August 31, 2010

Planner Tuesday.

If I have learned one thing today (and trust me this will probably be the only thing I learn this whole week. You don't start learning till week #2) it is that all teachers were the trouble makers, the class clowns in school. My World Geo teacher told us today that she skipped school once a week in junior year, then added with a serious tone that it was wrong. My science teacher, star wars loving science teacher, told us she never answered to her name to make teachers mad. And here I was thinking we were to be influenced by these people.

Planner Tuesday is one of the most hated days of school. You get your planner in your 2nd class, this year the cover was black and red and said be yourself in something a little to close to the Harry Potter font. I'm not sure who they're trying to please. Then in each of your classes you read 3 of the pages of school rules, until you know exactly how your shirt should be tucked in and what kind of sammiches your mom is allowed to make you.

I start my day in 7:00 in English. My teacher is stout, and fully gray haired, even at the age of 57. Shes good and kind, and it's nearly impossible to dislike her. We have a 3 paragraph essay to write. The prompt = Explain who you are.

My best friend Bernie is on one side of me, my other friend Lola is in front of me. Bernie is loud and annoying, but she's sweet and determined. I must use that word only because there's no other way to put her. Her current goal is to become popular, she's almost there and how she is able to fit me in is a wonder.

I cant answer the question, I can't write the essay. I can hear Bernie breaking her pencil she writes so hard. I don't know who I am and quite frankly I have no desire to at the moment. I'll have to finish it tomorrow, I suppose. Am I supposed to know? Would you at 13? I think not.

The rest of the day is a blur of gray and green and planner rules. Very few things stick...

"There will no longer be locks on the individual bathrooms. Its a hazard, what if you slip and I can't save you," said Ms.Heels, orchestra."I'll get a 'vacant' magnet, don't worry."

"They say I can't have this many posters on the walls, something about a fire hazard," my World Geo teacher chuckles." At least we will go down beautifully." Or dead with Determination and Perseverance posters hanging around us. At least there will be a funny remark regarding our determination and perseverance at our funerals, I think.

"Please tell me stories about you, I want to know my students a little better," - teacher
"I got stabbed once, by a knife. But i took care of him," - boy in class
Silence

It was a good day, for 8th grade that is.
And look at it this way, only 178 more to go. 

August 30, 2010

The first day of school.

My school is an arts school. Which means that, yes, we have nerds and jocks and rebels, but we also have drama freaks and band geeks, too. There are the zoned kids and then the magnet ones, I'm a magnet student. I have gracefully taken the nickname, as have the other orchestra kids, 'orcha dork', me being in orchestra for 2 periods of my 7 everyday.

As I was ushered into the gym at 7 this morning, little gray, green, navy, black, white and khaki blobs swarming, I noticed something about every one of them. A falseness that is there every first week of school. Every little girl and boy had their hair perfectly tousled, their makeup just right, their Polo's all ironed, pinned in the back so they were tight (as tacky as this is girls keep doing it.) And I realized that we do this every year for a week, perhaps less. We put on are fake smiles and slip into other peoples personality's in hopes of making second first impressions. And those who do not know or remember us fall for this act we pull, until of course Labor Day swings around and we let are hair hang natural and are faces go bare. And when we do this all those people, the new ones that had only known us for a week,are confused, expecting us look the way they had seen us before, when we were still trying to be a different person. But the truth is there is only one person to be, all the others are already taken. I'm sure some famous person said that but I'm not sure who.

As we sat in our cold fold out chairs the principle or as I like to call her The Overlord, waddled up to make intoductions. Each of the teachers names were called. Some received massive amounts of applause, others very little. This, I suppose, is our way of telling the newbies whose good and who is not.

Not much happens on the first day. Tiny reunions in the halls and whispered warnings, but that's all. The only interesting thing that happened was that I couldn't stick my straw in the organic juice box I had persuaded my mom to buy me, and I failed at that, having to stop and ask my old reading teacher, Mr.Mac to help me.

I can only hope that this year does not reflect today, or 8th grade and this blog will be terribly boring.

Wait, I did spill my bag of nuts on the bus, which caused a girl, Molly, across the isle to stare at them and me in dismay. She didn't even help, and for God's sake shes my Face book friend too!