Tragic…that is life in IB.

Every week students fight to exhaustion against a relentless and cold enemy, the system.  Supposedly victory will be wonderful, but that’s too euphemistic, survival is the real word and if is its accomplice.  If one survives, if one makes it to the end by some means, something.  There is no guarantee that anything will be on the other side.
It’s funny really, funny in the suffering sense like the laughter which follows incomprehendable pain and acquiescence. That something which is to provide students the best learning opportunity seems to fail at helping students learn. Naturally, I speak with my own bias, with my own defeats and regrets weighing heavy; naturally m words critical, yet I must say in the 16 years I’ve lived, this year seems the most hollow, the most devoid of learning I’ve ever encountered.

It is not so much that there is nothing to learn, it is that there is too much to learn and too fast a pace to learn it at.  In 8 week of schooling all I have acquired is a new level of jealousy, of hatred, of exhaustion.  I have no new memories, no new happiness, no love of now, only yearning for yesterday and longing for tomorrow.  I scarcely recall what occurred a week prior, I scantily reflect on the lessons a month earlier, so much of life, of my life seems to have vanished, unclaimed and now unclaimable.  I lack storage and the means of storage.

It is a pity really that the last month of my life has reflected the construction of a machine as opposed to the development of a man.  A machine a month old knows as much as I do, a man aged in that span knows far more than me.  In a month he has seen the moon wax and wane, he has seen the sun rise and fall, he has seen people live and die, be brought to life and be brought out of life and in this same span I have seen the words of a page, seen the power of guessing and witnessed the art of speaking nothing.  How different life can be.

Yet the tragedy ceases not with my life, it moves on to others.  Those prone to manipulation under IB now exhibit their behavior, acting ill when they are healthy.  Those that are ill feign healthiness, infecting others with their misfortune.  Neither act is wise, yet that is what happens when futures are held hostage.

As if such things were not sufficient, stupidity and conformity are promoted by the same reason.  Criticism and questioning are culled in a realm where authority has unchallenged power.  Free thinking is stifled, for what matters are not the justification of an opinion but the conformity of thought to the authority.  This is not because conformity or free thought are preferable, it is because the feelings of an authority must be positive unless one wishes to suffer consequences…

Note: This post was not meant to convey anything.

Sleep…

A friend claimed that an A on a test was better than sleep…  I’d have to laugh, apparently he failed to realize that that was the most important point I was trying to make when comparing schools to a torture chamber.  It was in fact my opening thought, the thought which led to other points. 

I can’t speak for everyone, yet I’ve been sleep deprived before, and sleep deprived now and quite frankly it’s a terrible feeling.  I don’t know what’s happening in the world of other IB students, yet I know in my own world…sleep has become a cherished value.  I would restart school right now in ninth grade at the end of six weeks with all F’s in my classes, if I knew I would get 10 hours of sleep each night, from that point on, because quite frankly, when I have that much sleep, my abilities are at their highest.  Not to be conceited, but it’d probably be really easy to dig out of 50% grades with 10 hours of sleep each night, the memory retention rate would be ridiculously high, the understanding  a sight to see, all the mental and physical benefits of sleep there.

What any IB or AP student does should be considered super human.  Most of the adult world would be nonfunctioning if for a majority of the week, on some occasions 5+ days, people were forced to sleep less than…5 hours…  It’s literally torture…and the amount of pain caused by that is likely greater than the pain of starvation, which is likely one of the worst pains an individual can ever feel, starving on and on.

And sleep deprivation isn’t like hunger, the consequences of sleep deprivation are enormous, unlike hunger which dissipates after satiation, sleep deprivation has lasting effects.  Those who have lacked sufficient amounts of sleep for even a whole week can attest to the fact that sleeping in a day later makes one feel even more tired. 

This ultimately affects work rate…a person can work at a certain pace given a certain energy level, which influences concentration, after a day of sleep deprivation, a negative spiral is generated.  The next day, if the person has work, the rate of completion is slower, thus resulting in more time being expended, resulting in possibly even later nights and greater fatigue and this continues on and on and on.  When a person contemplates suicide after this, it’s essentially justified, by this point sleep is heaven, the animalistic side of a human being takes major precedent.  Getting shot is even better than staying awake because once a person’s dead, it’s eternal sleep, the thing they were so deprived of, now they have it forever.

I’m so tired…this post will be in shambles, much like my writing…

Because of sleep deprivation or other deprivations debilitating mental effects—they are essentially highly effective forms of torture, simply note what is technically illegal yet formerly, possibly currently employed in the USA’s most internationally renowned prison—it generates a psychological need to indulge.

This typically manifests itself in “justified procrastination”, procrastination that is technically wasting time, yet absolutely necessary to the mental health of a human being.  People have a limit to their capacity to focus, working for an incessant period of time numbs the human brain to the point where it is a worn tool.  Procrastination or doing other things, in lay men’s terms, a break, ultimately becomes necessary, yet this too is a double edged sword.

First, it allows a person to refocus, which in theory increases work rate, yet at the same time, it pushes the time of completion further away, because deprivation has long term effects.  A person is thus more mentally ready yet less physically energized…this tends to result in psychological issues, which may vary depending on the individual…

The most notable likely being self-loathing, hatred of self for needing something which prevented one from achieving something, even though what was sought could not have been achieved without the hiatus from pursuit…

And in the end this wonderful negative spiral does one ironic thing, it prevents the learning of individuals…meaning that the A on the test is essentially worthless…a useless symbol which signifies nothing, because in reality a person hasn’t even learned yet, or if the person has learned there is now so much painful association with learning that the process of learning becomes linked to pain, therefore making it highly likely that even if a person does get by a sleep deprived school year with A’s, future attempts at learning may not exist simply because learning brings pain…

And what type of learning is that?