Academic Update #2

I have definitive news to report on my academic work thus far in Open. I have waited to blog until two requirements were reached, those being finishing the dreaded Chapter 8 and finishing my English essay over the book Anthem. I would like to thank my math and English teachers, respectively Mr. Davidson and Mr. Sitze for guiding me in the finishing of the goals I set forward. I would also like to thank Alex Sitze for collaborating with me in our math ventures along with reviewing my paper for English so as to provide an outside eye to errors I may have had. I will go into more detail of what I accomplished in math and English below.

For math, we struggled a great deal in finishing Chapter 8. As mentioned in my first academic update, we planned to learn by the book before taking the pretest. Upon reaching the pretest we encountered a problem on it that has been dubbed by students before us in Open as the "Hobbit Problem". This problem took multiple attempts, all of which failed, before I reached the level of desperation to ask Davidson for help. He showed me in this that I had the process correct, and was simply doing bookkeeping errors, along with square rooting things in an incorrect fashion. Upon learning this, I was able to understand and eventually even enjoy doing this problem, simply because I understood what I before had not. Upon getting this assessed, which we did separately from the actual test, both Alex, who had worked with me on this, and I achieved a green star symbolizing our mastery of the problem. Last Thursday we finally took the test, after some strenuous review over what we had forgotten over spring break and the Hobbit Problem oriented classes, and it went well. We were being tested over multiple conics: parabolas, circles, hyperbolas, and ellipses. We both received green stars on nearly every standard assessed, and plan to move to Chapter 9 next week, along with hopefully finishing it, as it has a reputation as the easiest chapter. Our math, though seeming slow for a while, has now picked up and I am glad to have finally put some stars up for it.

In English, I also finished my essay over the book Anthem, by Ayn Rand. With the competition deadline I planned to have finished by looming, I buckled down and typed the essay, at a far more pleasing pace than anticipated. I had planned to leave a week for editing and peer review, but I left myself with nearly two. After typing over half of my essay in one night simply because I didn't want to stop, I was very content with what I had accomplished. I had it reviewed, edited, and turned into Mr. Sitze with ample time before the competition deadline, which is a first for me. I usually am far behind on schedule with essays, and I was quite proud of myself for having done it well and ahead of schedule. I had done the essay over a single quote as well, as an experiment to see how well it would work. Unfortunately, this did not go as well as expected, and I have no plans of doing so again. For my final essay, I am reading Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad. Earlier this year I had read the book Lord Jim by Conrad, and had quite enjoyed it, so I have high hopes for this book as well. I plan to have it read within the next two weeks and hopefully the essay done within the two weeks after, possibly three. I will return when I have further progress to report on my academics, but I feel I currently am in a strong position to finish this year well.