Karma is a butch

Being a high school student comes with its prices. I have chemistry this year to teach me all the fundamentals of how chemicals react and apply them to my daily life. At the beginning of the year I was expecting my last year teacher who was on my schedule. He was fun and cheery and really down to earth and shared a common love for learning with his students. He taught impeccably and really became much more than a teacher to us but rather a friend that merely discussed science. As I walked through the door, I was bitterly disappointed to find that not only was my favorite science teacher was no where to be found, but a teacher with a monotone voice, an abundance of nose and ear hair, that grades homework on correctness was filling his spot as a long term substitute teacher for the first semester.

If you haven't been in school in a while then I wouldn't find it shocking if you didn't know the significance of grading homework for completion. When a teacher assigns homework, the next day when he/she collects it, he/she checks for completeness and participation in the assignment. Grading homework that covers material that we only learned that day for correctness would evidently bring one's grade down to a C. This did not settle well with me as my "average" grade stared back at me. Not only did he grade homework, but didn't help us understand the material when we didn't get it or asked for help.

My fellow classmates shared this hostility towards our new teacher. Obviously, as a room full of teenagers filled with recklessness and not a care in the world for authority, we decided to challenge him. We devised a plan to get him to quit, as he was already retired (just filling in for our teacher) by the end of the first month of school. We collaborated and really did the most immature, obnoxious things you could imagine. Every single student coughed for a good 5 minutes straight everyday. We would argue back, waste time, make loud noises when he turned his back, throw things across the classroom, switch seats on a 10 minute basis, constantly leave to go to the bathroom, and my favorite of all scream at the top of our lungs for a split second everyday.

Just as we planned, the first month was up and last week he had put in his resignation form. Our class celebrated his departure with joy and, to be honest, we felt quite accomplished with ourselves as he left the classroom. Sure, what we did was unreasonable and quite rude and disrepectful, but I could not live with a bad grade because I didn't carry the 1 when I was changing 2 liters of H2O to 200 mL of H20.

Little did we know, we just got ourselves into a big pile of shit. I rarely use curse words but, to explain the extent of the terrible predicament we just landed ourselves in, "shit" is a very appropriate word to use. Our new chemistry teacher bursts through the doors and lays down the law almost immediately. We literally can't, and I'm not exaggerating, ask "if" questions, which come up a lot in science, eat, yawn, laugh, smile if there is no need, sharpen our broken pencils, use tissues, throw away trash, go to the bathroom more than once a month, or really be happy in any kind of notation. And on top of everything he has the most atrocious hair cut that makes him look like a lesbian.

So yes, "shit" is a very appropriate term to use. Karma is a very interesting thing in life. Sometimes it gives you a boost and others it makes your life a scary debacle. I guess, you get what you give.

Friday Night Fights

Nothing makes me feel school spirit more than a high school football game on a friday night. Sporting green and gold, our entire student body sat in the stands cheering on our fellow classmates in a good game of football. We cheered, and shouted, and jumped up and down when we scored, and pretty much had a great time. Now, let's rewind a few hours to right after school.

I had made previous plans with my friend Allison to hang out after school and then attend the game together. Expecting to see her right after 6th period, I was confused when I was told that she had other plans. Now, to understand the rarity of me ever hanging out with my friends, you have to know that I live a good 20 minutes away from the city I attend school. So it is always a pain to make plans. On regular days, my dad picks me up after school. If I decide to not get picked up by him, then my mother gets me... at 5. So I either go with him, or wait around for 2 and half hours waiting to get picked up. So when I told my dad to not pick me up on this glorious friday afternoon, I was left stranded.

We had made plans and then she drops this enormous bombshell on me. She says it was last minute, but she should have told me as soon as she found out knowing my circumstances. I tried to make other plans with other friends, but seeing as they can communicate well with each other, they had plans that didn't have room for a 6th person in a 5 seater car. Now what do I do? I guess I'll just wait around until the game starts. I walked around the city for 4 hours and then caught up with friends that showed up to the game early.

I met with Allison before the game and tried not to show my irritation with her because I wasn't going to let that ruin my night. Besides, I wasn't stranded anymore. I was with friends and the past 4 hours seemed irrelevant to this night, seeing as it was our first home game of the year. I tried to ignore it as much as I could, which worked for the most part. And by the end of the night, after we won by a touchdown, and everyone was at In N Out, a post-game ritual, I completely forgot about the incident.

But the morning after, when my feet and legs hurt, I figured it was from the walking I did. I confronted her and she apologized. I mean, best friends fight, and get into arguments, or sometimes forget the others' predicament, but when it all came back to the beginning, I was upset with her. She made me laugh and then it was like nothing happened. She is my best friend, and I'm glad to have her. Seeing all this trouble that I went through wasn't even close enough to end the relationship with her. A couple hours of walking is nothing compared to what we have traveled together.