You know what sucks? Bad habits you managed to pick up without ever really noticing or thinking about them. When there’s a lull in the conversation, or the conversation reminded me of something, I’ll announce how people ought to feel about what I’m about to say. Usually in the form of “it was x… last night I was reading/watching/talking to/etc.” or whatever the case may be. If it’s funny, I’ll say “oh, yeah, it was kinda funny… last night I was…” If it’s something interesting I read, like this here article about how to properly praise your children, I’ll say “it was interesting, I was reading this article about…” It was only when I said exactly that during a “group discussion” we were having in english that I realized that a) I do it all the time and b) it makes absolutely no sense except as a way to let everyone know I’m about to speak.

        So, if I can keep that in mind, I’ll stop doing it. Hopefully. I don’t hesitate too much when I speak anymore, so hopefully I can keep weeding out things like that when I pay attention to them.

        As far as today’s english class goes, it was pretty cool. We put the desks in a circle again (which makes it hard for me to stare aimlessly at things because there are people in every direction, but it’s still cool I guess because usually you just sit in your rows and the teachers stand up front and talk) and discussed what we were doing next year and why. I guess there are school-specific scholarships and stuff she had to recommend us for, which is awesome on its own. The best part was that afterwards, we got her to guess what she thought we’d all be doing by our ten year reunion. Some of the chatty girls were a bit pissed that she was vague with their predictions (yeah, I think Jill would make a good teacher… or teacher-y thing) but screw them. I couldn’t stand up and pick out a career for everyone in the class, and neither could they.

        She said I’d be the smart guy behind the scenes who writes the speeches for the prime minister. Who knows? I’ve considered it once or twice, because I can convince people and sound smart if I want to, but politics is a miserable career and I’d hate doing it. It’d be “easy” to get some kind of government intern job in Ottawa though, and likely that’s what I’m going to be doing during the summers because apparently relaxing for two months is wrong.

        If I were going to go for a career I might not enjoy, I’d likely go for math/science something anyway. At least I enjoy figuring out interesting physics/math problems, as much as I hate sitting down to do twenty of them for homework. It’s not even that I can’t cut it doing hardcore science/math. I learn the stuff by heart and then lose 20% on stupid mistakes. I could find the perfect balance between Earth’s gravity and the Moon’s gravity with my eyes closed and my hands tied behind my back, but on a test/exam I can’t seem to remember to, say, square the period or write the resistance for Resistor #5 in the #5 box. Then again, my marks in calculus are awesome, and my teacher for that class is a great guy. Our physics teacher, on the other hand…