Well, here it is folks, Jason’s famous “Year in Review” post, 2006-2007 edition. A reminder is that this is regarding my academic year/stuff related to school as a means of closing out the year and reflecting upon what I’ve learned and all that crap. Facebook users, I will tag some people in this, but this is so long that I know that I won’t reach everybody. If you really want a tag, then do it yourself or leave me a comment yelling at me. One last thing,, I never do this for blog postings, but if you are taking the time to read this, then it would really mean a lot for me to leave a comment. A memory, a thought, even a grammatical error that I’ve made (there’ll be 3.0 * 10^8 of them cuz I don’t really care. Its SUMMER.) Anyways, it would be very nice to see what people think about this post. Also, I bolded the subject of each paragraph so u don’t hafta read through all this crap to find sumthin yer interested in.
To start out with, I think that junior year has been the most important year so far of my life. It has had its ups and downs. A lot of downs, but I cant say mostly downs. I think that ive changed significantly from beginning to end, and I think its for the better. I don’t really know where to go from here so I’ll turn my brain off (not a hard thing to do) and let my fingers do the work.
I remember that I did a post in September regarding the first impressions I had about my classes and some hopes I had for the coming year. I’ve read it over, chuckling a few times as I did so and now I know where to go. http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&FriendID=21470136&blogMonth=9&blogDay=2&blogYear=2006 theres the link. I know none of u are interested in it, I just like inserting links in places. Lets see where this goes.
Spanish IV was one of my fav classes this year. I loved doin the art units and learning about the great Spanish artists, but I loved even more learning about the history of spain through art. Everything from Carlos IV to Juan Carlos I was pretty sweet. Ive got a great memory for names, dates, and facts so ive retained almost all of it. The stories were fun to read, tests sucked. The grammar sucked ass. I hate grammar and I hope that it fuckin dies cuz it’s a fucker and maybe I can cram as many grammar mistakes in one sentence as I can. Hey ma, ima gonna get goin to da liberry! Meh w/e. I did pretty crappy on those tests. Mostly Bs, some Cs, a D or two. I don’t remember. Still pulled off an A first semester. We’ll see second….
Walking into that class, I knew like 6 or 7 people and was good friends with none of them. Chris worek and I had English the year before and we were friends then. When tully told us to find partners, we were sittin by each other so it clicked. We were partners the rest of the year and that was pretty sweet. Hes a cool guy and we had sum fun makin fun of crap. one of the first big assignments of the year was to make a movie in groups of 4. we joined with Nathalie and Christina, and the 4 of us stuck with it the whole year, and we became a group for the whole year. “El Masacre Del Día de los Espiritus” “The Halloween Massacre” for you non-spanish people lol. I think I put it up on youtube. Don’t remember if its still there…. Maybe I’ll check it out.
CAT 400 was an ok class. Millers teaching style was pretty good, he loved my semester project and even wrote a code in my yearbook. Still tryin to figure that damn thing out. Ive run it through a bunch of decryption software that I just happen to have and its turning up nothing. Either miller made a mistake in making it or he truly wanted to be his final words to me to read “LACE: ON DOWN TURD MUSEE”. Yeah that’s the best result ive gotten so far lol. Anyways, nothing special about this class. Its math. Not my fav subject in the world, but I consider myself fairly good at it. Not a wizard like sum people but I can handle it well. Probably the best part was screwin around with Raquel every single day. Yes. Every day. We’re cool. He called her “Rachel” or “Rochelle” or sumthin along those lines half the time but it was fun.
English. Haha I predicted this to be one of my fav classes, and well, I gotta say that it some ways it was but in most ways HELL NO. I will probably amend this post once my final grade is cast in stone to say a few words regarding hardy so I’ll leave this _____________ to remind me. The absolutely insane assignments kinda ruined the class for me. For example, makin a movie combining 4 completely diff independent reading books. What the hell? We had sum fun makin it, rite guys haha, but still pretty lame. Not to mention the 40 billion assignments at once.. wuthering heights is the worst fuckin book in the world. Im sorry that u never found a husband or got laid in your life, Emily bronte, but you really need a good hard fucking so u would’ve stopped writing shit like u did. Romanticism? Gothic novels? A belief in intuition over logic? Hah! Perfect book for females. *cowers to avoid the barrage of stones about to be thrown at him by a number of girls* Im glad that im burning my copy of this book. Then it can rot in hell. Good.
Hands down the best part of that class was the social aspect of it. At the end of the year hardy let us pick our own seats so our little group of me, eric, Justin, and dave got the corner where we screwed around the whole time and hardy knew it but didn’t care. i still remember the time Justin was playin his pokemon crystal game during presentations lol. Along with steph, martin, rebecca, and this was a pretty sweet class.
AP political science was, without a doubt, the best class that I have ever taken at DGS and ever will take there. There are too many memories from it to put down here so I’ll just say that I met some great people there, and had a blast with the people I already knew while at the same time learning a lot from Mr. Bruesch, as I knew him in September, and ended up aiding for good ole Johnny B. in the end. Haha I called him that once and he got so pissed off. I hadta promise him never to call him that again. But uh yeah, started out with my awesome woll group consisting of chris and Kevin and we screwed around the whole semester. We kinda merged woll groups with sarah and Jackie in the end and had sum study sessions and crap. moot court was pretty cool. I still remember that we were jurors for the Miranda case and I yelled “respondents, you’re contradicting yourselves!” yeah, im good. We lost our case of the regents of university of California v. bakke. Hey what do u expect, I was arguing for affirmative action probably the most fucked up program every cooked up by democrats. Oh wait, im forgetting welfare. Nvm. But yeah I thought we did a great job but uhh lets call it personal reasons why we lost. Those who were there know what im talking about lmao.
I really liked Johnny b’s relaxed teaching style. It was structured so u knew what you were doing each day, but it was a cool atmosphere that allowed for a lot of socializing and he knew it. See, on woll days, I became one of the few people to actually do the readings (they were ez. Dunno what why everyone said they were hard) and everyone would gather around me in a circle while I A. explained the reading B. gave the main points that I had written down in English the previous period and C. gave my guess for a woll question. (I was dead on all except one time.) so yeah, in short, the very best class ive taken, met some great people, and had a blast. Aiding for Johnny b was pretty sweet. Sarah and I did work about once a week (if that) and the rest was time for hw, screwing around, or wandering the halls. Still have my spiffy aids badge :D
The mock election was really a great experience for me. I was pretty bummed out in the beginning that I lost becoming lieutenant governor birkett by one vote, but bein the campaign manager was pretty cool too. I remember how Johnny b always praised us for being “light years” ahead of the blago campaign and for how productive we were. The day of the mock debates was pretty sweet, missin classes all day just to listen to stacko and liston, then deady and cordova goin at it 10 times. Well, 8 periods, 2 practice runs. Mmm fun. Don’t be a barrnnnn animal and vote topinka. Well if im a barn animal, don’t make a baaaaaaad choice for governor and vote Blagojevich. Hahahahaha. That was so funny to tired ears listening to those damn speeches so many times that I cant even tell ya. I was shocked by how well topinka did in the end. Losin 61%-39% is pretty damn good considerin A. DGS is very liberal B. blago is the incumbent and more people know his name and C. topinkas a dumbass. I said it. Blago and Topinka are both morons. I dunno who I wuldve voted for if I culdve voted. Probably blago cuz he has more experience in the job. Besides, topinkas so liberal that its hard to tell the diff b/w the two. (even tho I did a great job pointing out the differences for the two debates I had with sarah pike and krnoneberg (respectively).
In addition to the mock assignment, Johnny b had us do a “real world” campaign event and I must say that was definitely a very worthwhile experience for me. I met a man named alex leventis who introduced myself, kevin, Jackie, sarah, martin, chris, and all the rest who volunteered with us to many politicians in the area, and got me and Kevin involved in the re-elect brian j. krajewski (or as we call him BJK) for mayor of DG campaign. too bad he fuckin lost to fuckin sandek cuz sandeck is a moron and a sonuvabitch. I actually think the people didn’t support sandeck, I think they just wanted anyone other than BJK. Such a sad world we live in. sucks to be u, residents of downers grove. Ive got mayor weaver in darien and shes doin a great job hehe. Alex said that he was hired by the “elect mccain for president” campaign and would need help with that. We’ll see what happens.
Ad US was my second favorite class of the year probably cuz I learned so much from it and so much from mr crider (or as I call him JC). Doing deglers was no fun at all and u can see that from the pictures that will be up from our degler party this Thursday. Anybody who wants to burn a degler book/degler papers/basically anything is welcome to come to the party. Contact doug henager for the details. We had a good small group that was very active in discussions even if we could never debate. Whats up with that? Don’t they recognize that debate is a great skill to have and it is good to formulate an opinion about things instead of just reading boring old articles written by boring old fuckers who lived about a million years ago and talking about their thesis? Whatever. That’s just me. Good people, good history, kickass teacher = pretty cool class.
We established our own monarchy in that class towards the end. Finally, it was Kings Steve and Doug, Queen Jill, Princess Susan, Baron + 5 Star General Jason, and uhh I forgot what u were chris, duke?, leave it here in a comment. The field trip was pretty lame to COD. I thought it’d be fun but the best part was the bus rides and the lunch…..
Econ would probably be my fourth favorite class at south (after poli sci, ad us, gales bio in that order). See, hoovel didn’t teach it to the ap exam which I was pissed by in the beginning, but I soon realized that he taught most of the stuff on it and the rest was pretty ez to memorize (at least I thought so.) he focused a lot on Africa, social justice, and social responsibility. These were great experiences and I learned a thing or two from them, and he put them in an economic spotlight to try to fit em into an ap economics course that had little to do with Africa. The debates were fun. Especially that last one, rite Kevin? This is probably the class I learned the most in cuz I have had little formal economics education in my life, but I walked out of it being very well versed in microeconomics (at least according to my study book lol)
Past the boring stuff, the social aspect of the class was pretty freakin awesome. Martin, stacko, Kevin, alex (while he was there), and I had our own little corner. Big mistake hoovel lol. We would talk all the time and never get in trouble while those around us would talk and hed get mad at them ;) too bad u guys had to put up with us, steph, sarah, sarah. But u gotta admit that we made the class interesting with our own little song about hoovel that will be immortalized in this blog posting. The tune goes something like this.
hoovel doovel doo where are u
we've got some econ to do now
hoovel doovel doo we need some help from u now
come on hoovel doo i see u
pretending you've got a sliver
you're not foolin' me 'cause i can see
the way u shake and shiver
u know we got a mystery to solve
so hoovel doo get ready for your act
don't hold back 'cause hoovel doo
when u come thru you're gonna have your self
a hoovel snack that's a fact
hoovel doovel doo here are you
you're ready and you're willin'
if we can count on you hoovel doo
i know we'll catch that villain
mmm yeah we need lives. Anyways. Martin, stacko, and I also came up with the “kevie wevie” song in honor of mr chocole who gave Kevin that nickname.
Kevie wevie.
Walkin down the street
Kevie wevie
Thinking hes so leet
Kevie wevie
I don’t remember the rest. But yeah we had a lot of fun in that class. Good times.
Physics was the class that I despised the most. I had no motivation to do any of the stuff cuz I knew I would never take the course again and I didn’t like fudacz’s teaching style and overall it was very boring. I fell asleep many times. That’s all I have to say about it.
Gym first semester was a frickin blast. We had our little group of me, andy, martin, and zyta along with all the other cool people like alex w., Kevin kolas, Kelly, etc etc etc. the teacher was mr medina or as we called him The Medino cuz hes so huge. Andy and I had this joke that he would give martin a “detention” every time he wanted to rape him. We all know how much martin loves that hahaha. Matias was my partner in tennis and he was really good. Martin was really good. I sucked. Andy sucked. So it all balanced out. And of course who can forget martin wearing a swim cap during swimming? We called him condom head the whole time lol. So that’s just a sampling of all the crazy shit that happened in that class.
Gym second semester was a lot of fun too. Not quite as outta control but we still had a good time. We had our little group of me, eric, munar, erin, deven, alex, ged, etc. so that was pretty sweet. The skiing was fun but bishop was insane. The worst part about that class was the nutrition unit we did (if u want to know my feelings regarding that, u can go to a previous blog post. Probably written in February sumtime, I don’t remember.)
And of course theres lunch first semester with our KICKASS table consisting in the end of me, Raquel, kyle, alex soto, zyta, rudy, alex w, and then random people who sat with us at times such as heather, sammi etc. we had too many fun times to list here. Post sum in the comments section. Probably the very best time was when we were playin with forks and kyle standley yelled out “stop forking me heather!!!!” and of course she didn’t know what that meant and hilarity ensued.
All that academic craps outta the way. What else should I talk about? Well I must say that makin 3 movies this year was the most ever. Hamlet: Prince of Darkness, El Masacre del Dia de los Espiritus, and Demons were all pretty sweet to make but I think the most interesting one was the first one. Well none of the others involved graveyards, cops, incendiaries, and swordfights! Altho I did wear a pretty spiffy helmet in Demons. Too bad I couldn’t get hamlet up on youtube. After 15 tries on youtube and 3 on google, I said screw that. Its your loss, editors of youtube AKA jackasses. Hmm yes. Good ole movies.
Homecoming ’06 was pretty sweet. We had a great group and I went with sarah pike which was pretty sweet cuz shes so awesome. And I must say that playin egyption rat screw after HC was rather fun. And a few weeks after that wonderful evening was Halloween in which I was Elwood Blues. It was a pretty spiffy costume and I got to wear my fedora and walk around with a briefcase all day.
And of course, I must pay homage to the Dress up Like Mr. Crider Day that we organized for the very last day before break. We got our picture taken in the morning and it was put in the yearbook w00t cuz we’re awesome. I looked the most like JC so I got to teach the class for like half the period explaining all of the newman answers/buzzwords. Rather kind of you JC, but I already had been doing that and continued to do that til the end of the year haha. On that note, school bowl season was ok. I was the captain of a brand new and inexperienced team that had few survivors from last year and only one person from varsity didn’t graduate, dave olsen. So the number record of our team sucked, but I saw great improvements in our players and we’re going to kickass next year.
Winter and spring breaks were both a lot of fun. Studying for AP exams wasn’t a lot of fun, but the tests themselves were very simple. If I don’t get a 5 on ad us, I’ll be incredibly pissed, after all, if “Mr. History” cant get a 5 then I dunno who can. I know I got at least a 4 on poli sci, probably a 5. econ is hard to tell but if I had to estimate I’d say 4-5. we’ll find out in a few weeks. So my first experience with APs was not so bad. Next year I’ll be taken 6 of them exams so hah! 9 total cuz im freakin awesome like that.
So what do I have to look forward to in the summer?
-harry potter 7/harry potter 5 da movie
-the ability to relax and do absolutely nothing if I so choose
-hangin out/partying hard
-warm weather
-work so I can make mucho dinero
-every other thing remotely related to summer that I intend to do.
-bein able to sit here and type over 5 pages (on word) worth of memoirs from the year and actually expect people to be reading at this point.
IN CONCLUSION, oh gosh, I bet you’re loving those words. What the hell am I saying? No ones still reading at this point. Ah well, I’ll say it anyway. Junior year was the single most important year so far in my life that was filled with ups, downs, in betweens, hardship, joy, and a well pretty much everything in between. This was the year to sweat bullets and toil hard cuz its so crucial. Senior year is going to rock and it’ll be pretty sweet. If I have missed something this year that you want to hear about/want to remember/want to laugh at me for something stupid I said/did then leave it here in the comments. And so as I wrap up this post, I will leave u with these words, up yours DGS! Jason is a senior now and will graduate in less than a year!!!!!