School at WIS! (MEGA SUPER LONG)

This is much too late. I fail. But it is school.

In case you didn't you know or forgot, I go to the Washington International School (WIS): website. We follow the International Baccalaureate program (IB), and there are about 55 students in the grade.

I suppose I'll start off with my schedule...A note about that. The scheduling system is very different, with 5 hour-long periods a day. Also, you can forget ALL about rotation and revolution. They're byebye. There are eight days (A-H) that we cycle through. Example: Monday - Friday = A, B, C, D, E; Next Monday - Friday = F, G, H, A, B
Make sense? Anyway, here be my classes:

Math: Unlike SA, WIS does not divide math classes by topic. Each year all topics are covered with increasing complexity and difficulty.

--Math has been pretty good so far! I've only had two classes, but they've been pretty good. I think next class we're moving on from review, oh no, so I'll update later.


English: Just your standard English course...We've started reading The Crucible by Arthur Miller - it's not too bad so far. Oh, this class is with my homeroom. Some classes are like that.

-- English is going well. The teacher is the only one on the new internet system, which is really cool. Teachers can make blogs, start forum discussions, have their own WIS wiki thing - VERY cool! As for the actual class, it's very standard. Nothing really special or different. Just imagine your English class except with a different teacher, different students, a new room and building, and a different curriculum. See, just like yours.


History: History at WIS has a completely different focus (I think) than Euro or World Civs. It's more world-wide oriented, but not really. We're mainly concerned with the 1800's through World Wars I and II, then on to the aftermath. Not too different, but *crap my mom just texted me, she wants me to go to bed* it feels like it has a new direction. Might just be me...

--The history teacher is crazy. Then again, most of mine have been (Sadd, Styperk, now Huff...), so I should be used to it. Here's a list of things she does that you shouldn't, should you ever become a high school history teacher:
o She calls us "children".
"Children, children! Quiet when someone else is talking!"
o She openly insults her husband, although I don't think she means to.
"You know, I was talking the other night when my husband stopped me and told me he was getting confused. He asked if I could state the topic then continue each time I switch topics. After 20 years, don't you think my own husband could understand me?" Uh...yes?
o She looks weird.
...So that's history.


French: French and other foreign languages are treated very seriously at WIS. The teacher speaks only in French, unless she absolutely has to speak in English. We have serious homework and serious classwork. Serious course.

--French is no longer a joke. DAMN. I miss SA French. I liked having a joke class. Oh well...Nothing else to say.

Bio: Bio is just like last year's bio. Mostly new stuff but some review material. I'm running out of things to say about these classes...

--Bio seems kinda boring, but nowhere near as boring as Travis. Thank goodness.

Physics: So I had to pick 2 sciences. I chose bio because I've already done some of it last year, and then my parents told me physics would be better than chem. We'll see.

--Mr. Chow. Yeah. That's the physics teacher. He has a funny accent sort of. Wow. Yeah, this is the class where I will pay the least attention, laugh the most, and maybe learn the least. Today someone got me distracted at the beginning of class and I had uncontrollable laughter for the rest of the period. I had NO CLUE what was going on - it was that bad.

Art 2D: This is REAL 2D art. I really, really loved Dr. Edward's class, but this is totally different. I'm glad to have a change, but I also miss drawing all the time. Now we're actually exploring the thought behind art and all kinds of different mediums.

--Coooool.

Design Tech: This is like a tool/simple machine-type class. The new textbooks have all these pictures of machines and all this stuff. People generally like it though, so maybe it'll be cool.

--I've never been much of a tool person. We'll see how this goes.

Life Skills: This is almost the exact same class as last year. Darn.

--The teacher told us she was on substances. She meant like coffee and medicine, but you could tell she was clearly on drugs. No questions about it. Druggie.

PE: I'm not writing anything. It's PE, what did you expect?

--It's PE.

Journalism: Journalism is for those interested in writing articles for the school newspaper, the International Dateline. I don't know the chances of our articles getting in, but it's fun so far.

--My first article is going to be about Apple's "Let's Rock" event tomorrow. Rumor and some evidence says they're announcing a new Nano. Looks totally sick. And I'm covering it!


So those are all my classes. Except lunch. The cafeteria food is a lot like Sewickley's, except I would actually eat it, and I do. hooray.

So the biiig difference this year is the Personal Project. Every student has to do it, there's no way out of it, even new kids who have had like half the time to work on it. But beside that. The Personal Project [I refuse to call it PP because its NOT! That's something else :)] is a long-term project that has to do with things you're interested in. You can create something (ie. model, art, etc.), you can help in the community, you can do all sorts of things. You have to work on it for like 30 hours total, and then you write a report on it and present your final product+report at a big ol' fair. Sounds hard, but I don't think it will be too bad. I think I'm going to do a sick drawing of something for mine, but I don't know yet. Any suggestions anyone? (I know someone will say P!) I open.

WOWZAH. Now that I've written all that, it's time for me to go to bed! Have fun trying to take in ALL that info about my new school...I'll try to start that story soon but we'll see if I have time. Keep thinking of ideas for it!

END 11:10