Never Quite the Same

And you've ended up in someone else's frame?
And their memory now is never quite the same
And they never even thought to ask your name.
Bishop Allen, Click Click Click Click

I feel like the break never happened. I put on my backpack this morning on my way out to the garage and when I leaned back in my seat my back already hurt.
School is not how it used to be... at all. I feel like there are so many other things I would rather be doing than spending so much of my time hunched over desks like my life depends on it when I couldn't possibly care less about what (2i + 5) - (3 - i) equals, as easy as that is. And I'm mad about it, to be honest.

Because I like to learn things.
If I didn't, I wouldn't spend my free time reading or writing or teaching myself the mandolin or asking my parents for Norwegian lessons (which start on Wednesday) or going into Seattle to meet with people about writing.
I don't know what I would do if I didn't like to learn. Maybe I would just watch Doctor Who all day:

It drips avec educational detail. Amazing!

What made today particularly annoying was that my math teacher said something along the lines of "don't take a class if you don't need the credits." THIS coming from someone who openly admits to not trying very hard at all when he was in school. Seriously? I don't care that sometimes he talks to us about how not everyone is meant to go to college - that's certainly true. But telling us not to take math next year, or English, is like saying "don't try" and that really bothers me.

I'm already in some classes where people don't try (HISTORY, I'm looking at you) - and that's without teachers supporting thier non-effort. (Okay, actually I would say that in History he doesn't expect that much, which is almost the same as supporting laziness. But whatever.)

If anything, I would like to be able to take more challenging classes (whether I needed the credits or not) and not be weighed down with pointless work. Even in AP Comp and Lang we get busy work (the majority of all projects) or work so vague that it's impossible to learn from it because you don't even know what you're doing (The Scarlet Letter project, holy cow). I took that class because I love English and I wanted it to be challenging, not challenging to understand.

It just bothers me sometimes.
That I have to come back from a break feeling like nothing's different: I'm still bent over, I'm still getting up before the sun, and I'm still lacking in free time or even enough time to get things done to how I want them. I should have done so much more work over the break. But I didn't. I couldn't stand it! I was sick the last week of school in December because I was so stressed!

Although today my health teacher told me she'd bring me Cat Stevens' Foreigner Suite album to borrow, which was nice.

Plus I heard Bishop Allen on the ride to the bus stop this morning in the torrential rain.
They always make me smile.

HAHAHAHA.

So it's never going to be quite the same as elementary school, or even Junior High. And maybe we were all spoiled, going to those schools - but seriously, at least we came away with personalities (which isn't to say that people who went to normal school didn't, it's just that... I don't know... the fact that we weren't hating school in 7th grade says something about us. That the other AP or IB students were fueled by competition whereas we were fueled by a curiosity. They had bragging rights, being in Honors classes and Quest and we didn't...). Which is a little sad - that everything is so competitive these days that no one looks at people, just at their resumes and grades and where they graduated from. And we're expected to keep up with that and still be interesting, active people?

I hate thinking about school so much.

But such is life, I guess...