The Beginning of the End

Today was the first day of finals. My first two periods of the day are Theory of Knowledge and AP Physics - and neither threatened to be interesting nor dull. I was surprised when the Socratic we engaged in during first period turned out to be one of the most rewarding experiences I'd had all year in TOK. It was our very last day in the class - TOK at our school spans the spring semester of Junior year and the fall semester of Senior year. It was a wonderful moment to be on the precipice, looking joyfully ahead to days that did not start with an hour of yammering on about Areas of Knowledge and Ways of Knowing and being assigned essays to questions that had to be unpacked and discussed to within an inch of their life. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy TOK - it truly did teach me to think more broadly than I had before and view my conclusions with considerably more enthusiasm. Still, the blatant disrespect that my classmates gave the class and my own distraction with other more pressing academic work caused us all to place TOK lower on our priority list. 

The kicker of it all was that our Socratic today was one of the best discussions I'd ever had. The whole class seemed to finally care at last, and we had self-conscious fun arguing over the last knowledge questions ever to be assigned to us. When the bell rang for us to leave, I felt proud. I know that on the first day of TOK last year I never would have been able to think at that level. 

I'm still much more looking forward to American Government with Mr. P next year, though. As dull as I find the topic, I know he'll make it interesting.

Our physics class had a two hour lecture instead of a final, since we hadn't covered enough material due to the protests setting everything back a few days. It wasn't a problem for me - I do adore that class and Mr. S seemed to be especially enthusiastic about it today. 

After school I had a good afternoon with M, and we hung out at Peets for a while as she stressed for her ROTC interview and I complained about the difficulty of our math assignment. Honestly, partial fractions? What's going on with that?

We had a bit of a mishap with directions and addresses but managed to get her to her interview in time. I'm rather confident she did well. M may worry about things like this, people always do, but I know that my best friend is more than capable of speaking with grace under pressure.

Karate was nothing out of the ordinary. Mr. R has had an extreme gout attack which has put him out of commission for a week. He still taught tonight, which was quite nice, as I do still enjoy being the student rather than the teacher on Wednesday nights. I need to brush up on kata from previous levels, as well as basic self defense, left punch coming.

I texted C a few times today. He's still not very communicative. I'm going to put it down to a natural tendency and attempt not to worry too much about whether it's because he doesn't like me as much as I like him. That's rather teenage - and I know I'm teenage, but I am making the effort not to let that bog me down.

I sent him a package right after my Viva Voce afterschool. I hope he likes it. For that matter, I hope he gets it. I ended up having to put the postage on in a rather awkward location. Do they still accept it if the sticker isn't on the upper left corner? I suppose I'll find out soon enough. Speaking of my Viva Voce, it went well. W seems to think I wrote a good essay, although we did agree on its weaknesses. I also omitted a discography, which I'm surprised slipped my mind. I suppose there's nothing I can do about it now.

Today's outfit: White Uniqlo sweatshirt, Blue Gap denim jacket, Adidas soccer pants, and black Toms. It was rather comfortable and I felt good all day.

Hopes for tomorrow: Pay attention in math class, be productive in history, and try hard during karate. Be optimistic.