The First Day of School: A Summary
So yesterday was my first day of school. I have to admit, I've been anxious about this for weeks. The end of summer was getting closer and I had no idea if I would be back in school daily or on the same program I'd been on last year, which was one where I basically home-schooled myself. I had to meet with the principal yesterday to figure out what would be happening.
I think a lot of people are surprised to find out I'm still in high school, and that always surprises me. It shouldn't, honestly, because I'm too old to still be in high school, so the assumption makes sense - but I'm not used to people taking me seriously enough to not immediately assume I'm an adult imposter. So why am I in high school? I failed two grades, among other things. I don't know how I failed grade one, so don't ask - I don't even know how it was possible, but it happened. In grade six I started skipping school a bunch, and had to repeat the year. I kept skipping after that, but it didn't get me in academic trouble until high school.
Anyway, I'm supposed to graduate this year. And I'm hoping I'll have all of my credits by the end of the first semester, so I won't even have to do this for the entire year - just half. But in order to accomplish that I needed to get on packages - the aforementioned home-schooling program - so I could work at my own pace and earn as many credits as possible.
The day started at 4:30am. I woke up in the dark, sweating, with my heart racing. I'd had another one of those serial killer dreams. I seem to be fixated on this idea this week, and I keep dreaming about it. It's because I watch too much Scream the tv show and eating cold pizza before I go to sleep, but it's giving me thrilling dreams and fantastic ideas, so I'm not complaining. Except for the whole awake at 4am part.
I was nervous as soon as I woke up. If I didn't get packages then I'd be spending the entire year in stuffy public school classrooms, the ones with the pastel painted cement block walls and desks with plastic 'wood finish' veneer. I was also nervous because if I did have to do that, it would be my last time ever being in high school - and if I get packages then that last time has already past. And that makes me sort of sad.
Public school raised me as much as my parents did. The reading corner in Ms. Genge's first grade class, trips to the library down the hall in her third grade class later on. I can remember my first crush - which, surprisingly enough, was on a girl - in Ms. Hachey's fourth grade home room. I remember pumpkin carving in the gym of my first middle school in grade 6, both times around, remember getting sent to the office for snapping at teachers, remember the first time someone told me I was their friend and I really believed them. I can remember ignoring our teacher lecturing us in social studies in the sixth grade so we could talk about Twilight and New Moon, and I can remember how after the longest detention of my life the same teacher who'd given it to me told me she thought I had what it took to be successful.
I remember my home room teacher in the second attempt at sixth grade, Mrs. Holden, lending me books and talking about my interests with me after class while I helped stack chairs - not because she had to, but because she was genuinely interested in talking with her students. I remember a teacher in the seventh grade giving me ten dollars to buy a cd at a school event, and I remember the first teacher who ever snapped at another student for using a gay slur, because one of his classmates could be gay. One of the first people who ever really made me believe I was talented and clever was my ninth grade English teacher, and I can still remember the vice principal of my high school keeping bins of snack bars and pastries and instant ramen just inside the door of his office so kids could grab a snack. I can remember spending music class holed up in the book room across the hall or the empty auditorium upstairs, pretending to learn guitar while we spent the entire hour talking, becoming friends.
This school system has been my home for 13 years now, and it will be that and a half by the end of this semester. It's a lot to say goodbye to, no matter how it ended.
I ended up sandwiched in the principal's office with him and a girl I've been friends with since the second grade, and we both ended up getting packages. So that's it, I sat in a high school classroom for the last time the first semester of the eleventh grade, and now I'm never gonna sit in one again.
I'll never eat lunch in the cafeteria again - or, more realistically, trudge uptown through snow for off-campus takeout - and I'll never spend break between each class gossiping in the chaos of a crowded hallway, or skip a class to go for coffee or hide out in the basement hallway near the pool, where everything smells like chlorine.
I'm strangely sad about it. And I'm excited, too, because now I can focus on work and graduating and writing. It's just odd to leave such a big chunk of my life behind. It helped me become who I was and learn a lot about the world, and it's sort of melancholy to watch it all slip away, even if I'm elated at the thought of a new chapter starting. And a new chapter is starting. Because I'm free by the end of this year. I can move wherever I want. I can do whatever I want. I can pursue my career without having to sacrifice time to school or other commitments that are forced on me. I'm, y'know, an adult.
And hey, the rest of the day was pretty good, too: I spent a lot of it sitting in the grass at the public park smoking with friends, but I also spent some time at an old playground called Rainbow Park that I love, and I got to hang out with some people I haven't seen in months because of life getting in the way.
So yeah, I don't know. It was wild, and nostalgic, and I'm a bit torn up about the fact that it's the last first day of my high school years. I'm a bit sad that it's my last first day with the friends I've been with since elementary school.
I'm set to spent an entire semester sitting around in my pajamas, mainlining coffees, writing, and squeezing in episodes of America's Next Top Model in-between bouts of obsessive school work. So I have a lot to do, and I'm gonna go get started, but I just needed to observe this strange sequence called time for a minute.
I think a lot of people are surprised to find out I'm still in high school, and that always surprises me. It shouldn't, honestly, because I'm too old to still be in high school, so the assumption makes sense - but I'm not used to people taking me seriously enough to not immediately assume I'm an adult imposter. So why am I in high school? I failed two grades, among other things. I don't know how I failed grade one, so don't ask - I don't even know how it was possible, but it happened. In grade six I started skipping school a bunch, and had to repeat the year. I kept skipping after that, but it didn't get me in academic trouble until high school.
Anyway, I'm supposed to graduate this year. And I'm hoping I'll have all of my credits by the end of the first semester, so I won't even have to do this for the entire year - just half. But in order to accomplish that I needed to get on packages - the aforementioned home-schooling program - so I could work at my own pace and earn as many credits as possible.
The day started at 4:30am. I woke up in the dark, sweating, with my heart racing. I'd had another one of those serial killer dreams. I seem to be fixated on this idea this week, and I keep dreaming about it. It's because I watch too much Scream the tv show and eating cold pizza before I go to sleep, but it's giving me thrilling dreams and fantastic ideas, so I'm not complaining. Except for the whole awake at 4am part.
I was nervous as soon as I woke up. If I didn't get packages then I'd be spending the entire year in stuffy public school classrooms, the ones with the pastel painted cement block walls and desks with plastic 'wood finish' veneer. I was also nervous because if I did have to do that, it would be my last time ever being in high school - and if I get packages then that last time has already past. And that makes me sort of sad.
Public school raised me as much as my parents did. The reading corner in Ms. Genge's first grade class, trips to the library down the hall in her third grade class later on. I can remember my first crush - which, surprisingly enough, was on a girl - in Ms. Hachey's fourth grade home room. I remember pumpkin carving in the gym of my first middle school in grade 6, both times around, remember getting sent to the office for snapping at teachers, remember the first time someone told me I was their friend and I really believed them. I can remember ignoring our teacher lecturing us in social studies in the sixth grade so we could talk about Twilight and New Moon, and I can remember how after the longest detention of my life the same teacher who'd given it to me told me she thought I had what it took to be successful.
I remember my home room teacher in the second attempt at sixth grade, Mrs. Holden, lending me books and talking about my interests with me after class while I helped stack chairs - not because she had to, but because she was genuinely interested in talking with her students. I remember a teacher in the seventh grade giving me ten dollars to buy a cd at a school event, and I remember the first teacher who ever snapped at another student for using a gay slur, because one of his classmates could be gay. One of the first people who ever really made me believe I was talented and clever was my ninth grade English teacher, and I can still remember the vice principal of my high school keeping bins of snack bars and pastries and instant ramen just inside the door of his office so kids could grab a snack. I can remember spending music class holed up in the book room across the hall or the empty auditorium upstairs, pretending to learn guitar while we spent the entire hour talking, becoming friends.
This school system has been my home for 13 years now, and it will be that and a half by the end of this semester. It's a lot to say goodbye to, no matter how it ended.
I ended up sandwiched in the principal's office with him and a girl I've been friends with since the second grade, and we both ended up getting packages. So that's it, I sat in a high school classroom for the last time the first semester of the eleventh grade, and now I'm never gonna sit in one again.
I'll never eat lunch in the cafeteria again - or, more realistically, trudge uptown through snow for off-campus takeout - and I'll never spend break between each class gossiping in the chaos of a crowded hallway, or skip a class to go for coffee or hide out in the basement hallway near the pool, where everything smells like chlorine.
I'm strangely sad about it. And I'm excited, too, because now I can focus on work and graduating and writing. It's just odd to leave such a big chunk of my life behind. It helped me become who I was and learn a lot about the world, and it's sort of melancholy to watch it all slip away, even if I'm elated at the thought of a new chapter starting. And a new chapter is starting. Because I'm free by the end of this year. I can move wherever I want. I can do whatever I want. I can pursue my career without having to sacrifice time to school or other commitments that are forced on me. I'm, y'know, an adult.
And hey, the rest of the day was pretty good, too: I spent a lot of it sitting in the grass at the public park smoking with friends, but I also spent some time at an old playground called Rainbow Park that I love, and I got to hang out with some people I haven't seen in months because of life getting in the way.
So yeah, I don't know. It was wild, and nostalgic, and I'm a bit torn up about the fact that it's the last first day of my high school years. I'm a bit sad that it's my last first day with the friends I've been with since elementary school.
I'm set to spent an entire semester sitting around in my pajamas, mainlining coffees, writing, and squeezing in episodes of America's Next Top Model in-between bouts of obsessive school work. So I have a lot to do, and I'm gonna go get started, but I just needed to observe this strange sequence called time for a minute.
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