Seventh Grade: A Reflection on the Bane of My Existence

When I went back to school in August, I was expecting something more. An improvement over the sixth grade year, maybe even something to look forward to.

I didn’t get it.

It was exactly the same, except for the fact that we had more homework. And we got to dissect deer hearts. And chicken wings. And soon, frogs! Other than that, there was no improvement. It was just the same people with the same quality class and the same old can-I-fall-asleep-now feeling.

Now, school would be great if it didn’t involve homework. In fact, that’s probably what ruined seventh grade for me. All these worksheets on math and science and Texas history made me about as happy as being stabbed 37 times with a pitchfork. Sometimes I think I would rather be stabbed. They kept me up for an eternity. When I finally finished, usually around 2:17 AM, my eyes burned, my fingers clamped around an invisible pencil and unable to move from that position. I had bags under my eyes that would cause a bellhop to cry, and I was either sleep-deprived and extremely happy or sleep-deprived and violently, well, violent.

However, despite all of these educational obstacles, I learned a few things.

  • There are two groups of people in a grade, the introverts and the extroverts, and both groups thing that the other group is just a bunch of losers.
  • If Kevin Z says it, it’s probably right.
  • Nothing is better than seeing or hearing your least favorite person in a bad mood.
  • If you go into a bathroom during a passing period, turn off the lights, turn the water on in the sink in front of a mirror, and scream “BLOODY MARY” three times at the top of your lungs, an assistant principal conveniently located in an office next to you will open the door and tell you to shut up.
  • The truly great teachers won’t yell at you, but instead make painfully sarcastic comments about you in class.

All in all, I learned a lot more than the educational stuff your teachers mean to teach. I found out friends are a lot more useful than most gamers think, and that you should never judge a class by its description. So, even though seventh grade wasn’t perfect in the slightest, if I were to do this all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing.

One More Level : The Advantages of Being a Gamer

“It’s a great day outside,” your parents say in excited unison, eager to kick you out of the house and watch you spontaneously combust under the unwavering heat of the sun. “You should go out and play!” Hmm. How about no? You see, there are many advantages to being a gamer, such as having superior hand-eye coordination to most, or having the divine privilege of taking the confidence of noobs and shoving it face-first into the virtual dirt. And we get excited on a sunny day, too, but it’s only because storms have a tendency to mess up internet connection. So, without further adieu (And more sentences in this already-excessively-wordy introduction), I present the top three advantages to being a gamer.

First of all, the environment doesn’t change what we happen to be doing. Because, if there’s no wind, you can’t go outside and fly kites. But you can play Battlefield or Team Fortress 2. If it’s raining, you can’t go outside and play football (unless your idea of football involves sliding around in the mud and falling flat on your face every five seconds.), but you can play Minecraft.

In addition, being a gamer allows for endless fun and games putting pixelated arrows into the faces of your friends, or cooperating with them to build a zombie-proof fort, or perhaps beating them into colorful, explosive oblivion (Have you read the childhood memory post yet?).

And lastly, video games have been scientifically proven to improve certain brain functions. I was too lazy to write all of this information down, as, sadly, it does not affect our motivation to do something, but I’m sure that if you can read this post, you can read that article. It’s really interesting. Try it.

So, now you know why we don’t simply stop gaming and go outside of our own free will, or feed our cats (and/or dogs), or go to eat lunch at a reasonable hour, because we are (or would like to pretend that we are) constantly aware of these advantages, and the fun that being a gamer simultaneously provides us with.