Walking around the halls of school today all of the sophomores, myself included, looked like they had come down with a cold. Indeed they had come down with something, it's a little thing I like to call, or just today started calling, the MCAS syndrome. After being in the same classroom, with the same people, looking at the same test and book for roughly three hours and fifteen minutes, you can see how one would feel a little, for lack of better terms, whimsical for the rest of the day. Even now, at three in the afternoon, I feel like the morning is still not over.
For those who do not know, the MCAS test is given to every student in Massachusetts in varied subjects. It's a state test and is a requirement to pass to graduate from high school. For the next two days I will be taking the english MCAS, today was the composition portion of the test. After pre-writing and then writing my final essay there was still fifty minutes left of the time we were alloted, so I decided to read my book. It was better than staring out into blank space, like the other kids in the room decided to spend their time doing - I was the only one who brought a book. Once time was up, we passed onto fifth period. Thankfully, we didn't have to do anything, so once again I started to read my book. By the time the bell rang for lunch, my head felt lighter than it had before, and I felt very very tired. I decided to look past it and move on. However that was the first symptom of the MCAS syndrome.
Symptoms experienced by people who have had the MCAS syndrome include - hearing the faint sound of bagpipes, hearing dogs barking in the distance, when in fact there are no dogs on school grounds, and lastly misinterpreted phrases. All of these came true, when I was talking with my friends after lunch. When I heard bagpipes in the distance, I thought it was absurd that someone brought them to school this late, after all St. Patrick's Day was five days ago. Thinking I was absolutely bonkers, I asked my friend if she had heard the same thing and she also heard them. Coincidence? I think not! Not long after that did my other friend "R" hear dogs barking, and after that "B" heard me say something that I most certainly did not say. All of this because of a test that lasted 196 minutes. Thank you MCAS, for making us all delirious because of the brain power that you try to exert from us way too early in the morning.
That is all
P.S. MCAS syndrome is obviously not real, but we actually did hear bagpipes and dogs barking. Weird...
-"M"
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
Is Putting a Video On the Internet Really This Hard?
Over the weekend, I had my friend "B" come over so we could film a video of a dance she came up with for an english project. You're now probably wondering how english class has anything to do with dancing whatsoever, but it does. Our assignment was to display the meaning and themes of the movie Bowling For Columbine in any artistic way that we wished. I chose to write a poem, where "B" decided to dance to a song that represented the themes in the movie. It shouldn't be too hard right? And this is where my assumptions were wrong.
Making up the dance and then recording it to music is only the half of it; getting it to our teacher on time is another story. After finally getting the routine down, it was a bit dark out, mind you we were doing this outside in three degree weather. I turned on my porch light and another light that successfully provided sufficient light so that you could see "B" in the video. The song "B" chose to dance to was playing in the background, but on the video you can hardly hear it. This was fine, because we just assumed that we would somehow mute the original video and put the song in. Easy? Not for us. Once the video was all recorded it was about eight thirty at night, when we finally posted it to our teacher's Facebook page it was about ten o'clock. It took numerous tries and guesses as to how we were to put music in the background and how we were going to send it to our teacher.
Eventually we made a Youtube account, which was new, and after many tutorials and exploring we finally posted a video on the internet, except without music behind it. This made the ordeal even harder to accomplish. In order to view the video the correct way, you have to look up the song and have it playing in the background at the same time you are watching the muted, original video. Thank goodness for Facebook, or else we wouldn't have been able to do this. "B" and I wanted to watch the video back, just to laugh at it, and did we laugh. My camera didn't so much pick up on the sound of the background music, but it did when "B" had to fall at one point in the video. It was hysterical listening to it; one second you would hear music and the next, a loud thud and "B" on the ground. Overall it was a learning experience, who knew it takes that long to upload a video to Youtube? I certainly didn't. Or maybe that's just my nine-year-old computer.
That is all
-"M"
Making up the dance and then recording it to music is only the half of it; getting it to our teacher on time is another story. After finally getting the routine down, it was a bit dark out, mind you we were doing this outside in three degree weather. I turned on my porch light and another light that successfully provided sufficient light so that you could see "B" in the video. The song "B" chose to dance to was playing in the background, but on the video you can hardly hear it. This was fine, because we just assumed that we would somehow mute the original video and put the song in. Easy? Not for us. Once the video was all recorded it was about eight thirty at night, when we finally posted it to our teacher's Facebook page it was about ten o'clock. It took numerous tries and guesses as to how we were to put music in the background and how we were going to send it to our teacher.
Eventually we made a Youtube account, which was new, and after many tutorials and exploring we finally posted a video on the internet, except without music behind it. This made the ordeal even harder to accomplish. In order to view the video the correct way, you have to look up the song and have it playing in the background at the same time you are watching the muted, original video. Thank goodness for Facebook, or else we wouldn't have been able to do this. "B" and I wanted to watch the video back, just to laugh at it, and did we laugh. My camera didn't so much pick up on the sound of the background music, but it did when "B" had to fall at one point in the video. It was hysterical listening to it; one second you would hear music and the next, a loud thud and "B" on the ground. Overall it was a learning experience, who knew it takes that long to upload a video to Youtube? I certainly didn't. Or maybe that's just my nine-year-old computer.
That is all
-"M"
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Dogs + Puddles = Not a Very Good Combination
My dog, Rubie, loves to go for walks. Whenever I pretend like she actually understands what I'm saying, and ask her if she wants to go for a walk, she runs excitedly to the door. Then she proceeds to whine the whole time I'm tying or putting on my shoes, because she wants to go outside that badly. Today, because it was about fifty degrees out, I decided to take Rubie for a walk around my neighborhood.
A dog who is almost two years old should be mellow by now, but Rubie on the other hand is a completely different story. I live on a hill, and sometimes I feel like a dog sled person, except I got left without a cart to stand on. That cocker spaniel of mine pulls me up the sidewalk, which isn't so bad, if you haven't done Pilates in gym class a few hours ago, and your arms don't already feel overextended like mine did. After we made it up to the top of my street, to the elementary school, avoiding how complicated that could be, Rubie and I decided to take a new route and go down a side street. Before we even got on the street I regretted ever walking down it. This street was full of puddles and at points, was a little bit muddy. It seemed my dog was a magnet when it came to puddles and walking right through them. It's like she didn't even care or realize that she was walking through a filthy puddle and then on to the next one. I feel bad for yanking on the leash to get her away from puddles, but it's ultimately for her own good.
My many attempts at trying to get a crazy red-haired dog out of puddles didn't succeed in the least. We came home and I looked at what Rubie had done to herself, she was a completely new dog - half red, half brown. She's in the kitchen now, drying off. I think a bath is in order for that puppy, maybe she'll like it, it has to do with water after all.
That is all
-"M"
A dog who is almost two years old should be mellow by now, but Rubie on the other hand is a completely different story. I live on a hill, and sometimes I feel like a dog sled person, except I got left without a cart to stand on. That cocker spaniel of mine pulls me up the sidewalk, which isn't so bad, if you haven't done Pilates in gym class a few hours ago, and your arms don't already feel overextended like mine did. After we made it up to the top of my street, to the elementary school, avoiding how complicated that could be, Rubie and I decided to take a new route and go down a side street. Before we even got on the street I regretted ever walking down it. This street was full of puddles and at points, was a little bit muddy. It seemed my dog was a magnet when it came to puddles and walking right through them. It's like she didn't even care or realize that she was walking through a filthy puddle and then on to the next one. I feel bad for yanking on the leash to get her away from puddles, but it's ultimately for her own good.
My many attempts at trying to get a crazy red-haired dog out of puddles didn't succeed in the least. We came home and I looked at what Rubie had done to herself, she was a completely new dog - half red, half brown. She's in the kitchen now, drying off. I think a bath is in order for that puppy, maybe she'll like it, it has to do with water after all.
That is all
-"M"
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