On the last day of classes, one of the seniors anonymously (but with the approval of the administration) put out a fake newsletter titled The Kaleidoscope. I don’t know why, but I got all swelled up with pride when I was mentioned in it a few times. The newspaper is full of inside jokes — jokes that only people at my school would get, or in the case of where I’m mentioned, jokes that only kids in my classes would get. But since I consider this blog a communication and archiving tool, I’m going to put the exerpts from the newspaper here. (I would also like to say to readers that my school is not religious in any way; it is in a historic church. So “chapel” just refers to meetings that we as a school have in the chapel.)
Last Rights of Last Chapel Gives Seniors the Rare Chance ot Draw Attention to Themselves
During the incredibly nostalgic “last chapel” for the Class of 2009, current study body president David “Nightfire” Palgon took extensive time out of a long block of jam related announcements to outline what this year’s student council had been working on. “After much deliberation, extensive research and statistics gathering, an MSA basketball tournament, four bake sales and a year’s worth of early morning meetings, the student council has outlined in the utmost detail a plan to put new pencil sharpeners in every classroom.” At first the chapel was filled with stunned silence, and then, like the flapping of a thousand pelicans’ wings, applause echoed from newly cleaned, non-religious stained glass windows to rarely used organ, to the strange, hieroglyphic, snowflake patterened lights. In no time at all, students were on their feet, broken and dulled pencils raised above their heads in celebration. “It’s about time!” yelled estatic long time anti-pen advocate and calculus teacher Sameer “Worchestershah” Shah. “I’m going to call my high functioning Aunt Derivative, send her some pie, fibenachos and a DXie chicks album and tell her about the pencil sharpeners! I’ve had the absolute maximum a person can take with pens!”
The article continues, but you get the point. And yes, I am a vehement anti-pen advocate in my classes. I do not, however, have any idea why my middle name is “Worchester” or why there is a picture of a Worchester bottle next to the article with my name under it. But I like it. Another article is about the student-faculty judiciary committee.
In the Court of Lawlessness: New SFJC Disciplinary Strategy Raises Concerns about Questionable Interrogation Tactics
“It was horrible!” chimes a confused [StudentName]. “I was late to school. Not too often–once, twice, eighteen times, and forced to go to SFJC. I had to get to school at 5:00am and when I refused to acquiesce to their demands they forced me to watch videos of old activity periods. I couldn’t take it…” She buries her head in her hands and bemoans her early sign in.
[…]
“It’s really tough,” mumbles a disgruntled Sameer Shah, who recently misplaced an attendance sheet and was forced to follow a sophomore around for a whole day. “The new SFJC punishments, which apply to both students and faculty,” Shah continues, “effectively involve a role reversal.” If a faculty misbehaves he or she must do homework, papers, study for tests, worry about finals, do clean-up duty, and has sign out privileges revokes. But if a student breaks a rule he or she must grade papers, attend TALL Tuesday afterschool meetings, get fired, or in the most sever instances, serve as cafeteria monitor for middle school lunch.
I have to say that this newspaper is hilarious, especially if you got o my school… It’s like the author(s) wrote down every funny thing about our school — from our strange Pelican mascot to the fact that it has taken over a year to work through the red tape to get new new pencil sharpeners in each classroom — and wordsmithed it to priceless gems. I literally was laughing out loud at every sentence. They tap into that very thing of what it means to really go to and live our lives at our school. That’s a hard feat to do. It’s also why you probably read everything above and were like “ummm, Sam, these are NOT funny.” To that I bite my thumb at thee.
Continuous Everywhere but Differentiable Nowhere 
But Sam, being anti-pen makes you a bit of an anti-leftie. (“What?!”, he says, “That’s a nonsequitur for sure.”) I’m left-handed, you see, and pencils smear terribly as my hand rubs over what I just wrote. I use pens to keep my hand and my writing cleaner. That does mean that I have to do complete rewrites when I’m doing math homework. It worked for me… ;>
Hmmm. I don’t want to be anti-leftie! I’m just horrified by the mess that kids with pen make when it comes to showing their work neatly and clearly.
But you’ve convinced me to make an exception for lefties, but with the caveat that they have to be SUPER neat and leave lots of room for themselves in case they make a mistake and have to cross something out and rewrite it.
Hey, that’s great. Thanks for listening. There’s a great teacher in my department who has the same no-pen policy. I’ve told her I’d have trouble in her class. She hasn’t told me she’s changed it, but maybe she’d give exceptions, too.
Unfortunately, my super-neat leaves a lot to be desired. Long, long ago, I was in a teacher ed program (elementary level), and I got a 0 on a bulletin board assignment in the math methods class, because the teacher thought it was too messy. There was one correction on it, and she thought that was terrible.
I’m still always trying to improve my boardwork…