I had a pretty good Thanksgiving, but Thanksgiving weekend is not without homework. Some people ask me how I can always manage to do my homework. Actually, they don't. But many people I've talked to are just too lazy to do it, and that's the only reason they have bad grades (according to them, anyway).

I guess I picked up in psychology class that your experiences early in life mold who you are. Before going to Pompano Beach High, I went to a Catholic school -- St. Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic School, to be exact -- for nine years. Life was good there. We were naive. And we were basically all white. I didn't know the meaning of ghetto. I think there were maybe two ghetto kids in the whole school, and one of them was white. In eighth grade there was this new girl who smoked cigarettes and had done the deed. I couldn't believe it. And of course, no one dated or anything, except maybe Carlos and Breonka, and that was probably once. Coincidentally, there was none of this so-called "drama." (Well, I don't think so, anyway. I wasn't a girl.) We were really sheltered.

Of course, there wasn't much of an opportunity to develop valuable social skills at a place like this. The extent of it was pretty much the dances for the junior high students. Admission was five bucks, not 50 like some schools I go to right now. Plus, they could actually have them fairly often: they didn't need to book a place; they just cleared the cafeteria and had it there. (If Pompano had dances in either of its two gyms, the price wouldn't be astronomical and so people would flock in. I bet they'd make money.)

Anyway, I loved those dances. There were some good times to be had there. They didn't even make you pay for the food, usually. And I got to slowdance with pretty much any girl I wanted -- well, any one who was there, anyway. That's probably how I learned to slowdance (not like there's anything to it). It was either there or at my friend Reid's first dance party, whichever came first. Other than that, I can't dance at all. When they would play "The Electric Slide," "The Cha Cha Slide," "Macarena," or "YMCA" (which, as I can't resist mentioning, is about meeting for gay sexual encounters), I would run away. I can't stand those types of dances. There was other music too, but no one really danced to that. Still, those dances made for relatively fun Friday nights.

But things were tough during the weekdays. With our uniforms we had to wear belts. And our socks had to be a certain height -- above the ankle, anyway. I didn't see the point of having them lower than that, though. Starting in third grade, if you did something wrong, you got demerits and detentions. Demerits, if you don't know, are basically points toward getting a detention. If you got five demerits, you had to stay after school Wednesday for detention. And of course, the most flagrant offenses, like the seldom-enforced "hurting the feelings of others," amounted to an automatic detention.

I got some demerits. And detentions. I got a detention for socking one to the principal's boy, and another for the equally heinous offense of letting people copy my work. I also got one for flicking a tiny ball of paper off my desk during class. I think the reasoning was that it could have poked someone's eye out. Of course, that person would have to be about three feet tall and standing right in front of my desk. But I 'fessed up to the crime. They are tough on those detentions in third grade.

If I remember correctly, not doing homework was also demerits or detentions or something. So as you can imagine, we did our homework. I made it a priority. Yeah, I remember what it was now. It was one demerit for not doing your homework, I think. And it happened to me. I would get into a lot of trouble for it. Because when you got a demerit, you had to take it home to your parents so they could sign it. They had to know eventually. So that's pretty much why I did my homework.

Now you know a little bit more about me, if you didn't know all that before. And you can sort of get an idea of where I'm coming from and why I am who I am.

Slow Wave: An artist illustrates your dreams. Like a comic strip. Cool.

Wikipedia has a list of unusual deaths and, similarly, a list of people who died in the bathroom. People have been dying in bathrooms since ancient times.