Interlude: 4th Quarter Writing Goals

As I reflect on my previous writing on this blog for the past several months, I continue to see the trends and patterns that pervades my witting. I have branched off to new ways of expressing my ideas, with some degree of success and satisfaction.

Alas, my bitter struggle with writer's block continues. It is the single greatest factor preventing the expression of my soul through words. But in finding a solution to this, I must be practical. I did not expect myself to change drastically from my last reflection, but I certainly have gone through some change.

I've been able to isolate my creativity enough to chart it like a stock market graph. It peaks at certain moments, and then dips down low for the majority of the time. I am currently residing at one of these dip points.

This analyzation post is an exception to that graph of doom. That's because this is the post where I list my new goals:

- Again, I must renew my sacred oath to battle Writer's Block. Again, the embittered soldier at the Alamo does not know how to give up.

- Expand my horizons. I hope to go beyond just a simple podcast and words to include some video. Spring break is coming up soon, and i'll see if this idea is logistically possible.

- Express myself in a way that is satisfactory and soul soothing.

- Stop thinking a blog post is an academic assignment every three seconds.

- Effectively convey the most understandable meaning in my words in the shortest space possible.

- Make my posts more coherent and structured. I have the nasty habit of jumping point to point within a paragraph without proper transitions.

- More creative pieces. My dialogue story was mandatory. I hope to change that.

- Decide the fate of YOM. As it stands, this blog is a weekly portal of assignments that are graded by my English teacher. When the school year ends, I must decide whether or not to continue this blog, or bury it as an artifact of the past. It would honorably join Shattered Infinity in the legion of fallen heroes, a testament to the revelations of my adolescence.

In the end, words prove futile in describing this small, yet important, aspect of my life. The goals remain unclear, but the my convictions stand strong.

For in my darkest hour,

I will understand my hope and its cost,

For it was the first thing I ever gained,

And the last thing I ever lost.

And so I pick up my weapon,

And dare to brave chaos once more,

Endeavor to accomplish what no other had done,

To become the hero of legends and lore.

Forever striving to quench the thirst of my soul,

Nevermore my life fails to tend,

This is the final story in my life,

This is the most important end.

29) Red Vs. White Vs. Blue

I've always tried to shy away from political discussions, for the fear of reprimand and criticism. However, I feel that recent events have forced my hand. This is no longer an issue that can be avoided.

With the media converging on the Obama administration and their intentions, something darker has been revealed to exist in the heart of the American government and its people. As Democrats and Republicans fight it out, many cannot predict the catastrophes that await this country. The fates of many lie in the hands of the distinguished few.

With the recent approval of Obama's health care plan, it seems only logical that the Democrats have successfully solidified their place as majority power-holders in the Senate. This victory comes as a certificate of achievement that reflects upon the supporters of Obama's plan of change for the United States. It is, after all, "Change we can believe in."

It's only natural that the residing president's political party has a strong say in the government. After all, the president is always the center of activity, and is the main focal point for the masses of America.

The victory comes at a price.

I was more disappointed than shocked when I saw this article spring up. House Democrats were threatened due to their actions concerning the approval of the health care plan. As Democratic House of Representatives majority Leader Steny Hoyer puts it:

“Democracy can’t survive unless we can have a civil society in which debate is open and free and unfettered."

This isn't the first incidence of tempers flaring, but it certainly appears to indicate a breaking point. Racial epithets and shoutings of "Baby Killer" have captured the attention of the media.

Clearly, a government cannot be run effectively if arguments are to transpire at every possible turn. Although debates are encouraged to gain perspective on issues, the concept becomes disgraced when actual threats of violence occur.

The root of all this? The reasons are debatable (Ha Ha), but a plausible explanation is the way people are being represented. Many tapings of town hall meetings show disgruntled, furious, and passionate voters, all who have legitimate opinions and suggestions. But when their ideas can do so little in this democratic America, it is easy to understand their desperate actions of hate and frustration.

More and more, especially for the younger generation, protesting and writing your senators doesn't seem to be enough anymore. As the United States stumbles further down the road to ruin, optimists insist that things will change for the better. Pessimists (like me), say that more radical change is required.

What really worries me is the growing division between the public and their representatives. It might be just me, but I feel that the ideas of the general consensus regarding important issues differs greatly than what our leaders are aspiring to do. The American people are feeling more helpless than ever, especially when they have no job, no home, or no money. If they feel they have no say in the government, it'll be the final straw.

As the representatives instigate change to push along their personal agendas, people will either agree or disagree. For those that disagree, I can only hope they do not resort to desperate measures.

The current health care debate is long from being resolved. More pressing and controversial issues will no doubt appear within the next few months. We will soon see the value of everyday opinions regarding general change that a majority will be satisfied with.

As for me, I hope that I won't ever have to reach for my gun rather than my pen and pad to have my opinions heard. That would be a shame.

Book Review: Ender's Game

Ender's Game is a science fiction novel written by Orson Scott Card. Set in the future, it follows the adolescent protagonist Ender Wiggin as we see his ultimate struggles in training to fight humankind's alien enemy, the "Buggers". Through his training in Battle School by the International Fleet (IF), we see Ender's tactical genius in commanding others.

This is a book flawed with many small problems that detract from its otherwise unique quality. I would not recommend this book as a fun read.

3. What are the weaknesses of this book, in your opinion?

Although Ender's game is a good and respectable novel, it has many faults that make it difficult to enjoy. My major problems come from the book's pacing.

Pacing is a very important aspect of every novel, and defines its ability to communicate to the reader the story in a clear and concise way. Unless the pacing of the book is deliberately set up in a specific way, there should be no confusion to the reader about the flow of the story. Ender's Game fails to give readers a good read by skipping and starting the story at different points.

One such example is the gap between Ender's experience at Battle School and his renewed cooperation with the IF at the hands of his sister. It is explained in the novel that Ender stopped cooperating with the IF after he left his training. Since that time, he had supposedly been on a lake for several months, building a boat. The lack of clear explanation for these two points in time deprives the reader a chance to explore Ender's ultimate psyche in the face of humankind's Armageddon:

Ender sees the world his own way. We had to persuade him to see you. As for Peter and your parents, he was not interested. Life at the Battle School was - intense.

What do you mean, he's gone crazy? (232)

Although it is implied that Ender hates the IF for their ruthless training, it is never stated outright to the reader. We never truly understand Ender's ultimate motivation for continuing to conform to Battle School despite having no will to continue. After training it would be mandatory to explain his feelings in depth concerning the IF to explain his decision to stay on the lake.

This happens again at the conclusion to the book, when Ender's apparent hero status and his decision to go to a colony with his sister are never explained. Although there are one or two lines that explain the motivations, nothing further is said. As Ender's brother, Peter, is the leader of Earth at this point, it is necessary to explain Ender's feelings.

The entire novel is focused solely on Ender and his struggles. Most of the three-hundred page book is devoted to his years of training and his growth into adolescence. And yet, the ending of the book is rushed enough to conclude the rest of his life into a mere sentence:

So they boarded a starship and went from world to world. (323)

Even though Ender is the protagonist, Orson Scott Card makes it appear that all the other characters are much more developed. The motivations and aspirations of all the characters besides Ender is always clear, if not inferred heavily at multiple points. However, we get to know very little about Ender's true thoughts and convictions. Even though this vague description of Ender may be intentional, this makes the novel feel rushed and uninspired.

Because of pacing problems, Ender's Game feels like an early draft of a story with unfinished sections. The sections present in the book seem to be held together with very thin transitions. This damages the essence of an otherwise wonderful novel.

7. If you've read other books in this same genre, how does this one compare?

Being a fan of science fiction novels, I detract from my usual judgment of books by relevance to my interests. By standard, a science fiction novel is to captivate a reader and immerse them into an otherwise foreign and not easily imaginable scientific world. This, in my opinion, is achieved through the setting more than the actual story.

Ender's Game suffers in setting when compared to other science fiction novels. It approaches its own setting halfheartedly, almost adamant on leaving major details to the imagination of the reader. Nothing in the setting of the novel is explained if it is not necessary to the story.

This is clearly opposed to mainstream science fiction, which captivates readers in details, no matter how small or unimportant. It is these details that sparks and captures the attention of the reader. In Ender's Game, there are very little descriptive details to build on for any form of cognition. Multiple readers of Ender's Game might collaborate to find that their visual description of "Buggers" are radically different:

Lots of film showing marines carving their way into bugger ships. Lots of bugger corpses lying around inside. But no film of buggers killing in personal combat, unless it was spliced from the First Invasion (189).

This is opposed to other science fiction novels, such as Halo: Evolutions. A collection of short stories, Evolutions never fails to describe its cannon fodder:

The Jackals stood tall, with weird back-jointed legs, and had Mohawk-like feathers and birdlike faces. The dwarfish Grunts - with their doglike faces behind breathing equipment, squat legs, and weird triangular methane tanks - started shooting at us. (Buckwell 128)

Although a reader may have never seen a Grunt, Jackal, or Bugger before, it is clear that the Halo description is rich in sparking artistic imagery. It is easy to form a mental picture of what is being described.

Another staple of science fiction is the explanation of complex and imaginative sciences. This includes detailed descriptions involving terms and concepts obviously unfamiliar to the average reader. In Ender's game, this is done poorly:

I can't explain philotic physics to you. Half of it nobody understands anyway. What matters is we built the ansible. The official name is Philotic Parallax Instantaneous Communicator, but somebody dredged the name ansible out of an old book somewhere and it caught on. (249)

Other novels, like Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, can demonstrate this concept beautifully:

Just fling an object at a collapsar with sufficient speed, and out it pops in some other part of the galaxy. It didn't take long to figure out the formula that predicted where it would come out: it travels along the same "line" (actually an Einsteinian geodesic) it would have followed if the collapsar hadn't been in the way - until it reaches another collapsar field, whereupon it reappears, repelled with the same speed at which it approached the original collapsar. Travel time between the two collapsars...exactly zero. (8)

This easily distinguishes Ender's Game from other science fiction books in the genre. Whether the deficiencies of Ender's Game are intentional or accidental, it is clearly a unique work on its own right.

Interlude: Lit Circle Letter 3

The third end of Ender's game successfully wraps up the story by explaining and depicting Ender's never ending training. As he progresses into a new environment and training simulator, he continues to struggle unnecessarily as a young child thrust into the world of military doctrine.

At the start, Ender has taken an extended leave at a lake, refusing to cooperate with Colonel Graff to become a commander. It is through the IF's military hand that Valentine is forced to persuade Ender to become a soldier, adding valuable commentary in the process and justifying the IF's actions (p. 241).

Valentine: I'll tell you something. If you try and lose then it isn't your fault. But if you don't try and lose, then it's all your fault. You killed us all.

Ender: I'm a killer no matter what.

Valentine: What else could you be? Human beings didn't evolve brains in order to lie around on lakes. Killing's the first thing we learned. And a good thing we did, or we'd be dead, and the tigers would own the earth.

The tiger hypothetical at the end suggests that humans are much worse than tigers. Ender believes this because he hates hurting people, whether it be mentally or physically. He fears daily of turning into his brother, Peter. It is this fear that becomes realized if he is to agree to become a soldier.

Valentine's cooperation is also forced, revealing just how far the IF is willing to go to have Ender as their savior.

As Ender is frisked away, he must travel along with Graff in a cargo tug. The tug's captain is told to take them to the military intelligence base against his will. This demonstrates the urgency and the utter extreme to which collateral damage of the IF extends. This is most likely a stab at military leadership in the real world, and their disregard for the lives of civilians.

At the new base, Ender meets the infamous Mazer Rackham, who is idolized early on in the book. As a famed military leader, and now an old and withering man, he teaches Ender all he knows about combat against the Buggers. As it turns out, the single battle that Rackham won had been a complete fluke. He had destroyed the buggers' hive mind queen, disabling all of them. When Ender questions this, Rackham unknowingly describes the IF's relationship with Ender (p. 270):

Ender: So they didn't know what they were doing.

Rackham: Don't start apologizing for them, Ender. Just because they didn't know they were killing human beings doesn't mean they weren't killing human beings.

This easily brings up the moral ambiguity of all the characters in the book. Whether Graff wanted to subject Ender to endless training did not matter. But it happened anyway, easily proving that the IF is no better than the buggers, even if they are not self aware.

Here, Rackham is the ultimate epitome of what a soldier should be: a man who is willing to sacrifice everything for his country and serve with unwavering loyalty. He suggests without a doubt that the Buggers are the enemy only because the IF says they are. He carries on because it is that last thing he has left, even going through time dilation because of his orders. His dependence to the military is reminiscent of the real life counterparts (p. 276):

When I gave myself to starship travel, just so I would still be alive when you appeared, my wife and children all died, and my grandchildren were my own age when I came back. I had nothing to say to them. I was cut off from the people I loved, everything I knew, living in this alien catacomb and forced to do nothing of importance but teach student after student, each one so hopeful, each one, ultimately, a failure.

He confirms this later (p. 277):

I am not a happy man, Ender. Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf. Survival first, then happiness if we can manage it. So, Ender, I hope you do not bore me during your training with complaints that you are not having fun. Take what pleasure you can in the intricacies of your work, but your work is first, learning is first, winning is everything because without it there is nothing. When you can give me back my dead wife, Ender, then you can complain to me about what this education costs you.

At the ultimate conclusion of the book, Ender discovers that his simulations were real battles that gave actual orders to real people. The shock puts him into a deep guilt sleep. He has finally become what he dreads: his brother Peter, even surpassing him at his own game with the elimination of an entire species.

At the end, Ender finds an egg of an unhatched bugger queen, and in his guilt, decides to search for a home for the egg.

The final message is that the manipulation of children and the extermination of a species is how the military achieves its goal, regardless of cost.

28) Adolescence Ultimatum

With the start of my new podcast and audio logs, it's hit me that my writer's block may be over. As I and others so crudely describe it: A solider that battles in a hopeless battle against all odds. He has what it takes to win, but that victory will achieve nothing. The only winning move is not to play, but not playing means death.

In the end, curbing my creativity and tapping into it is an untimely chore that will still be scrutinized and graded. I can't avoid the simple fact that my classes force me to become a dictator against my own thoughts.

And then the education system demands that it must be graded. So how do you grade creativity?

But I bring this up because of the origins. Every person has a source that brings them unnecessary hardship and pain. This source can be a person, object, or a metaphysical thing. Most often, you have no control over it.

And so today I realized that there are too many sources in my life. It defies accurate explanation. And like the soldier that I am, combating these sources is another endeavor of hope entirely.

I keep trying to tell myself this is another adolescence phase, but from what I've been able to gather, the phase does not include self loathing, depression, daily crying, and mental breakdowns. Adolescence, as it was, does not exist. Just another fancy term for growing up. So I wonder how many of my classmates experience this.

I would say a lot more, but the evidence is difficult to find, and much more for curiosity rather than practical analyzation. The people I know all experience it, even though they never talk about it. The signs are in the conversation topics, the flared angers, the cold stares.Every time I see that stare of blank indifference I know that I am not the only one.

When I realized that, I stopped feeling sorry for myself. I stopped caring about my life. And most of all, I eliminated the definition of hope from my life.

So where does this all come from? The rigorous testing? The chemical imbalances in our diet? The competition of the American school system?

I genuinely care for all those other people out there that know this unbearable pain. Their cries for salvation and liberation are not in vain. I know they exist, and I am more than willing to listen to what they have to say.

I know so many people that would turn to death to alleviate the pain. I am no stranger to these thoughts.

So I pose that ultimate question. How did the adults of today get over this? Did they ever experience this at all?

I think it's a taboo that no one talks about. Being a high school student isn't easy. Knowing pain daily is.

I know it exists. I know how to find it. I know how to see it. So I wait for when somebody changes it.

Interlude: Lit Circle Letter 2

The second half of Ender's game focuses mainly on the trials and hardships of Battle School. Ender is subjected to pain and hardship, making few friends that he can trust and distinguish as human. This is in stark contrast to the unknown commanders of the Battle School, who subject the children and pre-teens to extreme combat conditioning.

Early on, there are easy allusions to "Lord of the Flies". The students are separated into armies under the mercy of the older commanders. The multiple inplications that they sleep naked and never cease to practice easily portrays them as the savages. This also questions the morality and purpose of the commanders.

As they move on, the battles become more unfair and unbalanced. Ender is given the responsibility of command, and his combat record is unmatched. The strain easily tires him out, and his training is accelerated to the point of mental breakdown. He eventually subjects a subordinate, Bean, to the same treatment he received.

This hints at the unbreakable cycle of the military and their discipline in the face of danger. Even at the end of the section, Ender is forced to comabt his old commander and rival, Rose the Nose. As they fight naked in the shower, we are reminded simply that they are not children. What remains in them that can be called soldiers is an title earned through difficult adversity. Even though Ender walks away alive, he unknowingly kills Nose by disregarding soldier's honor. Rose the Nose fought by honor, but Ender resorted to his brother's tactics of guerrilla warfare and deception.

This is all acoompanied by a subplot of Ender's siblings, Valentine and Peter. At such a young age, the two fight a proxy war as allies. The two are able to successfully gain notoriety by debate on the civilian chat network. It is unknown why Valentine helps her demonic brother, but it is clear Peter's motivation is in the belief of radical change for the world.

All of this continues to reinforce the implied themes of the book. This seems more and more to be a critical analysis of Militarism and humanism. It is difficult to distinguish between the criticism and the true telling of the story. The two are blended so well that there may not be a hidden message at all.

I list the themes I have been able to recognize so far:

Ethics and morals: Both the childern and the adults present in the novel are ruthless and heartless in the name of survival. This is noticeable because it is highly extreme; none of the actions of moral ambiguity are questionable in purpose.

Friends/Enemies: The distinction between friends and enemies are highly unclear. It is easy for Ender to distinguish who are threats to him. It is not easy to distinguish between those who wish to help him.

Fear: Everyone in the novel is driven by some form of fear. As a commander, Ender fears for his own life when Rose the Nose and the others conspire against him. Valentine's motivations are by her fear of Peter. Peter fears his future position in a changing world. Colonel Graff fears the Bugger threat high enough to punish and torture children in their respective hells.

Interlude: The Challenge

I got a majority of them too.

27) Don't Need No Education

Listen as we honor Corey Haim, rage on the perils of Mr. Sutherland's adolescence revelation, G. Stanley Hall, discuss the injustices of the American education system, Bash the SAT, explain job satisfaction via video games, see how America is stubborn via Exit Signs, and look at Greece's economic woes.

26) The Mirror Analogy

I once heard a beautiful analogy about life. If you've heard it, bear with me. I regretfully cannot remember where it's from.

Life is a constant shattered mirror: you pick up the pieces and try to put it together, but you always end up cutting yourself on the edges. And your reflection keeps changing relative to where you are.

Life regrettably, is not a simple mirror. that would be too easy. I've been doing some heavy thinking about my life and the lives of those around me lately, and I don't really like what I see.

For one, I'm quite pessimistic in thinking nobody reads this blog or cares about what I'm saying. This is mostly because I am not everybody, and I sure as hell would not waste my time on an obscure little web page in the middle of nowhere.

I've always had that pessimism seep into all parts of my life. If my English Final on this blog were any indication, it's that I've clearly given up on some things in my life. One such thing would be the optimism I once had.

This is another part of the rough spots in my life. In the long run, like this post, it's disjointed, confusing, and utterly pointless. But that's just me.

Internet ranting is one way I try to alleviate this pain, but all I every see is the endless swirl of evil and darkness that covers everything.

But what scares me the most is that I'm willing to reveal all of this online, because I'm adamant that no one is actually listening. Or caring.

So what of it? Does humankind have some trick up their sleeve to make me feel better? Nope. I have to suck it up, living another day with this depression that's been on my shoulders for five years. Five years of suffering and no one's tried to help me.

Maybe I'm better off not knowing anything else. Day by day I can criticize stuff, put it on this blog, and it won't matter. Strange that human capacity for kindness is rarely shown, and yet contempt and hate are much easier alternatives.

Self discovery has forced me into this little alley on that street. People walk by, living their lives, and nobody who ever looks down that alley wants to go in. Not worth their time and patience.

Or perhaps it's the place I'm growing up in. Surrounded by heaps of pessimism that automatically take form every time a conversation is started, every time something else happens.

And on top of that, it's raining outside. Just an endless torrent of water, flowing around me, chilling me to the bone. The idea of finding happiness in the rain seems impossible to me now.

I think I can finally say for sure what this blog is for. A final eulogy. A epitaph. Something to mark all those accomplishments I've won over in my studies. Proof that I tried to make this world a better place by criticizing it.

When I die, I think I could say I tried pretty hard. But it wasn't good enough.

Interlude: Lit Circle Letter 1

After reading through the first third of Ender's Game, I have many mixed feelings. Based on my observations and the hype others have given me about the book, this is not what I expected. Given that it is a science fiction book written in the 70s, the past illusions of the future seem imaginative at best.

As we get to know Ender early on in the book, it becomes amazingly obvious that children in this semi-totalitarian society have been forced into servitude of the higher governmental command of the International Fleet (IF). Children are selected for their aptitude through careful surveillance via monitors that are not removed until early adolescence.

The major themes in the book relate to an early and now cliched version of a dystopia. Examples include the observation of children through spinal monitors, the classification of children (Ender is referred to by his older brother as a Third), the prohibition of religion, and the focus of a military in society.

The spinal monitors are an obvious sign of future monitoring, where technology advances to the point that invasion of privacy is undetectable and unavoidable. This is in league to the 1984 "Big Brother" scenario where somebody is always watching what you do. This is the main factor of a governmental control scheme, where fear is the primary variable. Fear easily becomes an identifiable and recurring theme early on in the book. This is further reinforced by the dialogue of two officers at the beginning of each chapter. They comment on Ender's progress, but we do not know who they are.

The classification of children also infers that this society is burdened by overpopulation. As Ender is selected for Battle School, it is revealed that children are bred and monitored to determine their eligibility for battle. This automatically makes the military a primary purpose of life for the IF. This is also briefly mentioned by Dink (p.110) as a form of control to prevent civil war among the countries of the alliance. Although their focus is to defeat the "Buggers", an alien threat to humanity, there is no direct evidence to support that the IF are fighting direct battles.

The prohibition of religion is also a testament to the power of the IF. Since religion is banned in this world, Ender's recruiter, Colonel Hyrum Graff, comments on Ender being a "badge of cowardice" (p.23), in an attempt to sway him to enter Battle School. Obviously, religion would cause doubt to the IF's domination over peoples' lives.

Lastly, the military is present to explain the sole purpose of the IF. It is used for control and force deterrence against any possible rebellious attitudes. With children trained to be officers from the early age of six, the military complex and efficiency of the IF is unquestionable. Their idol and hero is Mazer Rackham, who defeated the Buggers in a decisive battle before Ender was born. He is mentioned frequently, symbolizing the "people's hero" role in the IF society. Through this, it becomes obvious that violence is the solution the IF infers is the only plausible instrument for resolution to adversity.

Most of the themes in the book are possibly accidental. As with any analyzation, interpretations are left to the reader. However, it should not be accidental that Ender's Game shares many ties with popular science fiction novels such as The Forever War and Starship Troopers. It is too early on to tell whether the book's purpose is to criticize military dependent governments, praise them, or just to simply tell a science story.

25) A First Step

Sorry about the sound quality, grammatical structure, and my stuttering.

24) Forced Retardation

Ever since coming across John Taylor Gatto, I've become convinced that the American school system is pointless in teaching kids anything. All it does is force kids into acknowledging their unimportance and inferiority in comparison to others. This fits the role of becoming a capitalist consumer quite well.

As I pondered this earlier in a post, I tired to think of some perfect examples of how this system is so terrible. The list continues to grow for me, especially when it comes to testing and homework. And yet no one would dare dispute that schooling is vital and important. But perhaps that is the greatest joke; the system that teaches nothing is the most important tool in learning anything in America. What we learn is that life will never be fair, opportunities are there if you are willing to stress yourself unnecessarily, and that there shall be no hope for those who wish to conform outside the system.

While trying to study for the SAT, I found it as an important example of this education's idiocy. According to The Princeton Review's 2010 edition of the SAT test prep book, it is stated clearly in the introduction: The test writers say that this test measures "reasoning ability," but actually, all the SAT really measures is how well you take the SAT. It does not reveal how smart or how good of a person you are.

Well that's just great. Why the hell am I supposed to take a test that measures NOTHING? Let's all live in the land of rainbows and sunshine with bunnies going down gumdrop lane. Still a better alternative to wasting my time.

Upon further examination, the introduction also states that the people who compose the test, the EST, are not college level professors or teachers. In fact, most, if not all, have nothing to do with any education system. They're just people who make the test. They even make tests for butchers and professional golfers. Well, nothing could possibly go wrong there.

The solution? Let me quote Caitlin:

Most successful students must work very hard in high school to earn the best grades they can. Students who get extra help, study, and try their best are the ones who tend to get good grades. Their work ethic determines how well they will do in the future. Therefore, a better way to predict students’ college performance is by looking at their ­previous achievements and grades. If colleges focus more on the accomplishments of the four years of high school rather than one test, they will more ­accurately determine how well students will perform in college.

What really bothers me is the fact that I am fully aware of all of this. And yet, I still have to take the test in order to advance into college. I don't have to tell you what it feels like to do something that you know is pointless.

So just how stupid does the American School system think I am? Tell you what: I'd rather not take the test and be called an uneducated fool, but at least I'm not a group of morons who have such blind faith into a failing system. A bunch of morons who spend millions of dollars every year. A group of morons who betray what it means to educate.