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Pete’s Declassified School Survival Guide: The Essay

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By Peter Kadel, Senior Survival Scout

Essays, the go-to assignment of choice for English teachers everywhere. Ranging from 1 page to 100 pages, throughout your high-school career you will write so many essays and papers that it is likely that one of them will resemble the works of Shakespeare. But, what if all of them could be as good as the great William Shakespeare? Today, here at Pete’s Declassified, we are going to teach you how to write essays that are so good they will make your teacher question the very fabric of the universe and move to Thailand to discover inner peace. So fasten your seatbelts everyone! It’s time to learn.

  1. First, you need to consider your deadline. The best concepts can be ruined by spending too much time worrying about staying on topic and making sense. The best time to write a wonderful essay are the first 48 hours after the essay has been assigned; if you wait any longer your ideas will be lost forever. So, as soon as an essay is assigned, check yourself out of school, and go home. Once you are home, lock all of the doors and retreat to your lair to begin writing.
  2. During your 48-hour writing marathon, you are going to need to fuel your mind and body so you have enough energy to write a wonderful essay. While coffee may sound like the right choice, it’s not. Your best bet is to embrace your inner mad scientist and concoct a caffeinated sugar monstrosity so potent that it will give you a caffeine buzz just from looking at it. My personal favorite is brewing my coffee in Red Bull instead of water and instead of using creamer I buy an iced mocha and use that as my creamer to maximize caffeine intake. Once you’ve got a gallon or two of that in your system, you’ll be all fired up to write an amazing essay.
  3. Now that you are ready to begin writing your essay, you need to think about the content of the essay. While the subject will vary, all essays can follow the same template: hook, line, and sinker. The hook should be eye-catching and astonishing, so even if it doesn’t relate to the rest of your essay, use the flashiest paragraph you can muster to hook your audience. Next, comes the line; all you need to do for this portion of the essay is write as many lines/pages as you need to fulfill the essay’s requirements. Use as many quotes as you can; there is no need to reinvent the wheel here. The human race has been writing stuff down for thousands of years; it would be wasteful not to use what previous generations have written. My favorite resources to quote are the Rosetta Stone, the Magna Carta, the White-Gold Concordat, and business records from Mesopotamia. Once your line is of adequate length, it’s time to move on to the sinker. All you need to know for the sinker is that it should essentially sink your essay in reality. Bring it down. Crush it like reality crushes all high-school students.

If you follow all of these steps, your essays will bring a tear to your teacher’s eye and an “A” to your report card. You’re welcome.

Editor: Makena Behnke

Welcome to Pete’s Declassified School Survival Guide Volume 2!

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By Senior Blogger Peter Kadel

Emergency survival–Yesterday we participated in the Great California Shakeout, intended to prepare the people of California for the looming doomsday-level earthquake that is sure to destroy modern society. In the spirit of emergency preparedness, I have carefully constructed this comprehensive guide to counsel you in the correct conduct in the face of catastrophe. I will draw on my own vast experience as an avid outdoorsman.

 

Earthquakes–The main thing to remember in this situation is that a negative plus a negative equals a positive; using this proven mathematical formula, it can be inferred that if you start shaking yourself the kinetic energy will cancel out the effects of the tremor in your immediate area. This effect is amplified if you have a middle-school student with you. Simply shake the middle schooler as well as yourself to increase the range of stillness, allowing you to limit the damage caused. If this fails, then run as fast as you can to escape the tremors.

 

Flooding–Drink Water.

 

Sand Storms (Haboob)–The biggest risk posed by severe swirling sandstorms suddenly sliding across the desert is the decreased visibility. Deal with this by taping binoculars to your face so you can see further through the flying dust. The second biggest risk is damage to your clothes, and you wouldn’t want that, so if you can’t find shelter during a sandstorm, you should remove your clothes, soak them in water (so they stay fresh), then quickly bury them so they stay clean. There is no need to worry about bodily harm from the sand. Humans have lived in desert climates for many years, so that means they must be adapted to the conditions found in the desert or else they wouldn’t live there. After all, it would be madness to live somewhere where you have no chance of surviving without modern technology.

 

Drought–Drink water.

 

Tornado–The calm is found in the eye of the storm; this is true for tornados as well. So in order to survive a tornado, the first thing you should do is run or drive as fast as possible towards the tornado. If you do it right, you will reach the oasis-like eye of the storm. Once you are there, spin in the opposite direction to stop the storm.

 

Lightning–Stand in water.

 

Zombie Attack–If you believe that this post will actually help you survive, then the zombies won’t chase you because you are already brainless. If you aren’t brainless, just keep a brainless person with you (a Morty) to drown out your brainwaves so the zombies won’t find you. Pete says, “A good place to find a brainless person would be State or National Congress.”

Editor: Makena Behnke

*Note: This is satire. Please, do not stand in water during lightning, etc. Results may vary. Please consult your doctor before adhering to advice found in “Pete’s Declassified.” Note: the words of Pete Declassified do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Blog @ thebirdonfire.org.