Stressing School Schedule (Junior Year)

Hello world! Yes I am alive, do not worry! I am exhausted but promised myself that I would not go to bed without updating you guys on my life. It's been far too long since my last post although unfortunately this is how it might be until at least after November...

Like I mentioned, I'm exhausted. I really don't understand why I was so happy to begin school. I don't hate it just yet but boy do I dislike it. Everything is so much harder =[ I never took people seriously when they said that being a full IB student was hard and was always confused at their awe of full diploma candidates. Well I get it now. I have a ridiculous amount of homework, am involved in way too many clubs (I actually just sent out an e-mail today resigning as an ESOL Mentoring Program coordinator! Super bummed about that), am still working 5 days a week and I am averaging out about 5 hours of sleep on weekdays. I'm tired and it's not even the end of September! I guess I should tell you about my "wonderful" classes now -.-

IB Physics: I actually am enjoying this class so far. Many of my classmates last year chose to take two sciences and they told me that Physics was WAY easier than Chemistry and it's true. Half of the first unit was conversions of milliliters to Liters for example -.- My teacher, Mr. Nuetrino makes me laugh because he can be so awkward =] He'll try to be funny but no one gets it which then makes us laugh because he points out that we didn't laugh. He's pretty awesome though. I take this class every day due to it being a semester long class. Then, next semester I get to have a "free" block, hooray!

IB Psychology: This may be an "IB elective" but that doesn't stop it from being really challenging! It took me two weeks to get up to date with all the readings for this class! The teacher, Mr. Vans is one of those "cool young teachers" that everyone loves. The course itself is also really interesting even though I haven't gotten into any of the heavy psychology material. I can tell though that even though there is a lot of reading, I should be able to do well here. 

IB French: I'm so unprepared for this class. Once again, Ms. Hour is my French teacher and while I admire her ability to try and teach 4 different levels of French (because she is the only French teacher) I still don't feel as if I am learning that much. Am I paying attention this year? Well I'm trying at least even though I spend half the class time reviewing for HOA which comes afterwards...

IB History Of the Americas (HOA): I hate this class. So. Much. And yes, I complain about it because it's hard. This is without a doubt the most challenging IB class I'm taking. It also doesn't help that I have it with Mr. Charleston who (on top of being one of the biggest paper-waster) has a reputation as being the most challenging teacher. There's 20+ pages of reading every night which is then followed by a quiz at the beginning of class on the previous night's readings. It's so bad that this class keeps me up at night. Last night I was so anxious for the essay portion of out test today that I stayed up until midnight drafting an outline. Plus I know I have a solid B (there! I admitted it!) in that class so far which is really annoying me to no end. Things better turn around soon otherwise it'll tarnish my reputation.

IB Mathematics Standard Level (SL) 1: Well at least there's one class I know I have an A in. I love math so much and I'm doing great in SL Math because my Algebra 2 teacher, Mr. Nojuice, prepared me really well. Plus I love doing math homework (wow I'm such a nerd!) If I had to chose between working on 30 min of HOA or 2 hours of Math it's pretty obvious to me that Math will always win. Always.

Advanced Composition 2: This is my only non-IB class! It's with Ms. Pizzazz who makes me laugh all the time with her random stories (she has yet to tell us about her clown classes in the 6th grade!) I look forward to this class because the environment is not as pressured as in my other class. There's no "Here's what you need to know for the IB exam!" or "This is what the IB examiners are looking for". Here I am able to relax a little more and get back into the swing of being a writing center tutor. And this year I get to be the mentor to a group of Adv. Comp 1 students! But that deserves it's own post later on. We actually just had a leadership meeting today (I'm still the statistical analyst =] ) and I can't wait for how this school year will turn out!

IB English: It always amazes me how I can like Math and English almost equally (Math will always win!). The pace of the class is quick although it doesn't feel that way. I am really liking the teacher Mr. Windmill because he looks like he really enjoys teaching. Not only that but he really cares about his students. He's always asking us as a group and individually how we are doing which is something you don't always get from teachers. I look forward to learning from him he seems like an awesome teacher. And I heard today that he forces you to write a college essay near the end of the school year to start preparing for those college apps! 

And so concludes my stressing school schedule. Should I even begin on my exhausting extracurricular meetings? No I'm too tired and if I go to bed withing 10 min I might even get 6 hours of sleep. Whoop-dee-do. Adieu.

UYL,

Andre


P.S.

This is my 100th post, how cool is that!

As I Fly Above the Atlantic...

Woops! I wrote this but forgot to post it when I landed because I was too tired! Well this was written Thursday, September 8th around 2PM

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Hello guys! I’m sitting here in seat 32G where my butt has been sitting for almost 7 hours! I’m really tired but can’t fall asleep so I decided to write out my last blog post in the air above Canada (although it will be posted once I’m on US soil!) I’m currently listening to music so if I end up writing some song lyrics (uh oh, turbulence!) I apologize =]

Yesterday was pretty sad since I everything always started out “and this is the last time I’ll…ride the tube, see Piccadilly Circus, have a pastry & hot chocolate, etc. in London” (for now anyways). We (my parents, godfather&wife&son, and I ended up going to the Chelsea borough and walking around, eating at a café, and taking pictures of course. 

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Padrino Jochy, Amelia and Ignacio soon left and my parents and I went shopping for souvenirs to bring back home. The store was huge but it’s amazing how it was full of pretty much the same things: t-shirts, bags, key chains and mugs! I mean there was other stuff but there were like 2 aisles full of mugs! Oh, there was a very cool British-themed Mini Cooper in the middle of the store!

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In front of Padrino Jochy's house

Afterwards we set out for Leicester Square to find a place to eat but I got a little…disoriented and it took us a pretty long time to get there! My way: over 30 min. The Right way: 5 minutes…lol. We ended up not eating there anyways and headed over to London’s Chinatown, where we had a really good meal. The rest of the day (which wasn’t much since we left the restaurant at like 9PM) is not blogworthy. It was just a mix of packing bags, downloading and uploading pictures, getting ready for the next day, etc. I ended up going to bed at 2:30AM which was not smart since I woke up a couple of hours later. 

British Mini Cooper!

Last time in Piccadilly Circus! =[

China Town!

And now here I am, aboard a plane that will cross into US air space in a few minutes, extremely satisfied with my trip. I am glad that I worked hard to save up for this vacation because it definitely paid off. I got to visit one of the most recognized cities in the world, view amazing architectures and monuments, actually forgot about all of my “US problems” as I dubbed them, attended magical musicals and got to spend time with my godfather & his family as well as my parents. I cannot thank them enough and they will soon be getting a thank you gift but they will never see it coming muahaha!

UYL,

Andre

Silly British People!

Written while on the plane from London to DC on Thursday, September 8th. Sorry I haven't been able yet to put anything US related!

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Hmm I’m still in the mood to blog plus I have nothing else to do since it is too late to start a movie (less than 90 minutes until touchdown!) So while I was in London I always typed down little observations that really stood out to me. Well, here they are!

Where are the Latinos? My mother claims she saw some, but I feel like I didn’t see a single Hispanic in London! Sure there were people speaking Spanish but naturally they were from Spain. I actually got mistaken as Italian several times because apparently they “have never seen someone my color before” (he meant it in a nice way though…I think?) There seriously were no “brown” people. The population was either white or black.

Redheads! Were very abundant! They were constantly popping out with their fiery hair.

Butt chins must be hard to shave…not sure why I typed this down but if I think about it, it’s true…

A berth of languages was always being spoken! Enlish may have been the official language but I definitely heard a lot of Italian, French and Spanish (in that order) as well as other Slavic sounding languages.

Street Lights turn yellow…twice. I know the British do a fair amount of reckless driving (probably because they’re driving on the wrong side of the street…) but even their street lights are different! They go from Green to Yellow to Red…to Yellow and then Green again! The purpose of the yellow light from red to green really confuses me and seems quite pointless…

But then again, British people are horrible drivers! I was always nervous when I got into one of the red double decker buses because the driving there was scary! Everyone drove extremelo close to each other, sometimes the lanes would dissappear, the roads were too narrow and people would also switch lanes in the middle of an intersection without putting on their turn lights!

I learned many new words! Ok so apparently “to let” means to rent for building space and “for hire” is renting out cars. Bathrooms don’t exist but Toilets do. Leicester is pronounced “ley-ster” not “ley-ses-tur”. Mono = cute (In Spanish) and curioso = interesting (in Spanish) and jersey (pronounced “hair-si” in Spanish) = crew/v-neck sweater.

Yay! The pilot has just announced that we must put on our seat belts to begin our descent into Washington DC!

UYL,

Andre

Off to (Visit Oxford) College!

It's not that I've exhausted everything to do in London, but other cities beckoned to me last Tuesday. I woke up at the ungodly hour of 7AM (ha! What's funnier is that my friends were probably on they're way to school by then!) in order to catch the OxfordTube to Oxford. I bought the bus ticket through megabus.com (thanks Ms. Pizzazz!) and the bus was surprisingly comfy with a bathroom and wi-fi. Sadly it rained the whole trip there but as soon as I got off the bus it halted! I've been incredibly lucky with the weather.

My first stop was the Pitt Rivers Museum. It was all about archaeology and anthropology and everything in it from the University of Oxford's collection. It was interesting to see but archaeology is not really my thing. They did, however, have an insect section which I chilled in for a while and was handling it perfectly fine until I saw pictures of cockroaches. As if that wasn't enough I then looked to my right and saw a display FULL of live cockroaches! Remembering it makes me nauseous and it was so gross! I practically ran out of the museum afterwards he he.

Entrance to the Pitt Rivers Museum

I'm telling you, dinosaur skeletons are a must for every history museum!

So I obviously researched a little about what I thought was University of Oxford to see where to go but I learned that the University of Oxford is composed of thirty-eight colleges spread out all across the city! Obviously there was no way I could visit them all (plus most of them had entrance fees...) so I went to the three that seemed most interesting to visit. The first one was Christ Church and I believe this one is visited the most. After visiting the college I have learned to never have great expectations for things. I don't say this because Christ Church wasn't amazing but because I was so looking forward to seeing it's Dining Hall that I was sort of crushed when I found out it wasn't open to the public that day! The Christ Church Dining Hall is important because it is the model for the Great Hall in Harry Potter and it also contains a stained glass window of Alice from Lewis Carroll's novel Alice in Wonderland. I still in joyed it though!

A little house and garden right next to the entrance to Christ Church

The visitors entrance was quite intimidating yet beautiful

Do these stairs look familiar to anyone? Yup!
They are the same ones from the first Harry Potter movie where Harry makes his choice about having good or evil friends!

The Great Quadrangle

After Christ Church I kind of walked around a little bit because I the next college I was going to visit, All Souls, did not open until 2. I saw the most peculiar things!

This door appears to be the home of a little dwarf!

Banagrams!!! As well as the other fruit themed games.

Typically you see people bicycling with their children but this couple decided to ride around with their dogs in the backseat instead!

Not sure how legible this will be (or how excited anyone not interested in science will be) but I was near the home of the famous Robert Boyle who invented Boyle's Law (Pressure and Temperature are inversely proportional)

All Souls College was different from the other ones in several ways. To start off it clearly wasn't that popular since I was alone in its Chapel for a good 30 min. alone. It was also smaller than the other two I visited and yet I really enjoyed it's grounds and it's solitude. I actually think I ended up spending the most time at this college since I stayed until 30 min before it closed at 4...which is another reason it makes me think it wasn't that popular since it was only open to the public for two hours! All Souls is only open to graduates and is apparently the toughest to get into. You have to take the "hardest exam in the world" to get in and only 0-2 "Fellows" are accepted every year!

The exterior of All Souls college

Inside the chapel

The wall behind the altar is full of sculptures of disciples (I'm guessing) 

The Hawksmoor Towers AKA the "Ivory Towers of Academia"!

The last college to visit on my list was Magdalen College. Ugh, you guys clearly aren't English since you pronounced the word wrong. Nope try again. It is not pronounced mag-dah-len so you're wrong again. Give up? Well the proper was to say it is maud-lyn. Like Madeleine but with a "maw" sound. The English are so silly!

St John's quad with the Grammar Hall (constructed in the 15th century!) to the right

The chapel had the most amazing sepia glass panes!

A picture from across the cloister of the Great Tower

The Dining Hall! Even though I missed out on the one at Christ Church this still looks a little like Hogwarts eh?

The New Builiding...which was actually built in 1733! C.S. Lewis had a room here when he was a student!

I got to see many deer in Deer Park right next to Magdalen college!

Addison's Walk which was very nice to stroll on.

I also visited the Ashmolean museum and learned about the work of the conservators as well as money (coins in particular). I didn't really know what to do with myself since they kicked me out at 6 and nothing else was open but then my stomached reminded me what I needed to do next! Once again I ate a Cheese & Bacon burger with some delicious chips and a glass of pomegranate juice which was delicious! Afterwards it was back home to London at 8!

It was an awesome day that ended to quickly...unlike this blog post which has taken me forever to write! So goodbye my lovely readers the next time I post I will be back home in Virginia! Although there's still a few more London posts so be sure to check back in!

UYL,
Andre

Learning sans FCPS

In honor of me missing my first day of school tomorrow (FCPS = Fairfax County Public Schools by the way) I have decided to go out into London and learn! It was like a loooong history lesson in the arts as well as architecture and a dash of neuroscience on the side. 

The first museum I visited was the Natural History Museum. The building was beautiful both inside and out. I don't want to say that the stuff inside the museum didn't amuse me but I loved taking pictures of the architecture from the inside. The intricate columns, the detailed ceilings, the grand staircases. It was all amazing. Now there must be a rule somewhere that Natural History Museums (which, by the way, does that mean there's artificial history somewhere?) must have some type of large skeleton or pretend animal. There was a "long plant eater" on display and the giant Elephant in DCs MNH and the Dinosaur in New York's...I spent a while in the gemstones section and then I traveled down to the history of birds or something and then progressed on to a cool exhibit about the impact we humans are having on Earth.

Plant Eater!

There were different species of plants on each tile on the ceiling.

I didn't plan on stopping by the Victoria and Albert Museum but since it was in between the NHM and the Science Museum I decided to take a quick peek. I was very glad I did. The artwork inside was amazing (I really need a thesaurus don't I?) I mostly saw Medieval art from Europe although it appeared that the museum also had large Asian and Islamic Middle Eastern sections. I could have strolled through the Victoria and Albert (amd it ended up being my favorite museum of the day so I regret not spending more time there) for the rest of the day but I had to move on. 

The  John Madejsk Garden courtyard

After visiting the V&A Museum I walked on to the Science Museum which was interesting but confirmed my growing suspicion that the only science related thing I will probably ever study is chemistry or psychology (which is more of a social science...maybe neuroscience would be better). Anyways I spent the majority of my time in this section of the museum called "Who Am I?". It was all about the human mind and how we view the world and ourselves. Things such as why we forget things we want to remember and can't forget that which we wouldn't want to remember, why we don't always act our age, is personality hereditary or do certain circumstances make us who we are. It was super fascinating!

The space exhibit

Old-fashioned cars!

The Museum's cafe which was very cool looking

There was a wall dedicated to naming several phobias.
I find myself to suffer from decidophobia when shopping!

Seeing as I was on a roll with the Museums I went to Tate Modern which is a modern art museum housed within an old factory on the Thames river. The outside looked rather, well, depressing but it was very cavernous inside and had cool photographs and painting inside. I'm not sure why but these were the only picture I ended up taking of the whole museum...I guess I subconsciously got tired of doing the whole tourist routine, photographing everything!

Hmm the clouds don't help this building look any less ominous...

Untitles (Bacchus) by Cy Twombly (American)

I don't remember what this was called but they were staircases that led  to the ceiling but since it was in red it kind of made me think about the message it was trying to send. Hmm...

 After eating again at a Wagamama (they should bring Wagamama to DC! For real not that poster that's been up since '09 on 7th St.) I concluded the night with yet another musical! This time it was The Phantom of the Opera! I really enjoyed it because it was vastly different than the other two I watched. For starters, the songs themselves had an opera feeling to them (well duh, Andre) which I dumbly didn't expect. But since I've never heard people sing opera I found it hard to follow what they were saying and didn't completely understand the whole play (especially the ending, argh!) The amount of scene changes was astounding! I feel as if they changed the props after every song, and even during! It' official, I have a new found love for musicals =]

Only picture I'm allowed to tale =/

UYL,

Andre

A Most Mystical Monument

Well no one took the time to guess (*scowl*) where my destination for the next day was and I will still not tell you. Instead I will go on a long and cumbersome rant about how ducks always seem to bob their heads when they move. Just kidding! Prepare yourself for over 20 pictures of my trip to the English countryside! I spent the last 20 minutes going from 37 pictures to 25 because they are just all so beautiful and I don't want to bore you with pictures! But then again I thought, "so what?? They probably want many pictures instead of long narrative paragraphs!" And so without further ado here is what I did on Sunday (mostly) narrated through pictures!

The day started off as a typical rainy day in England =[

But as I approached my destination the day turned sunny!

Ta-dah! One of the most mysterious and mystical places on Earth, Stonehenge has been around for over 4000 years! I actually learned a lot about the stones that were carried from far away to be constructed out here in the middle of the country through a little walkie-talkie like device that you put close to you ear. Calender, burial ground, cult-like worshiping place? The mystery of Stonehenge will probably never be revealed...

Notice the depressed ground, a moat used to encircle Stonehenge.

The Heel Stone...it's purpose is still unknown...

My favorite picture of the +30 I ended up taking!

What the stones supposedly looked like when built back in 2500BC

 We then went to Salisbury a few miles away. It was a splendid little town! "Monissimo" as my Spanish 'aunt' Amelia would say (mono = cute or adorable; monissimo = very cute/adorable). You could tell that the town was old by the size of some of the doorways, I felt like a giant sometimes!

Of course the reason Salisbury sounded so familiar is because when I was looking up places to go in the countryside of England, Salisbury Cathedral often-times showed up. It was stunning! It was the quintessence of English Gothic architecture in my opinion.

My Godfather and I

One of the things that I have noticed a lot is that the grass in England is always very green and healthy looking!

My favorite picture of the Cathedral with the amazing green grass and cloudless blue sky.

Ha ha I didn't even notice when this picture was taken of me while I was taking a picture of the Cathedral.
 I look like such a tourist!

This is what I was taking a picture of I think.
I loved how the four little old ladies were just chillin' on the steps as if they were still teenage friends!

This picture was a must after being suggested I put it on my blog ;)
This was a diorama of the Cathedral when being built.

The Cathedral form the inside. 

All throughout the Cathedral their were graces in the floor!
I felt a little squeamish walking on dead people's graves!

A courtyard in the Cathedral

Me, Amelia and little baby Ignacio's hand.

Above is a fountain whose surface was extremely static and looked like a black mirror! You could see the reflection of the roof on it, it was so solid looking and still. Amelia and I were very flabbergasted by it! It also had inscriptions on the side my favorite of which was, "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you". There were also these weird sculptures (I don't know what else to call them) of people all over the Church they were very...weird. To me it just looked a little out of place in a church but that didn't stop me from snapping a few shots of and with them!

Chatting it up with the Italian one.

The glass windows killed me with their picturesqueness! 

 I also got to hear the choir practice and filmed them a little bit. Their voices were heavenly (he he he)! I don't know whether it was the acoustics of the Cathedral but their voices resonated throughout the whole church and sounded great.

There were lots of quaint little homes around Salisbury.

 UYL,
Andre