XPI Student Showcase
Welcome to Xpress Plugged In, our new online gallery of student expressions. Please follow the submission instructions CAREFULLY. New work will be posted every Monday.
-- Nancy Green, editor of XPI
Selections for the Week of 5/31/2010
Found in a Yard, digital photograph
Victoria Stadlin, 10th grade, St. Stephen's Episcopal School, Bradenton
C. Leon King High School,
Tampa
The 4-A Club (Anti-Aphoristic Anarchy of Algebra)
This heresy you place upon us
The gibberish on the blackboard
This hodgepodge of letters and numbers
No longer merely makes us bored
These endless expanses on which you grin
And so foolishly label quadratic
Are absolute nonsense, a waste of your chalk
Your order of operations, erratic
When we try to square root a negative
You call it an expression imaginary
Although, with our deepest regret
Since you wrote it, it's quite the contrary
All of these inarticulate angles
Strangely referred to as alpha and beta
Make us feel like total zeroes
Like an unslashed angle theta
How can you even survive
With all that undefined mumbo-jumbo
When the answer of zero is harder to hide
Than the flying elephant Dumbo
Instead of remembering sine, cosine, and tangent
(Both on and off the coordinate plane)
We'd like to stick with the three sides and
Three corners definition of a triangle again
When you babble on and on
About the axis of symmetry and directrix
We would rather be placed atop a hill
And bound by a wooden crucifix
We hate all these crazy conic curves
And this asymptote formula hocus-pocus
And we just might start a riot
If we have to find another focus
Also, no more of the number pi
It's almost lunch time, so stop teasing
When you try to draw a perfect circle
Neither to the eye nor the stomach it is pleasing
Like in the comic Calvin and Hobbes
We think this is a religion, not a science
It takes a miracle to understand all of this
And we have no intention of being pious
Though we are nearly Math Atheists
We offer you this one benediction
Pay more heed to the smarts of life
Than your variable value restrictions
Magna Bum Laude
"From public schools shall general knowledge flow,
for 'tis the people's sacred right to know,"
but why endure twelve years of adversity
just to waste $100K at some university?
Why waste year after year working toward a degree
When you can play a hobo and get cash easily?
When you're an undergrad, you gotta do interviews;
I get all the info I need from the six o' clock news!
All of the classes are so uselessly hard:
You see a lot in economics, but not one business card!
No one needs a major (heck, a minor) in communications:
Just pick up a cell phone and enjoy its accommodations!
Classes in English are another huge waste of time:
We all speak and understand it, so we know it just fine.
But nothing can go as low as the thing called "higher math";
Whoever puts that many letters with numbers is a psychopath!
Plus, Women's Studies, much to my dismay,
Does not involve studying that blonde in algebra all day.
And what can someone do with a degree in religious studies?
Maybe pray to get hired by their MBA-ed buddies!
Let it be known with no reservation
That I don't need no edu-ma-cation!
Where 56th Meets Sligh
Bundles of babies,
cart wheeling ladies,
wrappers littering the ground,
nosy what-iffers,
powdered candy sniffers,
Mac-eaters weighing many a pound,
insane hands typing,
lazy mouths griping,
a grill so gold it glows,
International Baccalaureate,
unacceptable chocolate,
quarterly fashion shows,
roach infestations,
portable Playstations,
lightning-fast spreading rumors,
belt-hating males,
a rainbow of veils,
'dain bramage' without tumors,
hair flooded with dyes,
oversized bags under the eyes,
an attempt to teach Chinese,
a man without brows,
fork-stealing sows,
a girl with a hurricane sneeze,
wearers of togas,
gulpers of sodas,
book bags making strides with a limp,
a sky blue floor,
a handle-less door,
a gamer with the mouth of a pimp,
Froot Loops on fire,
low-cut attire,
enough pizza to feed a nation,
cars with huge rims,
caps without brims,
a particularly prim Asian,
deadly burritos,
hackey-sacking emos,
pooping in pants while cryin',
underscored editors,
athletic predators,
and a teacher with the heart of a lion.
Three poems by Quesly Daniel, 12th grade
Inner Orchid, digital photograph
Victoria Stadlin, 10th grade, St. Stephen's Episcopal School, Bradenton