MCAS is a sinking ship of fail.

I hate MCAS. 

We know this. It’s not a secret. I complain quite frequently about it. MCAS is a soul-sucking, creativity-killing, beaurocracy-driven, logistically despicable waste of valuable learning time. I understand why tests need to happen. I don’t understand why we can’t figure out a faster way to revise the testing process to make it more accurate and meaningful. 

Thirteen years ago, the sophomores sat down to take 10^th grade MCAS for the first time (officially, anyway, because previous years served as guinea pigs). Thirteen years later, we finally have a new set of learning standards, but we’re scrambling to create a better test to assess these new standards. Thirteen years of stupidly-worded questions, boring, repetitive analysis, and hours of missed learning time later, we’re TRYING to make a new test. 

THIRTEEN YEARS. Why can’t it happen faster? What’s with the slow turnaround? While we were wasting time on a dumb test that doesn’t measure anything worth knowing, THIRTEEN YEARS worth of kids grew up and graduated or didn’t but it doesn’t really matter because we can’t help them now. Thirteen years worth of students think open response is a genre and multiple choice is a way of life. Thirteen years worth of students missed God knows how many hours of learning time that was spent prepping for or taking a dumb test. 

What took so damn long? When a ship is sinking, you jump ship and try to swim to shore. You escape in a lifeboat. You shoot off flares. You do anything, really, as long as you’re doing SOMETHING. You don’t stay on the sinking ship until it hits the ocean floor, just to make sure it’s really sinking, just to make sure there’s no hope. 

So here’s a radical idea: What do you say we try not to drown from now on?

What is up with cilantro?

What is up with cilantro? Can we just take a minute to discuss how thoroughly obnoxious cilantro is? It stays fresh for roughly 2.4452 seconds before devolving into a pea-green mushtastic situation that leaks all over the rest of the vegetables in the crisper and renders them unusable. What the hell, cilantro? I wouldn't have as big a problem with it if cilantro were more consistent, but no. Cilantro has an agenda. If I buy cilantro on Monday, and intend to use it on Wednesday, the cilantro mushifies by Tuesday. If I buy it on Monday and intend to use it on Tuesday, it mushifies by Tuesday morning. If I buy it on Monday and intend to use it on Friday (why I'd ever do this I don't know, but hey, stupider things have happened), IT STAYS FRESH UNTIL THURSDAY NIGHT and then... nuclear mushsplosion. What's your problem, cilantro? Do you have it out for me? What did I ever do to you? My brother has a vendetta against you, but I've always stood up for you. This is how you repay me? If I didn't love guacamole so much I'd dump your mushy ass so fast...

I hate being a grown-up.

I hate taxes, bills, and the way I have to tip-toe around life for fear my financial situation will collapse even further.

I hate stretch marks, freckles, and the fact that I can no longer have 5 drinks, 2 slices of pizza, and half a bag of Sour Patch Kids with minimal consequences.

I hate being hit on by obnoxious 22 year-old guys, yet somehow, they are magnetically drawn to me. Like mosquitos.

I hate the way the dust never seems to go away completely because by the time I'm finished cleaning one part of the room, new dust has appeared in the part I cleaned five minutes ago.

I hate loans, APR, carbohydrates, and that the only consistent thing I can count on my body to do is become less efficient with age.

I hate that when things make me so angry I could punch through a window, I can't do anything about them because I'm a grown-up, and it's not okay to punish people who double park, cut you off in traffic, cut in at the last second when you've been waiting in the long line of cars for 20 minutes, and are generally incompetent useless fools as you see fit.

I hate being a grown-up.

SLAM POEM: An Open Letter to the Girls on the Train

*inspired by: thin girls on the subway complaining (loudly) about being fat

I’d like to say something to the girls on the train.

You don’t know me, but I know you.

You live in front of your mirror, always asking it

questions. It’s your confidante, your guru, the one you never leave the house without consulting because

God forbid

you ate a cookie and your pants are tight

God forbid

Your belly hangs half an inch

over your waistband

God forbid

you have a waist

and hips

and a mother that feeds you muffins

made with real sugar sometimes

GOD FORBID.

I know you.

You hold your breath in the fitting room,

cut the tags off your jeans,

freeze the chocolate so you won’t

eat it and snap your teeth.

I know you.

You compare yourself to everyone who walks by

Wish you had her legs

Her smile

her ability to eat just one oreo and put the rest back

I know you.

and I have some advice.

Eat.

The. Cookie.

Not because you should.

Not because you can.

Not because it’s there,

and you’re sad,

and he didn’t call,

and you already ate fries,

so the diet can’t start until tomorrow anyways.

eat it because you want it.

Taste it.

Let it melt on your tongue,

invade your thoughts

your being

your every last taste bud

until your eyes roll back and you have to sit down

while the world spins faster and faster

with all the wonder wrapped in this

tiny, sweet, circle.

Then stop,

drink some water,

and get on with your day.

Because it’s just a cookie,

and you’re just a girl on a train

and he’s just a boy who’d probably love you

even if you were two pounds heavier

and if he wouldn’t, then he’s

not worth it.

So eat the cookie.