Followup Post: The World Is Indeed Conspiring Against Me

2150

That is exactly :

• 120 points better on the Math section
• 70 points better on the Writing Section (3 better on the essay!)

and now watch out...

• 0 points better on the Critical Reading section.

Flashcards, you have failed me.

Seriously, right now, I am having a not-so-mini life crisis. I am refreshing College Confidential every two minutes, to get some hope from a random stranger. I have been depressed and unable to do a single thing for two and half days. I EVEN FRICKING MISSED SCHOOL. And I have Subject Tests on the 7th. 

You think I'm exaggerating? You think this is my typical self-deprecating, sarcastic style?

You are mistaken.

Seriously, what the ****  should I even do? All people tell me is: you are not good enough, look at less selective schools.

And this is unfair. And when most people say "It's unfair", they mean "It's not what I want". Yet this is unfair. I am not from the US. I'm from some godforsaken central European country, with no SAT preparation available. I have bought all the books. I have done 25 practice tests. I have...but little does it matter. They evaluate every single person equally, regardless of their circumstances, when it comes to the SATs. I can be the best student in my class, I can have the best stats possible, a 2150 is still a 2150. And I wouldn't mind it if it didn't matter so much, but contrary to what they say...it does.

Sigh.

I'll now go and wallow in self-pity and hatred for the world. I shouldn't even mention how each of my sections were above the 93rd percentile.

NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

Sigh.

I am not even being self-deprecating and sarcastic. Nope. Not at all. Not at all. OK, maybe a tiny bit. But I have to be or else I wouldn't be me.

#Blegh@Lyfe

What a lovely title up there, isn't it? It gives you such an acute insight about what this post will be about, doesn't it? You've guessed it, haven't you?

No? Well, what's the date today? Oh hey, 3rd of May. Why is this day important? Well, because in 1937, Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer prize. In 1802, Washington D.C. was incorporated as a city. In 1996 - but I guess you can find all of this yourself on Wikipedia. What I want to write about is the SAT.

That's right. The SAT, which doesn't stand for anything, which makes the lives of high school seniors miserable and which holds the ultimate key to university admission. Or at least they say so.

After more than twenty practice tests, more than 1000 words and two unsuccessful attempts, I took the SAT today for the third time. And, I mean, I was disappointed. I had a 2400 practice test yesterday (that's the maximum points) and today...I thought I did OK, but it was certainly not my best work. This week I made the bold assertion that if I score below 2300, this world is conspiring against me, but now that I'm done, and assessing everything, and looking at certain threads on College Confidential that should not exist, I'm genuinely worried that I'm not good enough.

The SAT has been deemed among others unfair, elitist, and outdated, and I don't know if any of these allegations are fair, but I certainly feel that it doesn't succeed in measuring what it ought to. You see, you can prepare for it. You can. I've prepared my butt off during these two years, and yet I still didn't get the desired score. I got close to it, but it's so dependent on the actual test you take. So while some people might turn up once, look at the paper, scratch their heads and question what the hell they're doing there, and still score a 2130, others might store 31 sweat-drenched, hair dryer-parched practice tests by their bedside, and then score a 2130. And inherently, it's the same result. It ought to be relative. But it's not.

And it's not that those people scoring low are stupid, it's just that they may excel in different areas. Or be used to different types of testing. After three years of essay-based exams full of evaluation and analysis and other complex beauties, having a multiple-choice test put in front of me left me somewhat astounded.

Oh well. Make of it what you will. There is simply a melancholy resignation in acknowledging that you've done your best, and your best is still not good enough.

And I really really wanted to go to USC.

I don't think I want to know how much I spent on these books. Neither does my mom.

(Pointless Post on my) Cinderella Fantasies

Remember how much I was looking forward to attending university next year? Well, that isn't going happen. Sob. Things didn't work out the way I planned, and it looks like I'm stuck here for another year. Which isn't the point of my post, however, since staying here for another year means that one of my lifelong (well, more like 3-year long, but we need the dramatic effect) dreams can come true. I can have a graduation ball!

As someone who has been looking at graduation dresses since the age of 15, this is outright amazing. I mean, even the final piece of my AS Art coursework centered around a girl in a graduation dress! Although, she was lying dead in a bathtub, and was supposed to symbolize the loss of artistic value in the world, but that's beside the point. Because we have to look at where the idea was coming from.

Anyway, today I went to select my waltz dress! Which is basically a wedding dress. I've been looking at these beauties for the past three years, I've selected six, narrowed my list down to three, decided those weren't good enough, quickly made a new list last Friday, narrowed my choices down to two, and off I was to try them on!

And - oh my Gosh! Oh. My. Gosh. Oh. My. G- you get the point. Traditionally white, one of the dresses I selected had black lace on it, and it was beautiful.  I was surrounded by 400 dresses, but that one was the only one I wanted to see. Total coup de foudre! It was beautiful, and I was constantly repeating how beautiful it was to everyone I met, like the American photographer in 'Holy Motors'. Except that the subject here was not a sewer-dwelling leprechaun who eats flowers and fingers alike. Yeah, so I tried it on, it turned out that it was a bit short but I remained intransigent about my choice, so they brought in about ten people who attempted to figure out what to do, when I quietly suggested that I could change my shoes. Quelle surprise, it worked.

It worked, and now it's booked for November 29th and this was a completely pointless post, unless you know me really well and know how much I am absolutely obsessed with the idea graduation balls, and how I'd even written a song and rented a dress for a grad ball I was ultimately banned from. But that's a different story...

And for those who'd like to see my Cinderella dress:

Hah, got you! If you actually believed that, I'll come and haunt you in your dreams, bearing a giant fish as my weapon. Though that WAS my actual Cinderella dress back in 2007 (PLUS: cameo by half a pair of hiking boots belonging to my former physics teacher). My 2014 version is, however:

P.S. For those people interested in pictures of me as an MC at last year's grad ball, I'm sorry but I only found ones on which I'm A) missing a head, or B) the size of an antling (a baby ant, it's a thing, you guys!).

P.S. II If you're wondering about why I use words such as intransigent, SAT words are still making my life miserable.

The Baby-Sitters Club (aka Layra Went on a Ski Trip)

I don't know her. Yet she's certainly a horrible skier.

It was a bright cold day in January, and the clocks were striking nine. Nothing extraordinary in the eyes of the world, we weren't on the brink of dystopia, nor were we under omnipresent surveillance by superior forces. Something was about to change though, something unusual was about to happen...


...it was the first morning of the ski trip.


Now, if you happen to know me, you also happen to know that anyone including me and any kind of potentially dangerous winter sport in the same sentence is 1) either joking or 2) out of his mind. That is why I thought it was a good idea to disprove everybody's opinion of me and go straight ahead into a new adventure. Also, we all know how our Physics teacher organizes the trip and I really need that A this year. Plus I need a few more points on my '17 Things I did at 17' list. But that's irrelevant.

So, amid all possible Razzie nominated movies and direct-to-DVD Steven Seagal films, we took off on an eight hour trip to the not very snowy Gerlitzen, in Austria, an apparently well-known skiing place. Following some disasters from the previous years I've only heard of, we now got to stay at a house conveniently located between a police station and a fire department, which we all took as a thinly veiled warning. We didn't hear from the firefighters once, but we did read on Facebook (oh the technology!) one morning that two cops came knocking on the next door window the previous night. Yeah, it was a shame I missed that.


Anyway, back to the trip. The weeks before, I had successfully went around and knocked on the doors of my family members and friends, begging for ski equipment, so by the time of the trip, I could proudly state that the only things belonging to me were the very carefully selected and overpriced gloves. The skis belonged to my friend Liza, who now skied with her mom's skis, my clothes belonged to said mom, and the helmet and boots we rented. Nothing else was needed.
In the first moments of our first day, I was said to be the best and most talented. I gracefully slid down the slope that wasn't flat, just ALMOST flat. I felt like the swan queen from Swan Lake dancing eloquently while listening to the audience cheers. For five minutes, anyway, since by the end of our first day, I returned to my well-deserved 6th place on the 1-6 scale of 'Who's A Talented Skier'. I even ended up on the edge of a cliff. Erm...it didn't get any better and as the days went on, I continued being the worst, only having slight moments of joy when this other girl in our beginner group couldn't figure out how to turn and created quite a domino effect after pushing one girl over, and ended up stuck between the legs of another girl. She stayed there motionless for five minutes, then started to cry. Oh, the Schadefreude. I'm not going to repeat the beautiful words we all spoke while lying in the snow.

The good -this one only took two days to conquer.

The bad - this is the only one I conquered.

Yet my happiness didn't last long, as by the third day, I had also become an object of laughter. After two days, our dear Physics teacher/ski instructor deemed us capable of conquering the RED SLOPE. I reacted by sliding two meters, only to fall over and make the following fifty meters on my back, feet in the air, sliding upside down. It was only thanks to a lovely local man that I ever even came to a stop.

EXPECTED REACTION FROM EVERYONE: "Oh my Gosh, are you OK?"

EVERYONE'S REACTION: thumbs up and laughter


Funny, yes, I admit. However, by the time I was taking the chairlift DOWN into the valley, I was pretty much crying. Oh, yes, and I didn't even tell you about the time I fell out of this amazing chairlift, flat on my face.Of course, there were better moments of skiing too. Skiing with my friends, who didn't leave me behind or force me down RED SLOPES. Actually enjoying skiing down the blue slope I was afraid of the first day. Taking off the skis and sitting into a Hütte, where the food is great, and so is the music. All those Germknödeln and Käsespätzlen and pre-made pizzas...

The best slope. Mostly because of the view. And the misleading proximity to the peak.

The only downside was that all my friends could ski, and I couldn't, so every afternoon, a brave volunteer agreed to babysit me, and stay with me as I descend a flat slope in a square root 2 km/h speed. Hence the title of this post being 'The Babysitter's Club'. I even got to the point when I noticed how
two of my friends completely make me feel like I'm their daughter. Yeah, now I love these girls even more.
And also feel horrible about completely lacking the abilities needed to ski like a normal person.

Part of the crew.

The afternoons were also perfect. We were playing Rummy, which I can't actually play, singing the Cup Song, which I can't actually sing, watching Der Bachelor, which I would never actually watch, playing table soccer and table tennis with cardboard papers, hanging out with a seventh grader who knew lots of bad, bad, bad words (oh, the youth nowadays) and thinking about whether there is a word for laughing and crying at the same time. We ended up inventing one. Other than that we spent all our money on Vöslauer flavored water, but hey - it was 6 for the price of 3!

The trip was 6 days altogether, but the first day we spent with traveling. The last day there was an incredibly huge snowstorm, so I decided not to ski. Instead, I sat into a Hütte, bought a hot chocolate, and ended up being surrounded by ten Austrian guys, who didn't have a place to sit. I even had a nice conversation with (Layra language for "staring at") one of them, which was quite a nice way to end this trip. Except that right now, that one Austrian boy I talked to for five minutes is pretty much all I can recall about the ski trip. No, forget that, that one Austrian boy is pretty much all I can think about in general.
Yeah, but I digress. Ahem, Austrian boys. Ski trip was a wonderful adventure and as self-deprecating as I am, I enjoyed it and I don't regret going at all. I've met some great people, I've seen some breathtaking places, I could make people laugh by being the awful skier that I am, I've regained confidence in my taste in films and will also get an A in Physics. What else could I ask for?

Everybody. Some people more angry/freezing than others, due to being ordered

outside midst eating lunch.

Driving Update

Three months, forty-four hours, 450 kilometers and 10 buckets of tears later, I still can't proudly state that I can drive. I can, of course, as in, give me a long stretch of highway and a car and I'll do what I have to, but when it comes to navigating traffic, oh boy.

I don't even know what's the problem any more. Is it me? Is it everyone else? I usually kid myself into thinking the latter, because why do people drive cars when I'm around, and why do they park so tightly, and why do they even park on the streets? You know, the least I expect from them is to keep half a mile distance from me, so I can happily do my own thing.

How do people even do this? And no, I'm not talking about you Americans, who have two pedals and no gear stick. Y'all have it easy-peasy.

On the plus side,* sigh*,  I now look up to everyone who has a driving license. 

Graduation Ball

Last night, our school held the annual graduation ball, during which the graduating classes each perform separate dances, as well as one together - the grad ball waltz (where girls wear dresses that look like wedding dresses, according to - basically everyone). Before that, though, every senior student receives a ribbon with the schools name and the years they attended the school printed on it. This year, these ribbons were covered in cellophane, apparently on purpose.

Unfortunately (quite a bit unfortunate) my class isn't graduating yet, since we're a five-year class, so I didn't get to dance. However, I did get to MC! That's right. I was one of the MCs. Yay! Wow! Although here we call them the conférerncier and the conférencière. Except they don't know how to spell that. So they simply write "konferanszié". I know.

See, being the Master of Ceremonies was quite important for me. I didn't get to graduate with my former class last year and I won't get to graduate with my current class next year. Although I wanted to, I didn't get to dance this year. When our tutor told us that an MC was needed, my hand shot up like a space rocket, and from then on, it was all about being the one who gets selected, which included going to various German competitions to win over our German-teaching vice-principal. Yeah, I mean a fair share of nepotism was also included, but we don't really talk about that...this is show biz after all, innit?

So when I was there, I got to know the other MC (who, in the words of the drama teacher, looks good at least) and was told to work on the "screenplay". Now, that was hell. I got to write our lines, but it made me question my choice of career several times (I want to be a screenwriter, but you already knew that). Especially since they kept changing everything ten times a day, and I think the final version was called GRAD BALL 23.0. But hey, at least I didn't have to say those painfully cringeworthy pre-written lines out loud.

Anyway, after some disastrous rehearsals, including a 4 hour one yesterday morning, we were there. At 6 PM. In front of the microphone. Talking in front of hundreds of people. And I was reminded of why I used to want to be an actor. And I loved it. (Until I almost cried during the waltz. But I didn't so that doesn't count. Oh, and until my bracelet got stuck in my lace dress and tore it. That wasn't one of the best moments of my life.)

I don't have any photos yet, but I will and then I'll update! Promise!

Driving Miss Layra Is No Longer Needed

Hiya People of the Internet!

Today, I had my first ever driving lesson. It wasn't my first time driving, that already happened in July, thank you very much, with very little success and one dented gate, but it was the first time I legally got to drive a car.

What can I say? It wasn't that scary, I was by no means screaming, crying, and/or shouting, I was pretty much driving around in circles for one and a half hours. Every two minutes, we stopped. Hashtag fun.

At first, I had problems with getting the car straight, so it's an advantage that we can't start out on the streets, because I would've been mistaken for a drunk driver in no time, but yeah...it was quite an alright feeling, snaking along the pavement with 5 km/h.

I also found out that my teacher has three kids who currently have the flu. The guy is pretty nice, though. AS OF NOW.

My car is a Chevrolet Spark, so singing my favorite song 'American Pie' by Don McLean has suddenly become incredibly appropriate. It's also sparkly and goose poop green, so all the goose poop on it goes unnoticed. Now, isn't that rad?

I'll keep you updated on the progress, as of now, I'm nowhere near getting a speeding ticket.


Loves,

Layra xx

Hello and Welcome!

Hi All,
this is Layra.
I don't blog about anything interesting.
I can't tell you a lot about myself, nor do I in fact want to.
In this blog, I'll probably live out my passion for books, movies and music.
I am also likely to post shit loads about the college application process, just because it matters.
Perhaps I will narrate my experiences with aerial silks, music lessons, filmmaking, photography and such.
This blog will probably serve as a diary to me, and I won't expect anyone to read it, naturally.
If you still do, however, you are more than welcome to. I'd be quite a bit delighted.
Yet consider yourselves forewarned, this is not peaches & unicorns.
I've mentioned this before, but I despise introductions.
So I think I'll leave this here for now.
'Till later
Layra

Coming soon...

Please come back in July for new contents.

Thanks a lot.
Layra