Author's note: first, a little background. CSAP are the standardized tests that everyone in Colorado has to take from third through tenth grade. Last year, I decided to write blog entries for each day of the tests, which is why these are in blog entry format, complete with abbreviations and comments to the readers. You can find the original on Just type in Chronicles of CSAP and you'll find it, misspellings and all. (I corrected those before posting it here). Since I believe the entries to be fairly self-explanatory, I won't be talking any more at the beginning. Just sit back, relax, and laugh at me while I undergo the horror that is CSAP.

P.S. You can probably expect another set at the end of this week, when I finish taking them for the last time EVER!!

All right. Now, who would be testing a fog machine during CSAP (Colorado Student Assement Program, I think)??? The answer: random people at my school...

So, today was the first day of CSAP (grrr). We got to do all 3 math tests today, instead of just two, like we did in ES and MS (welcome to High School). It was actually really hard!!! B/c I'm a Freshman, I have to take the 9th grade CSAP, even though I'm in 10th grade honors math (and I'm not quite failing, but let's not think about it that way... glass half full and all that...). So, b/c of being in high level math, I haven't actually done any of the 9th grade stuff since last year (and last year, we did a lot of the stuff we're doing this year, so maybe it was the year before). Anyway, the result was that I'd kinda forgotten a lot of the stuff I was supposed to have learned this year, b/c my brain was crammed full of stuff I'm supposed to be learning next year. Isn't school a wonderfully organized place??

So, I was struggling through the third (yes, third) math test, and... the fire alarm went off. Honestly! So, we were all brutally yanked out of our hard-won concentration by the high-pitched shrieking of the stupid fire alarm (and seriously, do they have to make them sound so Gorram irritating?? It's not that they're loud (I have a brother and he's in Karate, so I can handle loud), it's that they're just annoying!! They're all high-pitched and shrill and just not the kind of thing you want to listen to, ever!). So, we all trouped outside and stayed there for all of seven minutes, and then the alarm went off, and we all trouped back inside (and remember how in ES, we all learned that we are supposed to go in and out in a quiet, orderly line??? Doesn't happen. Like sharing and raising our hands and taking turns, that kind of thing only works in Kindergarten!!). We went on with the test, being completely knocked out of the state of calm, desperate concentration (which sounds like an oxymoron, but isn't. If you've ever taken a standardized test, then you'll know the feeling).

Why would the fire department plan a fire-drill in the middle of CSAP?-you ask. What does this have to do with the afore-mentioned fog machine?-you wonder. Why do I care?-you wail. I can help you with all but the last question, which you must answer for yourselves, and which will most likely be something like, "I don't care. I'm just wasting 5 minutes of my life reading about the troubles of a high-schooler in Colorado whom I've never met, and who I will probably never meet." (But plz pop before you come to said conclusion).

However, about the first two questions, I can help you. I have an answer!! To question number 1... they didn't! It was unplanned and unexpected...which leads us to number 2 (and if you're smart people, which I sure hope you are, you will have made the mental leap btwn. testing fog machines and unexpected fire alarms. For all the rest of you...) random people in (I think) the theater, decided to test the fog machine. They were obviously upper-classmen who wanted A) to deliver us from 5 minutes of testing, or B) to sabotage our chances of getting a higher score than they did. I, of course, suspect B.

And now, I have to go, so that I can be home in time for lunch (b/c today, only people w. 1st and 2nd hour classes have to stay, and...I don't have either of those!!!)

If you liked (or even if you didn't like) this entry, I would encourage you to check out the rest of my blog, including the entry (which I am going to link this entry to as soon as I've finished typing this) entitled "5 am."

merci beaucoups,
Kyra