So it occurred to me that a short way to say “the way students are organized into different courses and classes according to their abilities” is “a class system”.

Yeah, as in like, social status?

It disturbs me to no end that we, as students, are being essentially segregated into groups of “inferior” and “superior” according to the courses that we are taking–our class.

So, upon looking up the etymology of the word “class”, it come from the Latin “classis”, which essentially means a division, or group, or something akin to that. It was originally used in the context of separating people into different groups so that they could be taxed accordingly. In the 1600′s, it began to be used to describe educational courses. At this time, education was reserved people high on the socio-economic ladder.

I’m sorry for flipping out, I just find it incredibly frightening how intrinsically the English language links socio-economic status and educational courses.

The really awful thing is, I’ve experienced the results of this. I’ve been in tracked, advanced classes since fourth grade. We were told that we were smarter, brighter, better than people that weren’t. The people in these classes were hated by the kids in normal classes, because we stayed in our own self-important, superior bubbles. We had been told we were better, we thought we were better, we avoided interacting with those that we had been told were inferior. When you got put in the advanced program at my elementary school, you would eventually drift away from your non-advanced friends and join the advanced bubble. It was inevitable.

I am good friends with some of the people who were in the non-advanced classes now, and they are still bitter. They hated us, so much. We thought that we were at the top of the world, and nothing could stop us. We were essentially segregated by those that decided that some of us were smarter than the others.

I didn’t have any close friends who weren’t in advanced classes until probably eighth grade. This was partially simply as a result of never interacting with people who weren’t taking these courses, because we all existed in our own advanced bubbles of social circles. Even as the schedules were split into multiple classes per day, instead of only one teacher all year, it remained the same. You knew the people best who were in the same classes as you, so the social circles became divided by “intelligence”.

This continues to be true with the people I interact with today. It is nowhere near as extreme now (I am the one with the most insanely hard schedule out of my closer friends by a class or two), but it is definitely still there (all of them are taking at least one higher-level course, and all of them can have an extremely intelligent argument discussion on the pros and cons of classic literature).

So, in considering that most people probably have friends whom they consider of similar intelligence to themselves, do they do this because they want to have scholarly conversation, or because it is an idea intrinsic in our language?

I think I’ve made the point I wanted to make here (although I can’t remember exactly what it was initially anymore), but this is just sort of my freaked out rambles for today.

Good night, Internet. Hope that someday I will actually re-read this rant and pick out the typos.

A quick summary of 2011:

At the beginning of the year, I got into anime a bit, and then Durarara in like February, which faded around…late May? And then in the end of July/beginning of August I read Homestuck. I’m writing for our school’s literary paper, and taking art classes. I’ve started to seriously draw outside of class, though, with Homestuck. I guess that’s pretty big. I learned about our school’s theater program and got somewhat involved in that, and mostly I was a huge nerd. It was a good year, I guess. Pretty stressful at the end, though.

What I would like for 2012:

Mostly, I would like to be extremely productive. I would like to not procrastinate and read and write and draw a lot, and get good grades, and be overall successful. I would like to be happy and nerdy and paint sets and get into the school I want to get into. I want to learn things and keep them in my brain so that I can be more intelligent, or at least seem more intelligent.

What I expect for 2012:

I will probably be really unhappy all year. I sort of don’t think that I will get into this school (especially considering I haven’t really started the written part of the application yet, and it is due in a week, and I don’t fit the age requirement), which I have been wanting to get into for three or four years. I will definitely improve in my writing and my art, but there is no way that I will reach the point that I would like to. I will probably acquire more knowledge, but not the knowledge I should have for classes and whatnot, and not enough to have an intelligent conversation on the subject. I will still be nerdy, though. If I weren’t nerdy, I would be nothing.

Thus, my semi-realistic, but still probably unattainable goals for this year:

I would like to get to a point where I am actually comfortable and willing to show my art to other people. Right now, I really don’t like anyone other than myself seeing my drawings. I would like to start writing more, just more quantity (quality will come with practice, but right now I am only writing when required to by the magazine that I am writing for, and I would like to change this). I would like to start taking fencing classes. I would like to start procrastinating less, and maybe figure out and use the most-time efficient and effective ways for me to study, as I don’t actually have much homework that is busywork and writing and worksheets and whatnot (most of it is reading).

Briefly, some plans for achievement of these goals:

I was thinking that I would draw and/or write something (even something really small) daily. Eventually, these things may or may not end up on this site. Who knows? As for fencing, I just need to a annoy my mother until she remembers to sign me up. And for schoolwork, well I don’t really know. I’ve been trying to become less procrastinate-y for years (I am actually procrastinating by writing this post, see how great I am?), and have obviously not succeeded. Maybe I can set up an incentive system for myself. Or something. I don’t know.

Sometimes, I can’t figure out if I am extremely cynical/realistic, or extremely optimistic.

I think I need to stop writing this post now.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned, but I really really really love old scientific books, the ones with the etchings and diagrams and the ridiculously long-winded writing and the font that has way too many serifs. I think this is best from the time period around the late 1800′s and early 1900′s and I would like to apologize if my grammar makes no sense because I am literally squeeing from excitement right now this is so brilliant.

So far I have found:

• This one is a bit new to be perfect, but it is a human anatomy book created with the intention of teaching people to draw humans.
• This is a collection of essays on the new types of bison being discovered in America, published in 1914 and complete with etchings of bison skeletons and I would just like to rub my face all over this book because it is history and etchings and scientific findings and beautiful.
• This site is a collection of…well, just look at the title of it: “Historical Anatomies on the Web”. I haven’t really investigated it yet, but it looks really freaking awesome.
• Proceedings of the Scientific Meetings of the Zoological Society of London for the Year 1870. There are a 1000 pages of this. Excuse me while I go die from awesome.
  

And now I shall go spend the last day of 2011 reading hundred-year-old anatomy books. This is quite possibly the best use of my time ever in existence.

Happy New Year, world.

In this order:

The AO3 page for the Hemostuck series.

The AO3 page for Scarlet and Bible Black.

The AO3 page for Topsy Turvy.

My Tumblr dashboard, which is not really linkable.

MSPA, obviously.

Gmail, which is also not linkable.

A website that outlines the meaning and symbolism of each card in a traditional tarot deck.

The online portion of the UWC application, which I can’t link to either.

The page for the 2012 calendar on What Pumpkin, which is refreshed frequently so that I can order it as soon as it comes back in stock.

I suppose I should just ramble for a bit down here, because I haven’t posted in what, months? Have I mentioned Homestuck yet? That is my current obsession. Homestuck is a rather unconventional webcomic. It is by no means good literature, and most of the art is awful. It takes weeks to read and doesn’t make very much sense. However, Homestuck has incredible characterization and, if you can figure it out, the plot is gorgeously complex. Andrew Hussie is incredible at creating a bunch of extremely interesting, complex, and unique characters, throwing them into ridiculous situations, making them interact, making the reader care intensely about them, and then either making them gods  or killing them off. Homestuck is just very good at making you care about these people that don’t exist, these thirteen-year-olds that are off having insane, surreal adventures. Also, for some reason, Homestuck lends itself very well to really quality fanfiction and fanart. I have my three favorite fanfics pinned and linked to above, with Hemostuck being by far my favorite. I could rant about Hemostuck for pages, so I will hold off on that for a bit. As for fanart, there are just so many fanartists that are so incredibly brilliant that I don’t know what to do with myself. I think maybe this is because the best fanartists actually get to participate in Homestuck, by contributing to the calendar or the flashes or album covers. A lot of people on the internet complain a great deal about the Homestuck fandom, because they are sort of insane about shipping and can apparently be extremely rude and inappropriate. However, despite hearing about this second- or third-hand quite frequently, I have never actually encountered fans being like this. Maybe I just follow the right people, I don’t know. My point is, Homestuck is awesome.

The end.

3:30 AM~ I woke up to the sound of my phone alarm, which was frighteningly loud, but I remained in bed.

3:33~ I checked the time. I was planning on staying in bed until 3:45.

3:36~ Checked the time again.

3:40~ And again.

4:03~ I must have fallen asleep a little, because the next time I checked the time, it was way after I was supposed to be up. So I lept out of bed and opened up Pottermore.

4:04~ Clicked on the “Submit your email” button and waited. My friend (who had stayed up all night instead of waking up early) chatted me on Gmail. The button continued to spin.

4:08~ It spun until, instead of showing the registration form thing, the button re-appeared. Well shoot.

4:17~ The process was repeated until I actually got to the registration form. Unfortunately, upon clicking “submit”, there was an error message. I returned to the spinny thing again. (The whole error message thing happened probably fifteen times before I finally succeeded.)

4:21~I got impatient and did this:

I had two windows spinning. Oh, by the way, I’m using Firefox, and the Personas theme is I think called Yozakura Quartet. It is based on the not particularly popular anime and better manga with the same name. Hime’s scarf is epic. Also, I took the picture much later. As you can see.

4:27~ My friend went offline.

4:34~ I closed Gmail and Word and whatever other stuff I had open and was bored.

4:36~ I checked Twitter. Pottermore had tweeted something about the site not working for lots of people, and to be patient. I tweeted something.

4:38~ I was bored, and so I opened up Hulu, closed a Pottermore window, and did this:

Yes, that’s right. I rewatched an old episode of Blue Exorcist. Which is pretty good, by the way. Cliche, but good.

4:49~ SUCCESS! I finally got my email submitted to Pottermore. I then finished the episode, tweeted, and opened up Gmail again and updated my status. I also checked Mugglenet.

5:23~ SLEEP AGAIN. Hurrah!

So yeah. That’s all for today, I suppose. I have to go make cookies now and decorate them as obscure characters and then make people guess who they are supposed to be. FUN

Once again, starting at the top and going clockwise:

体力 (Physical strength. Yeah, he scores low.)

知力 (Intelligence. Good and high-ish.)

度胸※ (I figured out how to get the symbol! I’ll go back and change Kida’s at some point. Oh, but it means: courage. OH YEAH just wait ’till the end of volume six!)

正義感 (Sense of justice. I think this is kind of an interesting choice for Mikado, but, now that I look at it, it’s appropriate.)

正臣への毒舌 (Google says “Masaomi of invective”, but I’m pretty sure it means “Sharpness at Masaomi”, or how readily Mikado will make fun of/torment/talk badly of Kida. Yup. Accurate.)

※非常時には「５」(In an emergency. I don’t know what the 5 is.)

So that’s Mikado! I think I still have stats for Anri and probably like Celty or something (I’m not sure). But those will probably be posted…sometime in the future.

Mikado’s stats were pretty easy to translate.

Again, clockwise from the top!

ケンカ (“Fight”, so I guess this is his argumentative-ness. And how much he fights.)

不屈の精神※ (I don’t know how to make the symbol, so I’m using that thing. Also, I’m assuming it works like a asterisk. Anyways, it means “fortitude”, or, let’s se…”unyielding spirit”. Yeah, that makes sense. EDIT: I found the symbol and changed it from “❖” to the one you see now.)

仲間思い (Congeniality again. Kida is pretty friendly.)

カリスマ性 (Charisma. Ha! Yes.)

ギャグセンス (“Gag sense”. So, his sense of humor. Yeah, it’s pretty bad. I agree.)

※帝のツッコミとンバの際に発揮 (Google says “During exercise and active member of the Emperor Tsukkomi” but somehow I get the feeling it’s a tad off. I think it translates more like…”While Mikado was an active member and fighting” or something. Maybe it has to do with not wanting Mikado to join the Dollars?)

Kida is hard to translate. Mikado will probably be next, I guess.

Let’s see… starting at the top and going clockwise, like last time:

力 (Strength…this speaks for itself, I think.)

要領 (Google translates this as “point”, but a synonym is “essentials”. So think it means basic skills? I’m not sure. It could also mean “overall” as in “overall score”.)

仲間思い (Google says “Fellow feeling”. I think it means his thoughts of others? Or maybe others’ thoughts of him? Again, not sure. Izaya’s was way easier to translate. EDIT: It means more of “friendly feelings” or “friendliness” or “congeniality”. So I guess he means well. That’s accurate.)

器物破損 (Damage to property. I’ll admit it, I cracked up. This is just way too accurate.)

我慢強さ(Endurance. Interesting. One of the synonyms, though, is “personal fortitude”, so I think it’s supposed to mean something about his lack of mental endurance, or his short temper.)

You have no idea how long it takes to do one of these. It’s like two to fifteen minutes for each kanji, and then I have to figure out what they mean. It’s all fun and good procrastination, though!

(You’re welcome, Shizu-chan.)

These, dear nonexistent readers, are Izaya’s five-point stats. One of them is literally off the charts. I want know what that is. Unfortunately, I can’t. Not without looking up the kanji, at least.

Annnd inevitably now I’m going to go look up the kanji.

From the top, going clockwise, each stat is:

情報力 (Information power, according to Google Translate. In context, I’m pretty sure Google didn’t fail on the translation of this one.)

ナイフさばき (Knife justice. This probably has to do with Izaya’s knife-wielding skills.)

思いやり (Compassion. I laughed. JUST WAIT TILL VOLUME NINE OF THE LIGHT NOVELS)

人間愛 (Human love. This one I could actually read/type without looking up, a fact of which I am insanely proud. Also, I think that if “情報力” is off the charts, this one should be on another page.)

友達 (Friends. I went “ahhh” to this. JUST WAIT TILL VOLUME NINE OF THE LIGHT NOVELS)

Have I mentioned, there’s a supremely awesome Izaya-related plot/background thing in volume nine of the Durarara light novels? Well, there is.

There’s also stat things for all the other characters. Maybe I’ll translate them sometime. I wonder if they’ll include Mikado’s change in character in the sixth novel in his stats? My guess is not, but it’d be awesome if they did.

Ptolemy and his descendants succeeded Alexander and completed the city. Cleopatra was the last of these rulers, and, when she fell in 30 B.C., the Romans took over Egypt.

By the first century A.D., Alexandria had grown to be the center of trade and the largest city in the empire, with over a million inhabitants. It attracted people with its trade, location, safe harbors, warehouses, dock-workers, and busy markets.

A lot of goods came in and out of Alexandria, including: wine, statues, wood, marble, wheat, papyrus, glassware, clothes, cotton, skins, muslins, silks, brass, copper, iron, gold, silver, silver plate, tin, axes, adzes, glass, ivory, tortoise shell, rhinoceros horn, olive oil, rice, honey, myrrh, frankincense, cinnamon, and fragrant gums.

One of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the great lighthouse of Pharos, greeted travelers from Greece and Italy that approached Alexandria by sea. It had three tiers and a constantly-lit lantern, the light of which was magnified with bronze mirrors.

The layout of the streets was a grid with one main street, Canopus Street, 30 meters wide. The buildings lining the streets were multi-storied, or made out of marble. Several other notable features include the Great Harbor, containing Pharos, the Royal Quarter, a square mile of palaces, temples, administrative offices, and gardens, and the Caesareum, a shrine created by Cleopatra in honor of Marc Antony and dedicated to Emperor Augustus.

Two obelisks known as Cleopatra’s Needles once stood in an ancient Egyptian temple before being moved in front of the Caesareum in 13 B.C., and then to London and New York City in the nineteenth century.

Alexandria was also a center of education and study, containing a university (the Museum), and the largest library in the ancient world with over half a million volumes (the Great Library). Within the Museum were lecture halls, laboratories, observatories, a park, and a zoo. Many subjects were studied (math, astronomy, anatomy, geography, literature, languages) and many discoveries and advancements were made here (improved mapping techniques, Euclid wrote his geometry textbook, Aristarchus proposed the heliocentric theory).

Despite that many other races lived in the city (Egyptians, Jews, Romans, Africans, Indians), the Greeks dominated architecturally, governmentally, linguistically, and wealthily. This led to jealousy, which led to violence, which led to governors and emperors having to step in to attempt to stop riots.