I was pissed today because my math teacher makes us do these homework quizzes. Basically, she picks out two random questions that you’ve done for homework over the past week and makes you copy down your answers for quiz points, the rationale behind this likely being so that she doesn’t have to check everyone’s homework every day. Each question is worth seven points for a total of fourteen.
She handed me back my homework quiz and I got a zero on it, which I found very surprising. The first question I got a zero on because I didn’t include a table for the graph I sketched, and the second one I got a zero because I had copied the homework question down incorrectly, so I ended up solving a different problem. This all really pisses me off because I got the first question right and did not need to use a table to fill out the graph, but you know how insane math teachers are because you don’t do it their way. The second question was more understandable, but it really was an honest mistake and I don’t see why I should get a zero just because I accidentally copied down the wrong question. I especially don’t see why I should get a zero for the whole thing, the same grade someone would get if they didn’t even bother doing their homework at all.
I complained to this about my friend, who also did not include a table for the first problem but still got two points for it. That’s not much but it is better than a zero, and I have to wonder why I was not afforded the same amount of credit.
If it was purely a “you either get it right or you don’t” sort of thing, I would understand. But you should make each question worth one point then, if it’s going to be an all or nothing system. If you’re going to make a single question worth seven whole points, then you should be afforded points based on how much was correct, not if the whole thing was correct. And you shouldn’t lose all seven points for not including a damn table.
I don’t know why she makes the homework worth so much anyway. It’s not a test; it’s practice material intended to help you prepare for a test. You shouldn’t be punished so harshly during the learning phase when you’re preparing for an exam. This single zero dropped my A to a B, which is absolutely ludicrous.
Speaking of the math test, I feel I did pretty poorly on it too, so I can only imagine how much further my letter grade will plummet. I wasn’t able to answer the first question because I felt pressured for time due to the two-part nature of the test. The rest of the questions I know I got right, but the math teacher is such a nitpicking bum that I know she’ll find some reason to dock points for the things I got correct. She is the type of teacher that will take half points off a correctly answered question just because you forgot to put parentheses around coordinates, or because you wrote “The horizontal asymptote is 3,” instead of “The horizontal asymptote is y=3.” It’s absolutely absurd how she grades things. I also don’t like the way she solves problems because I think she overcomplicates them, so I solve them my own way. But she probably won’t like that very much at all. So I’m pretty anxious over the results of the test, which I can’t imagine to be good. Imagine that: I’m still worried over my test score even though I know I got most of them right, purely because of the teacher’s nitpicking.
Anyhow, it turns out OSU does not offer a Creative Writing major, which is disappointing, but I’ve been thinking about money recently, and it seems like a lot of writers can only do freelance work and not hold down a steady job. Art does not pay the bills, and I already know I’ll be poor as hell in college, probably eating ramen on special occasions and starving otherwise.
So I checked out what other programs OSU has that are related to writing, and the only ones I saw were journalism and English. I don’t really want to major in English because the only job I could get then is being an English teacher, and I would rather not instruct a group of snot-nosed high schoolers. Journalism sounds nice. I don’t think they make much money, but it would be cool to travel the world, report on foreign wars, and get killed by the CIA. But in actuality I’d probably end up being stuck at some local news station reporting on the mundane happenings around town.
What I’m thinking then, is taking psychology as my major, because I know the psychology industry is lucrative, and also because I’m taking AP Psych so I can save some money that way. The thing is though, I’m not sure how many opportunities would open up with just a bachelor’s in psych, so then I’d have to fork over more money to go to graduate school and rack up more loans. I guess making money is not cheap.
I think I’d prefer to not think about college stuff right now. But then I feel as if I should be doing something, because I know those college acceptance boards will be sniffing around my high school record and how I loafed around and did not make myself stand out. These people want you to be doing volunteer work and be in seven clubs while you’re only a teenager. I think the standards are too high, and I have to be competing against these rich punks whose parents have been setting them up on a path to Harvard since preschool. I’d like to go to an Ivy League school, but it will never happen, not because of the admission, but because I could never afford it. And yeah, I probably wouldn’t get accepted anyway. I’m just a guy from a public school in nowhere Ohio. I didn’t go to a snotty college-prep school. It makes me jealous of those kids whose parents can just pay off the tuition without batting an eye. I want to go to OSU mainly because it’s in Ohio, so it’ll be cheaper. Actually, that’s the only reason: it’s the best college in Ohio. So yeah. I don’t really want to think about college right now.