class of 2000

When I was in highschool, my friends and I had this tradition. We'd always get together to either celebrate the end of the school year, or to enjoy our last official day of freedom before school started up again. Sometimes I'd have some people over at my house, and other times we'd "go for coffee", even though none of us actually drank coffee. We'd go to Delany's in the village, where a majority of the employees were people went to our school (since the Delany kids went to Handsworth, we got dibs on the job opportunities) and drink a Snapple or a steamed milk (ooh! exciting!) and hang out. In grade 11, we got adventurous, went to Starbucks and actually got drinks that had coffee in them (mocha frapps...again, not super adventurous). I remember thinking that it was almost always sunny on the last day of exams and it almost always rained when school started in september. Somehow I thought that meant that God was either just as excited about summer as us, or sympathized with us having to go back.
One year, my friend Lindi made me a book. She got a normal notebook with lined paper in it and decorated the front of it with pictures of us and our friends and stuff. It became our book. We would write notes to each other in it and stick it in each other's lockers at school, and write birthday messages and weird quizzes for each other and to mad libs and stuff. It was like having both of our brains (and some other people's) put on paper. Soooo weird. I found it the other day and was reading it and had so much fun. Ah, highschool. Heh heh. We were totally the 'good kids', never did anything bad or exciting. The most scandalous thing I ever did was skip a grade 12 english class (gasp!) but it was the last day and i don't think that the teacher even took attendance.
My favorite teachers were Mrs. Walter (grade 8 english, awesome AWESOME teacher!), umm, Mr. Murray (grade 11 english and grade 12 lit) and Mrs. Barker (grade 12 english). Yes, I was a total english nerd. I actually wanted to steal the grade 12 lit textbook from the school. I mean, come on! And then there's Mr. Torres, who taught history and actually made it interesting. For the sake of comic relief, we'll put Dr. Maurice on there. He wasn't really anybody's favorite teacher (except maybe Jessie and Alana's, who insisted on giving him a birthday present every year....yeah, they were weird...haha) but he was kind of quirky.
Least favorite teachers? Dr. O'Neill. He taught me western civ, which as a class, i enjoyed. But he actually said--out loud, yes, and in class--that the reason that Chinese people were "behind" compared to other cultures was because they ate too much rice. Hello!!! This at Handsworth, where all the rich, middle to upper class, and mostly Asian students went. Aie aie aie.
There weren't too many teachers that I actually disliked. It was more a case of teachers that I thought were kinda weird. Like Mme. Wakefield, who taught us French, and appeared to want to relive the 80s through her wardrobe. Leggings and heels, kid you not. And then there was Mrs. Lane, who for some reason chose to take her birth control pills at the start of class in the morning, and walked around with one of those yardstick rulers and would whack people's desks when they made her angry (so not joking. she actually made the principal come in and talk to us, the "bad class" once. really, it was only cos the 3 worst behaved guys in our school were all in the same class). And Jessie and Alana and I had nicknames for half our teachers. Mme. Demers (another french/socials teacher) was Bigras, because she had this poster in her classroom of some random french singer guy named Dan Bigras. And then there was Fashdope, also known as Mme. Desgroseillers, who we believed had no fashion sense, and was a dope when it came to fashion. Fashdope. Dr. Maurice was Egoiste. He made some comment once about how he wasn't egotistical, and then after that, he was Egoiste. Ah, good times...heh heh.
I'm not sure why I just dedicated a whole post to being reminiscive of highschool. I mean, I am kind of the sentimental type to begin with, but, still. heh heh. Well, there's a flashback to rachael at highschool. if you'd like more stories, you can talk to lindi, kirst, tyler milley, kate or sarah who also went to glorious HSH. Goooooo Royals!!!!!!!