School Sucks. Also, Nerdfighting.

Alright, I was kind of MIA last week because I had a big project due and I'm a horrible procrastinator. So to make up for that (and for the fact that my nerdfighter story is super lame), the first half of this will be about the education system.

Now, I think the number one thing you have to understand about the American Public School System is there is not uniformity to it. It is literally different every place you go. I'll save you the history lesson, but the US tends to favor state and local legislation. For the most part, federal government plays a very very small role in public schools. They're ruled by the state is a very broad sense. Local government plays a very large role in the public school system here.

For example, Matt and Caroline both talked about pre-school. We don't have preschool where I live. I never went to preschool, and the only thing close to it that exists in my district is our Early Childhood Learning Center. Which is basically just for children from immigrant families that don't know English. So you go there, learn English, and (hopefully) aren't utterly confused when you're at an actual elementary.

Another example, uniforms. I didn't have uniforms until Grade 4 when it was put to a district-wide vote weather or not to have uniforms in every level of schools. Elementary and middle school, yes! High schools, no. So in my district we wear uniforms until Grade 9. Fun fact: Some local districts consider Grade 9 to be middle school.

Our mandatory schooling starts with Kindergarden (K). When I was in K we only had half days. So you were either there in the morning, or there in the afternoon, but not both. It has since changed and now children are required to spend all day at school (an example of local-level govt). And so it goes on in much the same manner as my fellow Americans have explained. Until Grade 3.

Grade 3 is when we start our state standardize test. Every. Single. State. Has as different test. Stupid, right? Yeah. And on top of that, they're constantly changing. At least here they are. When I first started testing, I took a test that was abbreviation to TAAS. The Texas Assessment of Academic Skills. Then in 2003, it was changed to TAKS. The Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. After I graduated, the changed it again. Students now take the STAAR. The State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness. There's lots of assessing in Texas. Now basically what these tests are trying to do is to make sure everyone is on the same level. But here's the thing. What happens if you don't pass? Nothing! Nothing happens if you don't pass the test. You get shoved into the next grade with an extra 'prep class'. So as Matt mentioned, sometimes these tests do nothing except see who gets funding.

And about funding. You'd think schools would get rewarded for having students pass and have a good understanding of their courses, right? Nah, you get federal and state grants in several ways. If you have very smart students who are in 'advanced' classes (and therefore need more help) or if you have very poor performing students (and therefore need more help), or if you're in a school district where the majority of residents have low income (and therefore need more help). But most schools don't get rewarded for having consistently above average students. This is why schools in my district can build new state-of-the-art, eco-friendly schools with windmills and solar panels, give laptops to every single high school student, give an iPad to every single middle school student, and give elementary school children tablets for their classrooms. Other schools, ones with average performing students, in districts where the mean income is above average have to rely on donates to the schools. Which works for them, a lot of the times.

Now college. As previously mentioned, it's ridiculously expensive. Private universities cost almost twice as much as public ones. My DREAM school, the one that I hope to get my masters from, is Southern Methodist University. I would have loved to have gone here straight out of the gate. Unfortunately it's $37,050 for tuition. Plus $4,700 in fees. Plus $13,725 for room and board. Which brings SMU's total cost of attendance to a whopping $55, 475 per year. Now I don't know about anyone else, but I don't have $200,000 dollars to spend right out of high school. That's more than my house. That's more than twice my house and my car. And that's not even the most expensive in the US.  Bigger state schools can afford to charge higher tuition. For example, the University of Texas is a very popular school. They've got good programs, they're in a really awesome college town know for being...you know, awesome. They've got an amazing football team, basketball, baseball. They have it all basically. Everyone and their mom wants to go to UT. So they can afford to charge around $30,000 a year (sorry for not looking up the exact figures, SMU killed me) because they're popular and people want to go there. SMU is also on the popular list. School like these offer little in the way of financial aid because they don't really have to. People will pay just to say they got a BBA from SMU, or an Engineering degree from UT. Fun fact: The University of Texas at Austin is so popular that it receives $7.2 billion dollars out of the $16.11 billion available to public Texas universities.

And I'll leave it at that. That's my two cents and it's all I really wanted to say about the American School System. Everything else has been explained to you. My experiences where the same, for the most part, as Caroline and Matt's.

Now that I've made myself very depressed with the realization of how much in debt I'll be in when I leave college let me tell you more about how I waste precious time on the internet.

I started watching the vlogbrothers maybe...a year an a half ago? (I honestly don't know, these are all rough estimates. I'm not the math major.) Before that, two years ago, was when I really started watching youtube videos. And I was watching some other youtuber and they linked to a vlogbrothers video. I checked it out, looked at some other videos, quickly realized that these guys are AMAZING, and haven't looked back since. I wasn't never involved with the nerdfigher community until literally two days before this blog started. I started watching vlogbrothers from the first episode back in the summer and I was finally getting to videos I had already seen so I thought it was high time I got involved. Now that I knew my shit, and whatnot. So here I am. Ta-da!

Told you my nerdfigher story was lame. Glad I blabbered on about school for so long! XD

Welcome to Nerdfighteria: My Story

So this week we're telling our Nerdfighter stories, and how we managed to join this awesome community that grew around the Green Brothers. My story isn't really that long or anything but here it goes:

I was in my second year of Grade 12 (or what used to be called Grade 13, now it's called a Victory Lap) and I was dating this guy. No real need to go into information on our relationship, other than we randomly and suddenly broke up. This happened at the end of January and the beginning of February, just to put everything into context.

So my friends being as awesome as they are took time out of their days to visit me from their other high schools, universities etc. They had this idea that if they were to visit me and keep my distracted then everything was going to be okay and I would be back to my usual self faster then you can say "You're better then that Dude!" Their plan worked, but only so much. I was fine at school and when I was with my friends, but their distractions could only go so far.

The Thursday after the break up my friend John (This isn't his real name. I'm going to call him John, just in case he doesn't want his name on the internet. Not that I think he would mind, but what ever) shows up and he has his own ideas with how to deal with me. Instead of sitting around he gave me a list of things to do. So now I had a set of goals that needed to be completed.

The list (which I still have) is at follows:

- Watch Brian Regan
- Listen to Blue Oyster Cult
- Watch Reservoir Dogs
- Watch Bourne Trilogy (Movies)
- Watch Shooter (Movie)
- Read Terry Prachett (Books)
- Read John Green Books
- Learn to play a song on the guitar
- Read Lets Play Archive
- Watch Firefly
- Watch Serenity
- Listen to Joe Satirini
- Listen to Heart
- Listen to Dreamtheatre
- Watch Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog (IMPORTANT)
- Listen to Muse
- Learn a trivial skill
- Listen to Ozzy Osbourne's song Crazy Train
- Listen to Queen
- Listen to Red Hot Chili Peppers (Road Trippin', Porceline. The Otherside)
- Find a better version of La Vie Boheme
- Listen to Skillet
- Listen to There Might be Giants
- Listen to Dragon Force
- Listen to Mark Knofler
- Listen to Cliffs of Dover (Eric Johson)
- Listen to Cult of Personality, Living Colour
- Listen to Metallica
- Listen to La Grange - ZZ Top
- Listen to The Who, We Don't Get Fooled Again
- Listen to Stricken - Disturbed
- Learn Basic Knife Disarm

As mentioned on the list he also handed me a book, An Abundance of Katherines. So there I was, with a new book to read. He off handedly mentioned to me that John also posted videos online on youtube, but he himself didn't watch them. I slowly started watching Hank and John's videos and became hooked. I joined the Ning, but never really became active on it. Then when yourpants.org started I flocked to it and started making new friends.

As of right now, I'm writing on this blog and am trying to organize a Nerdfighter Gathering in Kitchener/Waterloo.

That's all for now. I hope the Breakup List helps anyone who uses it :)

DFTBA

Introducing Alexandra

Hello everyone, I'm Alexandra! I'm a third year Honours English and Film Major at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada. Ever since I was little I always wanted to go into movies... as a Director. I'm not a big fan of being infront of the camera, I belong behind it, but I have acted before. I have another year in this program and then I hopefully ship myself off to proper film school somewhere for a couple of years. I haven't really decided where to go yet, and I'm trying to put it off just a little bit longer and focus on my last three terms her. My interest in filmmaking caused me to jump on the youtube wagon, which I don't update as often as I should. It's mostly filled with film projects from High School, University and the few I've done just for fun. I don't really vlog, most of what I've posted is either an adaptation of something or an original project of some sort.

 I'm also half of another project online: Death of the Author Reviews. We look at teen books and review them. It's a lot of work, but it's also a lot of fun. We recently just did a review of John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, so you all should go check it out. Death of the Author Reviews is loosely based off of the literary theorist Roland Barthes, essay of the same name. Barthes argued that once the author finishes their book there is no one interpretation of it, it's up to the Reader. We thought this would be a direction to take our reviews in. On top of that I have a blog where I talk about books and movies (my two biggest loves).

Other facts about me: I'm a trained and ranking Archer in Ontario, I used to compete during high school, but haven't been able to since I went away to university. I have a total fangirl love for Doctor Who, the BBC Sherlock, The Lord of the Rings (books and movies), fantasy books in general, Shakespeare, movies and musicals. I love camping, hiking, long walks and travelling. I'm off to San Francisco for my Winter Reading Week Break, so I may end up posting about that here at some point if people are interested. I can play the flute (not that well) and last but not least, I'm left handed.

Things I dislike: baseball, people who mistreat books, giant squids of anger and having to wake up early in the morning.

All in all, I'm a gigantic nerd, and love Nerdfighteria for letting us all connect. it's great finding people that love certain things as much as you do. I can't wait to get to know everyone on this blog and watch it grow into something awesome.

DFTBA

- Alexandra