Finished with semester exams.

<p>

Pretty sure I'll end up flipping burgers at the nearest Wendy's.  Either that or I'll be telling fortunes on your street corner.

<p>

A real school would teach me how to deal with that stuff. 

<p>

I effing loved school.  I loved it all the way up to the 4th day of the first semester.  Quickly realized it was all downhill from there.  It's just that this ridiculous school would much rather see me
waving pompoms or performing some mediocre feat of athleticism than see me using my brain.  They'd rather put their money in the buffoons that run around with a ball to win some trophy that they'll
cherish for many many years after they've grown that beer gut and started beating their once-thin-but-after-seven-kids-and-several-would-be-surgeries-what's-the-point-anymore wives.  I mean, just start
with the little things and you'll see how utterly idiotic the people who run this high school are.  The dress code:  doesn't even mean much, and yeah, I'm grateful that we don't have to wear uniforms,
but sometimes, I'd rather do that than have to follow all these ridiculous rules.  These people think that if we wear black nail polish, we're up to no good.  That if we have skulls on our clothing, we're
the devil.  Do you know how hard it is to find clothes that you (in this case, me) like that don't have skulls on them?  (Actually, not to hard for me, I'm not specific... But that's not the point!)
We can't wear tights with dresses... but the skinny girls can definitely wear short skirts and get away with them. 

<p>

This didn't happen to me because I'm not a flag girl, but this one Friday, when all the peppy people were wearing their uniforms, I hear this story in first period.  It was cold that day, you have to
understand, and this girl, Manuela, wanted to wear her pants over her skirt.  (I don't remember what kind of pants they were, all I knew was that they weren't allowed) So she started putting them on and
this RETARDED teacher goes up to her and tells her she can't wear them.  O.O It's freaking cold and they'd rather have her in a skimpy little uniform that basically leaves little to the imagination than
have her warm and modest in pants.  Where are the values of society, I ask?

<p>

The problem with my high school is that we live in a very conservative region and they're so obsessed with tradition and discipline that they ignore all other aspects of school, such as LEARNING!!!  The
NCLB law is only exacerbating this problem by making schools pass all these ridiculously high hoops that only hinder education.  NCLB concentrates on math and reading and promotes rote memorization instead
of trying to instill a love of learning into the individual.  The oldies up in Congress wonder why America's so stupid.  Well, America can only memorize so many facts; after that they don't know what to
do or how to do it (it being something successful in this case) so they just trudge along, doing whatever the everyman is doing.

<p>

I wanna learn, people! I don't want to memorize the rules, I want to learn why they were made, how they were made, I want to make the effing rules, for pete's sake!  Geez, is an education too much to ask
for anymore.

Wherever society exists there will be social distinction.  Where there is social distinction there will be certain people who prefer to stick together.  Often they are referred to as social groups but when they exclude certain people, they are called cliques. 

     Some teachers say that cliques are not as evident here as they are in certain other schools, mainly due to the fact that basically all students came from the same kindergarten and everybody knows everybody else.  Yet in the halls, in the cafeteria, and even in classes, there is a certain feeling of separateness of groups. 

     A lot of teens claim that “everybody can sit with everybody else and they won’t be rejected”.  While it is true that many won’t be rejected, it is still rare that people will “sit with everybody else,” especially when they see them more different than what they are used to.

      Often on entering high school, kids who share the same interests tend to flock together because of the unfamiliarity of the situation.  As years pass, they become accustomed to sitting with that group and usually never step out of their own boundaries.

     One student claimed that “there aren’t any cliques, but in the cafeteria you can definitely see how the people divide.  The ‘preppy’ people sit at the top level and the ‘ghetto’ people sit in the lower level.” This not only shows that social divisions are apparent, but also that cliques, while not outwardly exclusionary, exist, if only at a minimal level.

     Social groups, or ‘cliques’, will exist in any school and there isn’t much to be done about it.  People, especially teenagers, will always prefer to stay with the everyday familiarity of the faces in their own cliques.