revew: books... "Cracked Up To Be" by Courtney Summers

rating: 4 out of 5

rave: deeper than you would have thought & you would have NEVER guessed what secret she's hiding.

synop: Parker was the queen-bee of her private school: cheerleading squad captain, popular, beautiful boyfriend.

but out of nowhere, she dumps her boyfriend, quits the squad, and gave up being not only a popular girl, but a good girl too.

she comes to school drunk, hung-over, and her academic career is basically down the toilet.

her parents have her on suicide watch.
her counselors have her on probation.
her principle is itching to kick her out of school.

but her ex doesn't give up on her.
too bad she won't crack.

then came the new boy. Jake.
thing is, Jake is persistent.
very persistent.

but will Jake finally make Parker spill? or is he in over his head?

rave: i would have NEVER guessed what secret Parker was hiding. i seriously never saw it coming.

at first i thought that this would be another preppy, private school girl book, but it's not.

it's not shallow at all.

i'm suprized that it's actually a very heart-felt, touching book.

i LOVE  Parker's attitude: her personality, how prickly she is, her retorts--she's sassy, saucy, and she's basically a very well-rounded, beautifully created character.

life: 5-12 rant. part one: traffic @ mather.

hey hey!

so, now that i am done w. AP testing, i'm sorta still in celebration mode though we still have 5 weeks left.

after the APUSH test, i wasn't feeling it yet, but i think it's catching up....

so.

last saturday, i saw on my phone calander that i had traffic @ mather @ 12. but i didn't know if that was really true. it has been more then a few weeks since my last traffic. so i called. and called. and called. NO ONE EVER friggin picks up the phone! not only that, but the answering machine never answers!!! nice. so it just keeps ringing, and ringing. i can't even leave a friggin message. so nice. and i knew i had the right number!

the thing is that i also had a dentist appointment afterwards b/c of my PE accident. my ortho rec. me 2 get a second opinion. so we were gonna go down 2 china town to see him. i'll rant about that next.

but my ma DID keep the white card i thought she threw away. if we had it earlier, i would have never had to call.

last saturday, i went to mather 4 traffic.

i stood outside for 20min. thinking we couldn't go in. but we eventually went in.

and they couldn't find my card when we checked in for attendence.

so they guy asked me for my permit. i didn't have it since last time the guy didn't even check for it.

so the guy was like, "really?! who was it? we'll have to write him up."

he never said anything more about that, so... i dunno what's gonna happen 2 him, but i am gonna go back this saturday 4 traffic. nice.

what's even better is that 2day, pagani, a PE teacher that's also sorta slash driver ed coordinator for our school emailed us saying that starting this friday all CPS drivers ed centers will be closed until further notice. nice. perfect.

the place is a mess. it's a rusting trailer from the 80s or something. but i want 2 get it over with! i don't want to have this push into the summer. but that's what seems like will happen.

Open House

So. Today we had open house, and I was one of the tourguides. A lot of my friends were there. What we did was just take a group of interested parents/future-NCPers and show them what we have to offer.

a lot of the parents wandered off during the tour, which disapointed me. a lot of them didn't ask questions, which is exactly what I would have done, except i now realize how much you can get from asking questions. so, it was a bit awkward the entire time... it was just a lot of fact-rattling, but thing is, i really do feel proud of being a northsider.

i would love to do this next year!!

i remember this one azn mother bringing in her 7 year old sons to see the school--talk about wow! it's like getting into standford or ivy league!

but getting into hs in chicago IS like getting into college--applications, grades, reccomendations, tests, entrance exams, registration, rejected credits...

but now that CPS does not enforce the desegregation law as of the next school year (2010-2011), the school will FOR SURE be ruled by asians--30% of it ALREADY IS azn--the same as whites.

i know that this is racist, but i KNOW that a lot of the minority students did not meet academic standards, but they were admitted because of the de-segregation law.

walking around in NS hallways, you know for sure that this is a predominately white/asian hs. you see few and rare african american students.

even on the faculty, you only see a few african american teachers. (but there are also few latino teachers, and a few handfull of asn teachers, so it's not directed towards racism i guess)

the regimine is VERY rigorous here @ NS, but nothing we can't handle.

all classes are honors or AP (except P.E., health, sex ed, & driver's ed)

all-honors sounds SO intimidating, but it isn't. honors is VERY easy.

by junior year, ALL students are expected to take on @ least ONE AP class (**this is only what i feel, not what was expressed by the faculty**)--i say this b/c sophomore year, you can choose wether to take AP or Honors US History, but junior year, you can choose an AP science, AP social science, AP english course--EVERYONE has a chance to get an AP class of their strength.

and by senior year, you HAVE to take all AP classes (**once again, it is what I feel, not as expressed by faculty) since you have SO many oppertunities in every subject to go AP.