Bruni, my Democracy teacher, knew that most students just want high grades to make their parents happy. In the beginning of the year, he gave us a hard assignment to do. I got a C on it, and lots of students got that and lower, apparently. Our lesson of the day that time was: You guys just want As whether you learn or not. It is true. He put the grade to a vote. Should we not include it in our grade? I kept my hand down because hey, I earned it. Most of the students voted that we should throw the low grades out. It's sad really.

The next day he made copies of a worksheet that went with the Democracy textbook. It was an easy A, obviously. Bruni intentionally did that to further his point. All you had to do was finish the assignment to get the grade. When we got our papers back, I didn't bother to look at the grade and immediately tucked it into my class folder. I was feeling pretty rotten about what Bruni said. The girl who sat next to me tried to look at what I got, and I wouldn't let her have it. Everyone got As, duh! Why would anyone want to compare their grades to others to feel better about themselves? Finally, she asked me for my grade.

Her: "So what did you get?"
Me: ... "Does it matter?"
Her: "Yes."

I grimaced and gave her my paper to show her the A.

Okay, fast forward to the near present. All students got their report cards yesterday. Bruni gave me a B for the second quarter. Hm. I was a little surprised about it, but I think I could bring it back to an A for the semester if I worked a little harder. I know that I left out a part of an assignment, and didn't turn in one other assignment (and I was willing to take responsibility for it.. d'oh!)
Anyway, I went to my Democracy class and sat down, and the same girl next to me asked me about my quarter grade. I told her, but it was annoying, mostly because I was ashamed to say that I got a B. Then I saw her smile drop. Wait, why the expression change? I looked at her suspiciously and asked her why she asked for my grade. She said that most of the class got Ds and Fs, whaaaat. (I think it's a bit of an exaggeration though. Judging from today's discussion, a few were fine with their grades from Bruni. She probably asked only a few of Bruni's other students.)

... HOOOLD UP. She was trying to make herself feel better again! ):< Why else would her smile drop when I told her my grade?! I asked her what she got, and well, she got a lower grade than I did. I tried to make her feel better by telling her that Bruni grades people really weird and our little conversation ended in agreement with that.

>:/ But I'm a little annoyed of this girl. She always tries blatantly to see my papers without asking, whether it's about grades or during a test or warm-up (you have to get the warm up question correct; it's either an A or an F).

_____________
Since I wrote about that topic.. I will be hypocritical and ramble about my grades.
arrrg grades!!!

Benson keeps giving me a B-. Why do I keep getting a B- from her? :( Oh well.. it's Benson. She's a cool teacher, but ... really strange when it comes to the English class. She grades really um.. interestingly. For example, a 60 is considered a B and a 50 is a C... it's her version of curve-grading. I don't know. We're not really following the whole MacBeth thing like everyone else is doing. We're reading the Lord of the Flies. That book is interesting, but .. ... .
Yeah, so from other students I talked to a couple weeks ago, they were also getting B's and they knew even MORE people who got B's. Only 2-3 students got A. :| I do wonder how she grades her students.

Okay, well, I deserved my grade from Japanese. It turned out to be waay more than I thought I could take on, but I really sure that I'm more on the safe side right now than when sensei turned in the grades aiyaa.

Umm.. then I need to work harder in Democracy, Calculus and Psych because I'm sure that I'm on borderline for those classes heh.

Ooh I almost forgot. I talked about meeting my penpal, Ayano-san. I forgot to post pictures up. So.. here's one big group picture.


Taken by and stolen from Sensei...

Here! My penpal is the girl next to me with the arrow pointing to her. And the people with green lines are people I have mentioned more often (recently) and I want to point them out. With the red hair is most frequently mentioned: Liza! and next to her penpal called Akira-san. Brown hair with white shirt is India. Dark brown hair with grey shirt is Kiyomi.

Ooh~~ I wish I could post more pictures. But Sensei's posted up some videos. I wonder if I should steal those and repost them too...

I met my pen pal today!

During 1st we practiced Beautiful Day by Arashi while the JNHS Jrs. blew balloons and prepared for undoukai.

2nd period comes! The bus came like ten minutes late but everyone was really excited and cheering when the Japanese students arrived. Some of the name cards for the Japanese students took.. very little effort (well.. at least it was something..) but lot of the handmade name cards were very nice! ... mine was Totoro-themed. Ayano-san looked so much like my friend Linna hehe. Then the MCs (Carmen, Taylor and on Miyakonojo Nishi's side was Togo-kun) Washington principal and the Miyakonojo Nishi's kouchou (principal) talked.. and then we sang. And then the Japanese dtuents went to sing... oh my god. They owned us at this so bad. One girl was conducting, and another was playing piano.. and they were separated girl-boy.. so organized and when they sang it was like watching a real choir group sing. It was SO GOOD. They put us to shame. But they liked our singing anyways, so it's all good. They were so adorable! all of them! So polite and modest and everything!

HR- toured her around the school while struggling to say the right things in Japanese...

3rd/4th Undoukai! It was too wet outside so we had to play in the cafeteria. 1st group (us) did the ice breaker.. group human bingo which was um.. a little messy but interesting. 2nd group did Orange ribbon which is kind of like the three legged race but with a ribbon wrapped around four people.. and we switch our ribbon to the next group in our team after we run. 3rd group did this ball passing race. 4th group did balloon popping war. We couldn't do the 5th group because it was water balloon stuff and we were indoors.. mm hmm.

Lunch- everyone got two cookies, chicken tuna croûton celery lettuce ???? wrap, chips, water, carrots, apple. I liked the wrap, but a lot of the Japanese students didn't like it. My host ate some but I don't think she finished it. It was so freaking filling too.. I couldn't even finish it. People kept going to Ayano-san and talking to or hitting on her and she was so friendly to them. Well actually all the students were very friendly. They were surprised to see we had purikura here.

5th- I was in this group that did the Sorry Sorry dance. made so many mistakes lol. Then choir came in and sang two songs. Then Miyakonojo Nishi students practiced their presentation with us, I finally hear my hostee speak English yay! Her group's topics are Kimono/Yutaka.

6th- I went to Benson's class because there was a Miyakonojo Nishi group doing a presentation about decoden (phone decorations) and pimped out stuff haha. I actually.. enjoyed listening to their Japaningrish. It was cute, really. I think that's how we must sound when we speak Japanese with our American accents bleeding through. Their thoughts about our school is that we have so much more freedom than they do, and that they like our school and it's so big and pretty (SERIOUSLY??)

7th- Oh no they're leaving! Lots of pictures taken, gifts exchanged, addresses exchanged. Bye bye Ayano-san and other Miyakonojo Nishi people!

I might post up some pictures for once because this day was EPIC. I took Liza's camera to take it.. Liza domo arigatou for allowing me to use it. I really want to go to Japan now ...to view their school...

Yoshi! So I got her big rice krispie bar, reese's pieces, Ghiredelli chocolate (from sister), starbursts, cable car ornament (from mom.. I should've chose something cuter but NO I wanted accurate..), SF magnet (from Yuki), homemade Ne-Yo CD (from Yuki again), and I think that's it.
God.. they put me to shame again. Ayano-san gave me konpeito (sugar candy), Hello Kitty aburatorigami (facial oil blot paper thing), various candy in a small Hello Kitty zippered container, Anpanman brand agesen (some sort of rice cracker bits) in a Hello Kitty giftbox (I think she likes Hello Kitty..), Japanese spring postcard, eraser, lead pencil.. wait wah? It's got instructions for some reason. Oh! And the chopsticks that the school gave us are so pretty! Mine is black with white and pink sakura flowers on it.

I hope she had fun. Now that I look around the pictures and stuff from other people they seem so much happier. @_@ And Carmen and them did so much more than I did.