Highlights and Lowlights: Sixth Grade | 04/15/04

Do I try it? Do I try the extremely challenging move of the same day quiz-SUSSAI? I've always wanted to do it, just to see if your scores really are that much lower rather than giving it on a day that the students are already pretty happy. Since it's my last semester of TA'ing I think I'm going to do it. What do I have to lose? I'm very confident that although the semester for my students didn't start as smoothly as in the Fall that everything will be done on time--at least by the people that want to get things done on time. Speaking of SUSSAI's, I am very confident in my giving all "poor"s in Music Bibliography. Honestly, it's the worst class I've ever had. EVER. We've done literally the same thing all semester. We get to look at books that we'll never use. God forbid we learn anything. Jamie was kind enough to take my copies to Kinkos for my presentation/performance in Music of the Caribbean. Only about 20 people showed up so it was really a waste of money but whatever. We had a visitor from Trinidad that threw off the timing of just about everything so I couldn't save the last 20 minutes for Dr. Olsen's video. He made me feel that everything I said wasn't completely accurate but I am certain that it was. It really wasted a lot of time, although he did provide some very interesting tidbits. My performing did not go so well. On the third note of playing I scraped my finger on the metal coil that holds the pan onto the stand. As the blood slowly dripped onto the higher octave of notes I had a very difficult time focusing on the actual music. Out of fear of flinging blood on anyone I decided to omit any fast passages, which made the piece kind of dull. After class I cleaned out my pan, washed out the wound and went to my last Mas N' Steel rehearsal. Although last spring was supposed to be "my last Mas N' Steel rehearsal ever" it obviously wasn't and I think because I went through it last year it wasn't quite as meaningful this year. We only played for an hour despite our concert being tomorrow. I think Ryan's anything-done-today-won't-help-us-tomorrow mentality was pretty accurate but nonetheless I still would have liked to have played for the full two hours. I'm still kind of sad that I'll be done with the group, but with only eight of the 20-some of currently in the band returning it really won't be the same anyway. If nothing else, though, really talented people will be back next year.

In other news, the damn Taurus won't start again. DON'T BUY A FORD.

Sixth Grade

Highlight: Ah, entrepreneurial me. In 6th grade we were required to cut our articles about science to read in our class. Being a nerd who had ample science articles sitting around I starting bringing them to school once a week and selling them for $2 each a couple periods before science class so the buyers had a chance to write the requisite paragraph. I usually sold at least 5 which enabled me to buy lunch at the school like everyone else instead of seeing what my mommy packed me. I usually just bought fries, some chocolate milk and those Little Debbie Snack cakes with the white icing and the chocolate chips on top. Ah, I used to be so unhealthy. I miss those days...oh.

Lowlight: Mark Luzzi moved to Naperville when I was in 4th grade. He was the first kid to have a Koosh ball and his family was extremely wealthy. I used to stay up at night and pray that his family would come to my door and explain to my parents there had been a mix-up at the hospital. Once I was in their family, *I* could have the Nike Air shoes and the Koosh balls and the Banana Republic T-Shirts (not that I would set foot into a Banana Republic until a good 12 years later). Despite the fact I had velcro shoes and his had the swoosh on the back, he and I were still good friends in elementary school. I'd go over to his house and we'd play Nintendo on his huge TV or football in his backyard with his hand-signed Joe Montana football. Once we got into 6th grade he was able to stay cool, though and I was not. I rarely saw him and I will never forget the first time I saw him--it was probably two months into school and I ran up to greet him. He promptly informed me that he was now part of the popular group and he wouldn't be able to be my friend anymore. The conversation was something like this:

Me: Hey Mark!

Mark: Uh..hey Mike...listen, I'm now part of the popular group and I won't be your friend anymore.

Yeah, that was it. I was wearing my favorite Bugle Boy shirt at the time and I had just left the band room. I remember being more shocked than upset at the time. It didn't really set in that I was no longer cool until that night. At least I had a seat at the loser lunch table with all the other band kids. Our band director also had a little white dog that would urinate in the percussion section. I also left a love note in Hillary M*rshall's band locker after being talked into by Hillary's best friend (and later one of my college friends) Susan K*mp. Hillary never responded (most likely due to my Bugle Boy shirts) and is now married. I used to keep the initials of every girl I was in love with scrawled on the inside of my band locker. I'm sure it's still there. Not that I really have any desire to go verify the fact that of x girls, x-x wanted anything to do with me. I think I had my sights set too high. The one girl in my league that actually wanted something to do with was Abbey V*gel and she moved away the day after she told me. She told me right after we had finished drawing the female reproductive organs in health class. We later colored these diagrams to make them look like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

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