Tuesday, September 7, 2004

The Revenge of Harry Potter and his Ragtag Band of Misadventurers
Comment Commentary

Shin- I got my brother In 3D for his birthday, and I don't think he's listened to it.. But it has The Theme From Rocky XVIII on it!

Aleia- Might the title be "Wanna B Ur Lovr" or something along those lines? That one bored me.

Mimmi- Whee.

Godel- Good. Then we have an agreement. *cough*

Solo- Anything Devo-ish is cool. *puts on his Devo hat*

Mal- Probably the mentality and image commonly associated with the artists.

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I got into bed at 9:30 last night in a futile attempt to wake up early and well-rested. Surely enough, I finally got to the snoozing around 1 AM, and woke up promptly at 6:30 (We all know that won't last).. After a muffin or two, and a double-checking of all my materials ("Binder, check. Okay, I have it all"), it was off to the socially awkward and degrading wasteland that is my school.

On the first day of school, there is a very long and very slow-moving line that leads from where the busses park to the cafegymatorium, where students pick up their schedules. I was pretty alone in the line, except for a friend from sixth grade a few feet away from me, but we didn't talk much. I basically listened to conversations of the (stupid) people behind me and watched the new seventh graders frantically head to the back of the line. It's funny how they all seem so small, and yet I was like them just a year ago.. Heh.

This year there's new administration- new principal, two new vice principals, psychiatrist and all that jazz. Quite a few of them were walking around in suits and sunglasses and adjusting the volume on their earpieces.. I was very much hoping that some slow-motion battle would break out in the middle of the yard, but nothing happened.

I got in soon enough, where a bunch of students were congregated, and sure enough, first thing I hear directly addressed to me. "HEY! Hairy Pothead! *retarded laughter*"

Not a good way to start the day. I didn't let it bother me much, but the thought of injuring them was there.

Time to break down the day into little chunks.

Period 1- Language Arts. I was one of the last people to get through the line, so I came in to a quiet room full of familiar faces copying stuff out of dictionaries. The instructions on the board were extremely vague (It seemed to be more of a jumble of words associated with generic English assignments), but I figured it out eventually.. Copying definitions of various words. Simple stuff.

The teacher is charismatic, but she doesn't fool around, either. She gave out these "dreaded" spelling packets last year that I heard a lot about, which caused some pretty good students to lose a tidy GPA, but I'm sure they wouldn't have been that much of a problem.

She also seems to talk about World War II a lot. Too bad this is Language Arts..

Period 2- Science. GATE ("Gifted And Talented Education") is our school system's advanced program.. And our school only has one GATE-certified science teacher: the one we all had last year. Thus the environment was pretty laid-back, because we already knew what the teacher was like, and the room was full of chatter. I'm feeling a bad omen about the curriculum this year.. Chemistry, Astronomy and a dip into Physics. *shudder*

Period 3- Social Studies. Considering we were all tossed into the only eighth grade GATE classes, we all walked from room 20 to room 21 for the next class. Some new students were like "OMGZ," which I found funny, but in retrospect it was more worthy of a "-_-".

Same History teacher as last year, which is cool. She's one of the young, fun teachers that everybody loves.

Period 4- Lunch! Lunch at 10:30.. Mm, yeah, I normally haven't eaten breakfast by that time.

The cafeteria had burritos, which I absolutely love, when they don't have cheese in them. Sure enough, it was cheese, and I ended up giving it to a friend. They raised the prices for lunch, too.. *sigh* Same crappy food for even more money than before.

Last year, the seventh graders (my grade at the time) had fifth period lunch, and eighth had fourth period. This year, however, it's not as simple. It's all mixed, and a lot of cool people ended up in the lunch that I don't have. This made things a lot more boring.

The rest of the period was walking around and catching up with people. Almost everybody has different hair now. I noticed a lot of people have stopped spiking their hair and are letting it grow out (Ashton Kutcher-style). Stupid fashion.

Period 5- Math. I've never been a big fan of math. It's not creative enough to catch my interest.. This year, however, the math teacher seems nice enough, but I bet she used to teach fourth-graders.. I would describe her teaching methods as "slightly juvenile."

Today's stuff was amazingly simple. Variables. She's giving us a test tomorrow to see where we need to get in the book. Interestingly enough, she's grading on a curve.. That's a first for me.

Things are probably going to pick up quickly, though. I'll be sure to stay on my toes.

Period 6- PE. Another lame thing about the new way things are being run with the new administration: Some of the GATE-grouped students have PE sixth then their elective after that, while others have it the exact opposite.

Well, I'm one of the people who has Phys Ed in sixth, and I am the only person I know in my class. Somehow I ended up with the militant-yet-seemingly fun coach dude, and people seem to take him seriously. Hopefully that will lead to less idiotic remarks from classmates.

Last year's PE was easy- we had a softie teacher. Now we have the hardcore coach that's going to really put us to work, dammit.

Period 7- Journalism. Remember how I was in afterschool Yearbook last year? Well now the teacher who was running that has decided to start a journalism elective, and she decided to kidnap me from the happy world of art and throw me in there. The rest of the class, spare a couple people, looks incredibly bleak and hopeless. I really hope I get 100% total creative control, because I don't want the book to have a different background and text style for every page. It was full of typos, too.. On the pages I didn't do, at least.

I'll see how it all pans out. I might abandon journalism (There's also supposed to be website and newsletter stuff going on, but meh), let the yearbook rot, and return to art.

I do sort of have a cool theme.. I'm going to put together some concept stuff tonight and show the teacher tomorrow. It's not as light-hearted as yearbooks at this age group tend to be, thus I think it will attract more sales. Punk is in this season and all that shit.

And now I have a piano lesson. God, Tuesdays are so packed..

Teh SillyCircus Day 23- Buck the Establishment by shopping at a national goth/punk fashion chain store in the mall!
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