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I’m back!  Well, I had a terrific spring break… Swimming and sunbathing in the South Florida sun…  Ahhh…

Haha, Tyrone’s famous now…  Check this out… 

COURTESY OF THE PALM BEACH POST – HEADQUARTERED IN WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA

Suncoast parents besiege principal at raucous forum

By Nirvi Shah

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

RIVIERA BEACH — Mounting dissatisfaction with new Suncoast High Principal Gloria Crutchfield exploded Monday night during a meeting in the school auditorium.

Hundreds of parents and students filled the room and lined up at microphones in the aisles to question Crutchfield, who took over the school in August. Crutchfield had agreed to a question-and-answer session with parents to dispel myths and misinformation, but after a civil beginning, the rowdy crowd began picking apart her every policy.

Parents at the prestigious academic magnet school called for the meeting because they were incensed by Crutchfield's decision to forbid many school clubs from meeting during lunch. They said the move was stifling students' opportunities to participate in activities that will be vital to earning coveted spots at competitive universities.

Moving club meetings to the end of the day prevents athletes from participating in sports, parents said. For students who travel from the far ends of the county, staying after school isn't an appealing option. And with students saddled with hours of homework because of the school's rigorous curriculum, cutting into study time for clubs becomes stressful.

"She wants to get into a good college," Nanci Rowell told Crutchfield about her daughter, a junior. "She can't do it on her grades alone."

The crowd clapped and hooted.

Crutchfield is Suncoast's first new principal since Kay Carnes turned the school into a powerful magnet aimed at attracting white students starting in 1989. Before that, Suncoast was about 90 percent black. Now, it's about 50 percent white and 30 percent black. The 1,300-student school houses speciality programs in math, science, engineering and computer science and one of Palm Beach County's few International Baccalaureate programs. Students countywide can attend, but only a third of 900 applicants for each freshman class earn a seat.

When Carnes retired last year, Crutchfield took her place. She'd been principal at Roosevelt Middle and Washington Elementary. But she had spent years at Suncoast as a guidance counselor and assistant principal before going to Washington.

Crutchfield cited student safety as the reason for moving club meetings to the end of the school day. She said students received less supervision when they met in various locations and she told the audience that students had invited non-students onto campus during lunch on some occasions. On others, students left school without permission. To fix the problems, the school has locked the front gates and posted a police aide at the back gate, among other measures, she said.

"My only concern is getting a handle on student supervision on this campus," Crutchfield said. "As soon as the situation is resolved, we will see a much more structured, comprehensive activity schedule. I guarantee it."

But with security problems under control, parents said, the clubs should be reinstated immediately.

"I make a sacrifice every day to come here," sophomore Tyrone Penserga told Crutchfield. He awakens at 4:30 a.m. to get ready and catch Tri-Rail from Boynton Beach to reach school by 7:30 a.m. "You're discouraging us from participating."

Speaking of safety, Penserga said, while club meetings end at 4 p.m., the bus to take home students who participate in after-school activities doesn't arrive until 5:30 p.m., leaving them with nothing to do. The school library is open only two days a week after school, another student pointed out.

Crutchfield pledged to open the library after school four days a week.

The school also plans to augment its offerings of advanced placement courses and create a track for earning the Florida Gold Seal Vocational Scholars Award — a scholarship to state universities and colleges.

But those developments weren't what the crowd was looking for. When she couldn't provide resolution for club meetings, the session became a free-for-all. Parents and students challenged everything from the school dress code — created under Carnes — to the cancellation of some school trips during the FCAT testing period. When Crutchfield cut off the questions after 90 minutes at 8:30 p.m., some in the audience began yelling.

Haha, well our school’s f___ed up as hell.  It’s nothing like the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy (cough cough Shuo) or the Ethical Culture Fieldston School (cough cough Heather) or even Northside Prep (cough cough Tony).  We’re just wonderful Suncoast, located in shitty Riviera Beach.

Anyways…

My spring break was fun.  Finished up some schoolwork.  Went to the pool, mall, and movies.  (No beach, unfortunately, and how ironic—I only live 7 miles away from the east coast of Florida, which is littered with beaches).  Saw “Miss Congeniality 2:  Armed and Fabulous.”  Hehehe, hilarious.  Jordan, you and I should go see that.  It’s better than that Legally Blonde 2 crap that we and Brenna saw.

Alright…  to all my brethrens… heed my word well…  Take care…  ‘cause it’s a dangerous world out there.

A shoutout, holla, hello, and hug for all of you…

1. Brenna Adams

2. Kimbia Arno

3. Lauryn Glover

4. Shuo Hong

5. Stephanie Hu

6. Heather Lewis

7. Catherine Norise

8. Tyrone Penserga

9. Tonatiu Rodriguez

10. Sonia Soto

11. Alyssa Sonchaiwanich

12. Amber Spring

13. Shivani Sud

14. Jordan Townes

15. Vanessa Valdivia

//   --  Thursday, November 4th, 2004  --  Period 3
//  IB Java   --  Ms. Wetterstrand
//  Chapter 4 --  Programming Problem #3        --  On Paper

//  This program will ask the user to input two numbers and then
//  it will print which one is larger, or whether they are equal.

import Keyboard;
public class Chapter4Program3
{
 public static void main(String[] args)
 throws java.io.IOException
 {
  double Num1, Num2;
  System.out.println(" * Welcome to Number Comparator 2.0! * ");
  System.out.println("This program will display a statement comparing the two values you entered.");
  Num1 = Keyboard.readDouble("Please enter the first number: ");
  Num2 = Keyboard.readDouble("Please enter the second number: ");
  
  if (Num1 > Num2)
  {
   System.out.println((Num1) + "is greater than " + (Num2) + (Num2) + "is less than " + (Num1));
  }
  if (Num1 == Num2)
  {
   System.out.println("The values you entered are the same. " + (Num1) + "equals" + (Num2));
  }
  if (Num1 < Num2)
  {
   System.out.println((Num2) + "is greater than " + (Num1) + (Num1) + "is less than " + (Num2));
  }
  System.out.println(" * Thank you for using Number Comparator! * ");
 }
}
  
  
  

Okay, I think I've finally gone crazy.  I made pasta at 1:53 in the morning.  (Meaning, right now)...  But we haven't had school in over a week, and I can't get to sleep...  so it's all good.  Well...  I'm hungry so I'm going to go eat it.  Leave comments... 

Hey everybody!  It’s been exactly one month since I’ve updated my site…  Not planned, I swear, LOL.  I just happened to log in today, and I see the last time I’ve updated (which isn’t very often, mind you), and I was like, “Damn, talk about coincidence.”  Exactly 1 month.  Anyhow, in the past month, I’ve done a lot of thinking…

HURRICANE FRANCES BATTERS PALM BEACH, MARTIN, ORANGE, SAINT LUCIE COUNTIES IN SOUTHERN FLORIDA…

Yes, it’s true.  We were hit by hurricanes.  Notice the plural.  First Hurricane Charley came through (didn’t really affect us that much—we still had school and my parents still had work on those days).  Then came Hurricane Frances…  and damn, school’s cancelled for 11 days (from Thursday, September 2^nd, through Sunday, September 12^th while every cleans up), my dad didn’t go to work until yesterday, everything’s a fucking mess.

Let me explain what I mean by “f___ing mess.”  We had no power for 3 days…  all our food went bad…  no gasoline, and the stations that have gasoline, the lines are like 40 to 60 cars long.  My dad drove to Boca Raton, a city about 50 miles from West Palm Beach in order to get gasoline.

The day after the hurricane, we went to the Super Wal-Mart (it’s sooo big!) to get more food and supplies.  Only to find out that it had barely any fresh food at all…  and by fresh, I mean sellable.  Half the inventory had stickers with “DAMAGED/OUTDATED:  NOT FOR SALE!”  Then we went to Publix, which is a supermarket that’s only found in 3 states: Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.  Most of the Publixes are in Florida—there’s only a couple in Georgia and Alabama.  Most of the food there was gone also…  So we went home with some bread and some instant noodles…  no traffic lights too, so we’re supposed to treat all major intersections like four-way stops…  but you know how the drivers are…  no one ever stops.

Trees falling over everywhere.  Power lines down in my neighborhood.  (And they’re live—you can see some sparks flying out of one by the town center)… 

People waiting in line for gas in my community ‘cause the ChevronTexaco™ station is the only one with gas.

No air-conditioning…it was so damn hot.  And no radio!!!  AHHH!  I can’t live without my music!  And MTV!  And VH1!  And NBC!  And FOX!  And CBS!  And ABC!  And my computer!  So we kept up-to-date on the only electronic that’s battery-operated in my house…  my Sony Walkman radio.

Everything’s pretty good now…  lives are starting to get back on track…  God Bless Everyone…

Suncoast has been so much fun, it’s been awesome to see all those people again… and the freshmen this year are so incredibly short!  I mean, holy fucking cow, it seems like they get more midget-ish every year…

My classes are going smoothly, for the most part.

AP Calculus is like incredibly easy.  In fact, it was easier than the pre-calculus course I took last year.

Chemistry’s going nicely…  My teacher, Ms. Cozzi, has this crazy Professor McGonagall outfit that she puts on every time she does an experiment for the class.  (I know Kimbia would love it!)  She puts on these wicked gloves and this blue apron with the periodic table on it and this pointed purple cone hat (you know, those shaped like the Dunce caps?  Except it doesn’t say “Dunce” on it, obviously).

English is fun.  Writing essays…  more essays…  more “close-text analysis” (meaning reading the book and figuring out what certain lines or sentences mean).

AP Government is awesome!!!  One of my favorite classes, most def’.  We discuss like politics and stuff, and I’m one of three conservatives in that class.  So my teacher and all the other 29 people in it are fucking liberals, and it’s so totally skewed to the left, and totally biased, which is completely unfair.  And I hate Bush and I hate Kerry even more, so in order to pick the lesser of the two evils, I’m going with Bush-Cheney in November.  So you guys, all of you that are 18 and over, register to vote, and go to the polls this November and VOTE!!!  I saw those MTV ads about “20 Million Loud” where they’re trying to get 20 million people the ages of 18-25 to go vote. 

And to calm all those f___ing rants I’m going to get about voting for Bush, let me say…  If Clinton were running, (either Bill or Hillary, though Bill can’t), I’d definitely go for one of the Clintons!  But I hate Kerry’s indecisiveness and I don’t know much about him…  Don’t like his policies either…  So Bush…  Go Bush!

Oh, and I took a quiz in that class and got a 19/20!  Woot!  There were 2 A’s, 6 B’s, 6 C’s, 8 D’s, and 11 F’s.  So damn, that’s kind of disturbing.  I was so happy ‘cause I got the highest grade in my class. 

AP Physics is challenging.  It’s fun, and I feel really proud when I get a problem.  But it’s the class I’m going to put the most time into, no doubt about that.  Mr. Murray’s our teacher—he’s been doing it for 19 years and he’s AWESOME!

French 3 is pretty cool.  (And I got placed in Honors French, not Intensive, Heather!  LOL, just kidding).  How’d you get into intensive?  Did they make a scheduling error?  ‘Cuase it seemed to me like you were an expert on Spanish!!

Computers is interesting…  We’re learning Java programming (for any of you tech geeks, it was developed by Sun Microsystems which was headed by Scott McNally—brilliant man, by the way).  The teacher’s so funny…  She has this high-pitched voice and she has a big white patch of hair in the back…  Even though everything else is gray…  (not grey, at least not in America).

And speaking of gray/grey, and the spelling issue, I’ve noticed something a while back that I was too lazy to mention until now.  Kimbia’s been spelling everything the British way.  Like “realised” instead of “realized,” or “favourite” instead of “favorite.”  Which doesn’t bother me, because I know she loves Harry Potter, , which is a good thing, and I do too, but it puzzles me as to why anyone in America would spell things the British way.  I admire British English because it is hailed as being more proper, but American English is what prevails all around the world…  American pop culture is just so powerful and influential that Briticisms are now being outdated…  For example, Trojans are now replacing Johnnies in Britain as the slang term for condoms…

And I miss everyone!!!  I have something to say to everyone!  All 15 people!  (In my next entry).

Wouldn’t it be so cool if we could all live together like on Real World?  That would be AWESOME!  And I don’t mean Temple, we’ve all lived at TMARC, and knew how that went, LOL.  But Imean, living and clubbing and bitching and laughing and fighting and helping at/with/for each other.  I watched the world premiere of Real World-Philadelphia yesterday and it was so cool ‘cause I knew all the places the camera shot.  Like that big-ass blue bridge, and Broad Street and South Street and the skyscrapers, and Arch Street (which we passed on our way to a play!)  Anyhow, the house is huge, and the building used to be a bank, but they knocked it down to make the house.

But imagine 7 of us living together.  Okay, here’s a fun mix…  Me, Tyrone, Tony, Heather, Shuo, Jordan, and Cathy.  (I’d include everyone, but there could only be 7, so I just picked some random people).  Imagine Jordan bitching at everyone everyday, complaining of something like “Damn, who the fuck left all this hair in the shower?” or “Damn, can’t y’all flush the stupid toilet once in a while?”  And Cathy ordering Chinese food.  And Heather and Shuo having their on-again, off-again, relationship…  and me, Tyrone, and Tony doing… whatever.

But in real life, I’d have all 15 of us in a house of course…  ‘Cause 7’s just not enough for fun…  we’d have to all be there.

Leave some comments on the following:

And can you imagine all or some of us…

1. In the hot-tub together?

2. Being drunk?

3. Having sex with each other?

4. Clubbing with each other?

5. Hooking up with each other?

6. Bitching at each other?

7. Having the time of our lives with each other?

And Laguna Beach looks like a really good show, too.  I’d love to live the beach life…  sand, surf, sun, girls…  Yup, I’d love to live in Laguna Beach, California.  (Sigh)…  But Florida’s just as awesome (if not, better).  ‘Cause if y’all go up to Jupiter Island, damn!  There are some fine houses and beaches there…

Alright, I’m signing off…  Take care, everyone!