Normal Teenage Problems

[Adam L]

2.Are the older textbooks accurate for the things we need them to be. I don’t have pre-Calculus anymore and won’t be taking Calculus but this sounds like something useful for college. It would be useful to learn that (A*Derivative of B-Derivative of B*A/A*A) instead of F*D(G)-G*D(F)/F*F.

Calculus hasn't changed. Yes, the textbooks will be accurate. If you plan on studying an area where you might have to use calc you should take it in high school. In most areas you will not have any use for your calculus. (That includes most sciences. Having calc may be a requirement, but it will be not used in many areas of study.) I always encourage people to learn new things in math. Calc will be useful in life!

3.We already study military victory’s in Psych and Advanced Psych(which is a college course).

What are you studying about military victories in your psych courses?

4.Good reading list, but I read Ender’s Game in sixth grade(and still pick it up on a yearly basis) and the Odyssey in 9th. I’ll probably be picking up the Illiad for the reasons you mentioned.

When you do so let me know. I'll e-mail you a few good texts to accompany it.

6.I have shoulder length hair. In Nebraska, this leads people to believe that I do drugs(haven’t even tried them), drink(nope), and/or smoke(which I don’t).

Be as tidy as possible and put your hair in a ponytail if it is straight. If your hair is curly and shoulder length you should cut it. Buy a Ranger UP t-shirt. This shirt will assure them you are not a hippie. So will this one, and this one. My main suggestion for you is to not dress like a hippie. Maybe try to play yourself off as more of a nerd or something (dockers, button down shirt, pocket protector..maybe not the pocket protector.) Above all else, don't act like a hippie.

Thankfully my English teacher cares more about us than her job. She, instead of teaching us how to write an essay the Junior English approved way, graded us on the SAT essay score which emphasizes logic and flow.

That's not what I'm really talking about. SAT essays score the most rudimentary logic. I'm talking about being able to right at a much higher level. I don't think I was very clear with what I was trying to get at. I am talking about critical analysis. The goal is not just to be able to create, but deconstruct. A great deal of your future academic and professional writing will involve analysis of a given work or situation. The SAT (I am very familiar with the test as well as the grading rubric) does not prepare you for this.
The best way to learn this skill is to read others works which provide models. A lot of the non-fiction that has been suggested in this thread will help you. If there is one magazine that I would have you read to learn from, it would be The Economist. The Economist might be the only broadly distributed publication that still maintains its high standards.

Unfortunately where I live is a mix of German/Irish and Mexican/Hispanic. Therefore I won’t be dating anyone outside of the languages and cultures I already speak or am studying.

As I said, this comes later. You are in high school. You are not old enough to start targeting who and what you want in a woman. Once you get to college, more realistically after you graduate, you can start a check list of the different types of women you want to date. Also, you date girls, not women yet. Remember that. You should just find yourself I nice young girl who isn't just eye candy. Eye candy is for when your older and you actually know what to do with it. Also, promise me that if you are doing anything with the girl you decide to date, which you shouldn't be as you are still too young, that you don't make a mistake that would really screw up your life. (You know what I mean by this. )


I am assuming that when you mean Mexican/Hispanic you really just mean Mexican, because you "Hispanic" covers a lot of different peoples. They may all be Latin, but they are very, very different. Argentinians, El Salvadorians and Dominicans are very different from each other. Culturally there are also a lot of differences. Dominicans came up with Bachatta while the Argentinians have Tango. They are different and reflect interesting cultural histories. Tango was developed in Buenos Aires. It was also invented by men dancing with men. (Don't try this in Nebraska!) The city at that time almost had a 3-1 ratio of men to women. So, men had to learn to dance with other men so that they could be good enough to get a dance with a woman. That's why it is so damn macho. Sorry for veering off like this, but you get the point I'm trying to make.

Adam L