Words of Wisdom: AVOID ONLINE CLASSES

Dear Diary,

I finished grades K-12, but I cannot finish K12!

This past week, most students  in my school were officially granted the 'High School Graduate'  title. Teachers finally realized we are smarter than them and they can no longer educates us and finals were completed swiftly without care since grades no longer impact our future. We do, however, have daily mandatory seminars the seniors must attend for about two hours to compensate for all those nagging parents who say "We payed for a year! Not for 3/4 of one!" Perhaps those nagging parents are just my dad and he is to blame for the extension of school; though, there is no exam and all that is required of us is our presence. Hellllooo subconscious let's go meet daydream over there. The senior class has only had one seminar so far, and it was actually pretty interesting. The school brought in five victims of addiction from a program called Daytop. Daytop deals with teenagers struggling with drug abuse addiction and they were speaking to us about their experiences and childhood that led to addiction. Oddly, at the end of their presentation I noticed a kid from my grade approach one of the speakers and exchange numbers with him...welcome to Daytop. KIDDIN.

So most students can now proceed senior year with smiles extending from one ear to the next, enjoying the stress free moments. Of course lucky Andrew is stuck with one class left: K12 AP Statistics. K12 is a company that provides an education online. One must enroll in a specific course, and there are specific guidelines one must complete to pass the course. When I first chose Statistics as my elective the year prior, I was under the assumption that there will be an actual teacher with an actual structure who is visibly in front of me with a blackboard. I thought this would be another class with my teacher standing by the the desk with all the girls stuffing their noses in their notebooks while the guys are preventing the teacher from teaching--except me mom, I'm an angel. Guess who was mistaken? The first day of school I was notified that because of a dearth of students who opted for statistics as an elective, the school will not be providing a teacher.. "but on the bright side, Andrew, you can take K12!" umm can you fix the lighting; I don't really see any bright side.When I along with the other four suckers were informed what K12 was and how it works we were all like "An online course? No teacher? Hell ya!" 

Our initial sentiments paralleled the difficulty of the course when we first began. We were exchanging answers left and right and with the extra credit K12 provides we were all averaging above a 100. We would taunt students in other classes who were assiduously working their asses off, barely getting that 90, while we were putting in minimal effort and receiving scores above 100.  Well all good things come to an end and, as expected, Andrew's good came to an end after just a few week and transitioned him into a virtual hell. So to revise the quote and put it into perspective 'All good things come to an end...and the end sucks shit'

When my online teacher, Mrs. McDougald, finally noticed that the probability of all four of us to consecutively have the same multiple choice answers is close to 0, we were subjected to an online plagiarism lesson...ya we don't think she actually knows statistics either..Well the plagiarism lesson was basically "NEVER PLAGIARIZE AGAIN" extended over a 45 minute period. In our defense, though, we were never told what assignments can be done together and we had no idea the assignments were suppose to be done independently. We each did the work individually then the following day we would collaborate and discuss our answers. 

My average significantly dropped when the extra credit Mrs. McDougald distributed was stripped from our grades. With the relatively easiness of the course + extra credit + (plagiarism) all our grades were rocket high.  My real school said "Hey, these averages are too high...let's get rid of the extra credit!" So my grade dropped from a 106 to a 92. Not a bad grade. Well my school made that jurisdiction when the course was very easy, so a 92 was an achievable grade purely from academics. Now my grade was only dependent on the rigor of the course, and let me tell you, the rigor did a flippin 180. All four of us saw a new trend in our averages: 106...92...88..84...83...HANG IN THERE BUDDY. 

The way the course works is that they provide a calender that outlines when an assignment is to be handed in and what lesson we should be learning for a respective day. Because I am Jewish and have a holiday every other week, my schedule obviously does not coherently match with the one the course provides, and the four of us have always been suffering behind. When we miss an assignment for a given date, we receive a temporal 0 that is changed once we submit the assignment. So when the four of returned from winter break and logged unto K12 our averages dropped from an 86 to a 32. Go us! Needless to say, I am leading the competition with a record low of 6. Go me! Because K12's schedule is independent from my school's, this course lasts another three weeks. I have yet to attain that aforementioned 'high school graduate' title, and truthfully I am not sure I will. K13 here I come! I'm kidding, but I might NEED some assistance through the way. Someone want to give me that Daytop kid's number?

So I hope by now ya'll can feel my sentiments toward this K12 absurdity. My teacher lives in frkn Tennessee, an average below 50 is possible, and there is absolutely no structure. This class is what is preventing me from smiling from one ear to the next, so if you make a joke and I'm only half smiling, don't be insulted--blame K12! Everything is K12's fault. Boohoo. Sympathy for those suffering from Senioritis please! In conclusion, I recommend you to avoid online classes...especially you, papa, there is a lot of clicking and mouse-work involved. intense. 

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Before you start yelling at me that I forgot to write last week, I have a legitimate excuse: K12! No it's really because I was vacationing in Miami for the holidays, and it was hard to find time to write between the tanning and the sleeping. I am going to try hard to post a blog next week too, but I have my AP exams throughout next week and AP exams take precedence over your enjoyment..sorry

sooo...Israel...I have to make a decision today. Literally today. What the ****************************** am I doing next year? urgh. Ciao!