The beginning of the end of the beginning

"310," I repeat to myself as I read the sheet of paper posted on the wall. "That's where my first class will be." Dodging the bustling crowds of students, I approach a map of the school. Room 310 -- the third floor, of course. The class is supposed to be American Government and Economics, but I'm drawing a blank as to where such a class would be found. For reference, what rooms is it near?

Then it strikes me: 307. 309. I have had Spanish classes in those rooms. The French classroom is nearby. It's the foreign language part of the school. They're putting me in Spanish after all! How could it be? Well, it's true that I signed up for it, but I soon realized that signing up for a hard class that I didn't want to take was a serious mistake. When I checked my schedule online, they only gave it to me for the second semester. It would sure be easier to switch out that way.

My heart starts racing. I can hardly keep my cool, even when talking to friends. How can this be? Am I going to have Ms. Hill, my Spanish I teacher that I didn't like very much? Will she remember me? Will she speak to me in Spanish? How will I answer? Do I remember how to conjugate the verbs? What about the stem-changing verbs? Will this class really be all year long? When will I be ready to switch out? How much pain is in store for me? These questions race through my mind as the bell rings. And off I go, up the stairs, back to the familiar hallway and around the corner...

I know that what I'm about to see could make or break my day or my year. I see Ms. Hill standing between rooms 309 and 310. I get closer to the door to 310 and read the placard next to it.

Ms. Boudinet
American Government/Economics

So began my senior year of high school this morning. Quite a fright, it was, though I had been relatively calm before that incident -- no shaking or anything. Sometimes on the first day of school I shake uncontrollably, so it started out well.

Mandatory explanation of school's schedule: four "blocks" (classes) per semester, four days of school per week (Monday-Thursday).

After getting into my first block, I heaved a tremendous sigh of relief and took pleasure in seeing so many familiar faces in the classroom. Indeed, it was good to see a lot of people I hadn't seen for a few months (or a week). Now it's time to make broad, sweeping generalizations about my teachers based on my first impressions of them. Yay!

Ms. Boudinet seems nice. Anything could be better than taking Spanish, after all.

For my second block, I have Mr. Gates for AP Calculus AB and BC. So I'm taking two years' worth of high-school calculus in one year. Yay? I had Mr. Gates for Precalculus last year, and he gave the incoming calculus students some work to do over the summer, so we dived right into that.

Then I had lunch. There are enough people I know there, which is good. But they've raised the price of lunch from $1.50 to $2.25. Bah!

Third block: Mrs. Mackey for English IV Honors. I had heard of her, but I hadn't heard anyone's opinions on her because she only teaches seniors, apparently. I was worried that she might be mean because she's old, but I was in for a surprise. She seems to be the nicest teacher on the planet. She doesn't have a mean bone in her body. This should be a good class.

Fourth block: Dr. Singkornrat for Anatomy and Physiology Honors. I've never had her, but I've heard many, many good things about her over the years, so it didn't faze me when she seemed to be stern.

Remember how I said I had Spanish next semester but not this semester? I need to do something about that. So after school I talked to Mr. Mumtaz about being his TA (teacher's assistant). He said that students could only be TAs during second block, which meant that I wouldn't be able to be one. He did have some good news, though: he said that the administration was looking for "tech kids" to go around and fix peoples' computers during any block. I signed up for that, and I saw that Brian was the only other person who had signed up. I really don't know computers that well, but maybe it'll be an opportunity to learn. Anything could be better than taking Spanish, after all.

And that was my day. Not bad, really; it could have been much worse. The following days should be better as I settle into things.

The other day, I was wondering what you call someone from Edinburgh. An Edinburghite? Edinburgher? Edinburghian? Fortunately, Wikipedia has a long list of adjectival forms of place names. Even though Edinburgh isn't on the list, there are lots of other names, if you've been wondering the same thing.

Watch MADtv's Nicole Sullivan and The Colbert Report's Stephen Colbert in a Sesame Street segment called "All Star Alphabet" (YouTube video). They play letters "A" and "Z," respectively.

One year ago: "Today my band, VRT, played probably our last gig."
Two years ago: "Gosh, I have a lot of relatives. I never realized that until now."
Three years ago: "However, the film was stuck and everyone was asleep."