Finally getting into geography honors. And surviving, somehow, with
grades that still might count as ridiculous-in-a-good-way. The one big
change I’m getting used to is the need to take actual hardcore
notes.
For eight years, most classes I’ve gone to, both inside or outside
school, have been straight from a book or handout, which would be so
easily read and comprehended (…to me) that any notes would be a waste of
energy. A couple science teachers would make us take notes and count
them as a grade. All you had to do to get an A was write down most of
the important bits, even if the chapter sections were written in
exaggerated cursive that took up half the page and there were random
teddy bears straddling the margins, as in my notes.
There was a stage in maybe seventh grade where I told myself I would
make neat, doodle-free notes that actually summarized the stuff in
biology (the easy seventh-grade kind (not that we still remember all of
it)), and to get to that goal I would force myself to use only one page
for each section, with a special way to mark the vocabulary words. It
helped studying a little, but the stage didn’t last, and I ended up
doodling again.
Even when the going finally got tough and understanding became a
nontrivial task, I still had irrelevant embellishments and a bunch of
artificial fonts for my “notes”. Even in the days when I was free to go
to the Chiao-Tung University for classes twice a week (and still get
consistently ridiculous grades, judging by the score breakdowns the prof
gave us after every test), my notes looked like this.
Exhibit A: mathematical analysis/advanced calculus notes, circa 2010
Note: My 2012 self wrote this. It is preserved for
historical interest and amusement.
Two months ago for some random reason I noticed that somebody had
found this blog by Googling for the Freedom Writers contest page.
Shortly thereafter, the school went ahead and held it for the second
time, two years after the first contest, and even more people have
started searching for some combination of “ibsh freedom writers”,
resulting in an anomalously large number of hits to a certain just-over-two-years-old
post. (2013/03/28:
relinked since WP migration)
(2018/03/27:
re-re-linked)
Note: My 2011 self wrote this. It is preserved for
historical interest and amusement, and does not reflect my current
beliefs or attitudes. Also, it has linkrotted.
Alrighty, if you’re looking for the IBSH Freedom Writers contest
website, its URL is
http://freedomwriters.ibsh.co.cc/.
(2013/03/28: The link is now
dead. I’m not surprised; it’s just more evidence that free websites of
the “do your own html files” type are really fragile things.) I
just tried to help my sister find it through Google, it’s nowhere to be
found, and instead there are hits in ancient archive posts from this
blog.
Note: This post is backdated. I am writing this post
in 2018 because, as part of the Big
2017 Remigration, I have decided to delete most of the posts because
they were too embarrassing and sparse on information, but figured I
might keep a rundown of the highlights.
![[L'Hopital notes]](/img/notes-lhopital.jpg "L'Hopital notes")