I know what valence means, thank you for asking

Okay, so I know that a significant portion of my class are sophomores who have never taken chem before, or have only started taking chem. I think it's a huge loss for them, but, alas, our school's system is such that we learn biology first, then chemistry, then physics, which makes little sense because you use physics to explain chemistry, and you use chemistry to explain biology.

Anyway. I acknowledge that. I know most people don't have "metal oxide + water = base" in their heads, and the majority of my class probably does not know that all nitrates are soluble, but hydroxides are only soluble with alkali metals and the heavier alkaloid metals. I don't expect them to know that. I didn't even know that until last year.

Still. To be talking about "Na + Cl = NaCl!" is, well, really mind-blowing. In the bad way. Every single science textbook that I have ever, ever read (except for the physics one) mentions sodium and chloride, and, guess what? Sodium chloride. Every single one. I really don't think it's that hard to realize that, whoa, a metal and a gas comes together to form the stuff you over-sprinkle on your food.

I guess I am overreacting a little, because I spent 45 minutes doing absolutely nothing (well, okay, not nothing, I did draw a few pictures) while everyone else talked about basic chemistry. We are having a test on this thing in a week. Carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen (not in that order, of course). Trace elements. And a good dose of electron shells and elements and compounds and I'll bet organic chemistry.

FON, FON, FON. (It's a chem joke Mr. Turkey shared with us one day.)

In physics, Mrs. Cumulonimbus (back from sending her daughter off to college) said we would be learning basic calculus next week, which means derivatives, integrals, and u-sub. The last one got quite a few groans (well, there were groans for all of them from the people who were just starting to take calc). I always forget if u-sub is the LIPET one, or if it's the other one. They both involve u's.

But the physics calculus, so far, is easy. I've already finished the utexas due next Friday, and it's basic stuff. Nothing harder than integration of polynomials. I'm a little sad that we're not going to see shells, but I can live with that. Maybe.

After that, in English, Cammie and I discussed our Creeper Lists, among other things, like how I am horrible at music (I'm tone-deaf and therefore I can never tell if I'm playing something right or not when I'm playing harmony—which is almost always with the bass—unless someone kindly tells me). I would mention more, but this would involve adding people to labels and I would rather not do that.

So. Instead. I shall end this here and get back to my French and econ homework, and perhaps figure out how to approach the subject of my many, many clubs. I can't believe it's Friday already. (I also can't believe I missed yesterday's Project Runway review. I must be really out of it.)

Ha, homework? What homework?

Mrs. MacDonald had told us that period 6 would have a stat party today, and Micky said, "Oh, we should have had a stat party today. It would have been perfect."

Perfect, because we don't meet on Fridays, and the seniors will be gone on their internships next week. Not so perfect, because half the class was not here due to the AP econ/world tests. Of course, we conveniently skipped over that fact and only lamented on our lack of forethought and preparation. Then, Ali asked if we could go to lunch, and Mrs. MacDonald agreed, so we got an extra fifteen minutes.

Tea had told me earlier that Ms. Sherbert had my Le Petit Prince book, the one that I had lost on the bus during my trip to New England's, so I went to find her. On my way to her office/supply room, I saw Argon and one of his friends outside the chem room (there are technically more than one room for chemistry, but I have had both years of chem in the same room, so I call it the chem room). I asked him about the stat party, and he said, "Yeah, we're having a party in stat." Hint: there is foreshadowing here.

Yuma then walked by, and so we had a gathering in the hallway, talking about our ridiculous day so far (half of the people in almost all of our classes were not there). Then Mr. Turkey, the chem teacher, came along, and so the sophomores went inside.

"We should go in and say hi to Mr. Turkey," Yuma said. Yuma and I were in the same chem class with Mr. Turkey last year. I agreed, so we went in, where Argon was seated in the front row, and Yuma pointed out the seat behind him and said, "I used to sit there."

I pointed to Chrissy's seat, which is next to Argon's, and said, "I used to sit there."

There was also a name joke here made by Argon (although I had noticed it a long time ago, and mentioned it to him before, but he probably used that part of his memory-brain to remember some crucial fact that could save the world but that I can never remember), but the joke is better with our real names.

Several hours (maybe two) later, as I was walking to my health classroom, I saw Argon again, and I asked him how the stat party went.

"Oh, it was supposed to be tomorrow," he said, but he had a piece of cookie with him, so I assume other people forgot as well. "We just got a packet."

"Yeah, so did we. Then we just did whatever we wanted, which was mostly homework. I've been busy doing so much homework in my AP classes now."

"Why, do you have a lot of homework?"

"No, I just don't do them at home anymore."

To be fair, I haven't really been doing anything in my other classes either. In US, we watched a movie (granted, Civil Rights related). In health, we played health/STI/drug related Sporcle quizzes, then digressed to other, non-health specific quizzes, such as naming the first 151 Pokemons. But that wasn't nearly as fun as my physics class, where we merged with an A-level class and listened to the potential physics teacher candidate's lecture and did a lab with lasers, jello, and real, metal knives.

English was the only class I actually did work in, and I linked Huck's decision to save Jim to the white supremacy we were learning in US. One of the reasons why I like taking English 3 (which focuses on American literature) and US history together. I've been able to do these connections between the two classes for almost every unit/book.