When the Cat's Away...

Hey! Im back on taking a little break from my normal resposibilities/activities. I haven't had time to post too much, what with homework, college applications, Karate, and Red Sox games I suddenly got interested in this post-season taking up all my free time.

Anyhow, onward to the feature presentation.

My French teacher has been out all week, due to her father's death, and we've had a substitute the past four days. And I must say, we are a very good class to be a substitute teacher for. Two juniors and one senior aren't a very rowdy bunch (in case you're wondering how the class is that small, first know that my school is very small with only 113 kids from kindergarten to 12th grade, my class--the senior class--has only five people in it, French III and French IV are optional courses, and that since there were only two in French III and me in French IV, they combined the classes.). Well, somehow today, by some details overlooked by the administration, we had no teacher, no sub, and actually no monitor whatsoever. Initial reaction: KOWABUNGA! PARTY TIME! Final realization: I got a Geography test next period I haven't studied at all for. The others came to the same conclusion. I guess that's what comes of maturity, somehow responsibilities take the place of fun. Stinkin' maturity. Well, we didn't let maturity FULLY mess up our fun, we still talked a very little, albeit enough for me to revel in my more glorious past experiences in un-mentored situations at school. It actually happens quite a bit in my school, not so much as when I was in eighth grade, but with so few teachers to go around, it does happen. Since I know you all are absolutely starving for one of my succulent, plump & juicy posts, I shall recount a few here.

In eighth grade, I had one of the best study halls ever. Eighth period, with a friend, and almost always without a monitor. My friend and I used to sit in the corner near the windows and make paper airplanes and throw them around and stuff. Good times. Anyway, it was quite chaotic, since the study hall was comprised of the 7th through 9th grade (which was actually only 16 kids at the time), and, needless to say, many rambunctious deeds were performed. I'll only write the best one (heh heh "best") here. A group of seventh-grade scumbags (heehee, that's what my friend and I called the annoying ones) were fooling around, as usual. I dont remember all the details, but one of them threw another's books out the window. As the window was not high above ground level, the seventh grader leaned out to grab the books. Oh, by the way, don't feel bad for this guy, he was the biggest scumbag of the scumbags and when he was eventually expelled in eighth grade, the others actually went up a level in decency. While he was hanging half-outside, two ninth-graders grabbed his legs and, ahem, "helped" him by half-tossing the rest of him out. Now, this guy, like the numbskull he was, didn't just climb back in through the window he was tossed out of. Oh no, he had to walk all the way around the building to the back door, and in the proccess walked in front of the windows where a teacher was teaching. The two ninth-graders responsible got detentions, and that was the end of that little episode.

This same seventh-grade scumbag was very small. So small, he could cram himself into one of our teensy-weensy half-size lockers. He liked to showcase this talent. One time, after he had stuffed himself in one and shut the door, a tenth-grader came, held the door shut, and stuck a pen in the hole where the lock would go (notice this kid is hated by all the others: there's a reason for this, it's not like he's being bullyed, HE bullyed everyone.) So the seventh-grade scumbag rattled the locker and begged to be let out, and they let him out. He never crammed himself into a locker again.

Fast-forward one year.

By this time, that kid had gotten expelled for numerous offenses despite having had repeated chances to redeem himself, which he had refused. Anyway, I'm ahead a grade in math, so I was with the now-tenth-graders in Geometry class. We had one of the most boring and most unwilling-to-explain teacher. So we would goof off alot, and a couple guys would always get in trouble. Well, this teacher also so happened to be the principal of the school (he was teaching because there was no other teacher available and because he had taught Geometry before). He was a robot, seriously. Anyway, as he was the principal, he would often come very late to class, sometimes never coming at all. One day, when he was late as usual, one of my classmates came up with the brilliant idea of speeding up the class clock so that the teacher would think the class ended earlier (a useless idea anyway since we have bells which are unconnected to the clocks to tell us when the class is over) So he took down the clock, and sped it up by about five minutes, and then went to re-hang in on the wall. The only problem was that the nail had somehoe slipped into the wall, and try as we might, the clock was un-re-hangable. And then, to top it off, the lookout (we always had one guy who'd warn us before the teacher came) suddenly uttered the urgent whisper, "He's coming!" Frantic indecision ensued. What do we do? What do we do? A last quick attempt to hang up the clock, and then we all rushed back to our seats. The teacher walks in. And then, the guy who had come up with the idea and had actually really been the only one carrying it out, said, "Mr. Martin, this clock's too fast. We need to fix it." The teacher was grateful and said he would take care of it. And we all tried our hardest not to burst out laughing.

And so, after sharing all that, let me take the time to say this before some OLD PEOPLE throw a fit about me promoting such misbehavior. I did not actually have a part in any of these stories, I was merely a spectator, enjoying the drama played out before me. I do not consider any of these as right, but I gotta say, I sure am glad I could see them.

Hope this made up for my week-long inactivity, I should be back up and blogging at my usual pace soon.