Vinyl Shine

Very few things actually upset me. I'm usually a level person and I generally try to take neutral views on things. Which is why I'm terrible person to come crying to, because I'm absolutely no comfort; I'll just stand there and try to figure out why something happens, as opposed to tell you everything is all right. Or I'll just stand there and be silent--This is a story for another entry. But there is one thing that consistently upsets me, and that's the school system I'm currently enrolled in.

It's not that I hate school. Well, okay, yeah, I don't really like going to school, it's a teenager thing. But it's that I hate the way us students are taught and dealt with. I first noticed something was amiss when I was in ninth grade. Because of overcrowding, freshman still attended junior high, so it was my third and last year in the building before I moved on to and actual high school. I've always been in advanced classes, so to attend my first period class I had to get on a bus from the junior high and be transported to a different school, because my school didn't offer the level of class I was taking. About 20 kids took this bus every morning.

Every morning, I would hurry my mother out the door and make her rush me to school, because I was so afraid of missing this bus. I would get to school, and stand inside the building waiting for them to open this gate that blocked the hallways. I'd get to school at 7:05, when the gate was supposed to open, but it wouldn't actually be opened until 7:15. (School started at 7:25, by the way) I'd squeeze through the gate before it was completely lifted, along with the 20 other kids that took that bus every morning, and I would run to my locker. Every. Damn. Morning. Then I'd run as fast as I could to the front of the school, and I often hopped onto this bus just as it started moving. It didn't help they assigned my damn locker to the far side of the school. The bus, by the way, was supposed to leave at 7:15, when the gate was opening.

If you missed the bus, they'd treat you like some delinquent kid skipping class on purpose and would give you detention and be as rude as possible. I remember they sent me to the library instead of letting me call someone to ask for a ride to class, and I ended up crying in the corner because I didn't want to go home and tell my parents I had gotten two detentions.

I looked at it as getting detention for trying to be prepared for class. The only reason I went to my locker was to grab the book and binder I needed for that first class. I couldn't take the books home with me because my backpack and arms were already full of textbooks for homework in other classes.

I should mention that I'm a very quiet kid in class, and I never make an sort of trouble... In class. Yet, before I ever saw these detentions, I had earned myself an In School Suspension. I remember being freaked ans scared because the other kids in suspension with me were there for things like beating another kid with their books.

I've also gotten into trouble for grabbing onto a friend to get their attention, being in the hallway with a pass, standing next to someone who was being too loud, having a digital camera in school, missing my stop on the bus, and for drinking flavored water. This is all in the same year.

... Oh, woops. I meant to make this post a rant about the websites my high school blocks and the lack of sex education, not a rant about how a good kid like me was getting into constant trouble in junior high. Heh.