AAAAGH

Just a moment ago I was doing a bit of research for the story I'm writing and I got sidetracked. I was on a website on which someone was looking for reviews of a public school. You know what I found? And I quote directly:

"Like many in those communities that are concerned about the best school, start looking at the many excellent private schools in the area. Its never to early and you don't want your kids left behind."

I hate you, whoever you are. Or - I suppose, I hate your opinions on this. Firstly: "it's," not "its" at the beginning of the second sentence. And, oh yes, I'm going to public school. Behind, am I?

Do you want your children to be mentally stable or pressured to the point of breaking? Now, maybe I'm exaggerating, but that really bothers me, that people want to push children and teens to their limits. Of course, if the area in which you live does not have good public schools, by all means send them to a private school. If they want to go to a private school, brilliant. But if you're only interested in grades - NO.

And "it's never too early"?! What about preschool? Is that too early?

You wonder why America has low scores on standardized tests. Firstly: do we care about standardized tests? Not particularly. Secondly: ever thought of toning down the pressure? That does wonders for learning. And I speak from experience: in some cases, I got much better scores in Israel just because there was no pressure.

Okay. I'm done now. This just really gets to me.

Closing Time

Today was the last day of school.

It wasn't that much really, we came to school and our teacher spoke and stuff, embarrassing me and the other girl who's leaving in my class by saying how lovely we were. I got a cork board thing with a bunch of notes from my friends, which I thought was really sweet.

Then she handed out report cards - unfortunately for me, in reverse alphabetical order - and while I waited for mine, I went about saying a few goodbyes. One of my friends who are boys permitted me to hug him in that time, which he hasn't let me do when I tried. I took photos of unsuspecting people and ran up and down the stairs.

I got my report card and was quite happy with it, except for my grade in history, which had a mistake in it and lowered my average by a lot, so I went around for about two hours to find my teacher.

Then I finally found her and just about sorted things out.

After my friends had gotten their grades too, we went downstairs to the kiosk and bought a coke and mentos, then went out to the parking lot. I got my camera out and we exploded the coke (except not really, because it was too small) then jumped on the remains. A second friend who is a boy permitted me to hug him before he left.

Then I went home, put my big cork board down, and went to meet my friend at the bus stop, where we caught a bus to Dizengoff Center. I took her to a great bakery and we bought a baguette, took it back to the Center, ate it, and proceeded to buy shakes at re:bar (mine was mango, pineapple, passion fruit sorbet, and yogurt). We went to "Everything for a Dollar," which does not have everything for a dollar, and I bought a minimini notebook. Then we met up with the rest of our buddies, who were buying movie tickets, and I hugged all of them, including a third friend who is a boy. I had to go home because of my ballet open house.

I don't know what to say about it. It's been a kind of amazing day, and I'm feeling happysad, but kind of more sad. I don't know. This song kind of defines it (not in the sense that I'm in love or anything). I've had it on repeat for the last ten minutes.

I need some quotes. Goodbye.

(Doctor Who title reference again!)