Being Smart

Today my sister was studying for a multiple choice history test that she will be taking tomorrow. I told her to take a break which prompted her to yell at me something to the extent of "You don't get it! You're smart so it's easier for you". This made me wonder- as IB kids, what do we have that makes us "smart"?
 I think that I work hard in school and study enough to get the grade that I want on a test. There are certain skills, like writing, that can't necessarily be studied but have to be developed. I understand some people being naturally better at these skills but what is the definition of "smart" because for me, I just set goals for myself and do what I need to do to achieve them. This is the definition of hard working, not smart.

Any thoughts?

Dreaming Too Big

With classes like IB Spanish I think that we can all agree that there are specific points in our day when daydreaming becomes unaviodable. I know that everyone dreams about different things but for me, I always end up thinking about what I hope my future will be like. Is this the same for everyone else?

If so, does anyone else fear that they are dreaming too big? I feel that I am not dreaming of goals that are unattainable, but rather, a future that is too perfect. Of course nobody hopes to have a curveball thrown at them in the future but I think my daydreams are setting my expectations too high.

Any thoughts on this?

Dia Day Los Muertos

Today in Spanish we celebrated the Day of the Dead, a holiday in the spanish culture the celebrates those who have passed. As skulls are the most well known symbol for this holiday, we were instructed to color paper skulls as is traditionally done on spanish speaking countries on this day. My skull consisted of various colors, dots and random lines. I have my skull eyelashes and a moustache. A classmate looked over at my desk and apparantly only saw the eyelashes and said, "oh you made a girl skull". This surprised me as I did not think about making my skull a specific gender. I lifted the skull to show her the full face and she saw the moustache and said, "oh I'm sorry I guess I just assumed the eyelashes made the skull a girl".

Why does our culture assume that eyelashes are feminine? Everyone has eyelashes and generally, men are the only ones who purposely grow moustaches but it is curious to think that eyelashes signify being a woman.

Street Signs

Today I was on my way home from school and I noticed the signs leading into the residential streets were different colors. I know on the highways the different colors signify the type of information found on the signs but these were residential streets. Some were a dark blue with white writing, others were a lighter blue (that did not apear to be from fading) and some were green. If anyone can give me insight as to why there are different color signs I would love to hear it!