Heh. Funny story. I took both Chinese and French AT THE SAME TIME. I requested Chinese, with French as an alternate, as one of my electives. One of my other electives wasn't available, so the idiots gave me French and Chinese; I had them in consecutive class periods, even. It was a hell of a mental shift, rewiring myself from Chinese to French as I walked from one building to the next.
I tell you, I looked at my ninth-grade schedule and whimpered...
I did okay. Solid As in French and Bs in Chinese both years (yes, I voluntarily did it again). I still maintain that I'd've gotten As in Chinese as well if I hadn't had French to contend with at the same time.
And my high school was... special. It was a Highly Desirable magnet school with a closed K-to-12 system. The waiting list was so insane that I was on it as "Baby Boy or Baby Girl [last name]" at least a year before I was born. It was an experimental school; we got to try things before the rest of the state did. My favorite of the programs, besides Chinese, was the blended English/History program - two hours in which we learned about writers of the times that we were studying in history, and got to put on plays and stuff...
There was counterintuitive stuff, too. For instance - I showed extreme aptitude in life sciences, so I ended up doing AP marine biology & anatomy & physiology, stuff like that, but never taking chemistry or physics. *eyeroll*
It was a really competive, single-minded school. Kids were encouraged to only do one extracurricular, in order to Be The Best at it and kick the other schools' asses.
Dude, I could write about it allll day... *laugh* It warped me. It warped everyone who went.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2005-02-23 14:18 (UTC)Heh. Funny story. I took both Chinese and French AT THE SAME TIME. I requested Chinese, with French as an alternate, as one of my electives. One of my other electives wasn't available, so the idiots gave me French and Chinese; I had them in consecutive class periods, even. It was a hell of a mental shift, rewiring myself from Chinese to French as I walked from one building to the next.
I tell you, I looked at my ninth-grade schedule and whimpered...
I did okay. Solid As in French and Bs in Chinese both years (yes, I voluntarily did it again). I still maintain that I'd've gotten As in Chinese as well if I hadn't had French to contend with at the same time.
And my high school was... special. It was a Highly Desirable magnet school with a closed K-to-12 system. The waiting list was so insane that I was on it as "Baby Boy or Baby Girl [last name]" at least a year before I was born. It was an experimental school; we got to try things before the rest of the state did. My favorite of the programs, besides Chinese, was the blended English/History program - two hours in which we learned about writers of the times that we were studying in history, and got to put on plays and stuff...
There was counterintuitive stuff, too. For instance - I showed extreme aptitude in life sciences, so I ended up doing AP marine biology & anatomy & physiology, stuff like that, but never taking chemistry or physics. *eyeroll*
It was a really competive, single-minded school. Kids were encouraged to only do one extracurricular, in order to Be The Best at it and kick the other schools' asses.
Dude, I could write about it allll day... *laugh* It warped me. It warped everyone who went.