Just as a disclaimer, please don't expect proper grammar and punctuation in this blog post, or any other future blog posts. I'll do my best with the spelling, but everything else is up in the air. Run-on sentences, incomplete sentences, numbered lists, and bullet points are all very good friends of mine, you will meet all of them very soon.
High School.
My Freshman Year.
Was I prepared for this?
Absolutely.
I had always envisioned High School as this larger than life place that would swallow you whole if it had the chance.
In reality?
It was just like 5th Grade all over again.
Well, except everyone was older now.
And we no longer had to walk in single file.
After spending the past two years with only 1/3 of my entire grade, it was weird seeing people that I forgot were even IN my grade to begin with.
Not only that, but my High School also takes students from both Granville and Tolland, so there was an influx of new faces that were all in my grade now.
It was a lot to take in.
The first week was nothing short of a whirlwind.
I was assigned my locker, which would be my locker for all four years of High School.
I was also assigned to my homeroom, which would also remain the same for all four years of High School.
It was nice to have constants like that.
This also began my love/hate relationship with "Block Scheduling".
You see, my High School had 4 classes a day.
That's right, four.
I knew many people who went to High School's in other towns.
They all had like 7-8 classes a day, that were roughly 45 minutes each.
Not in my school.
Each class I had was 84 minutes long.
Which was both good and bad.
If I was a class that I liked, I had it for 84 minutes!
If it was a class that I hated, I had it for 84 minutes.
As a Freshman, I had English and three other classes the first half of the year, then I had History and three different classes the second half of the year.
So my day consisted of English, Algebra 1 Volume 1, Health (Mon, Wed, Fri)/Gym (Tue, Thu) and Spanish 1.
English was bearable.
Algebra 1 was bearable (only because of the students I had the class with).
Health was BEYOND boring.
Although I did end up meeting someone who became one of my best friends in that class, but that will be an entire blog post all by itself, and even that still won't be enough.
Gym was the one bright spot that first half of the year.
Spanish 1 was alright, because I was genuinely interested in learning a new language, even though I needed to take at least two years of it (or French) whether I wanted to or not, it was still "something new", so it had my attention.
Lunch on that first day was also a different experience from any school lunch that I had experience before.
There were so many..........options!
I mean sure, we had that "lunch calendar" that said what was going to be the "lunch of the day", but unlike Elementary and Middle School, that wasn't the only option!
The cafeteria had THREE SEPARATE LINES.
On top of whatever was the "lunch of the day", there were other items that were ALWAYS AVAILABLE!
It was magical.
You could get a cheeseburger, hot dog, chicken patty, pizza, grilled cheese, and countless other things.
EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
I had to ask some of the older students if this was a "one time thing" since it was the first day of school, and they said "Nope, it's like this everyday".
It was truly music to my ears.
There was one thing that I did need to get used to, and that was not having recess anymore.
I must admit, not having recess sucked.
Recess was the best way to unwind after lunch.
That took some getting used to.
When the second half of the year came around, English was replaced with History, and Health/Gym, Spanish 1, and Algebra 1 were replaced.
Now I had History, Health/Gym, Algebra 1 Volume 2, and Integrated Science.
When it comes to Science, I like doing the "hands on" stuff.
You know, pouring random liquids into beakers, waiting for a reaction of some sort.
Using liquid nitrogen to freeze random objects.
Stuff like that.
But this Science class was just reading from a gigantic textbook every day.
That was it.
I learned nothing from that class, and it was awful.
Science class would get MUCH BETTER the next year, but we'll get to that when the time comes!
Algebra 1 Volume 2 would change the course of my High School career for the next TWO YEARS.
And it all started with a fundraiser in the cafeteria.
There was a fundraiser (I can't even remember for what) in the cafeteria that was selling bubble gum for 10 cents each, so I bought ten of them for a dollar.
Someone in my Algebra class saw me pull out a piece of the gum, and they asked if I had another piece.
I did, and I threw it to them.
Then someone else asked me the same thing.
I threw that person a piece too.
Before you know it, I'm down to my last piece, and there is a BIDDING WAR going back and forth for the last piece.
One dollar later, and my final piece was gone.
That's when the light bulb went off.
The next day I brought in Blow Pops.
As soon as I pulled that first one out, someone immediately offered me 50 cents for one.
I would have let it go for 25 cents.
This was turning out even better than I had expected.
I knew Blow Pops were going to get old fast.
I needed to expand my inventory if this new side business was going to last.
And heading into my Sophomore Year, that's exactly what I did, but we'll get to that next time!
