Ah, the utter gloom of standardized testing. Today I suffered a "field test" given to us in our two hour-long English class. TAKS. What we've been doing for the past several fucking weeks. Why don't they just collect the practice tests we take?

Even less sensible, they actually told us it was going to be a field test, making the testing atmosphere about as informal as a frat party. I drew stick figures in my test booklet, one of which said something like "I hate standardized tests--a bureaucratic conquest to eradicate my precious individuality and convert me into a number to determine my worth to society", and then I drew his head turning into sand. Sterling wrote a third grader's essay. I wrote about Boy Scouts and hating people, not necessarily in that order, and mentioned the redundancy of testing a standardized test and letting the kids know about it. But hell, it related to the prompt, making that essay one of the best I've ever written. It's a shame it will NEVER COUNT AGAINST US! Not only that, we don't get our scores back. The school just gets money.

It wasn't really a great day, at least as far as school went. Between the TAKS (Texas Asshats and Kitten Stompers) testing and the two hours of rhythmic syllables/solfege bullshit in choir (really, it's bullshit--I leaned over and told Sterling, "I am getting a bullshit headache. The veins and arteries in my brain are clogged with bullshit."), the only comforts of the day were Larkin's prescence in physics, and the insignificant comfort of getting a 73 on the test.

The both of us were weary of this Dante's Academia, but managed to get nearly perfect percent error on our calculations for some silly electronics lab. I found that the knowledge I'd gained in Mr.T's class over the course of half a year was summed up in 30 seconds by Mrs.Durio. Predictably enough, the superintendent never returned my letter about that excuse for a learning experience. We students apparently have no right to complain, only comply--submit not, but submiss--we toil only to become more tractable. Could anyone tell me to whom I could write to complain about the dress code? The administrators will likely answer Santa Claus.

I don't really think I like Carl Sagan. While he's got some good points when arguing against such "pseudosciences" such as the study of UFOs, I dislike his stern skepticism of some other concepts, such as dowsing, psychic attributes of certain rocks and minerals (I mean in the way of witholding memories, amplifying one's libido, confidence, or something of the bodily sort, not in the way of summoning Azazel and the like), and even astrology. While some age-old divinatory rituals seem hard to believe, it only depends on which way you look at it, and of course, on whatever innate prejudices you may have on the subject. Aren't matter and energy interchangable? Everything has its own energy, its own vibrations. My little quartz crystal (before I lost the damn thing) reminded me to buy The Great Gatsby whenever I touched it, even after I'd gotten the book. I fondled a milky quartz during an algebra test--for clarity of mind--and I got an 80 on it, despite my knowing little of the subject matter; I was able to interpret for myself most of the methods for solving certain problems. A cable guy once found the water main in our front yard with his dousing rods. When my dad blinked in disbelief, the Time Warner employee handed him the revolving sticks, and the same results were produced. We found underground petroleum lines and fiber optics using the same method. And, as someone will vouch for, my fortune cookies are usually very accurate. Maybe it just varies with the person's objectivity--in other words, the person's willingness to receive or detect such energies. I dunno.

Anyway, what I mean is that Sagan seems to think that Science has figured out the whole of the universe, and is now just working on little details like neutrinos, photons, and gravitons. Come on. We don't even know if our model of the universe, of its creation is even remotely accurate. The "Big Bang" isn't necessarily what clashed together our atoms in a uniquely complex pattern, but neither is the idea that God swirled us together, and only six thousand years ago, for that matter. Did I mention that Christian Scientists (not Christians who happen to be scientists, mind you, but that sect of Jeebusism called Christian Science that believes prayer is the only way to melt off your tumors and cure AIDS) scare me to death?