Monday, September 26, 2011

back in it...

     I think I've figured out how to get myself back into writing. Sense school has started I've been reading a whole freaking lot. I wake up in the morning and all I want to do is read read read. (I was always like that when I was younger) Last summer I woke up and all I wanted to was Write Write Write. Reading is easy, you just sit back and look at one thing at a time and let an author paint a picture in your head. Writing is the same way, except instead of looking at one thing at a time you've got to create your pictures one word at a time. Reading doesn't require a lot of thinking, writing does.
    First thing I'll do to get back into writing is every time I think about reading I'll automatically think about writing and how I should be doing it. The idea is to guilt myself into it. I'm also starting up a writing spiral like I had over the summer, it's basically a doodle book about stories in my head, details I like and things like that. I'm really not liking having all my notes about writing on my ever note so I'm going to transfer them to that spiral.
   Can I just take a moment to just complain about school? Yeah? Cool.

    I hate school so freaking much. It's like it doesn't require enough work to take up all my time but it does take enough work to suck so much of my time I don't have time for anything else. This year is a lot like last where I don't really care about my classes and I'll manage with B and Cs because I can't find motivation to do better and because I'm trying to spend time reading and writing. I already don't have a social life so what in the world is taking up all my time?! Maybe I'm watching to much TV or maybe It's all these evening where I come home from school and don't feel like doing anything because I've been up for the past eight hours on only four hours of sleep.


 Now that that's out of my system...

I'm going to rethink my goals for this semester. The first weeks is pretty much over and report cards come out friday. They say the first six weeks is a mirror image of how you'll do all year, so I"ll be fine as far as grades.

    I'm vamping my goals along the guidelines of Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project. It's a really awesome book. It doesn't really tell you how to reach goals but it gives you some really good ones to research and put into action.

   This week I'm going to be putting to action my goal of going to sleep earlier.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

If only I weren't in school...

    I've had this Brain Crack for awhile now, if you don't know what brain crack is you should watch this quick video by narimon. 
      Anyway, my brain crack has a lot to do with school, and how I don't have enough time to do the things I really want to do. The thing to do is have a class period where we let kids pursuit a goal of their choice, and it would be the teacher's job to provide things and time they need to do these things. (So basically I want an entire class period devoted to writing my books). But the thing that would work is that every student would get to pick the thing they want to work on and they'd have to work on that all year until it's done or summer comes. Then the teacher would help direct the student's and provide things like books, and websites, and things to help us reach our "Big Idea" goals.
    Now I know why school's have never done this. They're thinking curriculum and standards and things of that nature. They're probably also thinking kids don't want to do anything but watch TV and surf the Internet outside of school and I'm saying that's a complete lie. I've talked to tons of people saying the only reason they don't learn that instrument they've always wanted to, started that charity program they thought about, or  edit videos for a major film contests is because they don't have enough time. 
    So many of us have these "Big Ideas", these goals of where we want our lives to go, and what interests us, and how we can make our world better, and how we can do things faster, and how we can make ourselves smarter. Most teen's think about a lot more than you realize. I've had many conversations where people my age are worried about the state of the economy, death, and so many other topics people might think as "to adult" to be discussed in high schools.
    I bet the only reason some kids who don't have a "Big Idea" or huge goal is because no one has ever sat down and asked them what they want to do with their lives and how they're going to make it happen. The class could get people interested in things they would have never tried before, help generate new and functional ideas and inventions, and help people now and in generations to come.
     I think people underestimate my generation, we've got good ideas, and motivations, and resources to really make a difference in this world. But we're all to busy with sports, work, school, homework and millions of other obligations to put our big scale dreams into action. If we had this time designated to things we want to do I think we'd have a lot better ideas in the world.
   

Monday, September 5, 2011

Two weeks of school.

     
 There seems to be an endless supply of crap that I SHOULD be doing. I'm trying really hard to keep on top of my school goals and things but I won't say it's easy. With all the homework and working 20 hours a week I'm not having ANY time to write except for my nightly journal entries. That's really not sitting well with me because I'm getting all these awesome ideas and bits from school that I'm not able to make in a story.
    The first five days of September have gone by so fast and the streak of 100 plus temperatures has finally broken. Today was actually around 85 with wind and it felt AMAZING. I'm really liking all my classes right now. My Journalism is kinda a blow off class which really sucks because I know we could get so much more done if we didn't spend half the class talking about what everyone did over the weekend. I feel like that's how all the cool elective classes are going to be. Wouldn't that be why everyone likes them so much? What ever happened to wanting to take a class so you can learn things? I'll never be able to understand how people can take a class for the sole reason of it being a blow off class.
     So far on my weekends I sleep as long and as hard as I can. I'm only getting around 25 hours of sleep per night during the week, so weekends are my time for sleep.
     I'm also having to do this crazy thing called studying now. Before I could just read the materiel and things like that and be good. Especially in my AP world history class I need to study. I think world history is the dumbest thing ever. Let's put everything that has happened EVER and spend two semesters going over it all. What sucks the most is studying for math for one reason. The only way to study it is to do tons and tons of problems. In English you can do flash cards, or read over things, or look at notes, or a number of different options. In Math all you've got are the odd questions with the answers in the back of the book and the mid-chapter quiz from the book. It's also making me mad that the math book we use for Algebra 2 doesn't have a companion website. You don't know how helpful it would be to have someone explain a concept out on a video or something.
    Sorry I guess I'm ranting about high school, but that seems to be the only thing going on in my life right now.
     I don't know how I'll manage doing NaNoWriMo come November. That GTD book sounds helpful but I haven't really put anything into pratice yet. We'll see how it goes and I'll be sure to keep ya'll updated on writing and other things in my life. Till next time :D