Why I probably shouldn’t fail my finals

A couple of weeks back I was once again amazed by the sheer fatuity of our school’s grading system upon discovering that my finals account for up to 50% of my year. 50%. As in: one half.

Let us do the math here. Say I got an 80 in the first trimester, a 74 in the second, and an 85 in the third. Pretty constant, right? Now, the last trimester is taken into account more than the other to, making up 60% of the 50% of my grade, whereas the first two account for 20% each. According to my calculations that makes a mark of around 82 for the entire year. Not too bad.
Let us now assume that the day of my finals for some unknown reason, I mess up. Because my dog recently died. Or because I have a terrible headache. Or because my calculator stopped working and I don’t have any spare batteries. I don’t know. Stuff happens. For argument’s sake, let us say I caught a terrible cold, I can barely breath and my head feels like it’s about to explode during the exam and I get no more than a 50.
This case, while very (VERY) improbable, would cause my final grade to be no more than 66.  Even though, for the entire year, my grades were…well, maybe not brilliant but still quite good. And in two hours I destroyed a year’s efforts because I had one bad day.

Like most things I rant about, this is something that, in all likelihood, won’t affect me or anybody I know personally, but it’s a matter of principle. I can’t help but ask myself what exactly the logic behind this is. Is it supposed to teach us a lesson? “No matter how hard you try, in the end all your work will be futile”? Or the contrary: “Don’t worry about school during the year, you’ll just study for the last two weeks and you’ll be fine.”?

Niagara and its waterfalls

This is what I mean by “gloomy tunnels”

Behind the Falls

Skylon tower

Bridge to the U.S.A

The American Falls by night

Canadian Falls by night

For me, visiting Niagara and seeing its world-renowned waterfalls was the fulfillment of a long held dream.
We were lucky that day, since it was almost 17 degrees outside- enough for some Canadians to lose the jackets whose prisoners they had been all winter and sport skimpy T-shirts and shorts instead- and a soft wind tousled our hair to the point were taking a decent picture was nearly impossible. To be fair though, at that point I had been living out of my backpack for three days, having slept a total of about nine hours between all of them, I would not have given a decent picture regardless of wind situations.
After getting a good look of the Horseshoe Falls from above – I could have spent hours simply gazing at the unbelievable amounts of water tumbling over the edge into seeming nothingness, the base of the cliff being veiled by mist – we continued our tour under and behind the cascades. From the lower platform, with water lightly spraying your face (and your camera lens), the Falls seemed more intimidating and awe-inspiring yet. The tremendous cliff simply towered over us, emitting a sense of cold authority and in all honesty I can say that never in my entire life have I felt quite as small and humbled as in that moment.
Luckily, I was soon torn from my contemplations by a rather corpulent lady barking at me to either take a picture or get out of the way. Else, I might have sunken too deep in my all-too romantic reflections. Intimidated yet again by a, this time much more material sense of authority, I smiled politely and gave up my space at the rail, making my way back into the gloomily wet tunnel system behind the Falls to an opening that allows you to observe the water falling right in front of you while being dampened by something I can no longer allow myself to describe as a mere “spray”.
From there, visitors are urged on towards the elevators were, crammed in a corner between an elderly couple, I spent a painful minute of claustrophobia and uncomfortable privation of oxygen to be subsequently ushered towards the exit, the route to which inevitably led through the gift shop.
We spent the better part of the afternoon climbing the nearby Skylon tower, mocking the comparative size of the American Falls next to the Canadian ones, finding our hotel, and getting changed.
Finally, my friend and I set out once again to get some supper and take a walk through the lively Niagara after nightfall which proved to be the possibly best decision we had made all week, since the Falls are being lit up in different colors at night and with the clear sky sporting a full moon on top of that, the view was absolutely amazing though it had a certain illusory touch to it. The night air was still surprisingly warm and we extended our walk for about an hour before we decided to return to the hotel in order to catch the five hours of sleep we still could.
Thus ended our little voyage, I am now gathering my strengths for the upcoming weekend when I shall set out to uncover New York.

Travelling to Toronto

 

Toronto’s Old City Hall

Downtown Toronto

Toronto from above

CN Tower

 

Just last weekend I finally got the long-awaited opportunity of visiting Toronto along with the Niagara Falls. Much as I would have enjoyed my friend and me deciding on our own itinerary, we had to book a guided trip at a travel agency in order to get parental consent as well as funding.
Needless to say, this means they made us waste far too much time at all the wrong places, in the futile attempt of sucking money out of us tourists, which is intelligible but nonetheless annoying. Therefore, instead of even scratching at the beautiful cultural potential of Toronto, visiting typical tourist attractions and wasting three hours of precious trip-time in a shopping center were part of the program.
Disregarding the fact that I treat shopping centers with the deepest contempt of which my rather magnanimous nature is capable, I found this particularly vexatious since, having done a bit of research, I knew a number of the things the city has to offer other than overpriced gift-shops. Being so close and yet so far (excuse the cliché) gave cause to a rather painful sensation in my metaphorical heart that has set itself to seeing the world.

What bugged me even more was the fact that the hotel was situated in the outskirts of the city so, having no bus-connections and/or money for a taxi, my friend and I found ourselves confined to the enclosed premises of our hotel room rather than out in the city, frolicking in the joy of freedom, adventure and exploration. We ate ice cream and watched CBC news instead.

However, all ranting and snobbish arrogance aside, I still found my trip very enjoyable. Toronto is quite interesting in terms of architecture, for example, a fact which was in no way lessened by the fact that the tour guide never once pointed out anything of the kind. Plus, I got to travel with a friend so we definitely still had a good time.

 

A post about Niagara is soon to follow.

Why we need to seriously reconsider our school system

School has always come quite easy to me, I have never seriously needed to study and spend incredible amounts of time on my homework, nor have I ever failed a single exam. However, I realize that me doing well in school has little to nothing to do with my intelligence but is due solely to the fact that I seem to be able to remember large amounts of information within a short amount of time. All I really have is a great short-term memory. That’s all there is to it but because of the scheme in which schools operate, a simple precondition like this works vastly to my advantage.

In a way, school is like the wilderness: The better adapted survive. In a system that puts an emphasis on memorization rather than comprehension or logical reasoning, a person like me is perfectly adapted (no arrogance intended) and survives easily while others struggle to stay over water. However, I often feel I lack other, more practical, skills. The concept on which school systems are built is therefore inefficient and highly questionable as it in no way evaluates true intelligence or any real-life skills but a person’s aptitude in one particular field.

Furthermore, I consider it discriminatory that kids could excel in this system with barely an effort whereas others put time and work into their schoolwork and get almost nothing out of it, even though they might possess the same amount of actual intelligence.

This is exactly why our school systems are focusing on entirely wrong aspects of students’ intellect. Instead of having them memorize dates, we might teach students to draw logical conclusions, to apply their knowledge practically and therefore prepare them better for “real life” than pure memorization ever would.

Four Reasons Why Wuthering Heights is NOT a Great Book

1.  The characters: I am aware that for each of the characters’ decisions, people have since found ways to rationalize and explain their behavior. However, some of Cathy, Heathcliff and co’s actions are not just unreasonable, but arguably delirious. Before you write me off as an uneducated philistine – you have to admit that this is definitely true in some scenes. For example, when Isabella elopes with Heathcliff, a man whom she not only knows to be violent (he strangles her dog for god’s sake) but who also quite clearly does not love her the least little bit, and is surprised to find him a dismissive, abusive husband, this proves a certain lack of what I would call common sense. Don’t even get me started on Cathy or Heathcliff, whose only character development seems to consist of the inner complexes and – in Cathy’s case- mental illnesses they accumulate over years.

On top of that, I find it very hard to identify or sympathize with any of the characters, who are perhaps the least lovable creatures you will ever encounter in Victorian literature, making this novel less appealing yet.

2. The names: Admittedly, this is an unconventional aspect of a book to consider. However, I find it particularly bothersome because not only are there two characters in the perfectly identical name of Catherine Linton, but the story also mentions two men, Edgar Linton and Linton Heathcliff, that are both referred to simply as “Linton”. The list continues with, depending on which part of the book you are reading, two different men bearing the title of “Master Earnshaw”.

Of course, Emily Bronte probably had her reasons (i.e. to draw parallels between the characters or something like that) but really, naming everyone the same only adds a superfluous complexity to the already not-too-simple plot.

 

3.The plot: Anyone who read the book, whether they liked it or not, will most likely agree that this story is not exactly an agreeable one. This, in itself, is in no way problematic, we wouldn’t want to read pleasant stories in which everything is just peachy all the time. However, some of the plot turns in Wuthering Heights seem to be slightly absurd and too obviously designed to cause more conflict between the characters, chipping at the story’s credibility.

That being said, the plot is unnecessarily complex at times whereas it over-simplifies other passages the reader might be interested in. For example: How did Heathcliff come to possess his fortune? To this day, we don’t know what he did in the years he was away.

Also, why this novel is repeatedly marked one of the greatest romances of all times, I will never understand,  for the so-called “romance” seems to elude me completely. The relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff is really more one of possessive obsession than one of love. Plus, I can’t help thinking that the unfulfillment and futility of their “love” is to the greatest part due to Cathy’s superficial and naive thinking that led to her marrying Edgar Linton.

 

4. The narration: Just why we absolutely need this narrative frame of Lockwood and his housekeeper to guide us through the story remains a mystery to my humble mind. After all, Lockwood bears no relevance whatsoever to the plot, barely ever interacts with any of the important characters (he has tea with Heathcliff-twice), and spends half of the book lying in bed because he got sick.

 

Conclusion: Having read multiple reviews of Wuthering Heights, it seems to me as if people appreciate this work because and not despite of many of the reasons named above, making me question my understanding of the book. But after re-reading it I must come to the conclusion that- yes, this is a great book if you want to lead lots of snobbishly sophisticated conversations with would-be scholars but is a terrible piece of literature for those who like to read simply for the joy of it. If it is Victorian romance that you seek, you will find a much more pleasant work in Charlotte Brontë‘s Jane Eyre.