How to be Popular-Spoof

There are several steps you must follow to ensure that you will become popular.

step 1: Stop trying. If you try and do well in school then people will think you're a nerd. JUST to ensure that no one thinks you're a nerd, fail stuff on purpose.

step 2: Appearance. Probably the most important step of all. Not only must you worry about your clothes, but you must ALSO worry about your facial expression and body language.

Clothes: No matter how well you follow the other steps, unless you wear skinny jeans, UGG boots and graphic t-shirts, you will never be popular. Because wearing skinny jeans is sooooo original.

Facial expression: Leave your mouth slightly open and always look up and slightly to the right. This will give the illusion that you are really above everyone and that you have a laid back attitude. ALSO, if you're a girl, purse your lips slightly.

Body Language: If you're a guy, then either cross your arms or make weird hand gestures like Justin Beiber so expertly shows us in his music videos. IF you're a girl, then there a many options. You can either hold your hands across your stomach like you're trying to hide something, you can hold you shoulders up slightly and let your hands loose OR you can have one arm like you're crossing your arms and the other hand kind of flailing out.

Hair: If you're a guy, you can't be popular unless you're hair is windswept. To make sure your hair stays in place, constantly shake your head so your hair goes to one side. Don't be afraid to use a hat or hood to keep your hair in place. The hat or hood part is very important. IF you're a girl, always straighten your hair without using protecter on your hair, so that you're hair is very cheap looking and especially tacky. You cannot be popular if you don't have tackily-straightened hair WITH side bangs. You can even add to the tackiness of this look if you randomly place a cheap plastic head band over your hair.

step 3: How to speak. When you talk, always always ALWAYS use words excessively. Look around and fidget when you speak so people don't think you're too obsessive. Chew gum or pretend to. Hesitate and say "like" and "um" a lot. An example would be: "So, like, I told her that um, she was just being a, um, jerk. I mean like, you don't just go around acting like a jerk. She's just such a, uh, um, like a jerk" Use this as a template for you conversations.

step 4: How to listen: ALWAYS look VERY bored and uninterested. Look around and chew your gum obnoxiously loud. Say "uh huh" randomly and off of the rhythm in which they speak. ALSO pull out your phone and start texting your buddy or pull out a nail file and start filing your nails.

step 5: NEVER repeat NEVER be yourself. You don't want people to like the real you, you want them to like the plastic bubble that you allow yourself to be swallowed up in.

BE WARNED: Once you master all of these steps, people will start to follow you. A lot. You will be soooo popular that you can't even handle it. Don't say you weren't warned.

AH HEM!!! What about all of the people who aren't like this? Oh yeah, I forgot, we're total social outcasts. It's sad, but true, that this is the definition of popular: POPULAR; and adjective used to describe someone with no real personality. Popular is also used to describe people who try to hard to make it seem like they don't try.

Am I right? Though so. I know it's cliche, but just be yourself. What people define as popular, is someone with no soul or potential. Don't be that person, you're all better then that. Let me be the first person today to let you know that you are a great person with even greater potential:)

Nothing in my hand, I leave you yearning for the next post. If there is one. lol

Elementary School

Elementary school. The worst 6 years of my life. I don't know about you, but in my opinion, elementary school is a place that you don't realize how stupid you were until you look back on the pictures of videos your mom stored away and waited for the right time to show you and all of your other new friends, making you look pretty stupid:(

In elementary school, I distinctly remember the feeling I had when I walked into the kindergarten classroom, feeling so proud of myself that I wasn't in preschool anymore. I thought I was soooo cool. I'm sure you know the feeling. Then, you go outside for your recess feeling pretty awesome, until you see all of grade 1's. WHOA! You think to yourself, those grade 1's are so cool! I wanna be like them when I'm big!!!

Then, you get to grade 1, and you realize it's not as cool as you thought it was. You decide to dream big this time, and instead of wanting to be in grade 2, you want to be in grade 5. Then, you wait and wait for years until finally, you're in grade 5! You think you're so cool. You look down on all of those little kids playing around in YOUR school and you can't wait to get into middle school. Finally, on the last day of grade 5, on the last minute, you count down, and finally, when the bell rings, you scream WE'RE IN MIDDLE SCHOOL!!!

If you're in grade 6 you probably don't understand what I mean, but anyone over grade 6 will know. In grade 6, admit it, you thought you we're the coolest thing ever. You swear all the time, not even really understanding the full meaning of the word, you wear clothes that you thought would make you look cool, but now you regret the decision to wear that t-shirt with those shoes and you walked around with your head held a little bit higher then it should have been. When you get to grade 7, you see all of the grade 6's and see what they are like and think to yourself, "was I really like that?" and that's when it all becomes clear. Grade 6 was a low-point of your existence and you can't believe that you acted that way! Grade 6 isn't really talked about anymore because you know that it will embarrass you and everyone else in the room. You realize that you have to just act like everyday is separate from the last and not care/think about anything that happened the day before. To some extent, anyway. I'm pretty sure you know that I don't mean to act like you have amnesia, what I mean is, that if yesterday you made yourself look like a totally idiot and you said something pretty stupid, to not let it define you. DUH you'll remember it, and I'm sure everyone else will to, but let them laugh WITH you not AT you.

I, as a grade 7, hope that in grade 8 I won't look at the grade 7's and think, "was I really like that?" I hope that I made the right decisions this year and I learned my lesson that hard way in grade 6, and that the lesson was OVER in grade 6. I don't want to scare grade 6's into thinking that in grade 7's they're gonna hate themselves, I'm just sharing my personal experience. I'm pretty sure that my experience applies to most of the people in grade 7 right now:)

Anyway, earl grey tea in hand (I already drank all of my green tea) I leave you yearning for the next post. If there is one. lol.

Homework

EEEEEW! Homework. The most disgusting, dreaded thing of all time. Homework may be the stupidest thing in the world! Whoever came up with the idea of homework deserves a nice slap in the face. Would anyone care to join me in my attempt to hunt him/her down so that I can attack this person???

Homework isn't just boring and tedious and monotonous (which are all synonyms of boring, do you get my point?), it's unfair. Why should we have to work hard for 7 hours a day, only to go home and do more work!!! I mean, I know most of the 7 hours our teacher is yelling at us for not co-operating, or lecturing us on irrelevant stuff, like how banana's grow or whatever, BUT STILL! We're there against our will anyway, so we should just get to go home and relax.

I know that most of the time, our homework is something so easy, my little sister could do it, it still takes effort! I mean, finding the homework, getting a pencil, finding a place to work, finishing it, then putting it away, and then putting the pencil away, is a lot of work considering that I don't even want to put effort into my work. Why do teachers even give us homework if it's just wasting time? Don't they know that we're not going to do it, or that we'll just do it on our way to school the next morning? That's why Sunday nights are a beautiful thing. You have a whole two days to procrastinate (see my post on procrastination) and not do it, then, it's like a regular school night where as your in bed your silently doing the homework so that your parents aren't wondering what your doing.

And then, there's the occasion that the homework actually IS hard, then not only do you have to do the regular procedure, but you have to actually think!!! EEEW!! I don't want to think on my free time. I don't understand why teachers give homework, I'm sure that they've learned the lesson, that only a couple students actually put time and effort into the homework assignment. Homework is even worse when it's something boring, like glossary/vocabulary words. So. Boring. Makes. Me. Want. To. Cry. From. Boredom.

If you have a teacher who gives homework regularly, it's not that bad because then you get used to it. However, if you have a teacher that gives homework inconsistently, then chances are they are going to give you homework on the worst day possible for you to have homework! They'll assign a ton of homework on the day that you have soccer, art class, AND baby sitting all on the same day, leaving you with 2 minutes to complete the tedious, monotonous and BORING homework that you need about 30 minutes to complete. Crap. Then, you explain to the teacher that you didn't have time to complete it and they get all mad and pull out the "I don't ask you for much, but when I ask you for something, I want you to put your best effort forward" rant and they get pissed off at you. OR, even worse, your teacher usually doesn't collect homework, so you don't put any effort into it and the ONE TIME that you don't try, your teacher collects it and needs to talk to you about your future and blah and blah and blah. I DON'T NEED TO TALK ABOUT MY FUTURE LIFE JUST BECAUSE I FAIL AT HOMEWORK!!! I'm pretty sure that's what goes through your mind when teachers pull that one.

School is school and home is home. I associate school with the following adjectives: boring, entertaining, exhausting, strange, messed-up, weird, screw-up and stressful. I associate home with the following adjectives: calm, serene, fun, relaxing and laid-back. I don't want my only calm place to be invaded by the insane creepy mutated aliens that people so formally call homework!!! Don't you agree?

It's not that I don't care about my grades in school, it's just that I FREAKING HATE HOMEWORK!!! Homework should be banned. Period. It's so pointless! Studies show that kids who don't have homework are happier, healthier and more productive in school compared to those who get a lot of homework??? Of course, teachers don't believe that, because they're stubborn obnoxious stuck-up people:)

If you hope, that one day you will be a teacher, don't be offended. It's just the truth:)

With my delicious, moist, fresh baked muffin in hand, I leave you, yearning for my next post. If there is on one. lol

Ministry of Edumacation

Hello! A lot of people have come up to me regarding the post I made this Monday, saying that they couldn't see it on my blog.. Because it was a draft that I made in February, for some reason, it ended up in the February column. So, if you want to see it, go on to the blog index, go under February and click on the one titled, "Procrastination". Some of you might of seen it, if not, it's there if you want to read it.

I know that usually I do humorous stuff. Usually my posts are about me complaining about something. This one is going to be serious, but yes, it's me complaining about something. Please read, as this is something that all students in middle and high school should read.

The Canada Ministry of Education. The people who make up this group are the people responsible for the education of the kids in the country. They make up the curriculum and what methods have to be taught. They give the illusion that they truly do care about our education and that all they want is a bright future for us. They want to make us learn and grow as people. They want to make school an enjoyable environment. Well, at least that's what their original intentions were. Now, I don't know many people who are truly enjoying the curriculum being currently taught. I am one of those people. Our text books are almost 20 years old. And those are considered new! The methods used and the lessons are so outdated, many of the expressions and examples aren't fully comprehendible to todays students. Some of the information isn't even correct! Do you know why the text books are never renewed? It's because the Government of Canada finds it more suiting to spend billions of dollars on Olympic parties and ponchos that can be handed out to 10,000+ people just to get into the "Olympic Spirit".

When I say the information is inaccurate, I 'm not kidding. According to the Social Studies text books used, Australia is a continent, and the theories used in the science text books are so old. I don't understand why the text books aren't updated every 5 years, and instead of adding all these unnecessary pages and graphs and maps condense it so they can fit into a smaller book and make them paperback instead of hardback to make it cheaper. Or even better, just make the text books an online program that's updated every 5 years, that schools have to pay to install. It would be expensive to create, but think about it, what's more expensive? To produce thousands, maybe even millions of text books to give to students which they might lose, or to create a website, which could give more job opportunities. And, so that students wouldn't have to be on the computer all the time, teachers could simply print off the sheet, or write the questions they want the students to complete on the board for them to write down on a separate piece of paper. Does this make sense to you? It does to me.

Now, so that the government can see the progress of the students, they ask the kids to take a test. The most hated one is FSA. This is one of the only test the government will look at. The test consists of questions regarding basic fundamental skills. This test takes our fundamental skills and turns them into an asset for competition. FSA really is a competition! They mark you on the stuff you've known since you we're little, and make you feel awful about your grade. You're not allowed to study and chances, are, because the government doesn't know how the students were being taught, the test is written in a way you don't understand. The FSA's are written in a way that only people who think with the left part of their brain. People who think with the left part of their brain think very logically and methodically. Most people don't do well on FSA's because it's so stressful and long, they can't ask teachers for help because the teachers don't know the test, and the most frustrating reason is, that it's the same test for everyone no matter what culture.

Imagine, living in Nunavut, walking to school in the snow, having no malls or big chain restaurants anywhere near you. At school, you're asked to take a test so the government can rank which schools are the best. Your teacher says the test is only the basic subjects. You start the tests, on the computer. You struggle to figure how to use the computer, because you've never really used one for a long period of time. You accidently click the wrong answer and you don't know how to go back and correct it! Then, a question about an escalator comes up. What's an escalator??? You don't understand any of these questions! The methods they ask you to demonstrate are more complicated then the question itself! You try your best to answer the questions, feeling absolutely stressed out and awful, only to receive your mark on the test, which makes you feel so much worse!

That's yet another reason why FSA's are not a good idea.

In my opinions, we should be able to work at our own pace. To a certain extent. For example, maybe a certain amount of work is due in 2 weeks. Students can decide what order they want to work in, how they want to space it out (whether they work really really really hard for 4 days and finish it all, or space it out and work consistently and have it finished in 2 weeks) that way, students don't feel the competition of who understands what, because they have the time to ask questions and read about it.

I know that not all of you agree with this blog, but anyway, I want every single person who read this to share you opinion. This is a very general post, more of a conversation started then anything else. SO, do you agree? If so, any other thought? Do you disagree, tell me why. Just share your opinion. Don't hate on people and don't get into a comment war. If any comments are posted that I think are the equivalent of hating on people, I'll delete them :):):):)

So, well, I don't really have anything in my hand right now, so empty-handed, I leave, yearning for the next post. If there is one, lol.

The Trouble With Projects

Projects. The procrastinators nightmare. Teachers assign projects in hope that students will apply their knowledge, and turn it into a creative, expressive project or essay. The problem with projects IS, that as soon as the bell rings 3 o'clock, we all stop thinking. How do teachers expect us to focus at home, let alone make a big project worth 30% of our grade!? And if you're at all like me, not only can you not focus, but you choose not to even try to focus, waiting until the last minute to complete a big project more or less start to finish.

Of course, there are SOME people (I won't point fingers) who get home and start their project right away, which results in a fantastic A+ project that makes us procrastinators look like noobs. It's not that I don't care about school, it's just that I can't focus and I don't want to sit there for 2 hours working after a long day of school. I need some free time. I assume most of you feel the same way.

Even though I know the effects that procrastination leads to, for some unknown reason, I continue to procrastinate. My mom always tells me the following, "Don't do tomorrow what could be done today". I know that's what everyone wants to live by, but who really has the focus, determination and drive to live by those words religiously? No one that I know, myself included. I know some people who go through "procrastination binges", meaning simply, they procrastinate sometimes and work diligently other times. I am a full blown procrastinator, yet somehow, I manage to pull off straight A's. The reason for this, is because teachers think what and how they teach is effective, but really, it's a waste of precious time that we could be using for projects.

Projects can be fun, if they're supposed to be about something that you actually enjoy. When they're about something you struggle to understand or honestly don't give a damn about, they are the most boring thing in the world. Anything that combines research, organization, knowledge, the ability to retain stuff, writing, drawing AND having to put all that stuff together onto a neat, creative and colourful poster board that your mom always forgot to buy you, so you ended up having to rip the stuff on the last poster board you used and strategically place all the pieces of paper you had so that it covers up the pieces of glue that didn't rip off, SHOULD BE ILLEGAL!!! Ever wonder why teachers look happy when they assign a project? I bet it's because they're playing that thorough in their heads.

The even dumber thing is, that if my teacher assigns homework or knows that our secondary teacher assigned homework, he refuses, I mean flat-out REFUSES to give us class time to work on our stuff. He'll take extra time to talk to us about something we already know or add on to the pile of stuff we have to finish in class. He wants to make it so that we have to sit there and focus outside of school. It makes me shutter just thinking about focusing outside of class.

I also hate, how whenever you complain about focusing outside of class time, our teachers always pull out the same answer "Have you ever thought about how successful people like doctors and lawyers and athletes have to focus outside of working hours? All i'm doing is preparing you for the real world, where there's not going to be anyone hounding you to finish the assignment. In 8 years time, you will be thanking me"

There are a couple things I would like to say to teachers about this statement.

1) Yes, I have thought about the effort that has to be put into a successful job, but right now, while I'm still in grade school, I HONESTLY DON'T CARE!!!

2) I will not thank you in 8 years time. I will be thanking my college professors, my therapist for listening to me when I went crazy for a few months, and I will thank my mom for always lying to me about how proud she was.

And that concludes my rant on projects.

Chamomile tea in hand, I leave you, yearning for my next post. If there is one, lol.

Mondays

I AM SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SORRY!!!!!!! I HAVEN'T UPDATED MY BLOG IN MONTHS!!!!!!!!! I PROMISE PROMISE PROMISE (times infinity) THAT I WILL UPDATE MY BLOG EVERY MONDAY, WEDNESDAY AND THE OCCASIONAL FRIDAY AND MAYBE MORE!!!!!!!!!!!! IF I DON'T, I WILL PERSONALLY WRITE YOU AN APOLOGY LETTER AND GIVE YOU 5 DOLLARS WORTH OF CANDY FROM 7/11. NO JOKE!!!!! I PROMISE PROMISE PROMISE!!!! HOWEVER, IT MIGHT NOT BE UNTIL A BIT LATER ON, SO DON'T HAVE A SPAZ IF THE TIME THAT YOU CHECKED I HADN'T UPDATED IT YET. Now, on to the post.

Mondays. A weekly taste of Hell. After a fantastic weekend, you have to return to school and go through 5 days of time wasting school. Monday, to some, goes by like a blur. They don't retain anything said that day and the whole time their eyes are out of focus and they are tired. SOME people actually ENJOY mondays. Don't ask me how and don't ask me why, but these people DO exist. They find joy in starting the week productively and look forward to a week of torture, I MEAN, school. Others, although they function alright, dread every second of the day. Refusing to cooperate, working poorly and accepting mediocrity are common symptoms. The case that I suffer, is feeling like the day lasts 30 hours and that each class is a little harder, each block is a little longer, and each recess is a little shorter. I believe that the most common is the first case that I described. The first step to fighting mondays is to recognize which case you suffer from. We'll talk about fighting the Monday Curse more in-depth later on in the post.

Does your monday morning go a little something like this????

BEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEP!!!! Crap. It's 7:30 already??? Oh, I'll just press snooze 1 more time. BEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEP!!!! Crap, It's already 7:35??? Oh, mom will just wake me up when I have to get up. "HONEY!!!! WHY AREN'Y YOU UP!!! YOU'LL BE LATE!!!!!" Crap. It's 8 already. I guess I have to get up.

Then, you'll get up, decide what to wear, go to the kitchen, help yourself to whatever is easily accessible for breakfast, do the homework that you were supposed to do last night and then head out the door. You get to school, and while still 80% asleep, you survive (somehow) and then finally get back home and plop down on your bed until you have to do something else.

IF your monday morning does go like that (which I am assuming it does) then you suffer the Monday Curse. Don't worry, almost everyone suffers the Monday Curse. SOME people found a way to break the curse, and I am VERY jealous of those people.

Everyone has a different opinion on mondays, and here is mine

1) TORTURE!!! After 2 days of hibernation, the first day back to a regular week is always the hardest. Sometimes if I have a really busy weekend, like if I was filming, doing extra karate classes or babysitting, I'm absolutely EXHAUSTED on mondays

2) LONG!!!!!!!! Don't you think that on mondays, even though school lasts only 6 hours, it feel like it lasts 30 hours? And at short recess it always feels like it should be lunchtime. Even though math ALWAYS (and I mean ALWAYS!!!) seems long, somehow, on mondays, math seems even LONGER. Unfortunately, though mondays make the boring "educational" stuff longer, they manage to shorten the precious time of our already painfully brief recesses :(

3) Boring. Everything is a blur. Because it takes too much effort to concentrate or pay attention in class, 9 out of 10 people choose to zone out. When zoning out, you don't really do anything productive or fun, so it gets boring. It's still a better option then applying yourself

I have many more things to say about mondays, but if I wrote them all, you'd still be reading even after you graduate. I honestly could go on, and on, and on, and on...

HOW TO FIGHT THE MONDAY CURSE

What I do, is on saturday, instead of staying up super late and waking up super late, I go to bed at around 10 or so, and then wake up at 9 or before. It reduces most of the shock of waking up early on monday and waking up early usually leads to going to bed a little earlier, making it easier to drag yourself out of bed the following morning. Once you wake up and go to school, there's still 6 hours to survive. It helps when you have something to look forward to on mondays. Packing a really awesome lunch is a super easy way to make mondays a bit more bearable. You can do so by packing lots and lots of chocolate, or using WHITE BREAD instead of that gross, seedy "bread" most of us have. You could also bring a thermos full of your fave hot drink, like hot chocolate:) The upside to using a thermos is, that if anyone asks what you have, you can just say water so people won't bother you for some of your drink.

You can also have something to look forward to, by making monday the day you don't plan anything so you can go home and lie in bed (you can do homework in the morning...)

Another way to make mondays a bit more bearable is to feel fantastic. If you're like me and can't function in the morning, organize your stuff and pick out your outfit the night before. When you wake up in the morning after your get dressed, take some extra time and effort into your breakfast. When you eat well in the morning, usually you feel better throughout the rest of the day. I know it's ironic that I would talk about eating breakfast, because if you know me at all you would know that I almost ALWAYS skip breakfast. Don't tell my doctor, he's lectured me before on eating breakfast regularly...

I know that the majority of people reading are thinking, "What the hell? I don't have to organization of attention span to follow through on this stuff!! I'm way to groggy in the mornings, especially monday mornings!!!". Am I right?? Probably. Guess what? I THINK LIKE THAT TOO! These tips are something that almost no one has the time, patience or focus to follow through on. My REAL advice is the following.

Don't make a big deal out of monday. DON"T GIVE IN!!!! Monday is conspiring against you. IT WANTS TO MAKE YOU MISERABLE! Just follow these instructions: Wake up. Bring chocolate to school. Eat a bit of it at recess and a bit at lunch. Go home and do nothing. That's what I do and so far, I haven't been maimed and I'm still alive:) Even though it seems too simple to make a difference, it does. It truly does.

This time, I don't have green tea, I have a cookie. SOOOOOO cookie in hand, I leave you, yearning for the next post. If there is one. lol