I just kinda need to rant this all out, and also I kinda hope it might help y'all if you ever apply for the IB :D this might turn out crazy long though...
Part One: In The Morning
I swear, I've never been as nervous and/or panicky as I was this morning. Not even the day of my confirmation, the day of my summer job interview and the day I left for Brazil put together. I mean, in a way, it's just one test (well, technically two); but on the other hand, that one test will basically determine my future for the next three years and possibly even further. So, yes, I was more than slightly nervous.
Although waking up was nothing compared to the way I felt when I got to school and met up with the other IB applicants in my class, and we all just started babbling on top of each other in this insane display of common panic. Panic that was in no way alleviated when we went to sign up and saw some of the 'outsiders', people applying from outside SYK, my school. They were insane, seriously. About half of them had the "I IZ ASIAN, NOT FUCKING B-SIAN" look, and I swear some of them were even wearing suits. Some of the Asians even had their parents with them. And then of course there were the other Finnish kids, and most of them looked like their GPA was 9.95 (on a scale of four to ten, remember) with only their bad PE grade bringing it down. You know the type. So there we were, me and five guys in my class, staring at them and thinking If that's what we're up against, we might as well go home now. And then we got the schedule thing, and saw that if we got as far as the interviews, we'd be interrogated by various lovely people including the principal (he's a nice enough guy, though) and the Economics teacher who hates our entire class after eighth-grade optional Econ. Yeah. That was the point when one guy's mum called him like, "Do you have everything with you? Your calculator, your ID?" you know, just being a mum. But it was kind of like the straw that broke the camel's back, because we all kind of cracked up at that point. You could see the outsiders looking at us like, If those are SYK-kids, this school's reputation is way over-exaggerated... Yeah, did I mention? SYK is supposedly the best school in Finland. Not that you'd know by looking at, say, my classmates. But anyway. After we finally calmed down, we went to the exam room, which is this big and scary room on the third floor that seats like 150 kids and is, due to limited space, actually my homeroom. And then began the real panic. You know, the concentrated, maths test panic.
Part Two: The Maths Test + The English Test
Yeah, the part I'd been most panicked over. And not without reason. When we finally managed to start it, after an explanation that had to be 20 minutes or longer, I was like O_o. Because that was possibly the most insanely difficult test I've ever taken, and that includes the Bio test I got a 7- on once. It had really crazy questions, like If (x+y-4)*3=10, what is (2x-6y)/8?. Well, not exactly that difficult, but still insanely hard. There were 20 questions in total -- three points for each right answer, minus one for each wrong one and zero for each question skipped -- and it was considered an accomplishment if you answered over half. I got 16, but I don't know if they were all right... I mean, most probably were, but some I really really don't know about. But apparently what they say about adrenaline upping your performance is true, 'cause I got this sudden rush of clarity when I was really panicked about this one question that I really didn't understand at all. But then I realised I was thinking it way too complicatedly, and then it turned out to be really easy.
After about an hour, they collected the maths papers and handed out the English ones right away, no bathroom break or anything. The essay was fairly simple, though: it wasn't technically even an essay, but rather an email to a friend based on a short text about the 'Slow Movement'. (Gems, if you're reading this, I wrote to you -- you kinda popped into my head 'cause I was talking to you right before I went in) I almost ran out of space on that one... they were really strict about not writing more than there was space for, and I barely managed to squish Love, Emmy on the last line. But then I had like 25 minutes to spare, because it honestly doesn't take too long to write two pages of bullshit about calming down and not rushing through life and whatnot. So after staring into space for a minute or two, I grabbed a piece of spare paper and started listing HP characters off the top of my head to pass the time. I got to 262 before the test ended, an accomplishment I'm actually quite proud of.
Part Three: Lunch and Results
So then we had lunch, and everyone was in a kind of weird mood, 'cause we all just kept going through the maths test in our heads, asking the others about the answers and generally enjoying the after-panic that comes with any serious tests. That tided us over actually eating, and then came the time to start really worrying about whether or not we actually passed the maths test we were so eagerly talking about just moments ago.
They'd asked us to come back to the big scary exam room at 12:50, so there we all were, 80 or 90 people crammed into this tiny space behind these glass fire door type things -- I swear the temperature went up five degrees (Celsius; assuming it went from, say, 19 to 24, it would be a change of almost ten degrees Farenheit) when you walked through the doors. Then they kept us waiting for around five minutes more before letting us back into the big scary exam room. The made us all sit down, and then they read the names really slowly, one by one, and it was legit the most horrible fifteen minutes of my life, ever. I swear. But I can't even describe the feeling I got when they called my name. It was like... well, suffice it to say it was awesome. Because there was like 80 or 90 applicants, and only 50 or so passed the maths test, so it was kind of a big deal. At least for me.
Part Four: Interviews
The purpose of the groups we were put into was basically just so we wouldn't get lost and shit, 'cause SYK is a really huge school. We were also interviewed as a group, but it was only your individual answers that count, so it didn't really matter who your group was. Except that we spent the hour (yes, hour) waiting for the interview in the groups. You got to know your group kinda well, at least I did. They were all really nice people. I hope they get in.
So, after that torturous hour, we went in for the English interview, featuring Darby, a teacher who's never taught me but has an overly good picture of me since I passed on a message from her to my English teacher yesterday; and Agniezska, the old Econ teacher who really doesn't like me. It went okay, though, even though the questions were kinda crazy. I mean, some of them were to be expected, like What do you think of the IB way of having classes and not separate groups for each subject? and What do you think of the fact that in IB, class attendance is mandatory, whereas in Finnish high schools no one really cares if you skip occasionally?. Then again, some of them were really weird, like What current event have you been following in the news lately? So I just spouted some bullshit about how I followed the elections because I never really used to care about politics and then it all went downhill and whatnot. That's a talent I never knew I had, by the way: spouting complete bullshit with a perfectly serious expression. It's vair useful.
They ended the interview with a question I used to never be able to answer: Who do you admire? But now I just automatically say JKR. She's, like, my idol. I swear.
After the English interviews was another hour of waiting, as if the first one hadn't been enough to make us almost physically ill, and then we were escorted into the principal's office for round two, interrogation in Finnish feat. the principal and the IB coordinator. Not very important people at all. The questions were all really basic, though -- Why the IB program at SYK? What are your hobbies? What do you consider your personal strengths? (And no, Alex, I didn't tell him that I'm hilarious.) I think I might have earned some brownie points for telling the principal that I wanted to get into the SYK IB because I've been at SYK since the third grade and I feel like I have a kind of bond with the school.
Like I said, spouting bullshit with a perfectly straight face is a useful talent.
And then came the real kicker: What do you think of language education in normal Finnish schools? And I was off. Seriously, I can't even count how many times I've ranted about this particular subject to my friends IRL. So I had a whole bunch to say, and not very much time to say it in, which resulted in me speaking so fast I had trouble understanding myself at times. Apparently the principal got it, though, 'cause he kind of laughed when I was done. It was a good laugh, though, I think... And the IB coordinator was like, "Mr. Language School Principal agrees," 'cause in case I hadn't mentioned that before either, SYK is specialised in languages, which means we learn more of them than other schools.
And that's the entire sordid tale... now I just have to wait until JUNE FUCKING SIXTEENTH until I find out whether I got in or not, because the stupid Finnish Board of Education has decided that no high school is allowed to announce any results before then. Bah.
Part One: In The Morning
I swear, I've never been as nervous and/or panicky as I was this morning. Not even the day of my confirmation, the day of my summer job interview and the day I left for Brazil put together. I mean, in a way, it's just one test (well, technically two); but on the other hand, that one test will basically determine my future for the next three years and possibly even further. So, yes, I was more than slightly nervous.
Although waking up was nothing compared to the way I felt when I got to school and met up with the other IB applicants in my class, and we all just started babbling on top of each other in this insane display of common panic. Panic that was in no way alleviated when we went to sign up and saw some of the 'outsiders', people applying from outside SYK, my school. They were insane, seriously. About half of them had the "I IZ ASIAN, NOT FUCKING B-SIAN" look, and I swear some of them were even wearing suits. Some of the Asians even had their parents with them. And then of course there were the other Finnish kids, and most of them looked like their GPA was 9.95 (on a scale of four to ten, remember) with only their bad PE grade bringing it down. You know the type. So there we were, me and five guys in my class, staring at them and thinking If that's what we're up against, we might as well go home now. And then we got the schedule thing, and saw that if we got as far as the interviews, we'd be interrogated by various lovely people including the principal (he's a nice enough guy, though) and the Economics teacher who hates our entire class after eighth-grade optional Econ. Yeah. That was the point when one guy's mum called him like, "Do you have everything with you? Your calculator, your ID?" you know, just being a mum. But it was kind of like the straw that broke the camel's back, because we all kind of cracked up at that point. You could see the outsiders looking at us like, If those are SYK-kids, this school's reputation is way over-exaggerated... Yeah, did I mention? SYK is supposedly the best school in Finland. Not that you'd know by looking at, say, my classmates. But anyway. After we finally calmed down, we went to the exam room, which is this big and scary room on the third floor that seats like 150 kids and is, due to limited space, actually my homeroom. And then began the real panic. You know, the concentrated, maths test panic.
Part Two: The Maths Test + The English Test
Yeah, the part I'd been most panicked over. And not without reason. When we finally managed to start it, after an explanation that had to be 20 minutes or longer, I was like O_o. Because that was possibly the most insanely difficult test I've ever taken, and that includes the Bio test I got a 7- on once. It had really crazy questions, like If (x+y-4)*3=10, what is (2x-6y)/8?. Well, not exactly that difficult, but still insanely hard. There were 20 questions in total -- three points for each right answer, minus one for each wrong one and zero for each question skipped -- and it was considered an accomplishment if you answered over half. I got 16, but I don't know if they were all right... I mean, most probably were, but some I really really don't know about. But apparently what they say about adrenaline upping your performance is true, 'cause I got this sudden rush of clarity when I was really panicked about this one question that I really didn't understand at all. But then I realised I was thinking it way too complicatedly, and then it turned out to be really easy.
After about an hour, they collected the maths papers and handed out the English ones right away, no bathroom break or anything. The essay was fairly simple, though: it wasn't technically even an essay, but rather an email to a friend based on a short text about the 'Slow Movement'. (Gems, if you're reading this, I wrote to you -- you kinda popped into my head 'cause I was talking to you right before I went in) I almost ran out of space on that one... they were really strict about not writing more than there was space for, and I barely managed to squish Love, Emmy on the last line. But then I had like 25 minutes to spare, because it honestly doesn't take too long to write two pages of bullshit about calming down and not rushing through life and whatnot. So after staring into space for a minute or two, I grabbed a piece of spare paper and started listing HP characters off the top of my head to pass the time. I got to 262 before the test ended, an accomplishment I'm actually quite proud of.
Part Three: Lunch and Results
So then we had lunch, and everyone was in a kind of weird mood, 'cause we all just kept going through the maths test in our heads, asking the others about the answers and generally enjoying the after-panic that comes with any serious tests. That tided us over actually eating, and then came the time to start really worrying about whether or not we actually passed the maths test we were so eagerly talking about just moments ago.
They'd asked us to come back to the big scary exam room at 12:50, so there we all were, 80 or 90 people crammed into this tiny space behind these glass fire door type things -- I swear the temperature went up five degrees (Celsius; assuming it went from, say, 19 to 24, it would be a change of almost ten degrees Farenheit) when you walked through the doors. Then they kept us waiting for around five minutes more before letting us back into the big scary exam room. The made us all sit down, and then they read the names really slowly, one by one, and it was legit the most horrible fifteen minutes of my life, ever. I swear. But I can't even describe the feeling I got when they called my name. It was like... well, suffice it to say it was awesome. Because there was like 80 or 90 applicants, and only 50 or so passed the maths test, so it was kind of a big deal. At least for me.
Part Four: Interviews
The purpose of the groups we were put into was basically just so we wouldn't get lost and shit, 'cause SYK is a really huge school. We were also interviewed as a group, but it was only your individual answers that count, so it didn't really matter who your group was. Except that we spent the hour (yes, hour) waiting for the interview in the groups. You got to know your group kinda well, at least I did. They were all really nice people. I hope they get in.
So, after that torturous hour, we went in for the English interview, featuring Darby, a teacher who's never taught me but has an overly good picture of me since I passed on a message from her to my English teacher yesterday; and Agniezska, the old Econ teacher who really doesn't like me. It went okay, though, even though the questions were kinda crazy. I mean, some of them were to be expected, like What do you think of the IB way of having classes and not separate groups for each subject? and What do you think of the fact that in IB, class attendance is mandatory, whereas in Finnish high schools no one really cares if you skip occasionally?. Then again, some of them were really weird, like What current event have you been following in the news lately? So I just spouted some bullshit about how I followed the elections because I never really used to care about politics and then it all went downhill and whatnot. That's a talent I never knew I had, by the way: spouting complete bullshit with a perfectly serious expression. It's vair useful.
They ended the interview with a question I used to never be able to answer: Who do you admire? But now I just automatically say JKR. She's, like, my idol. I swear.
After the English interviews was another hour of waiting, as if the first one hadn't been enough to make us almost physically ill, and then we were escorted into the principal's office for round two, interrogation in Finnish feat. the principal and the IB coordinator. Not very important people at all. The questions were all really basic, though -- Why the IB program at SYK? What are your hobbies? What do you consider your personal strengths? (And no, Alex, I didn't tell him that I'm hilarious.) I think I might have earned some brownie points for telling the principal that I wanted to get into the SYK IB because I've been at SYK since the third grade and I feel like I have a kind of bond with the school.
Like I said, spouting bullshit with a perfectly straight face is a useful talent.
And then came the real kicker: What do you think of language education in normal Finnish schools? And I was off. Seriously, I can't even count how many times I've ranted about this particular subject to my friends IRL. So I had a whole bunch to say, and not very much time to say it in, which resulted in me speaking so fast I had trouble understanding myself at times. Apparently the principal got it, though, 'cause he kind of laughed when I was done. It was a good laugh, though, I think... And the IB coordinator was like, "Mr. Language School Principal agrees," 'cause in case I hadn't mentioned that before either, SYK is specialised in languages, which means we learn more of them than other schools.
And that's the entire sordid tale... now I just have to wait until JUNE FUCKING SIXTEENTH until I find out whether I got in or not, because the stupid Finnish Board of Education has decided that no high school is allowed to announce any results before then. Bah.
Isobel Panhurst 28 April at 19:52
Hi
How are you?
What you been up to?
Hows life?
Whats the meaning of life?
Do you ship Klaine?
Do you ship Spuffy?
You don't ship Kurtofsky do you?
Is there and English exam next week?
Did you watch Glee on Monday?
Did you know Chris Colfer leaked that Darren Criss has a girlfriend?
Did you know Starship premiers on Saturday
Did you know the new Harry Potter trailer came out Yesterday?
Is that enough questions for you?
wait the HP trailer came out today....i think.....Tumblr confused me
oh enough question
Are you a Tumblr addict?
OMG Do you like Drarry?
are you against people asking questions?
He still hasn't replied :P ROFLLL
he really shouldn't have called me a bitch earlier.....
Hi
How are you?
What you been up to?
Hows life?
Whats the meaning of life?
Do you ship Klaine?
Do you ship Spuffy?
You don't ship Kurtofsky do you?
Is there and English exam next week?
Did you watch Glee on Monday?
Did you know Chris Colfer leaked that Darren Criss has a girlfriend?
Did you know Starship premiers on Saturday
Did you know the new Harry Potter trailer came out Yesterday?
Is that enough questions for you?
wait the HP trailer came out today....i think.....Tumblr confused me
oh enough question
Are you a Tumblr addict?
OMG Do you like Drarry?
are you against people asking questions?
He still hasn't replied :P ROFLLL
he really shouldn't have called me a bitch earlier.....
I wrote this for class :D hope you like it!
In the Arena,
Two rules,
Stay alive
No cannibalism.
In the Arena,
24 tributes,
To the death,
One survivor.
In the Arena,
They called for her,
I volunteered,
To save Prim's life.
In the Arena,
She took my arrows,
Arrows are life,
My arrows.
In the Arena,
He said he'd kill me,
Would Peeta do that
To me?
In the Arena,
A cannon,
More kills,
My kills?
In the Arena,
I find him,
Dying,
Next to me.
In the Arena,
I saved him,
Together,
We'll survive.
I the Arena,
He told me,
I love you,
I lied.
In the Arena,
No one really
Comes out
Alive.
In the Arena,
They came
to tear us
to pieces.
In the Arena,
The berries
Saved us,
In the end.
In the Arena,
We lived,
But what
was the cost?
Reviews, please?
In the Arena,
Two rules,
Stay alive
No cannibalism.
In the Arena,
24 tributes,
To the death,
One survivor.
In the Arena,
They called for her,
I volunteered,
To save Prim's life.
In the Arena,
She took my arrows,
Arrows are life,
My arrows.
In the Arena,
He said he'd kill me,
Would Peeta do that
To me?
In the Arena,
A cannon,
More kills,
My kills?
In the Arena,
I find him,
Dying,
Next to me.
In the Arena,
I saved him,
Together,
We'll survive.
I the Arena,
He told me,
I love you,
I lied.
In the Arena,
No one really
Comes out
Alive.
In the Arena,
They came
to tear us
to pieces.
In the Arena,
The berries
Saved us,
In the end.
In the Arena,
We lived,
But what
was the cost?
Reviews, please?
;]]]]]] I was bored. And please, no Femonk/Travtina comments.
1. Helena by MCR
Because 2 people already covered it and it's full of win.
2. Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne
I always find it funny when guys sing it. xD Especially the "Hell yeah, I'm the motherfucking princess!"
3. 17 by Jet
Coz he is... 17, I mean. :p
4. NYAN CAT song
He knows all the lyrics. ;]]]
5. Waiting by Green Day (or any of the songs off Warning)
Because I am currently addicted to the song.
6. Destroya by MCR
I am a perv ;]
7. Baby by Justin Bieber
Coz he lied to us all about doing it.
8. Addicted by Simple Plan
Becauseeeee... I dunno. lol
9. I Wanna Be Sedated by The Ramones
Because... it rocks.
10. Sing by MCR
Appropriate, isn't it?
11. a redneck country song
lol I dunno any, but it'll be funneh if he does.
12. Time to Dance by Panic!
Because I said so.
1. Helena by MCR
Because 2 people already covered it and it's full of win.
2. Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne
I always find it funny when guys sing it. xD Especially the "Hell yeah, I'm the motherfucking princess!"
3. 17 by Jet
Coz he is... 17, I mean. :p
4. NYAN CAT song
He knows all the lyrics. ;]]]
5. Waiting by Green Day (or any of the songs off Warning)
Because I am currently addicted to the song.
6. Destroya by MCR
I am a perv ;]
7. Baby by Justin Bieber
Coz he lied to us all about doing it.
8. Addicted by Simple Plan
Becauseeeee... I dunno. lol
9. I Wanna Be Sedated by The Ramones
Because... it rocks.
10. Sing by MCR
Appropriate, isn't it?
11. a redneck country song
lol I dunno any, but it'll be funneh if he does.
12. Time to Dance by Panic!
Because I said so.