Tuesday 19 February 2019
Follow Up: Why I Decided to Create This
It took almost exactly 3 years to come back to this but I did it. Just rereading my first post I don't know what I was thinking. The intention of this was never to be creative. I remember a podcast Jordan Peterson did where he stated that writing down your thoughts, not just thinking them, had a profound effect. The theme of these posts was always times in my life when I've given up on stuff. Sometimes I cared about it, sometimes I didnt. There just seems to be a switch in me that flips, from enjoying something to absolutely hating it. It's surprising how long it lasts too, once I'm done with something I'm done for good. Is there a point to this? Not really. It's just some stories from my past that seem to stick around longer than they should, and my hope is that in writing them down, I can finally put them behind me. Although I may not post again for another three years, we'll see.
Sunday 17 February 2019
The Time I Decided to Quit the Band
I recently had to submit a high school transcript for something work related. It made me recollect a story that would be suitable for here, so here we go. The person I submitted it to glanced over it and pointed out I had received a 52% in grade eleven english. The reason why was pretty simple.
It was because I had decided to quit the high school band.
In grade nine, it was compulsory in my school to take a music class. They had two choices, a beginner class, and an intermediate class for those who had taken previous music classes. I had taken two music classes in middle school, both for the Alto Saxophone, so the choice was pretty obvious. I took the beginner class. Have you ever lugged a saxophone case to and from school every day for two years? I have and I wouldn't recommend it. This time when instrument selection came to me, I chose the nice light and compact claranet. I went through unremarkably and didn't particularly enjoy it.
When tenth grade class selection came along I dont know what possessed me but I chose music again. This time however the intermediate students and the beginner were lumped into the same class. It didn't take long for me to recognize this was a mistake and I went to the guidance counselor to drop the class. As I was about to leave with my new updated schedule my guidance counselor informed me that I still had to attend one last class that day before the new schedule took effect. I should have just not gone, what where they going to do expel me? No one would have even noticed. Still with the misguided believe that the authority of the high school establishment was absolute it never even occurred to me not to go. What a mistake that turned out to be.
The class went normally until the very end, when in front of the entire class my music teacher stated me by name that I should join the school band. I guess most, if not all, the other students still in the music program at this time were in the band, except me, and now infront of all of them I had to explain why I didn't want to. The teacher wasn't having it, she insisted. It would require me to stay after school every day for band practice. I already had football practice after school, and there was no way in hell I was going to quit football to play the clarinet. The idea of continuing this conversation in front of the entire class was mortifying, so I told her I'd think about it and tell her next class. I knew full well there wasn't going to be a next class for me. I walked out of there with what could only be described as the smuggest grin of my entire life, I had got one over one of my teachers. You would assume a normal adult wouldn't really care about what one tenth grade student did or didn't do. I found out from my friend Brian that during the next class infront of all the students she called me a coward. This made me laugh, she was probably right, but at least it was over now right? Boy was I wrong.
At the end of the year my music teacher decided she no longer wanted to teach music. Apparently she couldn't do with the program what she wanted to, so she just decided to quit music altogether and go back to teaching english. Still to this day I don't understand this decision, I'm sure being a music teacher is difficult and all, but do you really need to prepare anything? There's no lesson plans, there's no homework to assign. What do they even have to do besides print out sheet music and listen to teenagers play music poorly? There has to be tons more work being an English teacher, and for what? How rewarding can it be to force teenagers to read books they don't want to and then read their poorly written reports on them over and over? Anyways you can probably see where this is going, but guess who gets put into her grade eleven english class? Yep I do.
Surely she could not hold a grudge an entire year later right? Wrong. Dead wrong. Every report I submit gets a D grade, every subjective answer on a test I take gets inflammatory comments written on it in red ink. Two of my friends also in that class notice very quickly I'm getting especially poor treatment very quickly. One of my friends skips most of the classes, his midterm grade is a B, mine is a D-. My other friend who is actually particularly interested in creative writing finds this class especially poorly taught, he starts brining a small throw pillow to class so he can sleep. She doesn't notice, or chooses not to acknowledge it. I decide to stop trying, on the next test its a simple fill in the blanks questionnaire about a book we were supposed to read. I didn't read the book, I fill it out the answers as If it were questions about star wars. She happily gives me a 0. I finish the year with a 52%.
I never try in English classes again in my high school career. I never read another book for assignments, I do all further assignments from cole's notes. In my final year of high school I fail english. English is a required credit to graduate, so I must take summer school. I'm applying to universities right now, so once they receive my records including my failing grade in English, I start to receive rejection letters. Despite all this i finish summer school English with a 77%. I could have done much better but after I completed the first week of work, in the second week I decided not to read the book and don't submit the second assignment at all. The teacher just graduated from teachers college and is very nice, she decides to let it slide because she knows if I fail this then I don't graduate from high school. I can't remember her name but Im very greatful for her.
As for universities at this time all of the programs I had applied to had rejected me. One school even sent me two rejection letters for the same program in one envelope. However a few weeks later I get a letter from one of the Universities I applied to, it was for a new program they had just created, hence why it was so much later then the others. The requirements were mostly math related, something I excelled at, and was only offered to students that had applied for other programs (since this program didn't exist when new students were applying) but weren't accepted. I could not believe my luck, so I immediately replied I was interested. I didn't find out I was accepted until mid august, and that classes would start in a couple of weeks. I still to this day can't believe how lucky I was. My initial class was 40 people, compared to the other programs I had applied to having classes of 200-300 people. I ended with a graduating class of about 20 people, of which several graduate with distinction, myself included.
To this day I still do not enjoy fiction reading. I've read exactly two fiction books since then, both of which were unrequested gifts, both of which I only read when the power was out in my home. I wish I could remember the name of the summer school teacher that impacted me so much so I could thank her, but I can't. As for the music teacher? I remember her name very well. I don't know how I should feel about her, I had honestly forgot until this question about my grades came up. Through writing this I hope to finally get some kind of closure. I hope I forget about it again soon. I apologize if there are any grammatical mistakes in this, but after trying to reread it to proofread I decided it's not worth recounting again. Maybe I should try to read a book and see how it goes.
It was because I had decided to quit the high school band.
In grade nine, it was compulsory in my school to take a music class. They had two choices, a beginner class, and an intermediate class for those who had taken previous music classes. I had taken two music classes in middle school, both for the Alto Saxophone, so the choice was pretty obvious. I took the beginner class. Have you ever lugged a saxophone case to and from school every day for two years? I have and I wouldn't recommend it. This time when instrument selection came to me, I chose the nice light and compact claranet. I went through unremarkably and didn't particularly enjoy it.
When tenth grade class selection came along I dont know what possessed me but I chose music again. This time however the intermediate students and the beginner were lumped into the same class. It didn't take long for me to recognize this was a mistake and I went to the guidance counselor to drop the class. As I was about to leave with my new updated schedule my guidance counselor informed me that I still had to attend one last class that day before the new schedule took effect. I should have just not gone, what where they going to do expel me? No one would have even noticed. Still with the misguided believe that the authority of the high school establishment was absolute it never even occurred to me not to go. What a mistake that turned out to be.
The class went normally until the very end, when in front of the entire class my music teacher stated me by name that I should join the school band. I guess most, if not all, the other students still in the music program at this time were in the band, except me, and now infront of all of them I had to explain why I didn't want to. The teacher wasn't having it, she insisted. It would require me to stay after school every day for band practice. I already had football practice after school, and there was no way in hell I was going to quit football to play the clarinet. The idea of continuing this conversation in front of the entire class was mortifying, so I told her I'd think about it and tell her next class. I knew full well there wasn't going to be a next class for me. I walked out of there with what could only be described as the smuggest grin of my entire life, I had got one over one of my teachers. You would assume a normal adult wouldn't really care about what one tenth grade student did or didn't do. I found out from my friend Brian that during the next class infront of all the students she called me a coward. This made me laugh, she was probably right, but at least it was over now right? Boy was I wrong.
At the end of the year my music teacher decided she no longer wanted to teach music. Apparently she couldn't do with the program what she wanted to, so she just decided to quit music altogether and go back to teaching english. Still to this day I don't understand this decision, I'm sure being a music teacher is difficult and all, but do you really need to prepare anything? There's no lesson plans, there's no homework to assign. What do they even have to do besides print out sheet music and listen to teenagers play music poorly? There has to be tons more work being an English teacher, and for what? How rewarding can it be to force teenagers to read books they don't want to and then read their poorly written reports on them over and over? Anyways you can probably see where this is going, but guess who gets put into her grade eleven english class? Yep I do.
Surely she could not hold a grudge an entire year later right? Wrong. Dead wrong. Every report I submit gets a D grade, every subjective answer on a test I take gets inflammatory comments written on it in red ink. Two of my friends also in that class notice very quickly I'm getting especially poor treatment very quickly. One of my friends skips most of the classes, his midterm grade is a B, mine is a D-. My other friend who is actually particularly interested in creative writing finds this class especially poorly taught, he starts brining a small throw pillow to class so he can sleep. She doesn't notice, or chooses not to acknowledge it. I decide to stop trying, on the next test its a simple fill in the blanks questionnaire about a book we were supposed to read. I didn't read the book, I fill it out the answers as If it were questions about star wars. She happily gives me a 0. I finish the year with a 52%.
I never try in English classes again in my high school career. I never read another book for assignments, I do all further assignments from cole's notes. In my final year of high school I fail english. English is a required credit to graduate, so I must take summer school. I'm applying to universities right now, so once they receive my records including my failing grade in English, I start to receive rejection letters. Despite all this i finish summer school English with a 77%. I could have done much better but after I completed the first week of work, in the second week I decided not to read the book and don't submit the second assignment at all. The teacher just graduated from teachers college and is very nice, she decides to let it slide because she knows if I fail this then I don't graduate from high school. I can't remember her name but Im very greatful for her.
As for universities at this time all of the programs I had applied to had rejected me. One school even sent me two rejection letters for the same program in one envelope. However a few weeks later I get a letter from one of the Universities I applied to, it was for a new program they had just created, hence why it was so much later then the others. The requirements were mostly math related, something I excelled at, and was only offered to students that had applied for other programs (since this program didn't exist when new students were applying) but weren't accepted. I could not believe my luck, so I immediately replied I was interested. I didn't find out I was accepted until mid august, and that classes would start in a couple of weeks. I still to this day can't believe how lucky I was. My initial class was 40 people, compared to the other programs I had applied to having classes of 200-300 people. I ended with a graduating class of about 20 people, of which several graduate with distinction, myself included.
To this day I still do not enjoy fiction reading. I've read exactly two fiction books since then, both of which were unrequested gifts, both of which I only read when the power was out in my home. I wish I could remember the name of the summer school teacher that impacted me so much so I could thank her, but I can't. As for the music teacher? I remember her name very well. I don't know how I should feel about her, I had honestly forgot until this question about my grades came up. Through writing this I hope to finally get some kind of closure. I hope I forget about it again soon. I apologize if there are any grammatical mistakes in this, but after trying to reread it to proofread I decided it's not worth recounting again. Maybe I should try to read a book and see how it goes.
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