5/6/06 11:17 pm
Holy crap. I almost forgot the disclaimer at the beginning of the APUS exam. On the page facing the first questions, on top of some weird don't-read-me-from-the-cover pattern, was this bit about how the College Board doesn't endorse the content of the exam, they just have some panel who picks questions reflecting the curriculum. Seemed too, cautious. I'd kinda thought we'd gotten through that.
5/6/06 09:49 pm
Despite it's disappointments, APs and general lack of anything besides a dress for prom, this week was actually pretty fantastic.
NYSSMA Majors was Monday. We got gold. Our 14th gold, but the break of the 5 or 6 year gold with distinction streak. Tocatta did us in. Matt overheard the adjudicators saying just that- -up until Tocatta we had it. King Cotton was solid. Fanfare and Allegro was the best we've ever played it, easily. But Tocatta, man. It just wasn't together at all. Ugh. Hopefully we can pull it together some before Virginia, but it probably won't be enough to win. Our competition is only one other band, but they're from California. You don't come to an eastcoast music competition from California if you suck. Even if you're mediocre. That's the weird thing about the festival this year. It's mostly choral. There are no other orchestras, no other jazz bands, just choirs. Uch. Now we'll have to listen to a lot of flat altos, shrill sopranos and nonexistent male voices, instead of mediocre bands or jazz bands. It almost seems hardly worth the bother, except for the day at Bush Gardens. That's what everyone is looking forward to.
I stayed home Tuesday. Wasn't feeling fantastic. That meant that I went to AP physics and econ once, and pre-calc and German none at all this week. And I gotta say, it felt nice.
Sooo. APs. They actually weren't atrocious, or anything. English was, meh. The multiple choice were killer. There was this one awfully goofy question, something along the lines of 'which of the following words rhymes with the sound the cue-owl mentioned in line 4987675768 might make?' Yeah, goofy. And I didn't do well on the essays. The first was my best- -some hawk poem, actually pretty nice. The second, the passage, was so disappointing. It was some generic, lord-lady-duchess "let's talk about the roles of men and women as if it's exciting and foreign and taboo." And it was Wilde, too. But they picked such a crappy passage. You couldn't do anything with it, and I was really looking forward to doing a lot with it. And I mean a lot. Putting words and letters in boxes and feeling like John Nash. It's so cool, but I couldn't do it. Dinky passage. And the final essay was severe crap. The closing sentence was, "This is still pretty bad, but I'm still going to college."
APUS was pretty good. The multiple choice were much more doable than that of the English, but the DBQ was the most awkward and uncharacteristically phrased question I have ever seen. There was no clear, defined numerical time period, just some indicating words. And it was fluffy. Women and republican motherhood and cult of domesticity and crap. But but but I worked in the establishment of Vassar College in 1861, the same year civil war broke out. It was definitely the best piece of outside information I've used in a DBQ. Ever. And then the two thematics. The first was a choice between comparing the Spanish and British colonies in the Americas (which absolutely no one chose) and discussing how the role of the federal government changed during the Civil War. I did the latter, and had to discuss two of the following: race relations, econoic development and/or westward expansion. I pulled off the first, but drew a complete and total blank on the last two. I made up some junk about westward expansion, then went on a tangent about some funk lyrics. Then I crossed it out, because I actually felt pretty good about my other writing, and thought that a bad essay would score better than a bad essay with funk lyrics. Mrs. Ferris aside, I don't think most of the APUS graders have much of a sense of humor. But the second thematic was solid. The question dealt with rebelling (which they referred to as 'critiquing') against the conformity of 1950s America, by discussing two: youths, civil rights activists and intellectuals. So I talked about rock and roll, chicken and tight pants for youths, then the Beat generation, Ginsberg's obscenity trial and such for intellectuals. I practically used word for word what I wrote in my 'American Artifacts Are Awesome' project. I was definitely riding a wave of luck on the APUS exam.
I have nothing figured out for prom. My dress is beautiful, as are my shoes, but they don't match. I don't have a date, I don't have a ticket, I don't have a table. I don't really want to figure any of it out. It's too late to ask anyone, not like I'd actually have the courage to do so. But my dress is so ridiculously pretty. I just want to wear it and look pretty for a little while. Not really infront of all the people from my school, because, frankly, I've stopped trying to look cool/good/likethey'dwanttobefriendswithme infront of them. I'm going to Vassar awfully soon. They aren't. And that's fine. It just sucks going through another month and a half of this. It's draining.
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