IB Scores

In IB, there are a possible 45 points which can be scored; 42 in subjects, and 3 bonus points for the Extended Essay (EE) and Theory of Knowledge (TOK).

Nobody scores that high. Well, except for Sheldon Cooper level brainiacs. It would be akin to scoring a perfect 2400 on the SAT.

42 is what it takes to get a scholarship at McGill. 40 is what it takes to get into Oxford.

I was predicted at 40 in January. I just got my results. My final score is 32.

An 8 point loss. One in each subject: english, french, history, math, biology, and theatre arts. And two in EE/TOK.

To put it quite simply, that is devastating. Heartbreaking. Horrifying.

I know that on this blog, I usually talk about happy things. Romantic books. Funny tv shows. At worse, a bad story or two from my high school days. But, if you would allow, I'd like to talk about something that isn't happy or funny, something that's way worse than some stupid kids being thoughtless or even mean. I'd like to talk about this failure. I need to talk about it. I need to move past it. I'm going crazy here.

There's no way to sugar coat this. This is a big deal. This isn't just one assignment or one test. I can't make up for this later. I can't pretend this doesn't matter. It does. I worked for this for two long years. In fact, if I'm being honest, I worked for this for four years, since the day I set foot in high school. I was invested in this. It mattered to me. It matters to a lot of people. I can't deny that. I wish it weren't true, but it is.

At the end of the day, it doesn't change my life in any real way. I'm still going to go to the same university, in my first choice program, with the best scholarship they offer. But it changes my life in a lot of abstract ways that it will take a long time for me to accept and move past.

First and foremost, it changes what I think of myself. It makes me so angry, so embarrassed, so frustrated, and so disappointed. During all my semesters in high school, I spent most of them earning a 95%+ average. As illustrated by my last post, that was a point of pride for me. It validated me. It made me confident in myself. It allowed me to call myself smart without hesitation. It became a fundamental part of who I thought I was. Now, this doesn't change all of that. But it certainly challenges it. Which is hard to deal with. Very, very, hard to deal with.

It also changes what other people think of me. Each subject mark is sent to each respective teacher. The IB coordinator at my school will see all my marks, including my final score. Now, I only went down one point in each class. My marks are still respectable. I still have a 90%+ average. But my marks aren't stellar. I can still show my face at my old school. I just wish I was able to hold my head a little higher, walk a little straighter.

There's also the matter of telling my friends. As of now, I plan on telling my best friend, and no one else. That'll be hard, since it's the big news right now, but not impossible, since it's summer, and we don't see each other all that often, since everyone is travelling and working. But keeping the secret is only half the battle. I also have to pray that I don't find out anyone else's scores. I really couldn't stand if everyone beat me. I'm not that big a person. I was always top of the class. Though I have undoubtably tumbled far from that spot, I really don't need the evidence to confirm that fact, thank you.

My score also has other ramifications, that it's taking me a while to realize. It casts a shadow on my entire  time in IB, my entire experience in high school. And that really sucks. It's makes me feel more than a little scared for university courses in september.

The place where I lost the most points was my extended essay. My advisor was my absolute favourite teacher. She predicted me at an A, telling me to make a few changes to grammar and formatting, but otherwise telling me it was great. Well, IB didn't think so. They awarded me a C.

I was really proud of that essay. I think it was maybe the best essay I've ever written. And I'm an english student, so that's saying a lot. So, this result makes me doubt myself as a writer and a reader. I wrote the essay about two of my favourite books, Crow Lake by Mary Lawson and the Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. This mark kind of leaves a stain on those books, which is unfortunate.

On top of that, it makes me doubt my favourite teacher. If she had told me to rewrite the whole essay, I would have. I would have done anything to please her, to meet her standards. But she didn't think anything was wrong. She loved it. If she was wrong about this, what else was she wrong about? She's one of the main reasons I think I'll succeed with english in my life. What if she was wrong about that too?

Perhaps the biggest fallout is how this changes my perspective and my beliefs. I thought that if I worked as hard as I could and gave all my effort, I could achieve almost anything. Well, look, I couldn't even achieve this. That's hard to recover from. I always believed that my hard work would pay off. But it didn't. What does that mean for my future?

Thanks for reading, whoever is currently with me. Thanks for letting work through this a little bit with you. I'm just another step closer. It's going to take a while to get over this. I've been experiencing a cycle of emotions, a grieving process, if you will. First, shock. I couldn't believe it was that low. Then anger, at IB, at my teachers, at everyone. Then bitterness. One day, I know I'll find acceptance. But that day is not today. And I don't think it'll be tomorrow either.

Memories, All Alone in the Moonlight

I first learned about high school from books. And a little bit from tv. I read about Mia feeling awkward and nerdy at Albert Einstein High during the Princess Diaries. I watched Rory Gilmore master Chilton on Gilmore Girls. I laughed at Lindsay Lohan get destroyed by the North Shore Plastics in Mean Girls. I thought I knew what it was all about.

I thought it would be about boyfriends and drama and backstabbing and cliques and popularity and extra credit assignments. It wasn't really about any of those things. At least not for me. High school isn't nearly that exciting. It's the same thing everyday. You drag yourself out of bed, force a meager breakfast in your mouth because you don't want to be starving in second period. You sit through two boring classes, talk to your friends during lunch, and then endure two more periods. Then you go home, do homework, eat dinner, do more homework, go to bed, and start it all over again. That's most days in high school. Most days are nothing special. They don't write books or make tv shows about those days. No, they like to tell stories about the few days that are special.

Well, I wasn't a typical high schooler. But I still have some stories. I thought I'd share them with all of you, before I forget them. I graduated yesterday. Everyday and every minute they are moving away from my present, and further into my past. 

I'll start with the bad days, the bad memories. They're always more fun. 

1) I was taking a theatre arts class in grade 11, where we would put on productions for the school. At the end of each production, we would all sit down and give each other reviews on how well we acted and how well we contributed backstage. It was supposedly anonymous, but we all knew each other's handwriting. 

Now, I don't lie. I mean, I tell white lies. But I won't say something nice about someone if I don't mean it. I won't be insincere. And that's really hard sometimes. Like when I had to give my friend a review for our final production. Her acting was fine, but her backstage work had really annoyed me. She had been bossy and controlling, and, in my opinion, a detriment to the production. So, I told her that. In nicer words I hope. 

I thought she would know it was me. We'd been in classes together for three years. But no, she assumed another boy in the class had written it. A boy I hated. It was very tempting to let him take the blame. This boy had certainly done that to me, time and time again. But no, I had to be honest. It wasn't right. So I told her. And boy, was she mad. 

Now, I understand that anyone would take offence at what I wrote, regardless of whether it's true or not. It's hard to hear bad things about yourself. But this wasn't just hurt or mad. This was Angry, with a capital A. So much that she ran down the hall yelling at me. Her speech ended by saying "F*** you" right to my face. 

For a second, I didn't even react. I remember thinking "this is going to hurt later". And it did. It hurt a lot. I don't swear. People know that. They know I don't like it. So, while this would have been no big deal for a lot of people, this comment was a huge deal to me. 

We made up. We're friends now. But I never forgot it. I never really trusted her or truly felt comfortable with her after that. And, I also lost faith in my other friends. I thought they would stand by me. Instead, they sympathized with the other girl. That fact hurt me much deeper, in a way that lasted much longer. 

2) This next story is from the same theatre arts class. And, believe it or not, I actually look back on this class pleasantly. Though it gave a world of trouble. 

It was our first major production, and I signed up to be the stage manager. I thought it would be fun. I would get to organize stuff and be a large part of the production. Cool. But then I found out the director was a boy I kind of didn't like. Not so cool. But I tried to roll with it. Tried to adapt. I tried as hard as I could to be polite and professional and productive. And yet. 

This boy turned on me. He gave me a speech telling me how awful and controlling I was. Then, everyone had a complaint about me. But that alone wouldn't have been so bad. The bad part came when we did the post-production feedback. Everyone had something to say then. Every problem in the production was blamed on me. Every fault in my personality was dissected by each person. It was a roast, plain and simple, a two-hour torching of me. People I had liked, people I respected, people I considered friends, they all said awful things about me. 

Going home that night was awful. I had a history essay to do, but I just couldn't. I was destroyed. Decimated. My emotional state was on par with a country flattened by an earthquake. I had no idea how to go on. I had no idea how I was going to face everyone the next day. Because these people weren't just in my theatre arts class. They were in all my classes. I couldn't escape them. I was terrified of them. 

But I braved it. Looking back, I don't know how I did it. But I moved on. I never forgave any of them, and I never forgot it, but I moved on. I went to Cuba with these same kids last week, no issue. But sometimes, when I'm feeling down, I can still hear their nasty comments reverberating through my mind. 

3) I had just started real, official, grade 11 IB. I had new english teacher, who I didn't really know that well (who, coincidentally, was also my theatre teacher that semester. And no, event though he had a hand in all three of these stories, I don't hate him! I hugged him last night!). We had to do a creative assignment on Hamlet. I made a magazine. I thought it was great. 

Now, you have to understand, that when I am confident in my work, I'm usually right. I have a 95% average, for heaven's sake. And I have always excelled in creative projects in particular. And english has always been my best class. So I thought I would get at least a 90%, if not higher. I got a 81%. Now, I know, that doesn't sound like much difference, especially to anyone who's been out of school for a while. But to me, it was huge. I had gotten a 96% in my last english course. I wanted to beat that this year. I couldn't do that with an 81%, not on an assignment I liked so much. So, for the first time ever, I challenged the grade.

The result was awful. Another teacher marked it and gave me a 68%, telling me my work was awful. Suggesting that I was having a hard time transitioning to grade 11. She didn't know who I was, what I was capable of. She thought a 68% was pretty good. And, as result, she saw me cry. A lot. 

That day was humiliating. But I learned from it. Looking back, my assignment wasn't that good. And I could have recovered from the 81%. I did! I ended the semester with a 90% in that class. And I got a 97% in english this year, so it's all good. But, back then, I thought it was the beginning of the end. I didn't know things would get better. 

Now, I have some good memories for you. High school wasn't all bad! (in fact, all of those bad memories occurred within six months! I had 3 and a half years without anything that bad!)

1) The day my best friend first called me her best friend. We had been close for three years. In my head, I considered her my best friend. But I didn't dare say it allowed. 

Then, in may, we were studying for exams together--well, studying some, talking a lot. And the topic of friends came up. And she called me her best friend. I had waited for that, wanted that for so long. It felt so good. Official. The world as I saw it in my head was finally becoming the world everyone else saw too. 

That's it. Short and sweet. But I'll never forget it. 

I have other good memories. Those aren't all my stories. But they're most of my defining ones. I'm sorry they're so long. I know, most people have probably quit reading by this point. Not a lot of people started reading in the first place. Thanks if you're still with me. Thanks for letting me share these pieces of me with you. 

School: Sad, Scared, and Excited

I am almost done with high school. My classes ended last friday, and my exams are slowly being ticked off. Graduation is no longer a mythical, unattainable goal, but a real, soon-to-be-realized achievement. A large part of me is super excited. I keep researching my university, finding new things to be excited about. Big things, like classes or dorms, or small things like clubs or volunteer opportunities. I love it all. That part of me is excited and impatient, 100% eager, ready to move onward and upward. 

Another part of me is not so excited. Another part of me is scared. And yet another part of me is sad. My high school years have been hard. But, along the way, I've participated in some pretty cool things and met some pretty cool people. I'm sad to say goodbye to them all. I always knew I was going to miss them, but that became so much more obvious tonight, when I went to my middle school reunion. 

Only one person from my high school went to my middle school; I hadn't seen most of the other people since graduation. I went to a really tiny school--there were only 30ish kids in my class/grade. Yet, there were still people I didn't recognize or remember. I remembered my best friends, but other people, people I spent hours and hours with, did countless projects with, spent millions of classes talking to, had been completely erased from my memory. I vaguely remembered most, but they were unrecognizable, so tall and adult-like. I had a lot of those grade 12 conversations--how do you like your school? Where are you going next year? What are you majoring in? But, with the exception of one or two people, it rarely went deeper than that. These people who had shaped my life everyday for two years were distant memories, strangers. The guy I liked so much barely seemed to remember me. One of best friends barely talked to me. 

It made me scared to think of my high school reunion. Now, my class is smaller--under 20 people. And we've known each other for double the time. But still, I imagine that there will be people I will forget, or least, people I won't be able to talk to. These people I have laughed with, ate lunch with, talked to for so long, will be gone, replaced by different, strange people I don't know. It's sad. My dearest friends now are destined to become dear memories. And as much as I've hated certain parts of high school, and as much as I've resented these friends at times, I'm still going to miss them. 

You go through high school, one day after another, caught up in the demands of classes, the drama of life. You get completely sucked into it. It was so weird when I left my last class last week. As I went to my usual places--the library, my locker--I walked a little bit slower. I had run up and down these halls during drama productions, getting costumes ready. I had talked with friends between classes, waited to ask teachers questions. I had loitered these halls when I couldn't find anyone to eat lunch with. They had always been the background, a blur in my memories of life. Now, I was walking them for a final time. I still have to go back for exams and prom and graduation and whatever else, but I won't be caught up in the day to day flurry that is high school. I was quite sad. 

I wonder how I'll feel in five or ten years, when I return for my reunion. 

To Do or Not To Do, That is The Question

Right now all of my energy is going into NOT watching the season premiere of Secret Life of the American Teenager that aired tonight. As any regular readers would know (if I had any regular readers), I decided to cut Secret Life from my tv schedule. But tonight is the first new episode since I made that decision. I can feel myself bending. So, I decided to write a blog post, to stop myself.

Anyways, I am SUPER SUPER SUPER STRESSED right now,

This is the opposite of me right now. Fun.

I am right in the middle of culminatings, and a week before exams. I am working around the clock, and still, it never seems to end. Today alone I wrote two essays, wrote and rehearsed a french presentation, and made the visual aides for another presentation. And tomorrow I have to wake up and do it all again. I'm actually at the point where I'm skipping school to finish homework. New level of pathetic, I know.

I also know that no one cares about my homework, but I'd like to make a list so I can cross things off as I go along. There is nothing I love more then crossing things off a to do list.

CULMINATING/EXAMS TO DO LIST

1) Philosophy culminating essay DONE

2) Philosophy presentation DONE

3) Math Test #1 NOT DOING

4) Math Test #2 Modified--now a math assignment DONE

5) Tons of math questions NOT DOING

6) French presentation DONE

7) French culminating DONE

8) Study for math exam DONE

9) Study for french exam DONE

10) Study for biology exam DONE

There it is. Exactly 10 things. 10 huge things, mind you, but only ten things. I can do it. I can do it. Yes, I can. Only 2 more weeks. Only 2 more weeks.

In between all the madness I've been watching lots of tv and doing lots of online things, as I have some things to say:

-Brothers & Sisters fans read this article. Life is ending as we know it. The show is ending. How will I go on?

-How addictive is Yahoo Answers? I can't stop answering pop culture questions! Gossip Girl? Friends? Sex and the City? Make It or Break It? It never ends!

-Speaking of Make It or Break It, it comes back soon! Yah! Life is good!

Oh no, I've wasted to much time. I have french homework to do. And tv shows NOT to watch. Wish me luck (I need it!)