I was at work today. We have a newer girl(she's more like a woman, I guess) at work. She is the most dim witted person I have ever met (save my grandfather, but he's practically senile) without having any mental deficiencies (that we know of).
My boss is extremely annoyed with her. He wants to transfer her to another branch. Apparently she's been working there for 20 years, yet she has to ask me all sorts of questions about how to do her job, and I've only been working there for a month and a half.

Sometimes I wonder about intelligence. I have been told by certain people that I am smarter than certain adults. Is that true? Who can tell? IQ tests don't do shit. They measure one type of "smartness". They measure one's aptness, ability to understand and analyze certain select concepts. The don't measure street smarts. They don't measure charisma or manipulative skills. They can't measure anything having to do with people smarts.

At my school, I am in the International Baccalaureate program. It's about the best advanced program you can be in in my school board. There are two, wait, scratch that, a few types of people in the program.

The first are the driven kids. I don't mean to racially profile, but a lot of these kinds of kids are Asian, Indian or of other ethnicities than Caucasian. They aren't really smart. I do better than they do on the standardized tests. BUT, they work their asses off to get 90's. They study constantly, do all their homework even if they have to stay up all night (and it IS only homework), and they make sure that they put everything into all their projects and not procrastinate.
These kids do well in school. On the street, they would die. If they were let out of their little bubble they would suffocate. They are very nice though (but often called nerds). But on an IQ test, they would measure about average, or a little bit above.
The second type of kid are the popular kids who are made to go into the program by there parents. They aren't smart enough to be in the program, and they have no work drive/ethic. They ride on their social skills. They are popular, funny, can carry on an average conversation. They will get through life with their people skills, and little else. They are the ones who can sweet talk the driven kids into making study notes for them.
On an IQ test, they would crash and burn, because IQ tests can't measure people skills.

And then, there is the final group, of which I am a member. The smart slacker/closet intellectual group. We get by with our natural smarts. We never do our homework, we are extreme procrastinators, and we don't care about school enough, because we are bored of it. We love to read, fiction, fantasy, philosophy, anything stimulating, but we cannot focus at all into school work. We do best on the standardized tests, like IQ tests, but when people look at our grades, we look like we are barely mediocre. Our curse is that we have no drive, and that we cannot ever do any work. We think to much for our own good. We are too lazy to succeed in life, though we have the mental ability to do so. We just don't care. ( I'm not trying to make myself look smart here, My social skills lack, and I can't do work to save my life. I am jealous of the other two groups).

My point is that IQ tests cannot measure the entirety of someone's mental talents/abilities, or measure how successful someone will do in life. I will probably end up in some crappy job, even if I get a university degree, while the driven kids will go on to be doctors, and make a shitload of money, and the popular kids will become politicians and lawyers and earn a shitload of money as well. I will probably be still in post-secondary edu long after the other two groups have left, still trying to decide what pointless career I want to have in life . I am doomed.

We are all gifted in our own way, and there is no test or evaluations to completely measure our abilities.

OH MY GOD! MY LAST YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL IS STARTING IN A WEEK!!!!!AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! HUVFIA!!!BUS!!!HFIUOS!!!!HUSIFGW!!!CIDBF!!!!!!!%&#@$%$^&!!!!&%!!!!!!!!!^$#@$#$*&!!!!!!!!!!

...if you didnt realize, that was me freaking out...

Just checking in...

I haven't posted in a while; I've been pretty busy with work, and back to school prep.

I thought I should let everyone know that I have a new computer. I am very happy about it. I collaborated with the parents to buy a brand new beautiful compaq laptop. I went from the slowest, oldest desktop ever, with a 6 gb drive, and a huge monitor, to a 100 gb , 3.3 lb. trubrite screen laptop.

I'm very happy

Personally, I find it very intriguing how there are people my age who have very little enthusiasm for technology. I love technology, always have. Most techno buffs Iknow are gamers, of which I am not. I find games a bit boring after a while. I'll play one game for hours, and not pick it up for months. I;m also not very good at them.

But when I talk about teens who aren't so technology savvy, I don't mean kids who can't afford it.
I can udnerstand not being able to afford technology. I only recently came into some money allowing me to uy some new luxuries, and I realize that I am very priviledged. One thing that I don't understand is girls.
WHY don't girls have the same love for technology that guys do? Why do they insist on spending more money on clothing then computers, or cameras??? Why go on a $300 shopping spree, when you could buy a digital camera with the same amount?

I have a friend, who is a girl, who is very well off. Both her parents are trained to be lawyers, and one is a prof at the university. They have money to burn.
But what does she spend her money on? Those "cute shoes in that boutique downtown".
WHAT!?!?
If I had the kind of money she has, I would be the most electronically pimpedout teenager in the world.
What electronics does she have? a computer. and a nano that she only uses cause it has music on it. She wants to buy a digital camera, because everyone else is buying one. She knows so little, she has to ask me what to buy. She doesnt even have a cell phone. I have one, and my social life is about half of hers. She is constantly borrowing my cell (wasting my minutes) because her parents just havent bought her one.

I just don't understand it.

Over my dead body will my new laptop be taken away from me.

Link exchange

link to link exchange for random blogs.

I went to go see Al Gore's movie, " The Inconvenient Truth". If you haven't seen or heard about it, it's bascally Al Gore talking about Global warming, and it's effects, and how the government doesnt want to do anything about it because it will" ruin the economy". it was interesting enough. I already knew a lot about global wamring, but it was okay. It reminded me of something that bugs me. Activists. Not all of them, don't get me wrong, activiasts can do a lot of good. what I can't stand are fake activists. Activists who are trying to do global good because the think that it will make them look like a good person. That person who like to talk about how AIDS is destroying the world, and how we should help, but then when there is a money collector sent around school to collect money to help orphans with AIDS in Thailand, they contribute no more than a few coins, when I know they have fifty dollars in their backpockets to spare. Or the Sierra Club, who sent out papers to our entire community of 100+ houses telling us to move and save the conservation land the community was wrecking, when they sent tou the letter on one-sided, bleached, non-recycled paper.
There's a girl at my school. We have had five out of eight classes together since grade 9, so, though we are not exactly friends, more like aquantances, we know each other very well. This year, she joined the amnesty international club at our school. Now, I am not particularly a supporter of amnesty;I would rather attack the problem rather than send it letters, but i still support the effort nontheless. I support amnesty's fundraisers, contribute funds, that sort of thing. I don't tell everyone I do these things; when they were collecting money for that orphanage, I waited until everyone was done, and were not paying atention to the envelope, and I quietly slipped in my 20 dollar bill. I figured they could use the money more than I could. Some people saw it , and it was funny. Those two people that saw the money I put in the envelope couldnt believe my generosity. I though 20 dollars was nothing, I wish I could have done more. It shamed me to think my generation was not willing to give away 20 dollars to someone who needs it.

There's this section in the Bible, in the New Testament, where Jesus was with his disciples in the synagogue ( I'm sorry if i didn't spell that right) and the pharisees ( The big guys in the church) were making a big display of ow much money they were giving to the church, even though to them, it was pennies. Jesus points out to the disciples an old lady, dressed in rags, who put 2 coins into the collection. He notes that that is almost all she has to give. He says to keep you're giving in secret.
I think thats a good message, whether you're a christian or not. Humility is something most dont have, and I'm definately not saying I'm humble. But I typically give money and things secretly, because I feel its more fun. It feels better. It's like this little secret I have with myself. It feels good to give.
Anyways this girl likes to show off how much of an activist she is and talk about her involvment in amnesty aaalllllll the time. Its tiring. and see through. She talks about the effects of HIV/AIDS, when she knows very little about it. I have an uncle with HIV. It's hard for my family, and we've resaerched it. I've learned a lot about it. And I've seen its effects first hand. It angers me to see her fake sympathy. She likes to show off her knowledge of tragedies around the world. I was in her Civics class. It was a nightmare. She kept trying to talk about all the bad stuff in the world. She knew nothing about politics, she just acted like she does.
I like activists, tree huggers, and all those earth loving people. All the power to them. But do me one favour. If you decide to go down the activism route, please don't be a hypocrite. Don't ask people to give their spare money to a cause and give none of your own. Don't tell people to keep down their energy emissions when you yourself dont. Don't tell people to hug trees, when you write large and don't double side your paper and then don't recycle.
If you're gonna live that way, all I ask is that you go all the way for your cause. Hypocrisy will get you nowhere.

Love, Actually?

I was talking to a friend today. He's been going out with this girl since like, I don't know, February? He says he loves her. That he wants to be with her forever. I know her better than he does. She's not THAT amazing.
He's so sure of himself. He acts like he knows he loves her. But how can he know? It just seem impossible for a 16 year-old kid to be truly in love. Like, the real deal. I wonder if that could happen to me. Meet some girl that I find amazing, fall for her head over heels, and thinks she's the one. It just seems a bit naive.
Whenever people think someone is too young for love, someone brings up Romeo and Juliet. How they had this incredibly passionate love for one another, and were so passionate, they killed themselves over it. HELLO, PEOPLE!!! THEY WERE FICTIONAL CHARACTERS!!!
And that's only the half of it. How come two young teens fall madly in love so quickly? If you actualy pay attention to the play, it actually only take place over three or four days, no longer than a week. What we, society, have put on a pedastal as the most famous, passionate, great love of all time is actually no more than puppy love gone wrong. Shakespeare should have named it "Fatal Attraction".
When I look at Romeo and Juliet, I see middle school in the middle ages. Boy meets girl, boy thinks girl is hot, girl likes boy because he is cute, boy wants to get into girls pants ( or corset), girl is looking for the attantion she never got from daddy, boy gets some, kids treat themselves WAY too seriously, kids forget to take their prozac, drama, suicide.
Do teenagers take themselves too seriously? or are they the ones that are right about the whole love thing. If only we could mix adult maturity with the passion of an adolescent.
Do I want to find love? Definately, more than most guys my age. Do I want to find it ASAP? I think I'll just go with the flow for now.

The First

Well, I'm new to this whole thing. Blogging, I mean. What will I end up saying? no one knows. I hope it's something interesting, perhaps with a touch of meaning.
I guess i'll introduce myself. My name is Alaric. I'm 17 years old. I enjoy reading, talking, coffee, a little bit of art, and long walks on the beach. I was kidding about that last one.
I go to high school, I work part time as a "sandwich artist" at a local sandwich joint. Pretty lame, but the pay isnt bad. I'm an only child, I have a mother and a father, and I live with both in a home in the suburbs. I'm not one of the cool kids, nor will i ever be, but I'm content with myself and my circle of friends.
I'm single, I don't have a girlfriend, at least not right now. Am i looking for one? I guess I'm browsing. I'm not gonna find my " soulmate" right now, so having a girlfriend just means double the money when i go out for dinner or to a movie with my friends.

Well, now that I've introduced myself, and let you know a bit about me, i think i'll call it a night