(My teacher is a world-class asshole, but I think I handled this appropriately.)
Mr. Banks,
This is Aja Aeloc writing in regards to the grade received for my Persuasive Speech. As you know, I disagree with you on this matter. If you will continue to read, I think you will find I have my reasons for this and I hope I may convince you that although my speech was probably “asking for it,” (this was taken into consideration during the writing of the outline and preparation) it was delivered in accordance with the goals and requirements and was deserving of a grade representing its caliber.
The rubric you provided to the class listed six requirements, all of which I fulfilled. I met each noted requirement including time window, submission of topical outline and detailed bibliography, minimum sources (plus one), no infiltration of my own opinions on the issue, proper and thorough research, element of genuineness (meaning I did not read my speech word for word from a paper), and finally spoke adamantly.
The criticisms you wrote on my grade sheet were:
o Look at us more.
o You will first have to change the Bill of Rights.
o How does this stop global warming?
o You need more sources.
o You should do a real topic.
Forgive me, but I am confused because previously the first criticism has only resulted in the deduction of one point on other speeches I have given. The second criticism, if you ask anyone, is irrelevant and should not affect the final outcome of my grade. Correct me if I am wrong, but the solution that I proposed to the problems addressed was not required to be realistic and had no restrictions regarding how drastic it was allowed to be.
I was also confused by the third comment, or rater, query, “How does this stop global warming?” This gives me the impression that you did not listen during my speech at all, as this was answered more than once in more than one way to ensure that any attentive audience member would be left with no question as to the specific effects of each individual aspect of the solution proposed. If this were the case, which I hope it was not, you should not have graded my speech at all, which would make this all the more convoluted, and I certainly do not wish to repeat my speech for your clarification.
I am further baffled by the following comment. The claim that not enough sources were provided is a completely false, as the rubric states that only three are needed. I shall give you the benefit of the doubt, the bibliography I provided obviously proved my acquisition of not three, but four legitimate sources.
The final comment sort of shocked me. I’m afraid that at this point the use of the word confusion would be terribly redundant, and I would not like to present myself as being sub-intelligent in any way. But honestly, I do not think I should have to rebut this claim. To me, this assertion is an outstanding demonstration of ignorance and pretention, both of which are detestable qualities to be found in a teacher. For this reason, I have supplemented the attached sheets in hopes of showing you that my solutions (for I think that is what you meant, because asserting that global warming and prison overpopulations are not REAL would be downright stupid) are surprisingly not unheard of. The proper term for the usage of a human corpse as fertilizer is actually promession, and natural burials are actually quite common in Europe. I hope you will at least review these.
Believe it or not, I am quite sorry to have been so frank, I realize that some of the thinks I said were harsh, but I feel greatly outraged that you could feel it proper to grade me based on your bias.
Concerned,
Aja Aeloc
25.4.08
20.4.08
TODAY WILL BE DARK
it's seventy and i shall wear a leotard and read a book with legs covered in baby oil and soon i wont be mistaken for an albino.
17.4.08
EIGHT OF SIX
8 Things I am Passionate About
1. Pencils
2. Mime
3. Numbers
4. Details
5. Hand script
6. Singing
7. Reading
8. Any combination of the previous
8 Things I Want To Do Before I Die
1. Sky dive
2. Act in a film
3. Be asked to dance
4. Have long hair again
5. Give someone their first kiss
6. Mix my own oil paint
7. Tend my own garden
8. Read all Herman Hesse
8 Things I Say Often
1. Dag Nabbit
2. Sorry
3. Shit, son
4. Mamma Jamma
5. Wingapo
6. It’s so good it’ll make you cry for your Momma.
7. like
8. Just pretend this isn’t happening
8 Books I Have Read Lately
1. Siddhartha
2. The Sweet Far Thing
3. Atlas Shrugged
4. Gone With the Wind
5. Girl With a Pearl Earring
6. The Deathly Hallows
7. The Picture of Dorian Grey
8. All Quiet on the Western Front
8 Songs I Could Listen To Over and Over
1. Killing Me Softly- Roberta Flack
2. Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door- Bob Dylan
3. What is Love- ??
4. Blackbird- The Beatles
5. Foolish Games- Jewel
6. Moon River- Audrey Hepburn or Frank Sinatra
7. Clocks- Coldplay
8. Take On Me- A’Ha
8 Things That Attract Me to a Person
(usually this is the order in which they are noticed, not necessarily order of importance, with the exception of the last, which is undoubtedly the best, but, unfortunately, is not always fully redeeming, like in cases of extreme ugliness or obesity.)
1. immediately- clothes
2. then- body in clothes
3. next- facial structure
4. then- skin quality
5. next- eyes
6. then- smile
7. then- voice
8. next- ideas
1. Pencils
2. Mime
3. Numbers
4. Details
5. Hand script
6. Singing
7. Reading
8. Any combination of the previous
8 Things I Want To Do Before I Die
1. Sky dive
2. Act in a film
3. Be asked to dance
4. Have long hair again
5. Give someone their first kiss
6. Mix my own oil paint
7. Tend my own garden
8. Read all Herman Hesse
8 Things I Say Often
1. Dag Nabbit
2. Sorry
3. Shit, son
4. Mamma Jamma
5. Wingapo
6. It’s so good it’ll make you cry for your Momma.
7. like
8. Just pretend this isn’t happening
8 Books I Have Read Lately
1. Siddhartha
2. The Sweet Far Thing
3. Atlas Shrugged
4. Gone With the Wind
5. Girl With a Pearl Earring
6. The Deathly Hallows
7. The Picture of Dorian Grey
8. All Quiet on the Western Front
8 Songs I Could Listen To Over and Over
1. Killing Me Softly- Roberta Flack
2. Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door- Bob Dylan
3. What is Love- ??
4. Blackbird- The Beatles
5. Foolish Games- Jewel
6. Moon River- Audrey Hepburn or Frank Sinatra
7. Clocks- Coldplay
8. Take On Me- A’Ha
8 Things That Attract Me to a Person
(usually this is the order in which they are noticed, not necessarily order of importance, with the exception of the last, which is undoubtedly the best, but, unfortunately, is not always fully redeeming, like in cases of extreme ugliness or obesity.)
1. immediately- clothes
2. then- body in clothes
3. next- facial structure
4. then- skin quality
5. next- eyes
6. then- smile
7. then- voice
8. next- ideas
31.3.08
PROM
with prom coming up, and all that jazz, you can guess what's been on my mind lately. look at these dresses.
Windows Live Hotmail is giving away Zunes. Enter for your chance to win.
26.3.08
HAIR HUNTER
facehunter, thankyou. i've been looking for examples of this hairstyle for along while. as prom is comign up and my hair is short , finding an example of a decent, interesting hairstyle for a stylist has been fruitless, until you!
20.3.08
WHY I AM STUMPED
To this day my sense of distance in relation to the time it takes to travel aforementioned distance is irrevocably damaged.
Explaining this is going to be difficult.
From kindergarten to 8th grade I lived in a house past a cemetery about five miles out of town. An unbiased person could brainlessly calculate the approximate time it would take for a car consistently following speed limits/suggestions (the way out to that house is cuuuurvy) to drive into the city limits of Big Rapids. I, however, was brainwashed.
You see, the dominant mode of transportation from home to school for me was the yellow bus. In a normal situation it takes about ten minutes to drive into town. Unfortunately, I am unable to comprehend this law of basic physics because I grew up thinking it always took an hour or more to travel the ten or so miles to the imposing bricks of Brookside.
Imagine how badly this has influenced me! All the standardized testing math sections are just killer. This type of problem, for example, seemed to be exceptionally apparent throughout the years:
A car driving about 48 miles per an hour traveling due North left and began traveling at 11:42a.m. What time will it be when the car will have driven 136 miles?
Well, of course, I couldn’t tell you the right answer! The only options given were somewhere between two and four hours! In all of my experience, there was no way this could be achieved! It would take at least 21 hours for the bus to travel this distance! Needless to say, my score in the math section of the ACT was… lower than I would have liked.
More aspects affecting the quality of my higher education are altered by the presence of my disability to this very day… let me explain. After riding a nauseating bus nearly everyday for eleven years and subsequently being mentally blighted, the last two years have been spent forcing myself to face the facts and vowing not to let my little hindrance stop me from leading a normal, healthy life.
Unfortunately, becoming a normal person is a long difficult process, and sometimes I mess up. There, I admit it. Every time I arrive to school tardy, now you know why. It’s because I’ve been overcorrecting myself. I realize that in the real world, it shouldn’t take an hour to drive to school. In typical conditions it should only take about ten minutes. However, sometimes mornings play out like this: I wake up, shower, eat, and gather my keys, get ready to start the car, and glimpse the clock, which is signaling to me that I have a good forty-five minutes before I need to physically be in the classroom. So, I take it easy, slip off my shoes, and lie on the couch, counting the minutes for a while, but, as I said, I am human, and sometimes I lose track of the minutes. Still, usually the next time I open my eyes all agitated and worried about being late, I would see that I have fifteen minutes still. This, to a high schooler, is a considerable amount of time that CANNOT be wasted. I must milk every precious free second and nap another five minutes. As you have probably guessed, by the time I deem it is really time to go, I’m either going to drive, let me borrow a phrase from my mother, like a bat out of hell- or I’m not going to risk getting pulled over and just be late.
It is my opinion that I should not be punished for this, after all, it is the school system’s fault for misleading me so.
It is also my firm belief that making children ride buses to school is a heinous injustice to all of society! Not only are nine out of ten bus-riding children mentally irreparably impaired, 100% of them are subjected to the lifelong unpleasantry of remembrance of bus-related experiences. If someone is trying to work and keeps being distracted by someone talking down the hall because their voice is scarily similar to that of person’s creepy old bus driver who used to yell and always stop the bus ten feet or so past the stop, especially in the rain or cold, how are they going to do a good job for their employer? This person is undoubtedly too disheveled to concentrate on their assignment, and will most likely end up writing their monthly report or whatever in incomprehensible gibberish or personal Esperanto. Next thing you know, they’ve been fired, and it’s just another helpless victim draining our economy collecting unemployment dollars.
It’s a vicious circle people! If you don’t have a car to drive your kids to school, I suggest you home school them.
I just hope for everyone’s sake that I’m not going to be one of those poor people. I think I am reasonably adjusted to reality, and besides, I’m going to be a flight attendant, so my perception of ground travel is really unimportant anyway. I only hope I’ll be able to cope if I move to some metro and end up taking cabs to the airport.
Explaining this is going to be difficult.
From kindergarten to 8th grade I lived in a house past a cemetery about five miles out of town. An unbiased person could brainlessly calculate the approximate time it would take for a car consistently following speed limits/suggestions (the way out to that house is cuuuurvy) to drive into the city limits of Big Rapids. I, however, was brainwashed.
You see, the dominant mode of transportation from home to school for me was the yellow bus. In a normal situation it takes about ten minutes to drive into town. Unfortunately, I am unable to comprehend this law of basic physics because I grew up thinking it always took an hour or more to travel the ten or so miles to the imposing bricks of Brookside.
Imagine how badly this has influenced me! All the standardized testing math sections are just killer. This type of problem, for example, seemed to be exceptionally apparent throughout the years:
A car driving about 48 miles per an hour traveling due North left and began traveling at 11:42a.m. What time will it be when the car will have driven 136 miles?
Well, of course, I couldn’t tell you the right answer! The only options given were somewhere between two and four hours! In all of my experience, there was no way this could be achieved! It would take at least 21 hours for the bus to travel this distance! Needless to say, my score in the math section of the ACT was… lower than I would have liked.
More aspects affecting the quality of my higher education are altered by the presence of my disability to this very day… let me explain. After riding a nauseating bus nearly everyday for eleven years and subsequently being mentally blighted, the last two years have been spent forcing myself to face the facts and vowing not to let my little hindrance stop me from leading a normal, healthy life.
Unfortunately, becoming a normal person is a long difficult process, and sometimes I mess up. There, I admit it. Every time I arrive to school tardy, now you know why. It’s because I’ve been overcorrecting myself. I realize that in the real world, it shouldn’t take an hour to drive to school. In typical conditions it should only take about ten minutes. However, sometimes mornings play out like this: I wake up, shower, eat, and gather my keys, get ready to start the car, and glimpse the clock, which is signaling to me that I have a good forty-five minutes before I need to physically be in the classroom. So, I take it easy, slip off my shoes, and lie on the couch, counting the minutes for a while, but, as I said, I am human, and sometimes I lose track of the minutes. Still, usually the next time I open my eyes all agitated and worried about being late, I would see that I have fifteen minutes still. This, to a high schooler, is a considerable amount of time that CANNOT be wasted. I must milk every precious free second and nap another five minutes. As you have probably guessed, by the time I deem it is really time to go, I’m either going to drive, let me borrow a phrase from my mother, like a bat out of hell- or I’m not going to risk getting pulled over and just be late.
It is my opinion that I should not be punished for this, after all, it is the school system’s fault for misleading me so.
It is also my firm belief that making children ride buses to school is a heinous injustice to all of society! Not only are nine out of ten bus-riding children mentally irreparably impaired, 100% of them are subjected to the lifelong unpleasantry of remembrance of bus-related experiences. If someone is trying to work and keeps being distracted by someone talking down the hall because their voice is scarily similar to that of person’s creepy old bus driver who used to yell and always stop the bus ten feet or so past the stop, especially in the rain or cold, how are they going to do a good job for their employer? This person is undoubtedly too disheveled to concentrate on their assignment, and will most likely end up writing their monthly report or whatever in incomprehensible gibberish or personal Esperanto. Next thing you know, they’ve been fired, and it’s just another helpless victim draining our economy collecting unemployment dollars.
It’s a vicious circle people! If you don’t have a car to drive your kids to school, I suggest you home school them.
I just hope for everyone’s sake that I’m not going to be one of those poor people. I think I am reasonably adjusted to reality, and besides, I’m going to be a flight attendant, so my perception of ground travel is really unimportant anyway. I only hope I’ll be able to cope if I move to some metro and end up taking cabs to the airport.
14.3.08
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