The Blog Stops Here

Yes, I truly do realize how lucky I am to go to the high school I go to; it's a very good school, especially in comparison to some. Nonetheless though, it is still far far from perfect. I've written in the past about some of its problems and shall continue to do so here. These are problems worth noting and shall thus be attended to as I exit the school that's been my second home for the last four years. Call it my goodbye present.

I've heard from some sources that the school was designed after the plans of an upscale hotel. Yet, there's no denying some of the protocol and procedures in place there are more reminiscent of the scene painted by those students who attest its plans are based on a penitentiary. Last fall, I made note of the school's apparent craving to suppress the freedom of the freshmen, yet not two weeks after publishing that article that same urge seemed to have worked its way into the administration's policies regarding all the grades.

Citing 'excessive noise' in the forum during lunch periods, all students were banned from entering the academic wing of the school during the lunch hours without a class-specific laminated pass. This was effectively doing away with Junior Privelege as occasionally 11th graders weren't even let into the library, their last refuge, and essentially giving seniors the right to go any where in the country except to their math class to get some extra help. One particularly telling example of this motion's effects occured to me one day during my first open hour. I was called down to the C/D office to make up my senior interview with my counselor just before the hour started. At its conclusion, I walked back down to the lunchroom and ate lunch alone as my friends had grown weary of waiting for me and departed. When I was done I decided to walk home as I don't have a car, but soon realized I'd forgotten my coat in my locker, as I hadn't gone through my regular passing time routine. So, naturally, I attempted to go back to my locker and pick up the coat, as I wasn't too keen on venturing out in below freezing weather in a T-shirt, only to have my way blocked by a spirit-crushing conjunctive triumverate: Brother Bill, a woven partition, and four locked wooden doors. Once that attempt failed, I thought that this would be a good opportunity to do some schoolwork. After again realizing I couldn't venture to an open area, my study place of preference, I attempted to enter the library. I hadn't taken more than five steps past the sensors though when our excited gnome of a librarian sprung forth from heaven knows where and ushered me out. Lunch students weren't allowed here today, I was told. I quickly made the decision not to do my homework at a lunchroom table after the last time I'd done that my Chem lab got covered in grease and I lost two points. Unfortunately, we aren't allowed to sit on the cafetria floors anymore because we have our blessed 'Munchies' to rid us of our embarassing floor-sprawling-students image problem. Thus, friendless and homeless, I stood around in front of the library doors for five minutes, feigning interest in the NHS board. Soon I got pretty fed up and decided to take some action, so only after inconspicuously flashing Brother Bill my fourth hour Yearbook pass, during (gasp) fifth hour, was I able to get through, though by this time it was far too late to make it home before the end of the hour.

Thankfully, after a month or so of bitter and justified complaining, the powers that be came to the decision that this policy could be disbanded, though not without some adveristy and a pendant to remember it by. No, now all 'priveleged' seniors were issued blue shoelaces that the school tried to pass off as 'lanyards' which we were supposed to attach to our ID's and wear at all times while past the double doors of the lunchroom hall. This to save any hall monitor who found Brother Bill's door keeping skills lacking the five seconds it would otherwise take the suspect to take their ID out of their wallet and show their senior privelege sticker. I'm not sure it occured to the administration that everyone who has a sticker has a lanyard and vice versa, they're the exact same thing except one makes the ID much more unfashionable and inconvenient. Next year, I'm afraid to annouce, marks the introduction of the senior privelege jump-suit; it was a close vote between that and branding the senior privelege marker into the students' fore-arms.

Just as my emotions were beginning to cool, the school decided to hand us another slap in the face, however small. Homeroom though, was something I'd come to actually enjoy every week, not only did it shorten classes, but it was a fun time to chill with your bros. Yet they couldn't let it be. To save all that desperate time we were wasting checking in with our teachers, we were assigned seats based on our homeroom teacher to speed up the process, though I, for one, have found the log jam of people to be just as fervent as ever. When not surrounded by my friends I did find myself focusing more on what was actually being presented to us during homeroom, most often by that vivacious Student Government of ours, when of course it wasn't fun-time with Jayna. Now Stud-Gov, as they've so dubiously dubbed themselves, does try; there's no doubt about that. I've got a good many friends among that group and know them to be truly invovled kids, and there's nothing quite like a Manduca speech, but sometimes there actions leave me no choice but to shake my head. I mean honestly folks, did you really think we could raise enough money for an Olympic size swimming pool for the class gift, and have the nerve to paint "OH Six!" on the bottom? Now as far as combining the lame with the wishful with the vain, I have to say that's a pretty thorough job. When that fell through though, you didn't let us down, you came up with the only logical solution: a three ton Panther that prompted an unengaged Tom to ask me why there was a picture of a bull-dog on the overhead. I'll spare you more criticism for now Stud. Gov., I'm not even gonna touch the school dances here. And who knows, there could be more to the story, and this certainly isn't an equal reflection upon every memeber of the group.

This issue of inept authority figures doesn't halt here however, friends. No, we haven't even touched on the largest such role in the life of a Century student, the teachers. I've had my share of difficulties with our inquistive instructors over the course of high school, as I'm sure we all have, but one of mine bears special mention during this final year, a certain yearbook educator to be specific. Yearbook class was the biggest slacker class I've found to date; it was my third open hour. During my semeseter in the class on multiple occasions I finished other homework, ate in the lunchroom, went to Wendy's, even played dungeon square a few times, all without being caught once, let alone reprimanded, and I was considered one of the studious ones. She gave us incredibly free reign and thus the yearbook wasn't nearly as good as it could have been. Yet, when she lost a set of pictures that Garrett had worked on, and as an extra assignment no less, she gave him a B, a B, to Garrett, who along with me was one of the only kids in the class who actually put any effort into their work. I even went down to testify for him, yet since the pages weren't uncovered he had to do makeup work to earn his grade back. Despicable.

As long as we're on the topic of the yearbook though, we might as well touch on the other ego-tripping strong arms of the course, the twin team editors. On this earth exists a thing called abuse of power, these two need to learn how to recognize it. They complain and complain about how no one does their work, yet when people do, they don't trust them enough to even accept it. They go through page by page, caption by caption and make 'edidorial decisions'. They cut down anything of intellectual content or wit (i.e. all the interview questions with Gilby longer than a sentence, my only draft of my German IV article that took two days to write, and any caption that might actually make someone crack a smile) and replace it with fluff, thinking they know what's best for the whole school and without ever checking facts (if not for my open hour revising, you'd be looking at Trevor Wells, and despite me repeatedly telling them otherwise they labeled Owen's pumpkin picture a Link Crew event) or even consulting the person whose work they're editing. But I mean really, who am I to talk?

It seems to me that all of these issues point back to one key component: authority. Anyone who has known me the last couple of years knows that I've been severely screwed over by more than just the few frustrating anecdotes mentioned here, by other such persons of authority within our school. Teenagers have more people to answer to in their lives then any other demographic, and yet while they're still considered youths, there isn't a whole lot they can do if they have a problem with one. This conundrum can only be solved if the authority figures themselves make some changes. I’m also not calling for some massive reform in our school's framework to set up an elaborate system of checks and balances that accounts for every person of authority. I simply desire to make the mentioned parties carefully consider how their actions may affect the lives of those youth’s whom they influence, willingly or not, and adjust their behavior appropriately. Maybe then our school newpaper won't be described as "the only thing worse than the P-B."