I took the TSI test on Wednesday, but I wasn't the first one in the lab to finish. I blame my proctor's slowness at informing me on some prerequisites that Administration didn't inform me about and my own apathy to a test that didn't seem to put up much of a fight. Three other people beat me to the punch, but I still managed to finish before the end of third period. Since this test doesn't involve a non-disclosure agreement that people really don't care about anyway, I'll talk about the contents of the test. There's nothing too interesting about the test. I likely could have gotten a perfect score if I tried, and that's not just me being cocky. There was no advanced math on the test (nothing higher than algebra), but the reading sections are slightly more comprehensive than the STAAR test's. I literally mean slightly more comprehensive; the STAAR test is more fiction-oriented while the TSI's reading (I think) only consists of nonfiction passages. I suppose colleges could care less if you don't understand why an author decided to use specific diction in a sentence in an article about a child going to the zoo.
Side note: the essay portion almost drove me to insanity because I couldn't use the standard "Ctrl + Backspace" shortcut that I commonly use to eliminate unruly words produced by my imprecise hands. To the people at College Board that make the testing interface: a dialog saying something about a preview copy doesn't help anyone--especially the people that might hit the keys on accident and wonder if they broke the test.
In other news, the school had a "Club Day" which really consisted of teachers hosting students that got into their rooms first. I saw the Google Sheet which contained teacher names, club names, and room numbers. Apparently, many teachers were sponsoring another club and/or just sending kids to another room so they wouldn't have to single-handedly deal with a bunch of students they didn't know. Looking through the list hit me: there are no computer science or tech enthusiast-related clubs at the school. "Holy crap, I'm screwed," I thought as I will now actually have to go through with founding my own club. Don't get me wrong: I was looking forward to taking this leadership role, but I thought the school would provide some foundation for me to work off. After playing with a angular motion physics demo in Mr. Alcala's class, everyone dispersed around the school (and possibly to the parking lots to leave) for the last half hour of school.
The inter-hallway transportation system flooded with oncoming traffic. Luckily, I got into Mr. Burton's, the computer science teacher's, room before it was flooded with the Halo-playing/Smash-enjoying male demographic. It took nearly a minute and a half after I came for Mr. Burton to close the door and flatly tell the latecomers that the room was filled and that there was a slightly vacant room next door. Of course, I sat in the room, watching a five-player game of Super Smash Bros, until I oversaw the faint outlines of lines of code. Knowing I was staring at an IDE, I went over to the other side of the room to investigate.
I recognized the boy making a bank input program for Computer Science UIL. I still don't know his name, but here's how our conversation went: I sat down; I asked him what he was doing; he responded; he asked if I was taking the computer science class next year; I said yes; he explained that the class only teaches the basics and Computer Science UIL is the way to go; I understood and questioned tiny bits of his code such as why he named certain variables certain names; and the bell rang while I left. I didn't indicate at all that I have a year's experience with Java. I'm not sure why, but I know I felt quite giddy while he explained things to me that I already knew.
Either way, I'm getting quite tired. I have homework to finish tomorrow, and I have a letter to send to Mr. Burton as well. I'm going to email Mr. Burton to act as a declaration of intent because I'm desperate to practically apply all the knowledge I have about Bluetooth beacons and progressive web apps and IoT and server backends and so much more. I plan to make a replacement for the aging school website, and I plan to engage the district's interest in technology while getting major brownie points for life experiences and, more productively, colleges and the like.
Good night.
Side note: the essay portion almost drove me to insanity because I couldn't use the standard "Ctrl + Backspace" shortcut that I commonly use to eliminate unruly words produced by my imprecise hands. To the people at College Board that make the testing interface: a dialog saying something about a preview copy doesn't help anyone--especially the people that might hit the keys on accident and wonder if they broke the test.
In other news, the school had a "Club Day" which really consisted of teachers hosting students that got into their rooms first. I saw the Google Sheet which contained teacher names, club names, and room numbers. Apparently, many teachers were sponsoring another club and/or just sending kids to another room so they wouldn't have to single-handedly deal with a bunch of students they didn't know. Looking through the list hit me: there are no computer science or tech enthusiast-related clubs at the school. "Holy crap, I'm screwed," I thought as I will now actually have to go through with founding my own club. Don't get me wrong: I was looking forward to taking this leadership role, but I thought the school would provide some foundation for me to work off. After playing with a angular motion physics demo in Mr. Alcala's class, everyone dispersed around the school (and possibly to the parking lots to leave) for the last half hour of school.
The inter-hallway transportation system flooded with oncoming traffic. Luckily, I got into Mr. Burton's, the computer science teacher's, room before it was flooded with the Halo-playing/Smash-enjoying male demographic. It took nearly a minute and a half after I came for Mr. Burton to close the door and flatly tell the latecomers that the room was filled and that there was a slightly vacant room next door. Of course, I sat in the room, watching a five-player game of Super Smash Bros, until I oversaw the faint outlines of lines of code. Knowing I was staring at an IDE, I went over to the other side of the room to investigate.
I recognized the boy making a bank input program for Computer Science UIL. I still don't know his name, but here's how our conversation went: I sat down; I asked him what he was doing; he responded; he asked if I was taking the computer science class next year; I said yes; he explained that the class only teaches the basics and Computer Science UIL is the way to go; I understood and questioned tiny bits of his code such as why he named certain variables certain names; and the bell rang while I left. I didn't indicate at all that I have a year's experience with Java. I'm not sure why, but I know I felt quite giddy while he explained things to me that I already knew.
Either way, I'm getting quite tired. I have homework to finish tomorrow, and I have a letter to send to Mr. Burton as well. I'm going to email Mr. Burton to act as a declaration of intent because I'm desperate to practically apply all the knowledge I have about Bluetooth beacons and progressive web apps and IoT and server backends and so much more. I plan to make a replacement for the aging school website, and I plan to engage the district's interest in technology while getting major brownie points for life experiences and, more productively, colleges and the like.
Good night.
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