me worry, worry about my future, my choices, my life. With each application sent in sends out another emanating feeling of discontent.
Ello!
Found this entry piled among my drafts, and I thought I’d finally publish it. This is the story of why I am studying towards becoming a teacher:
It pretty much goes back to a teacher I had in physics back in high school. Physics was not a subject I did well in. I got Ds every test. But for some reason, instead of helping me, this teacher hated me. He hated me ridiculously much, it seemed.
After every test, he would say this in front of the entire class: “Vegard, your test results are too low! Do you not understand the subject? If you need help, you can come ask me!”. That is fucking humiliating to go through after every test, in front of everybody!
That’s not all of it of course, because every time I was at school, the teacher seemed angry, and only went through what he had to then sat at his desk with his papers the rest of the class. But I heard from my friends in the class that when I wasn’t at school, he was happy and told stories, and it was awesome being there. So i felt like if I showed up in class, I would ruin it for the entire class!
That year, I only had absence from school Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Those were my physics days. When I woke up, the thought of meeting this man made my stomach turn!
I made a vow, never should any student have to go through what I went through. So I am becoming a teacher, because if I can keep even one class from having a teacher like that by having me instead, I will deem it a success!
Ole Jan, fuck you!
Vegard
Soo, somehow I’ve managed to angle my other entries mainly to animals, and this was not intended. But neither was I avoiding it! So with “Speed Bumps” as the title to this entry of awesomeness, (no!?) I’m going to tell you about the speed bumps in Trondheim… Starting with me becoming a taxi driver I had to drive around in the City to pass all the tests to get my taxi drivers license.
While driving around getting to know the city I started noticing that there were speed bumps every-fucking-where! Speed bumps is clearly the devils gift to small and lowered cars. Most speed bumps in this godforsaken town are meant for buses to drive over without bumping (insert whichever word you think describes it best.) Well, the thing is, these bus bumps are so narrow almost no one needs to adjust their speed to get past them. Most modern cars are wide enough to avoid the bump, but sadly, not allways tall enough not to scratch down on it. Myself, I do not notice them at all actually, but this makes me think… Why the hell do they make speed bumps like this, when i can drive over it in more than three times the speed limit without feeling it. This clearly makes it loose it’s purpose. It’s supposed to make me lower my speed, but I don’t, and I doubt there are many that do…
Other places they’ve managed to make the regular full-width-of-the-road speed bumps but these are so fucking pointy I can’t even drive over them in half of the speed limit without it being uncomfortable and destructive to my car. What the hell? And again, other of the same kind are so low or long I don’t even notice the effect they’re supposed to have.
You’d have to be driving a Nissan Micra or a minimalistic car like that to be bothered by most speed bumps around here! I am sure this is why we can’t have nice things around here. On average there are 1 speed bump in every single street in Trondheim. This makes around 3000 of the motherfuckers, and I got to learn the name of every one of them on my test this upcoming Tuesday! The sad part is: Now my car is halfway broken, and the lack of brakes are not very funny…
As you were!
What a place.
I look at America, even at the world, and I see society after society focused on the bad, the depressing, the wrong.
Rarely are we credited for what was right; so often, instead, we are condemned for the mistakes.
I want to live a life where I wake up smiling, where I think that this day was the best since yesterday. I think the antithesis. I wake up with a curse word on my lips, each day getting worse than the one before.
This life, the way I live it, has me thinking about what I do day to day. I help the community, but not for the right reasons. I help others not for them, but for me. To keep active, to keep happy. Why? Because perhaps if I don’t remain in motion, I will have to actually accept myself for whom I am. Am I a bitch that no one wants to be around? Maybe. Am I a self-righteous, pretentious asshole who does think for attention? Probably. Am I happy about any of these things? God no.
I look at myself, and I’m okay with changing every little thing. I live a paradox where I hate everything about myself, especially the fact that I hate so much.
I was told the other week that I don’t hate anyone because I don’t love anyone. I don’t love anyone because I am unable to feel any emotion, any true emotion. Perhaps I am distant or perhaps I am closer than anyone imagines.
I hate the world for its focus on the bad, the cruel, the wrong, yet I do the exact same. Rarely are good things seen. Is that because I’ve been trained by society to act like this, to ignore the good, the pleasant, the joyful? When will happiness or, at least, complacency come? Where will there be an end, a halt, a change in course?
Soon I hope.
Heyo dear reader!
I am speedposting. In 50-ish minutes I have an exam, and I am way early at the exam locale. So I blog.
What’s going on? Well, 9 years ago, Bush got his big boy underwear on and decided to invade Afghanistan (without consent from the UN, mind you). To find some dirty terrorist or sumtan’. 9 years later, we are left with this:
The situation in Afghanistan have never been worse. The new, “friendly” government has passed a law allowing men to rape their wifes if they don’t get sex regularly. Also, women can’t leave their homes without consent from their husbands. Wtf?
Also, the Taliban (whom the international forces are trying to kill off), are growing steadily. Estimates by an american General had them at about 36 000 in early 2010, as to about 11 000 in 2008. Wow!
Also, more civilians die every year. According to the UN, 2100 died in 2008, 2400 died in 2009, and over 1200 died the first half of 2010. Some say this is heading towards the bloodiest year of the war.
Comeon guise, this war isn’t working. Like the star of some dirty off-broadway porn, we need to pull out!
So how am I celebrating this day? Well, my exam, which as of writing this is about 45 minutes away (see how time moves forward when blogging?), is for a course called “An introduction to the USA”. Oh, sweet irony.
Peace out, succas