Friday, December 30, 2011

On Pants, English Teachers, and other such Adventures

~By Alex~
Hello Annabel, World, and other such Entities! I'm writing a blog post!
What? You're probably thinking, We thought you had been eaten by wild cows! We wrote you a eulogy and everything! 

Well, sorry to disappoint. For the past few months I have been telling myself over and over that I was going to write a blog post, that it was going to be witty, and entertaining, and Annabel and I were going to be bona fide Superstars!!! with a capital S and three exclamation points. 
But then, as it always does, procrastination kicked in. But I've got homework! I rationalized, Besides, Annabel hasn't posted in a while. And I have to walk the dog, then fill out taxes. I've got way too many important things to be doing.

Well, now it's Winter break, Annabel has posted a grand total of four times, and I don't even have a dog. Or, for that matter, taxes. 

This year, I transferred high schools. It's a mystical new place, with mystical things such as "assemblies" and "tutorial" and "biology" that were nowhere to be seen at my previous public school. 

I am not a shy person (unlike Annabel, however I do believe that she gives herself way less credit than she deserves. The first time I met her she practically assaulted me with her likeableness. I mean really. How inconsiderate). However, I am the sort of person that is too quiet when I should be making an impression, and too loud when I should be keeping my mouth shut. I am also terrible at first impressions. 

I'll give you a particularly unfortunate example. 

On the first couple days of school, one of my friends invited me to go out canoeing with some of his friends so that I could get to know some of the kids from my new school better. I eagerly accepted, and got all ready to make an excellent first impression and oodles of new friends. I could wow them with my charm! My geeky, science related puns! My sometimes misguided obscure movie references! My terrible pronunciation of words!

It didn't turn out this way.

What ended up happening is that I sat quietly at the bottom of the canoe while the three boys (two of which I had never met before) made inside jokes and put on ridiculous italian accents. 

I kept trying to find an entrance point into the conversation, or think of something witty to say, but I ended up just looking sullen. Besides, my italian accent isn't very good, anyhow.

I was content with cutting my losses and having them think that I was just a little bit of a wet blanket, until, social disaster reared its ugly head.

One of the boys tipped the canoe.

I was wearing skinny jeans.

If anyone has ever worn wet jeans, you understand what an unpleasant experience it can be. The denim becomes a suction cup, sticking to the very pores of your skin, rubbing and chafing.

And we still had to plans to go out for ice cream afterwards, not to mention the half hour drive back home. 

We headed back to one of the boys' house to change, and I, thoroughly embarrassed, was forced to ask to borrow one of their pants. Even worse, I had to give aforementioned boy back his pants the following Monday, at school, in front of everyone.

As you can imagine, the first day of school, what with all it's introductions and how-do-you-dos and forgetting names and dreaded first impressions, was quite an ordeal for me, so by the last period of the day (english), I was thoroughly exhausted.


My new English teacher, who, for the sake of this blog post we will call "Mr. Beard", is quite literally everything you would imagine an English teacher would be. He uses words like 'syntax' and 'diction' interchangeably with 'walking' and 'breathing'. He makes english teachery jokes about Poe and Dickinson, even if he's the only one in the room that understands them. He wears sweaters.

He is the quintessential english prof, and I am convinced he was stolen out of the film the Dead Poets Society. My mother said it best: "Every time I see him, I want to stand up on my chair and recite O Captain, My Captain, by Walt Whitman."

I'd like to say that I'm a connoisseur of language and literature, but really, I just tell people that I am and then go home and read trashy romance novels, a la Paul Bates from Midnight in Paris. In any case, I am the sort of person that will use the word connoisseur. 

Anyway, on the first day of english class, I walked in, slightly disheveled from climbing the seven hundred sets of stairs that it takes to get to the English wing. Thoroughly exhausted from an entire day of making small talk, interacting with people, and god forbid, paying attention during long hours of hello-welcome-to-such-and-such-class-here-is-a-syllabus-and-a-joke-to-prove-that-you-can-have-fun-while-learning, I just wanted the day to be over so I could go home, collapse face first on my bed (dramatically, of course), and have a cup of tea. I tapped my finger on the desk impatiently as I waited for Mr. Beard to start explaining the syllabus. As expected, he started off the class with "I'm Mr. Beard, welcome to AP English..." I prepared to tune out, until I heard him say "You don't really need to know the syllabus, It's on the internet, go find it if you're interested." And the rest of the class was spent analyzing poetry and discussing the merits of oxford commas. Edgar Allen Poe puns were made. The purpose of grammar was questioned. Lives were changed.

I began telling Mr. Beard stories to my friends, my mom, my little brother. It became a running joke between a few of my friends and I that I have a teacher crush on Mr. Beard. Even my boyfriend (since boy has already been taken, we'll just call him boyfriend) has acknowledged my crush on Mr. Beard. In fact, he's completely okay with it.

Anyway, I've adjusted to my new school (and I like it quite a lot, in fact), and I hope that my new school has adjusted to me, as well (despite rocky first encounters).

1 comment:

  1. ...I totally have a teacher crush on Mr. Beard, too. I think it's almost impossible not to. <3

    Also, pretty sure most of our school loves you. You're awesome!

    ReplyDelete