Garfield part two? I think not… not yet, anyway.

As I was washing the dishes, my brother walked into the kitchen and said “Heyyyy. How’s life been?” To which I replied, “Boring.” He responded with “Man, you’re part of, like, the bored generation…” Then I explained to him that my days have pretty much only consisted of going to school, coming home, eating, washing dishes, reading or doing something online, going to sleep, and repeating the same process the next day. Then he asked me something about how ELAC is like Garfield part 2. Of course, anyone that went to Garfield High School has probably heard that comparison made at one point or another. To my surprise I responded with “No… Garfield was way better.” Once again, I reminded myself how much I hate the way my life’s been progressing (or not progressing) lately. Boy, do I really wish I was still in high school… or at least that I had as many things to do in college as I did in high school. It’s been really slow and I hate it. There can be many reasons my time there hasn’t been so great.

Maybe it’s because I don’t really have friends or many regulars at ELAC, so there’s less people to laugh with or even talk to in class. Most of them already have cliques of their own and it seems like it’d be uncomfortable joining a new circle if they already have their own inside jokes and unofficial traditions. I mean, I’m not really a shy person. It’s just really hard for me to make friends sometimes.

Maybe it’s the teachers. Not to say ELAC has bad teachers or anything, I just haven’t had any like the ones I’ve had in the past. They were the kind that, even if you weren’t really into the subject, they made you not hate it as much as you would’ve with a regular ole’ teacher. Grandpa Woessner, for example. You can tell he loved what he did and that he truly cared about his students. Just the little things he did like keeping individuals after class just to talk to them about how bad they’ve been doing and wondering why they do it, or compliment them and letting them know that he’s proud of them… or that day nearing the last day of school when he gave all his seniors roses and gave a little speech about each one of them. Even the way he went about teaching the class and scaring the shit out of people while pretending to be some historic character. Or teachers like Ms. Gardocki, who would write advice to you on your journal entries and talk to you about it if you were comfortable enough with her, rather than just skimming through it and giving you credit for having done your assignment. Then there was Mr. Bennett… boy, could you tell he liked what he did. He didn’t seem to just teach for the sake of teaching either. I loved the way he’d get all happy and excited when we brought certain things up, and suggest that we make a survey about it. Then there was Rocha… that asshole. I can see myself being the way he was with students too, though. Boy, did I love to hate him. I didn’t even want to cry at graduation til is saw tears on his eyes. Ah, and Buchman. What a sarcastic and handsome old man. Hahaha. Anyway… I haven’t really felt any sort of connection like that with any of my professors here. The ones involved in the arts (my dance and theater teachers); I can tell they’re really dedicated their professions, but they don’t make teaching their priority unless they know the person is heading in the same road of that art. I guess I don’t mind. I’d probably do the same. Haha. The others just seem to teach because it pays the bills.

Underestimating the students, much?

Zach and I started doing our adult school assignments with one mentality. We knew we didn’t have to try too hard to get full credit on our assignments. Our motto in there was pretty much “This is Garfield Adult School… Not Rocha’s advanced comp class!!”
I didn’t forget my mentality, but I didn’t think I would actually have to dumb down my assignments in order to make it believable that I’m a high school student.

(for those of you non Garfield students… Adult School is just and after school thing where you can make up classes you’ve failed and stuff. It’s called that b/c it was originally intended for adults who didn’t go to or finish high school, but now anyone can sign up)

Anyway… something really stupid happened today, and I’d like to share the story:

So I turned in an essay for adult school today and had it checked by the teachers, or whatever they like to call themselves. (They seem more like chaperons than anything.) I go up to one of the ladies and ask if I can have my grade. Then she tells me that she had talked with another teacher, they both read my essay, and decided that I didn’t write it. I was like WTF kind of bullshit is that? They said it was too advanced for high school and wouldn’t believe I wrote it no matter what I’d tell them. The smartass lady was all like “Well, then… if you’re such a good writer… you wouldn’t have failed that class and you wouldn’t have to be making it up right now.” Then I let them know how Mr. Rocha (the teacher whose class I was making up) is. I told them he was a hard grader, and that the class was actually Advanced Composition, not regular Expository Composition. They still thought it was bullshit. (Seriously, why would I make that up?) That one smartass lady even asked me what some of the words in my essay meant (“derogatory” being the hardest one) to prove that there wasn’t anything in it that I didn’t know. Then they told me to consult the assistant principal of Adult School to see what could be done. So I went to his office and he came down to the classroom like twenty minutes later. He read over my essay and said “You’re right. This is too advanced for a high school student.” I couldn’t believe it. Then he asked for other samples of my writing, which they didn’t have at hand, so he told me to write out my complaint in my normal writing style. This is what I wrote: