Now that it's the 3rd of November, I feel I should write a blog about NaNoWriMo.
So far I'm on target for making it through, but just barely. I have to have a really good writing day soon and just completely pwn this story.
This story is kind of difficult, because I've been working on Universe for so long that I trying to write something else, something I know kind of sucks and doesn't have much delvopment yet, is really difficlult. I hope I can really figure it out. I've been tempted to erase and start over several times. But that's the pressure of NaNo.
I'm writng with my roommate, and she's never really sat down and written before, so it's intersting. At least this year there is a person in the room to bounce stuff off of. I kind of want to go to the write-in tomorrow, but I'm not supposed to be in Barnes and Noble, and I have class. So I'll try to figure that out.
I've felt kind of weird latley, and I don't know why. I think I'm upset with the lack of committment some people are showing in an ongoing project, and how, even though it's not the single most important thing in people's lives, they're treating it like it's not important at all. We all signed on to see it through to the end, to actually try. It sucks that I'm the only one even mildly intersted in finishing the project. I'm honestly thinking about not be bothered to do my part this week, or next week, or ever again. I'm starting to not care about it because no one else cares about it. It was my idea, my baby, I created it, and now I'm just watching it die and theres no way I can save it it.
I was sick last week and let Noelles run THES because I wasn't going to make it there, and it went smoother and they got more done than they ever had when I'm running the show. I feel like I'm not needed. Like I'm already being replaced. I don't like it. I don't want to be the person that can be replaced with a better version at any moment.
Anyways, I have to get ready to go to class, well at least try to make it to lunch with my friends. I think that's part of my thing, I really miss my friends. I mean, their right down the street, and I try to see them as much as possible, but I don't get to see them like I want, or used to.
AND THAT IS THE END OF THE STORY
If you can think of a reason that today is awesome, let me know.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
October is planning time!!
I got an email about a week ago from the NaNoWriMo guys, and I wasn't going to do it, but yesterday I started working on Universe again, so I figured "what the heck might as well." Obvs I won't be working on Universe, but I think working on a new project will help with the writing of Universe, I'm kind of stuck, I'm kind of in the process of re-writing also. There is some stuff I need to add. I took it off WeBook, because I kind of felt pressured by that site, I don't really know why, but I felt like I was failing by not posting things on a regular basis.
Back to NaNo though, I got my roommate to do it with me! She's been brainstorming all day, working on plot (lolz) and character development. Her books sounds pretty interesting too. When I get a better idea about mine I'll let you know. I'm still in the planning stages.
There are some write-ins in Augusta, but they're in Barnes and Noble, so I don't know if I can go, I'm going to work on it though.
ALSO my roommate and I are starting up a book club. I'm uber excited about this. We're starting with the new Laurie Halse Anderson book, Wintergirls. We're all official with a Facebook event and everything.
According to my horoscope I should be getting a job this week. Which would be WONDERFUL. I need one so badly. I need more things going on in my life to focus. I miss having large amounts of stress and craziness in my life.
October is looking pretty crazy right now, I'm excited. I like being stretched to within an inch of my life. I work better that way. November should be interesting.
Video Game Boy and I are working on making a super awesome video, with help from his Girlfriend. It's like a love story, man + car + pokemon, you'll love it.
THES is also getting down to crunch time. We have funds and such so we can start painting and all that fun stuff soon. I'm really excited for How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It's going to be so awesome. I can tell with the group of people we have this year.
I think that's all I really have for now. I'll let you know if something else comes up.
AND THAT IS THE END OF THE STORY
today is awesome because my roommate keeps yelling that she's quitting NaNo, and it's not even November yet. She has no idea. :)
Back to NaNo though, I got my roommate to do it with me! She's been brainstorming all day, working on plot (lolz) and character development. Her books sounds pretty interesting too. When I get a better idea about mine I'll let you know. I'm still in the planning stages.
There are some write-ins in Augusta, but they're in Barnes and Noble, so I don't know if I can go, I'm going to work on it though.
ALSO my roommate and I are starting up a book club. I'm uber excited about this. We're starting with the new Laurie Halse Anderson book, Wintergirls. We're all official with a Facebook event and everything.
According to my horoscope I should be getting a job this week. Which would be WONDERFUL. I need one so badly. I need more things going on in my life to focus. I miss having large amounts of stress and craziness in my life.
October is looking pretty crazy right now, I'm excited. I like being stretched to within an inch of my life. I work better that way. November should be interesting.
Video Game Boy and I are working on making a super awesome video, with help from his Girlfriend. It's like a love story, man + car + pokemon, you'll love it.
THES is also getting down to crunch time. We have funds and such so we can start painting and all that fun stuff soon. I'm really excited for How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It's going to be so awesome. I can tell with the group of people we have this year.
I think that's all I really have for now. I'll let you know if something else comes up.
AND THAT IS THE END OF THE STORY
today is awesome because my roommate keeps yelling that she's quitting NaNo, and it's not even November yet. She has no idea. :)
Monday, September 14, 2009
amazing weekend
If you could make out with any man living or dead who would be it?
Vin Diesel.
This was the conversation two men at the table I ate dinner at last night had. Please note there there was not pause for thinking between the end of the question and the answer, as if this man has been thinking about this for a while.
Sunday night I went down to Boston to the Improv Fest to see STF and BP and The Buj perform. They were awesome I love them, the shows were really short, but it was worth the 5 hour drive to see Michelle and everyone else (mostly Michelle (:).
Afterward I got invited to hang out with STF (well Noah BP and Buj) at a bar, which was slightly weird, yet awesome, where the Buj asked the question that starts this blog, and Noah Answered him.
I only got charged for one drink and BP made that awkward, but what else could really be expected. I got hugged and thanked for coming all the way down to see the show. I love them so much. I also have a pretty decent feeling that THES will be able to get them to come up here for a show this semester. (!!!!!!!!)
AND THAT IS THE END OF THE STORY
today is awesome because I don't have to deal with selfish bitches in my life anymore.
Vin Diesel.
This was the conversation two men at the table I ate dinner at last night had. Please note there there was not pause for thinking between the end of the question and the answer, as if this man has been thinking about this for a while.
Sunday night I went down to Boston to the Improv Fest to see STF and BP and The Buj perform. They were awesome I love them, the shows were really short, but it was worth the 5 hour drive to see Michelle and everyone else (mostly Michelle (:).
Afterward I got invited to hang out with STF (well Noah BP and Buj) at a bar, which was slightly weird, yet awesome, where the Buj asked the question that starts this blog, and Noah Answered him.
I only got charged for one drink and BP made that awkward, but what else could really be expected. I got hugged and thanked for coming all the way down to see the show. I love them so much. I also have a pretty decent feeling that THES will be able to get them to come up here for a show this semester. (!!!!!!!!)
AND THAT IS THE END OF THE STORY
today is awesome because I don't have to deal with selfish bitches in my life anymore.
Friday, September 11, 2009
In a world of yesterday
In a World of Yesterday
Iwill always remember that day as having the longest fire drill of my high school career in the freezing cold. For the beginning of September it was peculiar, but of course I had to be the only sucker freshman on the soccer teams that believed the captains when they told us we had to wear our uniforms on game day.I stood against an aging pine tree opposite the art room doors waiting for the principal to let us back into the clearly not burning building. It was the only place on that side of the school that wasn’t in complete shadow at 8:30 a.m.
My best friend Ryan Hughes found me after five minutes of the freezing fire drill. He was still wearing his over-sized goggles and plastic apron from biology class, but we both knew that the bio teacher was, basically, certifiable, so it was almost acceptable that Ryan would be clad in this fashion. He leaned up against the tree with me, our elbows almost touched, but we kept out distance, just something we always did.
“You are aware you look completely ridiculous with your soccer uniform on, right?” he said, chuckling to himself. “You have the most awkward skinny white boy legs I’ve even seen.”
“And the mad-scientist goggles do a lot for you too, Rye,” I snapped back.
“Yea but, this outfit is complete expected coming from Mrs. Kentland’s class Derek, you just look way too excited about the game today.”
We both laughed silently, never looking at each other, staring in opposite directions, this was how our friendship had always been.
“Mr. Reed!” I heard the strange Texan accent of my Spanish teacher yell in my direction.
“Mr. Reed, this is not happy fun time, this is serious business. I almost had to report you as missing to the authorities! Get over here you gummy bear brain!”
“Well I guess I’ll see you in Goodwin’s class then.” I said to Ryan as I walked away.
I wasn’t sure if he even heard me, but then again, what did it really matter, I would be seeing him in a half hour.
“Sorry Maestro, I was trying to stay warm.”
“No excuses!” The tiny man yelled as he hit me in the arm with his clipboard.
If he was over five feet tall I would have been pissed that he treated me that way, but he barley reached my waist so, I couldn’t really complain.
“Next time there is a fire drill, maybe you should wear some pants.”
“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind, sir. Just let me know the next time we have to wait twenty hours outside in the cold for no reason and I’ll make sure I have long pants on that day.”
I walked away, not waiting to hear his reaction. I knew it would be something just as sarcastic as what I said. That was something Maestro was always good for, giving it back to me.
I watched two of the senior volleyball players, a blonde and a red head, numbers 15 and 20 I believe, braid each other’s hair as the French teacher went on with her lesson. They conjugated words as they perfected French pigtails. The redhead then got the amazing idea to ask what the holdup was, since the building was clearly not on fire.
“We’ll Miss Murphy, there seems to be a student missing,” replied the hall monitor.
“How can you be sure, its second period,” The blonde asked.
“Mr. Jones was marked as present in his first period and second period class attendance sheets, but we can’t find him now.”
“Brandon Jones is missing again?!” The redhead yelled. Several fellow French classers looked in her direction.
“That kid has gone missing in literally every fire drill I’ve even been in.”
“Breathe Tracy, they’ll find him,” The blonde said, her right hand on the redheads left bicep.
“They always do.”I stood there next to my teacher wondering what the girls would have said if Maestro hadn’t seen me leaning up against the tree with Ryan, what if the hall monitor had told them that Derek Reed was the missing student, would they even care, did they know how I was. I daydreamed about the concern that would have passed over the blonde’s face, how she would
have looked for me if I were the missing student.
Amiss my daydream the Vice Principal appeared near the art room doors, “It’s safe to re-enter students of Kurtwood High. The fire has been contained!”
There was half-hearted laugh in the crowed as everyone pushed their way back into the building.
Then I heard something I wasn’t use to hearing at all, I looked up to see a helicopter heading quickly toward the seacoast. I’d never seen one so close, it was barely clearing the trees as it flew. I’d only ever seen a helicopter twice in life before that day, one was a military one at the Portsmouth Ship yard when I was a kid and my Grandpa took me to see the submarines, and the other time was the news helicopter when the Davenport boys robbed the Shell station on 125 and the police were chasing them. No one around me seemed even remotely interested in what was going on in the skies above our heads. It would be the last thing we barely noticed.
We got back into class at 9:01. Second period ends at 9:02. Maestro still somehow figured we were going to take a five-page test in this time. He was handing out test as we walked in the door.
“Is this take home Maestro?” Chad asked in his “I’m too good for this class” voice.
“No Mr. Warren it is for now!” Maestro yelled. “Now sit and take it, I will not have any more shenanigans today!”
The bell rang; we stood up and left our untouched tests on Maestro’s desk as we left.
I stopped at my locker on my way upstairs to algebra, hoping that I would, by the grace of God, have a sweatshirt in there. But alas, it was the second week of school, so I was out of luck. I slammed the door and continued to my class.
Even with my pit stop I was the first one to room 209. The room slowly filled with my classmates, people I had known since I was seven years old but never bothered to get to know. The basketball players punched each other in the arm, saying they’ll see each other at lunch, boyfriends reluctantly kissed girlfriends, and the popular girls blew kisses to each other for reasons I will never understand.
Mr. Goodwin entered the room and ran his hand along the chalk tray. As always he was dressed like a tootsie pop, brightly colored polo shirt and tan pants, today’s color was raspberry. “I swear that middle school-ers eat this crap,” he waited for a laugh that would never come as he went to the next room to retrieve chalk.
Ryan came in as Mr. Goodwin disappeared. He took his customary seat next to me. Without looking at each other he explained himself, “Freaking whack-job tried to have us do a lab in thirty-five seconds.”
“Maestro wanted us to take a test; we all left it blank on his desk.”
“Nice,” I could hear the smile in Ryan’s voice.
Mr. Goodwin was gone much longer than he normally was, long enough for the popular girls in the corner to take out there compacts and start checking they’re already clearly made-up faces.When he finally did return, his face was so ashen I was almost concerned for his health. But when I noticed no one else was I only shifted in my seat a little bit.
“How many of you have been to New York?” he asked, we all raised our hands. We’d gone for our class trip the year before, Mr. Goodwin knew this, he was our chaperone, something was clearly not right.
“Good.” He walked over the board and drew to large rectangles on the board. Then a giant jagged hole in the one on the left.
“Cuz it’s never going to be the same.”
“We’re still on fractional division, you can’t go throwing volume at us the second week of school, Captain,” Patrick said, his basketball clones laughed to themselves.
“Something is obviously wrong, you idiot,” Kelly said shutting her compact with a snap that made Goodwin jump a little.
“There has been a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center,” Mr. Goodwin said it as quick and painless as possible.
At that moment I memorized every detail of that room, the broken green-grey file cabinet, the way the third light from the door flickered a little, the horror struck look on the other seventeen faces in the room. Everything was perfectly clear for the first time in my life.
“How?” Robbie asked. It would have gotten a laugh at any other time but that moment.
“What happened to them? How do you know?”
“Mrs. B is watching CNN with the middle school-ers next door. Planes flying from Boston were hi-jacked and flown into the towers. That’s all I really know guys. Don’t worry though, there is no safer place than Kurtwood New Hampshire, no one has ever heard of it.”
Mr. Goodwin was never good at jokes, but he tried his damnedest to lighten the mood in the classroom, for he had the hardest job of any of us that day.
“Where were the planes going?” Ryan asked, something was weird with his voice. I turned to him. For the first time in our thirteen-year friendship, I saw him cry. I had seen this kid nailed with a soccer ball in places that would have made anyone else show some kind of emotion, but he never did. But something about these planes made him lose it.
“Shouldn’t you find out, I mean that important info ya think!” Ryan yelled the whole class was looking at him now. He would have tried to hide himself in any other situation, make sure no one saw him emoting, but he didn’t.
"I have a class to teach right now. You’ll find out everything you need to as the information is passed onto us. Right now we have some math to learn.” Goodwin wrote up two sets of five problems on the board.
“Reed and McMullen, you’re up.”Elaina stared at me waiting to see what I would do. I of course went up to the board. I was a mathematical genius I lived for these moments.
“You’re kidding right,” She said from her seat in the front row. “I’ll be racing Derek Reed in fractional division while the rest of the school watches a national tragedy unfold on television?”
“Come on Elaina,” I coxed. She slowly got up and walked toward me, I noticed she has the most beautiful emerald green eyes, complemented perfectly with her light make-up, nothing like the popular girls in the corner; Elaina was more than just regular pretty. I wondered to myself why I never noticed before.
As I completed the third problem, Elaina was still on the first, Kelly’s phone rang in the back of the room, “I Want it That Way” by the Backstreet Boys, we all knew it was hers it had gone off some many times before.
“Answer it and make it quick,” Goodwin said. “Let your parents know everything’s under control and you know what's going on, and then hang up. You have ninety seconds.
“Yea Mom, everyone’s fine, Goodwin told us... I know, Goodwin told us... Yes Mom I understand… I’ll be fine you don’t have to come get me I’m safe at school. I really have to get back to class though… I’ll call you at lunch… I’m sorry… I’ll talk to you later… Bye Mom.”
She hit the end button then mouthed “sorry” to her staring peers.
As I finished my last problem the monotone voice of our principal interrupted the silence.
“I am sorry to inform you all of a national tragedy that has taken place in New York City and Washington D.C. this morning.” His voice lacked the appropriate emotion for horrible news breaking. It didn’t matter what he was saying, his audience just wanted to sleep, but today we all sat and listened as if we were being paid to do it. “Planes have been flown into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. I will try to keep the staff posted and ask teachers with the technology to do so to, please, watch the news with your students. Because of this state of emergency, many of your parents are calling the school and asking to dismiss their student. I ask that all teachers be patient as we figure out the best way to deal with this. We also ask that teachers allow students to answer their cell phones, although cell phones are against school policy. That is all, thank you.”
“The Pentagon too!” Patrick yelled. “Ya think that would be important Goodwin.”
“I can’t tell you things I don’t know Standgartner,” Mr. Goodwin said.I looked over to Ryan, his head was flat against his desk, I shook him slightly. It was the first time I can remember touching him that wasn’t punching.
“Ryan, are you okay?”
“My uncle Troy, my Dad’s kid brother, works there, at the Trade Centers,” Ryan whispered so only I would hear him.
“I don’t know where or even what he really does, I just know he’s there.”
“Call your mom,” I suggested. “She’d know. Right?”
“Yea, but I don’t want to disturb Goodwin, and she’ll be here to get us in a few minutes anyway. You know Rita.”
As Goodwin let the popular girls call their friends downstairs, the PA system started up again.
This time it was the soothing voice of the secretary, Mrs. Gilligan. “Nathan Ascusion, Corbin Belfour, Quinn Belleview, Alexis Carson, River, Roxanne, Kennedy, Harper and Cash Davenport, Brandon Jones, Kevin and Christi O’Conner, and Rayell Smith to the office please…”
“That officially ends the learning for September 11th 2001,” Mr. Goodwin said, almost sounding annoyed. I knew how seriously he took education, but his emotion seemed too miss placed. I wondered if, like Ryan, he had someone that could be injured or dead and didn’t know how to talk about it.
Ryan and I were in the fourth round of students called to the office that period, shortly before the bell rang. As we walked down the staircase Ryan stopped at the mural that we made in April of sixth grade. He easily found our hands, mine was the only green one, and his intersected mine, so that no matter what we’d be touching, always.
“I thought the world changed forever on that day,” I said thinking back to the tragedy of April 20th our sixth grade year.
“The world changes everyday Derek; it just takes something big for anyone to notice.” He ran his hand over its smaller version and we continued down the staircase.
The bell rang as reached the last stair. Any other day, there would have been a rush to get out of the rooms, but today everyone was moving slowly. The volleyball players from the fire drill ran toward each other crying and hugging as if they would never see each other again. The basketball boys searched each other out; everyone was making sure everyone was okay, like what happened has happened directly to us. And it a weird way it did, because no matter what, we would never be the same.We stopped at Ryan’s locker, he throw a grey blob at me.
“I was going to give it to you in Goodwin’s class, but being late and everything I forgot.”
“Thanks,” I said, pulling it over my head, I had forgotten how cold I was.
The main office was a mob scene. Mrs. Gilligan was frantically taking names from concerned parents and called students down in groups of ten or twelve.
“Just sign out boys, Ryan’s mom is waiting outside I think.”
“Thanks Mrs. G,” I said, signing both our names on the sign out sheet, and then seeking Mrs. Hughes blue Ford minivan in the parking lot. She hugged us both like she hadn’t seen us in years.
As we left school that day, a blue jay sat on the top of the welcome sign. It made the blue of the sign look pale and old. I memorized the contours of that bird. Just one more thing that I wouldnever look at the same again.
Iwill always remember that day as having the longest fire drill of my high school career in the freezing cold. For the beginning of September it was peculiar, but of course I had to be the only sucker freshman on the soccer teams that believed the captains when they told us we had to wear our uniforms on game day.I stood against an aging pine tree opposite the art room doors waiting for the principal to let us back into the clearly not burning building. It was the only place on that side of the school that wasn’t in complete shadow at 8:30 a.m.
My best friend Ryan Hughes found me after five minutes of the freezing fire drill. He was still wearing his over-sized goggles and plastic apron from biology class, but we both knew that the bio teacher was, basically, certifiable, so it was almost acceptable that Ryan would be clad in this fashion. He leaned up against the tree with me, our elbows almost touched, but we kept out distance, just something we always did.
“You are aware you look completely ridiculous with your soccer uniform on, right?” he said, chuckling to himself. “You have the most awkward skinny white boy legs I’ve even seen.”
“And the mad-scientist goggles do a lot for you too, Rye,” I snapped back.
“Yea but, this outfit is complete expected coming from Mrs. Kentland’s class Derek, you just look way too excited about the game today.”
We both laughed silently, never looking at each other, staring in opposite directions, this was how our friendship had always been.
“Mr. Reed!” I heard the strange Texan accent of my Spanish teacher yell in my direction.
“Mr. Reed, this is not happy fun time, this is serious business. I almost had to report you as missing to the authorities! Get over here you gummy bear brain!”
“Well I guess I’ll see you in Goodwin’s class then.” I said to Ryan as I walked away.
I wasn’t sure if he even heard me, but then again, what did it really matter, I would be seeing him in a half hour.
“Sorry Maestro, I was trying to stay warm.”
“No excuses!” The tiny man yelled as he hit me in the arm with his clipboard.
If he was over five feet tall I would have been pissed that he treated me that way, but he barley reached my waist so, I couldn’t really complain.
“Next time there is a fire drill, maybe you should wear some pants.”
“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind, sir. Just let me know the next time we have to wait twenty hours outside in the cold for no reason and I’ll make sure I have long pants on that day.”
I walked away, not waiting to hear his reaction. I knew it would be something just as sarcastic as what I said. That was something Maestro was always good for, giving it back to me.
I watched two of the senior volleyball players, a blonde and a red head, numbers 15 and 20 I believe, braid each other’s hair as the French teacher went on with her lesson. They conjugated words as they perfected French pigtails. The redhead then got the amazing idea to ask what the holdup was, since the building was clearly not on fire.
“We’ll Miss Murphy, there seems to be a student missing,” replied the hall monitor.
“How can you be sure, its second period,” The blonde asked.
“Mr. Jones was marked as present in his first period and second period class attendance sheets, but we can’t find him now.”
“Brandon Jones is missing again?!” The redhead yelled. Several fellow French classers looked in her direction.
“That kid has gone missing in literally every fire drill I’ve even been in.”
“Breathe Tracy, they’ll find him,” The blonde said, her right hand on the redheads left bicep.
“They always do.”I stood there next to my teacher wondering what the girls would have said if Maestro hadn’t seen me leaning up against the tree with Ryan, what if the hall monitor had told them that Derek Reed was the missing student, would they even care, did they know how I was. I daydreamed about the concern that would have passed over the blonde’s face, how she would
have looked for me if I were the missing student.
Amiss my daydream the Vice Principal appeared near the art room doors, “It’s safe to re-enter students of Kurtwood High. The fire has been contained!”
There was half-hearted laugh in the crowed as everyone pushed their way back into the building.
Then I heard something I wasn’t use to hearing at all, I looked up to see a helicopter heading quickly toward the seacoast. I’d never seen one so close, it was barely clearing the trees as it flew. I’d only ever seen a helicopter twice in life before that day, one was a military one at the Portsmouth Ship yard when I was a kid and my Grandpa took me to see the submarines, and the other time was the news helicopter when the Davenport boys robbed the Shell station on 125 and the police were chasing them. No one around me seemed even remotely interested in what was going on in the skies above our heads. It would be the last thing we barely noticed.
We got back into class at 9:01. Second period ends at 9:02. Maestro still somehow figured we were going to take a five-page test in this time. He was handing out test as we walked in the door.
“Is this take home Maestro?” Chad asked in his “I’m too good for this class” voice.
“No Mr. Warren it is for now!” Maestro yelled. “Now sit and take it, I will not have any more shenanigans today!”
The bell rang; we stood up and left our untouched tests on Maestro’s desk as we left.
I stopped at my locker on my way upstairs to algebra, hoping that I would, by the grace of God, have a sweatshirt in there. But alas, it was the second week of school, so I was out of luck. I slammed the door and continued to my class.
Even with my pit stop I was the first one to room 209. The room slowly filled with my classmates, people I had known since I was seven years old but never bothered to get to know. The basketball players punched each other in the arm, saying they’ll see each other at lunch, boyfriends reluctantly kissed girlfriends, and the popular girls blew kisses to each other for reasons I will never understand.
Mr. Goodwin entered the room and ran his hand along the chalk tray. As always he was dressed like a tootsie pop, brightly colored polo shirt and tan pants, today’s color was raspberry. “I swear that middle school-ers eat this crap,” he waited for a laugh that would never come as he went to the next room to retrieve chalk.
Ryan came in as Mr. Goodwin disappeared. He took his customary seat next to me. Without looking at each other he explained himself, “Freaking whack-job tried to have us do a lab in thirty-five seconds.”
“Maestro wanted us to take a test; we all left it blank on his desk.”
“Nice,” I could hear the smile in Ryan’s voice.
Mr. Goodwin was gone much longer than he normally was, long enough for the popular girls in the corner to take out there compacts and start checking they’re already clearly made-up faces.When he finally did return, his face was so ashen I was almost concerned for his health. But when I noticed no one else was I only shifted in my seat a little bit.
“How many of you have been to New York?” he asked, we all raised our hands. We’d gone for our class trip the year before, Mr. Goodwin knew this, he was our chaperone, something was clearly not right.
“Good.” He walked over the board and drew to large rectangles on the board. Then a giant jagged hole in the one on the left.
“Cuz it’s never going to be the same.”
“We’re still on fractional division, you can’t go throwing volume at us the second week of school, Captain,” Patrick said, his basketball clones laughed to themselves.
“Something is obviously wrong, you idiot,” Kelly said shutting her compact with a snap that made Goodwin jump a little.
“There has been a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center,” Mr. Goodwin said it as quick and painless as possible.
At that moment I memorized every detail of that room, the broken green-grey file cabinet, the way the third light from the door flickered a little, the horror struck look on the other seventeen faces in the room. Everything was perfectly clear for the first time in my life.
“How?” Robbie asked. It would have gotten a laugh at any other time but that moment.
“What happened to them? How do you know?”
“Mrs. B is watching CNN with the middle school-ers next door. Planes flying from Boston were hi-jacked and flown into the towers. That’s all I really know guys. Don’t worry though, there is no safer place than Kurtwood New Hampshire, no one has ever heard of it.”
Mr. Goodwin was never good at jokes, but he tried his damnedest to lighten the mood in the classroom, for he had the hardest job of any of us that day.
“Where were the planes going?” Ryan asked, something was weird with his voice. I turned to him. For the first time in our thirteen-year friendship, I saw him cry. I had seen this kid nailed with a soccer ball in places that would have made anyone else show some kind of emotion, but he never did. But something about these planes made him lose it.
“Shouldn’t you find out, I mean that important info ya think!” Ryan yelled the whole class was looking at him now. He would have tried to hide himself in any other situation, make sure no one saw him emoting, but he didn’t.
"I have a class to teach right now. You’ll find out everything you need to as the information is passed onto us. Right now we have some math to learn.” Goodwin wrote up two sets of five problems on the board.
“Reed and McMullen, you’re up.”Elaina stared at me waiting to see what I would do. I of course went up to the board. I was a mathematical genius I lived for these moments.
“You’re kidding right,” She said from her seat in the front row. “I’ll be racing Derek Reed in fractional division while the rest of the school watches a national tragedy unfold on television?”
“Come on Elaina,” I coxed. She slowly got up and walked toward me, I noticed she has the most beautiful emerald green eyes, complemented perfectly with her light make-up, nothing like the popular girls in the corner; Elaina was more than just regular pretty. I wondered to myself why I never noticed before.
As I completed the third problem, Elaina was still on the first, Kelly’s phone rang in the back of the room, “I Want it That Way” by the Backstreet Boys, we all knew it was hers it had gone off some many times before.
“Answer it and make it quick,” Goodwin said. “Let your parents know everything’s under control and you know what's going on, and then hang up. You have ninety seconds.
“Yea Mom, everyone’s fine, Goodwin told us... I know, Goodwin told us... Yes Mom I understand… I’ll be fine you don’t have to come get me I’m safe at school. I really have to get back to class though… I’ll call you at lunch… I’m sorry… I’ll talk to you later… Bye Mom.”
She hit the end button then mouthed “sorry” to her staring peers.
As I finished my last problem the monotone voice of our principal interrupted the silence.
“I am sorry to inform you all of a national tragedy that has taken place in New York City and Washington D.C. this morning.” His voice lacked the appropriate emotion for horrible news breaking. It didn’t matter what he was saying, his audience just wanted to sleep, but today we all sat and listened as if we were being paid to do it. “Planes have been flown into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. I will try to keep the staff posted and ask teachers with the technology to do so to, please, watch the news with your students. Because of this state of emergency, many of your parents are calling the school and asking to dismiss their student. I ask that all teachers be patient as we figure out the best way to deal with this. We also ask that teachers allow students to answer their cell phones, although cell phones are against school policy. That is all, thank you.”
“The Pentagon too!” Patrick yelled. “Ya think that would be important Goodwin.”
“I can’t tell you things I don’t know Standgartner,” Mr. Goodwin said.I looked over to Ryan, his head was flat against his desk, I shook him slightly. It was the first time I can remember touching him that wasn’t punching.
“Ryan, are you okay?”
“My uncle Troy, my Dad’s kid brother, works there, at the Trade Centers,” Ryan whispered so only I would hear him.
“I don’t know where or even what he really does, I just know he’s there.”
“Call your mom,” I suggested. “She’d know. Right?”
“Yea, but I don’t want to disturb Goodwin, and she’ll be here to get us in a few minutes anyway. You know Rita.”
As Goodwin let the popular girls call their friends downstairs, the PA system started up again.
This time it was the soothing voice of the secretary, Mrs. Gilligan. “Nathan Ascusion, Corbin Belfour, Quinn Belleview, Alexis Carson, River, Roxanne, Kennedy, Harper and Cash Davenport, Brandon Jones, Kevin and Christi O’Conner, and Rayell Smith to the office please…”
“That officially ends the learning for September 11th 2001,” Mr. Goodwin said, almost sounding annoyed. I knew how seriously he took education, but his emotion seemed too miss placed. I wondered if, like Ryan, he had someone that could be injured or dead and didn’t know how to talk about it.
Ryan and I were in the fourth round of students called to the office that period, shortly before the bell rang. As we walked down the staircase Ryan stopped at the mural that we made in April of sixth grade. He easily found our hands, mine was the only green one, and his intersected mine, so that no matter what we’d be touching, always.
“I thought the world changed forever on that day,” I said thinking back to the tragedy of April 20th our sixth grade year.
“The world changes everyday Derek; it just takes something big for anyone to notice.” He ran his hand over its smaller version and we continued down the staircase.
The bell rang as reached the last stair. Any other day, there would have been a rush to get out of the rooms, but today everyone was moving slowly. The volleyball players from the fire drill ran toward each other crying and hugging as if they would never see each other again. The basketball boys searched each other out; everyone was making sure everyone was okay, like what happened has happened directly to us. And it a weird way it did, because no matter what, we would never be the same.We stopped at Ryan’s locker, he throw a grey blob at me.
“I was going to give it to you in Goodwin’s class, but being late and everything I forgot.”
“Thanks,” I said, pulling it over my head, I had forgotten how cold I was.
The main office was a mob scene. Mrs. Gilligan was frantically taking names from concerned parents and called students down in groups of ten or twelve.
“Just sign out boys, Ryan’s mom is waiting outside I think.”
“Thanks Mrs. G,” I said, signing both our names on the sign out sheet, and then seeking Mrs. Hughes blue Ford minivan in the parking lot. She hugged us both like she hadn’t seen us in years.
As we left school that day, a blue jay sat on the top of the welcome sign. It made the blue of the sign look pale and old. I memorized the contours of that bird. Just one more thing that I wouldnever look at the same again.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Starting BEDS today
I'm officially starting BEDS today, I will continue it through the 10th of October.
We got the internet in the apartment yesterday!!! I'm super excited. A week and a half without the internet is difficult. It's kind of sad how dependant we as a culture have become on it. I mean I didn't start using the internet regularly until I was in high school, really. But now I kind of been freaking out that I can't email my friends or check my youtube account.
I thought that living without cable for a week and half would be harder, but honestly it was more difficult knowing that clicking the blue "E" on my desktop wouldn't bring me anywhere that bothered me most.
I got to hang out with my roommates, I love them. We're getting along really well, which I was concerned about since we're friends, but it's been really awesome.
We're bringing Neville to my parents on Saturday. I'm going to miss him greatly. He's such a great kitten. I love him.
My roomies and I are working on a way to get him back around Christmas.
I'll talk to you more tomorrow.
AND THAT IS THE END OF THE STORY
today is awesome because it's THES day!!
We got the internet in the apartment yesterday!!! I'm super excited. A week and a half without the internet is difficult. It's kind of sad how dependant we as a culture have become on it. I mean I didn't start using the internet regularly until I was in high school, really. But now I kind of been freaking out that I can't email my friends or check my youtube account.
I thought that living without cable for a week and half would be harder, but honestly it was more difficult knowing that clicking the blue "E" on my desktop wouldn't bring me anywhere that bothered me most.
I got to hang out with my roommates, I love them. We're getting along really well, which I was concerned about since we're friends, but it's been really awesome.
We're bringing Neville to my parents on Saturday. I'm going to miss him greatly. He's such a great kitten. I love him.
My roomies and I are working on a way to get him back around Christmas.
I'll talk to you more tomorrow.
AND THAT IS THE END OF THE STORY
today is awesome because it's THES day!!
Thursday, September 3, 2009
So it's now the 3rd
... and this is my second BEDS post. And since the first on was in Aug. I don't think that technically counts.
We're getting internet and cable (but mostly internet) in the apartment in 6 days (I'm counting). I've been playing a lot of sims 2. And thinking about how I should be writing a blog since I told myself that I would blog better than Jen this month.
I found a place in the apartment where we can steal the internet, so I may be spending some time out there this weekend catching up. I pull some double blog days.
I need to cut my fingernails, but that's not important, really, just annoying.
Today was the club fair for the year, and THES acquired 12 new e-mails. THES should be awesome, I'm hoping. The people that sounded up seemed really interested. And honestly we're going to need a lot of under class men to keep THES a float when everyone graduates in the next few semesters.
I'll be posting pics of the Neville, and the apartment (or flat, because I want to be British) next week when I get the internet.
I shall try to write to you tomorrow
AND THAT IS THE END OF THE STORY
today is awesome because Video Game Boy is trying to recruit me to play D and D. I love my friends.
We're getting internet and cable (but mostly internet) in the apartment in 6 days (I'm counting). I've been playing a lot of sims 2. And thinking about how I should be writing a blog since I told myself that I would blog better than Jen this month.
I found a place in the apartment where we can steal the internet, so I may be spending some time out there this weekend catching up. I pull some double blog days.
I need to cut my fingernails, but that's not important, really, just annoying.
Today was the club fair for the year, and THES acquired 12 new e-mails. THES should be awesome, I'm hoping. The people that sounded up seemed really interested. And honestly we're going to need a lot of under class men to keep THES a float when everyone graduates in the next few semesters.
I'll be posting pics of the Neville, and the apartment (or flat, because I want to be British) next week when I get the internet.
I shall try to write to you tomorrow
AND THAT IS THE END OF THE STORY
today is awesome because Video Game Boy is trying to recruit me to play D and D. I love my friends.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Because I do everything Jen does
and since we are fighting I have to do it better, I shall also be participating in BEDS.
Which officially starts tomorrow. But since there is a fairly decent chance that I will miss several days the first week because we don't have internet in the apartment, I'm starting early.
I'm using the Tom computers, because I'm internet deprived, I'm sure that Clem will come with me tomorrow, so I can set her up with hardcore anti-virus and other awesomesause computer-y things. I went to Youtube today for a second to change something, and I have SOOOOO many videos to watch, and were not getting internet until NEXT Wednesday. I'm sure that I can just pretend it's the 80's and do without for a bit.
I LOVE our apartment. We also have a kitten, named Neville (pics soon, like, when we get the internet in the apartment. I have mentioned we don't have internet yet? Well we don't).
I've been spending most of my time playing the sims or watching my roommates play sims, and watching movies.
I thought I had class at 10, but it turns out ot be at 1. Which is lame, but increases my internet time. OH how I have missed the internet. We also don't have cable, but the internet is far more important. I watch most of my TV on the internet. You can't just watch Family Ties and Spin City whenever anymore (I loves Youtube).
I miss my youtube friends. By youtube friends, I mean people I subscribe to that I say are my friends so I don't sound crazy when I talk about them (still sound crazy regardless of whether or not I try to tell people that Hank Green is actually my friend).
Oddly enough, last time I blogged everyday, I was putting together a play, as I and this time I am also putting together a play. Although this time the play isn't at the end of the month, it's in December, but I'll be casting this month.
We've had people over last night and we tried to move a couch. Remember that episode of friends when the guys try to move a large sofa? Well it was exactly like that. Only less Joey, and more annoyed boys. It was great!
I have more to talk about but Keith's here and I'm going to see her dorm room!
AND THAT IS THE END OF THE STORY
today is awesome because I brought a bagged lunch to school
Which officially starts tomorrow. But since there is a fairly decent chance that I will miss several days the first week because we don't have internet in the apartment, I'm starting early.
I'm using the Tom computers, because I'm internet deprived, I'm sure that Clem will come with me tomorrow, so I can set her up with hardcore anti-virus and other awesomesause computer-y things. I went to Youtube today for a second to change something, and I have SOOOOO many videos to watch, and were not getting internet until NEXT Wednesday. I'm sure that I can just pretend it's the 80's and do without for a bit.
I LOVE our apartment. We also have a kitten, named Neville (pics soon, like, when we get the internet in the apartment. I have mentioned we don't have internet yet? Well we don't).
I've been spending most of my time playing the sims or watching my roommates play sims, and watching movies.
I thought I had class at 10, but it turns out ot be at 1. Which is lame, but increases my internet time. OH how I have missed the internet. We also don't have cable, but the internet is far more important. I watch most of my TV on the internet. You can't just watch Family Ties and Spin City whenever anymore (I loves Youtube).
I miss my youtube friends. By youtube friends, I mean people I subscribe to that I say are my friends so I don't sound crazy when I talk about them (still sound crazy regardless of whether or not I try to tell people that Hank Green is actually my friend).
Oddly enough, last time I blogged everyday, I was putting together a play, as I and this time I am also putting together a play. Although this time the play isn't at the end of the month, it's in December, but I'll be casting this month.
We've had people over last night and we tried to move a couch. Remember that episode of friends when the guys try to move a large sofa? Well it was exactly like that. Only less Joey, and more annoyed boys. It was great!
I have more to talk about but Keith's here and I'm going to see her dorm room!
AND THAT IS THE END OF THE STORY
today is awesome because I brought a bagged lunch to school
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