I-Poly Grading Sytem

It seems complicated at first, but here's what the I-Poly grading system really means.

NC- 50 % or less
NinCompoop

CR- 60%+
CRappy job, you turd.

AP- 70%+
APply yourself and maybe you'll pass life

P- 80% +
PretahNaahce! (Where we set the bar, Borat.)

AE- 90%+
Albert effing Einstein

E*- 90%+ Jesus Juice
Oh, you Elusive, Eloquent, Extraordinary Elite.

*Not a real grade, but an existential imagining created to knit the brows of students and cause them to sleep less, eat tiny bits of food at a time, lose tempers, and become ideal soldier's in all academic fields. Except Spanish.

Why it Would Suck to be a Princess or the Ridiculous Idealization of Female Monarchs in Modern Times

I guess bloggers are supposed to discuss their lives at some point, maybe chat about their weekend, so here's mine. I finally watched the Man in the Iron Mask circa 1939, was accepted into NYU, and wrote an essay about princesses. Here it is.

Why it Would Suck to be a Princess or the Ridiculous Idealization of Female Monarchs in Modern Times:

Everyone says that all little girls want to be princesses. They make movies about it, Shirley Temple assures Ms. Minchin that every little girl is a princess, Disney pictures raise hopes that any girl might be a princess in disguise. Every girl wants to be a princess, big, fancy dresses, beautiful headwear, handsome princes on gallant steeds, waiting to swoop you up and take you back to their lavish palaces.
But here’s the thing, all of that is utter crap.
In the end, a princess is just a politician who can’t escape her title. Sure, you’re rich and famous, but people hold you to a higher standard; from the middle ages to the 18th century, people of a nation believed that monarchs were sent by God himself. Not only did this mean that you could basically do whatever you wanted, but you had to be perfect in doing it, lest you collapse the very faith of your people, because God does not screw up.
Being perfect is a lot of work. It’s a kind of stress that teenagers can relate to quite well. You not only have to live up to your father, but to his father and his father before him and so on. Everyone knows your family history and an entire country is constantly watching your every move. People depend on you to rule their lands, to keep their taxes just right, even to keep them physically well. (During times of plague, one much favored cure was to be touched by royalty.) And if the pressure of lording over millions of people didn’t kill you, then the millions of people might, if you screwed up. Poor Marie Antoinette was brought into a failing country, married an impotent king, was immediately hated by the people of France, nick-named Madame Deficit for living a little beyond her means, accused of cheating and even committing incest, and then , quite literally, lost her head.
As for finding true love in the form of a handsome prince- today one half of all marriages end in divorce- people seem to have trouble in pursuit of true love. Given the increasingly tiny percentage of royalty worldwide, the chance that true love would be found in that small pool of options would be severely slim. No, princesses were married off for political reasons, to strengthen ties between two countries, to seal a pact. To be married to a prince meant to be sent away from one’s family, to a foreign county to please a soon-to-be king who you’d probably have never met. Sure, he might be sweet and handsome and heroic like Prince Phillip or Prince Erik from the movies (Sleeping Beauty and the Little Mermaid), but he might also be old and ill-tempered. (Consider that most young monarchs were spoiled, indolent little cretins who got everything they wanted exactly when they wanted it who grew up to be indulgent, in France’s case, syphilitic assholes.) Sure, you might land yourself a king like John II, the Good, Charles V, the Wise, or maybe Phillip V, Le Long (the tall), but you might just as easily end up with Louis V, the lazy, Louis X, the Quarreler, or even Charles VI, the Mad. A princess was expected to be beautiful, mild-mannered, and subservient, but- above all- a good princess was required to produce an heir (preferably male).
If you found your new hubby to be a royal pain in the ass, divorce was not an option. At least not until very recently, and it’s still frowned upon (because he divorced Princess Diana, Prince Charles will never ascend to the throne). Worse, if the king to a disliking to you, he might cope by taking a few mistresses (Monica Lewinsky would have hardly caused a sandal in 17th century France or England, where kings bore illegitimate children like they doled out additional and often unfair taxes.) If you somehow became a giant thorn in the kings side, he could easily order you exiled (as king Xerxes did to the beautiful and bold Queen Vasthi in the book of Esther) or he could simply have you beheaded with one simple, royal decree, like king Henry VIII did with just a few of his six wives.
All in all, being royalty is not all that great. Even the fictional Princess Leia, elected rather than born into her title, had her entire planet destroyed by her biological father and was deceived into lip-locking her own twin brother. (And that, my friends, creates a disturbance in the force.) In most cases, to be a princess is to be rich and famous, to be held to a higher standard than most human beings by the man, but subservient to the few. To be a princess is to be under the thumb of a country and its king at all times, and to still be beautiful and delicate, to bear as many children as possible and be happy about it. So every time I go to Disneyland or the fair and see a little girl or even young woman with a conic, veiled hat or a shining tiara, a sparkling crown, I point and laugh, because the idealization of monarchy is a thing spawned from ignorance, ridiculous and hilarious in nature.

A Look at Senioritus and the Only Known Cure

There is a time during the last months of primary (also known as required) education. It takes place when the leaves are growing anew, shaking off the frozen February dew, when flowers bud and struggle from the bonds of Winter's icy breath.

It is during this time that young scholars everywhere, specifically those in their final year of high school, are prone to a peculiar and medically inexplicable disease. Their eyes begin to blur over at large amounts of academic text, they ruffle their figurative feathers and squirm in the constricting confines of the classroom, and their attentions wander from chalkboards (which exist only in small quantities, having been largely replaced in the late 1990's by the more convenient and sanitary white boards) and progress onto windows, beyond which lie beautiful and wondrous greenery, tempting students beyond imagination. Physicians and school teachers alike cannot completely comprehend how the virus spreads, but spread it does. It takes but a single light-headed, unfocused, window-gazing student at but a single desk and, in but a few hours, the remainder of the class is infected. Within days less and less homework is being turned in, students begin to arrive late, students can no longer be counted upon to answer question in class, and- ultimately- grades begin to slip.

For centuries, Senioritus has baffled and befuddled doctors and scholars alike, great minds have toyed with the idea of the ancient virus, unable to wrap their heads around it. Etymologists theorize that it's the work of a small, orange bug that spreads the virus as a result of a penchant for ripe blood, biologists believe that the temporary affliction is merely an effect of the brain transitioning from youth to legal adulthood, while others maintain that it has to do with the approaching summer and ultimate freedom, now closer to a student's grasp than ever before. Nevertheless, Senioritus is a very real problem within American high schools, as any principal, teacher, or teacher's assistant will tell you.

In recent years, the victims of the plague themselves have developed (within secretive groups) a new, not yet FDA, school, or parent-approved cure, tentatively entitled "Senior Ditch Day." Though the treatment's title is somewhat misleading, as there are no plots or ditches being dug so far as researchers can detect, it seems to be effective in eliminating Senioritus almost completely from the teenage body. SDD, or "The Games," as the new cure's being refereed to in order to mislead authority figures who may find Senior Ditch Day "immoral" or "against the rules," (more news on what, exactly, the rules are at eleven)seems to consist of the members of an entire twelfth grade class, from the Yearbook's chief editor to the president of ASB, simply not showing up to school. These few hours of extra sleep coupled with the resulting giddiness of participating in a pre-planned, class-organized "sick" day seem to provide most seniors immune systems with the boost they require to kick even the worst case of Senioritus completely.

Some classes are attempting the avant-garde in planning "fun" events away from schools in order to promote a sense of unity and support for participators in the relatively new treatment. For instance, Pomona's own International Polytechnic High School put a bright twist on what some parents and most school boards have deemed an "irksome" and "quite possibly dangerous to the academic instructor's delicate psyche" cure for the horrid pandemic, by creating a one-day healing program for victims of the blight through physical therapy where students who refused to attend school this Wednesday (much to the shock of several uninformed teachers, though not including a certain mathematics instructor who offered, when he caught wind of students subjecting themselves to the unapproved cure, an extra credit "simple as pi" math quiz in hopes of luring frightened students away from any hasty treatment options.)and instead visited a nearby ice-skating rink in which they giggled at worried texts received from underclassman, complained loudly but nonetheless enjoyed themselves when falling on the harder-than-concrete-cold-as-a-witch's-you-know-what ice, and outright laughed when informed that parents had, in fact, been notified of their wave of absences.

"My mom already knows I'm here... What are they gonna do?" Chuckled one unidentified senior, who was met with a chorus of agreeances and she skated away, starting what would soon become a fully-fledged ice-skating train.

"This is just what I needed, especially after focusing so much on my senior project." Added another anonymous twelfth-grader, nodding in time to the hip music blaring from the rink's above speakers.

Though few results can be compiled by medical examiners so soon after the risky treatment has been administered, informed teachers have reported that they will be on the lookout for signs that the much-feared Senioritus has abated in the student body- that is, until next year...

Tacoma

Hi nonexistent readers that I chat with weekly, usually on Sundays so that I might recap my week, despite the fact that I might as well be using my time for something else, like writing my book or reading about Oscar Wilde, or making a documentary, how are you?

What's that? Oh, that lovely image to your right? Well, fictional friends, that's a snapshot of the University of Puget Sound, in sunny Tacoma, Washington (SARCASM BUTTON). Why is it there? Demand my imagined followers, confused and slightly upset. Fear not, pretend people, my picture placement is not without cause.

March 19, 2010: I received a text message from a friend of mine, Christina, riddled with excited all-caps declarations of gaining admission and financial aid into the University of Puget Sound. Though I, too, applied for admission, my application seemed to have been lost in the mail... twice. Excited for Christina and curious, I texted my Nina, wondering...

Me: Did I get mail?

My Nina: You got a letter from some college...

March 19, 2010: 8:14 P.M.: I break down and call my nina, heart pounding. Here is a transcript of the conversation.

Me: Nina! Where's the letter from?

Nina: P-Peu-Peeee-Poooooooo

Me: PUGET SOUND???

Nina: Sure.

Me: READ IT.

ME: Please.

Nina: Are you sure?

Me: READ.

Nina: *Opens Letter* Okay, Bianca Caraza, I regret to inform you that...

Me: *sharp intake of breath, followed by one heart-felt* Oh, no...

Nina: Just kidding, stupid! We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Puget Sound division.

Apparently, Puget Sound has seen fit to allow me into their fine school as well as reward me with full financial aid... so yay!

Thanks for reading, invisible people! <3>

Why the World Should Be Pagan- My Fail for Today

3/17/2010

Earlier this school year my friends and I started my school's first Writers Association: The Wilde and Wordy. (I wrote out the mission statement, gathered members, advertised, and received school permission, my friends agreed to show up. Sometimes they fail.) Now, we don't really do much at the Wilde and Wordy, usually I ask if any one's worked on something. Everyone replies that no, they have not. Next I ask if anyone has a new idea. If yes, someone will launch into an explanation of how they are going to transform their latest dream into one massive, multi-layered novel- if no, then we eat our lunches and chat about silly things that make the freshman blush.



But today was going to be different. As least, I made the mistake of believing that today was going to be different. I told myself that i was finally going to crack down and- just this once- we were going to get the students to produce something.



So I walk in, and half the seniors of the class (AKA my buds) are gone to retake this math test that we all failed. Somehow, new people have wandered in to take their place, and I was really appreciative of this fact. Now, I won't name names, but someone else wanders in, following a few other, more likable students, like a large cockroach might follow some tasty crumbs. This someone happens to dislike me greatly, and this someone decided to stay for the duration of the club... needless to say, things did not go well.



But I guess that's old news.



(Even though she interrupted my favorite St. Patrick's Day speech on Why the World Should Be Pagan. [If you were wondering, it's because 1) since pagans believed in finding god through sex, everyone would be really happy and guilt-free all the time, and stress and stress-related issues would prettmuch disappear. 2) Because we'd all be pagan, we'd all basically hold the same beliefs, so we'd war would be eliminated. 3) Pagans worship nature, so pollution would go bye-bye])



Anyway, I talked to an old friend of mine who I missed terribly! (ODIE <3) and I guess things will clear up, you know?

Oh, and my school's better than your school: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-UOrIt0vqQ

Poem