Oh, today. THE big day.
I swear, for people who have absolutely no say so in the government of our country yet, high schoolers are the most adamantly opinionated and in most cases irrational politicians. It's kind of scary that people who have never experienced the real world have such conviction in their opinions. By the time the tardy bell for first period had rang, I had counted seventeen Obama shirts and two McCain. But of course this is nothing new. Most of these shirts are worn so often that they're faded and have holes in the armpits. I kid you not. The holes are so big that you can see armpit hair when guys raise their hands. I have these two friends (we'll call them Barry and Casey) who are basically the Batman and Robin of the Democratic party at Rome High. They can smell a conservative from a classroom away and will massacre said conservative with the baterangs of big vocabulary and squish them repeatedly under the tires of the rules-of-proper-debatemobile. But anyways, speaking of smell, for the past three months, they have alternated days, taken turns, if you will, wearing an Obama shirt. They have one each. And each one is worn every other day. It's a little gross. When Obama wins later tonight, he should redistribute some of his campaign t-shirts to Rome High School. Please.
First Period: I listen to Mr. Williams tell us how frustrated he is with the new chemistry posters he's been sent. Apparently, he just received one with a dog donning safety goggles that reads "Wear your "Lab" goggles". He was quite disappointed because this was not nearly as sadistic as his current favorite poster which reads "Carol didn't wear her safety goggles. Now she doesn't have to" right above a picture of "Carol" with her sunglasses and seeing eye dog.
We're learning about electron configuration in chemistry right now, which I only understand because of the extended metaphor Mr. Williams uses to explain it, which has to do with kidnapping children. If one atom takes an electron from another atom, it will be one in the outermost orbital. Likewise, if you are kidnapping a child, you should probably take one playing alone and close to the road, not one on the swing set with his buddies and mommy and daddy watching. Makes perfect sense.
Second Period: Mrs. Ehrler goes over the homework from last night. All answers should be in radians which consist of a number times pi. My friend (we'll call him...Eddy) wants to show off...well, no. I take that back....wants to hit on Mrs. Ehrler, as usual, and belts out his answers as soon as she gets to the problem.
"The answer to number five is 27!"
"Well, actually it's 27 PI, Eddy."
"Oh...so how was your weekend, Mrs. Ehrler?"
"Number six..."
"Is 39!"
"No, it's 39 Pi."
"You look very beautiful today, actually, you look beautiful every day."
"Number seven is..."
"Fourteen!"
"No! It's fourteen PI. You keep forgetting your pi! Where is your pi?!"
"I ate it."
What I learned in math class today is either 1) Eddy can't spell or 2) one can eat an infinite number.
Third Period: I work on a drawing that I started yesterday in my sketchbook and watch Dr.Hodges draw a cartoon of the other art teacher, Ms. Hubler, as Hitler saying (in German) "I am not an artist...You will not touch my things...You will listen to crappy elevator music...and you WILL be inspired." Ms. Hubler is a little anal, and Dr. Hodges is a free spirit, so their colors don't mix. No pun intended.
Fourth Period (before lunch): I watch the intense Pocket Tank tournaments going on between my guy friends who feel that studying for the test after lunch is a lost cause, because they didn't read the book and spark notes didn't have the information they needed last minute. Also, Mrs. Faulkner made each period's test different, so there were no prior test "hints" available from previous test takers. I won't lie, I felt the same way, which is how I ended up watching animated tanks blow each other up with fantasy weapons. I must admit, what fascinated me the most though, were the creative player names that my friends came up with based on either their religion or their race. My Pakistani friend (we'll call him Bill) was "Allah". My Jewish friend (Jeremy) was "Yahweh". My Guatemalan friend (Gary) was "Beaner". And my white friend (Matt) was "Cracker". Disrespectful, yes. Politically incorrect, um, yes. Funny and infinitely more entertaining than "player 1" and "player 2", sadly, yes.
Lunch: I eat lunch with my usual table consisting of Barry, Casey, Jeremy, and five other guys. Politics was the talk of the lunch table along with some crude Jew jokes, made by Jeremy (the Jew). My friend (Harry) stole eight packs of saltine crackers from the lunch line and attempted to eat them all in one minute. We all cheered him on encouraged him by banging on the table and yelling, but he didn't swallow the last bite in time. He hadn't had enough water beforehand. Shame. And apparently some teachers aren't for encouraging one's God-given talents because we got shushed and called "unnecessarily obnoxious". Double shame.
Fourth Period (after lunch): We all took the test over the book Mrs. Dalloway. So boring. Nothing to write about. I hate tests.
Fifth Period: Coach Dougherty begins class by sharing a metaphor, which was brought up in a previous period, with Casey whom Coach D lovingly calls Barack. The metaphor was this "If I have a 2.0 GPA, and you have a 4.0 GPA, why don't they redistribute the grades and give me 1.0 of yours so that we both have 3.0's! Fair right?"
Casey was not amused.
"Uhm, can I get a rebuttal, please?"
"Sure."
"Bush's spending..."
There was more, but I won't bore you because it's hard to understand and it's totally irrelevant.
Sixth Period: My friend Ansley and I suffer through another period of "intermediate chorus" which should honestly be "special ed chorus". Somehow, the people who can sight read music got clumped in the alto section, and the people who don't even know note names decided to be sopranos. Therefore, an hour of my life is wasted each day going over solfedge scales with the sopranos that we have been singing since the first week of school. Ansley and I have made a new set of jokes. Instead of dumb blonde jokes, we have dumb soprano jokes. No offense if you're a soprano, unless you're a soprano in intermediate chorus at Rome High. Then, offense.
Seventh Period: My dance teacher decides to have a political debate in class. Makes perfect sense right? Dance class, politics, they totally go together. Anyhow, I get jumped by a fellow class mate due to my political beliefs and received my third death threat of the year, all which have come from different people in dance class. I'm considering transferring out of the class next semester. Maybe. We'll see.
After school, I went with National Honor Society to Winthrop West Assisted Living, where we made candy turkeys and visited with the residents. I received my first marriage proposal from a seventy-four year old man. He asked if he was being too forward or moving too fast. I told him of course not. I'd go buy my dress tonight and we could get married tomorrow. You're all invited to the wedding.
There was another old man, who was rather grumpy, that Bill (my paki friend) tried to cheer up. I witnessed their conversation which I found quite humorous.
"Hi there, I'm Bill. Would you like me to help you make a turkey?"
"Are you ona them turrists?"
"No, sir, I'm not."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes sir, I'm an American."
"Cause I waz in the militury and I'll light yew up if you are!"
"No, I'm American. I've always lived here."
"Oh. Well when'r you people leavin'?"
"In about an hour, but we'll be back next month."
"Well...could you bring me a case uh beer when you come?"
I'm so glad Bill has a great sense of humor, because that was just too funny to be offended.
So that was my Election day. November 4th, 2008.
Here's my quotes for the day:
"Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile." -Albert Einstein
