So I was talking to Paul last night and high school came up. Since I already gave one of my freshmen kids the “dos” and “don’ts” talk to get good grades, I thought I’d shared this with all of you guys (:

Disclaimer: Just because you follow this tips doesn’t mean you’ll end up getting through high school with a perfect 4.0 (unweighted). An accumulative 4.0 isn’t impossible. 13 (or was it 14?) kids from my graduating class had it, and one of them had a perfect 36 AND was super athletic…. >.> Yeah, let’s not try to aim that high, shall we?

The Guidelines

1.STAY AWAKE IN CLASS

Seriously, unless you’re Ewik and can learn on your own and get 95-100% on each test, don’t fall asleep in class! At least, try not to make it happen on a regular basis. If you’re really that tired, here’s what you do: look at your schedule and pick the class you are really good in/you know you can learn the material at home/the teacher is so damn easy you can pass the class without doing anything/w.e and SLEEP IN THAT CLASS.

My friend basically slept through all of Pre-Calc and still passed each quarter with an A (okay, that’s partially because our Algebra II teacher was the bombdiggity and taught us everything that we needed to know before we went to calculus and because our Pre-Calc teacher offered WAYYY to much extra credit… I remember passing that class with a 138% on quarter… or was it higher?) But anywhos, if you’re really that tired, sleep in the dumb class(es).

2.TAKE NOTES THAT YOU CAN UNDERSTAND      

This is ESPECIALLY important for the classes you don’t get too well. Write down what your teacher writes on the board plus a little explanation next to what he/she did (if you think you’ll forget). This will help you review for tests and help you do homework.

Here’s a tip: if you textbook doesn’t do jacksquat to help you learn the material, find a new one. No, I don’t mean go buy another one, just go to the library or something. Hell, ask the teacher if he/she has other ones you can borrow. I bought a college calculus textbook my junior year of high school and it’s still helpful today, so yeah xD And it really helps to read the book, just FYI.

3.ASK THE TEACHER FOR HELP IF YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND

How the hell are your teachers supposed to know you need help if you don’t take the initiative and go to them first? They’ve got like 100+ kids to worry about, hun. If you don’t understand, go to the teacher. The teacher is there to help you. If that teacher doesn’t help, go to another who may be able to help you, or one of your friends who understands the subject. TIP: find the patient one to help/tutor you because there’s nothing less encouraging than someone giving you The Look because you still haven’t gotten it the 5^th time around. If you can find someone who is patient enough to tutor you/help you with math problems over text messaging, oh my Gawd, WORSHIP THE GROUND THEY WALK ON! JK, but seriously… if you can find someone like that, you’re so damn lucky. Esp if you’re as annoying as Myunggun was when I was tutoring him… xD

4.DO YOUR GODDAM HOMEWORK

Babe, if you can’t do the homework, how the hell are you supposed to pass the test? Homework is there to help you learn the material. If you already know it, take the 10 minutes to do the work and then go hang out with your friends. Or, if you’re doing AP/IB, STUDY GROUPS~ They do help. Hell, I remember when my friends and I were studying Russian/Chinese history, we kidnapped the Russian/Chinese kids for the study session. And it worked out great :D

5.PICK THE CLASSES YOU LIKE

Yeah, yeah, yeah, who cares if your friends won’t be taking that class with you? Hun, I didn’t go to my boundary school so I knew like 3 people out of the1,600 kids at my school. Yeah. So take the classes that you want to take, not the classes that everyone is taking. Sure you’ve got to take classes like history and math and all that fun stuff, but you’ll still have a bunch of electives that you can play with (: So yeah. Find something you like and sign up for it. Ewik fell in love with ceramics senior year and he so regretted not taking it sooner.

OH! And another thing about classes: if you can’t handle the AP/IB class and you’re not doing the full diploma (IB kids), DROP IT LIKE IT’S HOT. There’s nothing like a failing grade to make your GPA sink further than the Titanic. But that doesn’t mean don’t challenge yourself. When you’re picking classes, what you want to do is to take the next class “up.” Like if you took Chemistry sophomore year and you’re going to the science field, you can take AP Chem or one of the other science classes. TIP: if you’re doing IB, don’t take the 3 IB HL sciences. I promise you, it’s hell. Yes, it’s possible to get A’s in all three of those classes, but I can assure you, my best friend was about to kill herself when testing season came. So don’t. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know there’s IB Design Tech HL, but who the hell cares? Easiest class ever… >.>

6.GO TO CLASS

I don’t care, just freaking go to the damn class. Sure, you can play Starcraft in class (that is, if your teachers allow laptops in class), but at least you’re still in class. If something comes up, you’ll know about it. Senior year, I sat behind two guys who played League of Legends just about everyday… and they still got damn good test scores…. I think it was because Bryce was a closet genius… who had so much potential, but gave like 50% of it away to drugs… and games xD but YOU GUYS AREN’T ALL GOING TO BE LIKE BRYCE        .  So go to class!

Besides, some high schools have this attendance policy that if you miss 5 classes, you automatically fail it if you don’t go to attendance school. And some schools will charge for attendance school… so GO TO CLASS (have I said that enough times?).

7.DON’T GET A BOYFRIEND/GIRLFRIEND

I’m not kidding. Oh my Gawd, you do know how devastating it is when you have a break up and it’s the end of the quarter and you have finals EVERYWHERE?!?! Say hello to your 4.0 because you’re going to be doing A LOT of crying in these next couples of days. I still remember the last time I got an A- was 1^st quarter 8^th grade year…. Also the first time I suffered through a break up… a coincidence? I don’t think so… Hell, it took me 1.5 years to get over that @#$%^&*%$#

 My ex-best friend lost her 4.0 because el boyfriend was being an … so let’s just stay safe and not get emotionally attached to the boy/girls around us.

Go date, like as in have fun. Be Jinju… just don’t have with everyone  xD. Go make friends, but as soon as you get a little too attached, like you have a feeling that this person might become a little more important than your ultimate bias… lay it off. No boy/girl is worth losing the 4.0 over. NO ONE. Because in the end, it’s your life, not theirs. If you don’t get into Stanford (or wherever you’re aiming for), it’s not their fault (okay, yes it is, but you can’t blame them: you can only blame yourself).

8.PROCRASTINATE WISELY

I’m not stupid. Most of you guys will procrastinate and I know that. So if you’re going to procrastinate, do it wisely. If you can put it off that chemistry report until Friday, but you have that history paper due tomorrow, do the history paper, even it’s boring as hell. IB students especially. I had history the last period of the day... guess what my friends did during 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd periods? Yep, writing that paper xD I remember staying up to 3am once finishing my IA… hehehe… idiot à me. But yeah, procrastinate wisely xD

Okay, that’s all that I have time for. Gotta take the kids to the water! Hope this helps. I’ll probably be making a sequel to this… later xD

Byebye!