The English 2 Honors class starts the same as any other day with the sophomores chatting in their desks and the teacher upfront preparing his lesson. Unbeknownst to the class, dark machinations are brewing within the professor's cranium. Suddenly, the teacher pulls a desk in front of the only door to the class; then his hand reaches up and slaps the light switch to cloak the classroom with blackness. We wait. Nothing happens.
We twiddle our fingers, but our teachers' hands are still. Anxiety rises in our minds as we try to decide what to do. Someone provokes the teacher; the teacher responds by handing her a piece of paper with a scrawled message. She reads the note but does not share its contents with her classmates.
Meanwhile, I busy myself with the mission of uncovering the meaning of the message. The singled-out student refuses to share; I become bitter and decide to get a message of my own. I walk up to the teacher, the infamous Mr. Gardner, of course, and kick the desk he is guarding. He scowls, scribbles, and hands me a note; I rejoice that I now have a clue to decode. There are two words on the scrap--\"Strike One\"--suggesting the well-known baseball rule \"three strikes, and you're out.\"
I have a sudden insight that the events of our present reality in the classroom coincide with the plot of the book we are currently reading. In Ender's Game, the solution is to attack the powerful master and weaken him into submission. After a heated debate, we all decide to overthrow the 'sleeping Cerebus' guarding the door. I, with the help of my fellow English pupils, grab the legs of the Mr. Gardener's desk. We strain to pull the weight of Mr. Gardner from his purported locus.
We succeed. We start to leave the classroom in triumph, but Mr. Gardner obstructs us again: NOW he is ready to start class. We had a lively discussion about the final chapters of Ender's Game.
For a student at Wayland, the previous story is almost an ordinary event. I have tons of other fun classroom memories to recollect and share.
During a normal Monday morning Philosophy class, I experienced an overwhelming urge to hide under Mr. Nicholson's desk before class and pop out while he was in the middle of a lecture. Crouching down underneath the picnic-sized-table, I knocked gently on the wood overhead to freak out the teacher above. No response. I then pushed on the top of the teacher's shoe, was presently caught red-handed and then called a sicko; the class was giggling while the professor was unnerved. I then returned to my seat and tried to focus on a lecture about the Kant's universal maxim of acting in a way that you would want the world to act.
At the moment, word quota restraints for this article are looming; I can only share a few more highlights. One day, I proffered a hefty Old Time Gospel Hour Bible to an atheist classmate and she accepted the Good Book; that made my day. Another time, I wandered into Wayland's dusty, dishevelled archives to uncover the history behind our Alma Mater.
The nostalgia could continue on and on, but I must wrap up and pronounce a moral to this story. I thus proclaim: Make every ordinary day extraordinary. Never let tedium, monotony, or boredom set in, but instead, spice up your life with spontaneity, randomness, and excitement. Never let the day end without howling at the moon. For example, discuss plumbing with your professor or practice acting with your dog. Or you can smile in the mirror when you wake up in the morning. Time is limited; don't waste it, make it count. Carpe diem: Seize the day.
We twiddle our fingers, but our teachers' hands are still. Anxiety rises in our minds as we try to decide what to do. Someone provokes the teacher; the teacher responds by handing her a piece of paper with a scrawled message. She reads the note but does not share its contents with her classmates.
Meanwhile, I busy myself with the mission of uncovering the meaning of the message. The singled-out student refuses to share; I become bitter and decide to get a message of my own. I walk up to the teacher, the infamous Mr. Gardner, of course, and kick the desk he is guarding. He scowls, scribbles, and hands me a note; I rejoice that I now have a clue to decode. There are two words on the scrap--\"Strike One\"--suggesting the well-known baseball rule \"three strikes, and you're out.\"
I have a sudden insight that the events of our present reality in the classroom coincide with the plot of the book we are currently reading. In Ender's Game, the solution is to attack the powerful master and weaken him into submission. After a heated debate, we all decide to overthrow the 'sleeping Cerebus' guarding the door. I, with the help of my fellow English pupils, grab the legs of the Mr. Gardener's desk. We strain to pull the weight of Mr. Gardner from his purported locus.
We succeed. We start to leave the classroom in triumph, but Mr. Gardner obstructs us again: NOW he is ready to start class. We had a lively discussion about the final chapters of Ender's Game.
For a student at Wayland, the previous story is almost an ordinary event. I have tons of other fun classroom memories to recollect and share.
During a normal Monday morning Philosophy class, I experienced an overwhelming urge to hide under Mr. Nicholson's desk before class and pop out while he was in the middle of a lecture. Crouching down underneath the picnic-sized-table, I knocked gently on the wood overhead to freak out the teacher above. No response. I then pushed on the top of the teacher's shoe, was presently caught red-handed and then called a sicko; the class was giggling while the professor was unnerved. I then returned to my seat and tried to focus on a lecture about the Kant's universal maxim of acting in a way that you would want the world to act.
At the moment, word quota restraints for this article are looming; I can only share a few more highlights. One day, I proffered a hefty Old Time Gospel Hour Bible to an atheist classmate and she accepted the Good Book; that made my day. Another time, I wandered into Wayland's dusty, dishevelled archives to uncover the history behind our Alma Mater.
The nostalgia could continue on and on, but I must wrap up and pronounce a moral to this story. I thus proclaim: Make every ordinary day extraordinary. Never let tedium, monotony, or boredom set in, but instead, spice up your life with spontaneity, randomness, and excitement. Never let the day end without howling at the moon. For example, discuss plumbing with your professor or practice acting with your dog. Or you can smile in the mirror when you wake up in the morning. Time is limited; don't waste it, make it count. Carpe diem: Seize the day.
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