Feature: what's cool in middle school

What's cool in middle school?

Apparently, neither stink bombs nor endangering the lives of less-than-innocent eighth graders.

            So today was eventful over at dear old Riverwood. This morning, between first and second period, a stink bomb was set off in the middle of the 400-600 hallways (don't even ask how the halls are numbered at school. It makes no sense.). The entire school smelled so terrible that students began stuffing their faces into their armpits because it smelled so much better in there. Yeah. For three hours.

            My personal opinion here is that they should have closed school, preferably for three or four years, but no such luck. As it turns out, they can't cancel school for something so "minor." So we were stuck. The teachers probably hated it as much as we did, but we had no choice except to stick it out.

            But Providence intervened. During fourth period, the fire alarm went off. It would have been great, since fourth period = science with Mr. Perv, but no, sir. It was during my LUNCH period.

            Now, this was not the first fire alarm (not drill. There's a difference. The difference is that a fire alarm means that there's probably an actual fire.) in Mr. Perv's class. Just yesterday the alarm went off during his class. We were a little concerned, since everyone always hears about it before a normal fire drill, which meant there was actually a risk of a fire. We weren't nearly as loud as the alarm, but we were a tad disorderly as we left the class, our chairs not fully pushed in.

            Not good enough for Mr. Perv (so named for being terrifyingly disgusting in the way he stares at thirteen year old girls). He made us go back to our desks, sit down, and then silently stand and line up, pushing in our chairs as we went.

            It took two more minutes than it did last time. I wonder why.

            Anyway, some kids busted Mr. Perv to the principle, including an indignant D.O. She was upset because "Lemonpies!" was recently declared a swear word in science, punishable by detention, due to the extreme overuse.

            At least Mrs. Z was happy. Her class is no longer the slowest evacuator in the school.

What's cool in middle school?

Apparently, murdering your pets.

            So today, we had a free study in RELA (Reading, Eating, and Language Arts). This, of course, actually meant that we had a day to talk to everyone and wish we were not in RELA. So D.O., ever exciting, chose to start a classwide conversation on pet deaths.

            "Yeah, so, when I was nine, I accidentally dropped my pet fish down the disposal and turned it on!" D.O. squealed.

            Yeah, okay. If that isn't extremely frightening, I don't know what is.  First of all, who would allow D.O. to touch an animal, much less own one? Second, how do you accidentally drop a fish down the disposal, and accidentally turn it on? What is wrong with this girl?

            "And then, I got a hamster to make me feel better about my tragic loss!" Oh, dang. This is going to end badly. "But I accidentally decapitated him while putting him in my Fisher-Price cash register!"

            What? What is this nonsense? D.O. ACCIDENTALLY decapitated a hamster? How do you do that? So pretty soon, the class was on a collective rampage over these poor animals. Honestly, I don't blame them. Um, ew! That is truly disgusting.

            "So now I have a kitten. I almost accidentally drowned her in a bathtub, but then my mom saved her!"

            Okaaaay. A few things wrong with this, namely, her mother had to stop her from drowning a kitten in a bathtub. She couldn't not kill a pet just once, no, her mother had to intervene.

            "That's disgusting! How could you do that to a poor hamster?"

            "I had a fish once! It died from head trauma!"

            "How did you explain this to your parents?"

            "Ewwwwww!"

            Yep. That's what's NOT cool in middle school.

By Jessica, the viola player.

What's cool in middle school?

Apparently, family trees.

            So in Spanish we were doing a unit on family members in, of course, Spanish. As a project, Mrs. Z had us create a family tree and name the members Spanish names.

            Recipe for disaster, as any seasoned teacher would expect, but Mrs. Z is a less-than-seasoned teacher, and rather oblivious to the goings-on at school, so she went right ahead and told us to go for it. We did. Today we presented, telling the class all about the various names, ages, favorite activities, and home locations of all the family members. It may seem innocent enough, but this is hardly so.

            Pretty soon, kids had to know how to say step-step-stepbrother, or fourth cousin six times removed, or how to explain why they had two abuelos and no abuelas. Read into that what you like. But basically, chaos reigned. As you can imagine, little education was received in Spanish class, but it was certainly fun to watch poor Mrs. Z as her class dissolved into a horde of obnoxious middle schoolers with cell phones out, texting, with cokes in hand.

            Pretty soon, one kid, D.O., tried to actually present. Now, you've got to know D.O. to see the humor in this. You probably remember her from last What's cool in middle school, with the puppet shows. Of course, she spent ten minutes ranting on about her ridiculous cousin, Porky, and another fifteen on her aunt, Porky's mom. In English. I considered politely informing her that we were in Spanish class, but honestly, I was enjoying myself waaaaaayyy too much for that. As one of Riverwood's best presenters, D.O. enjoys infamy for being great at long rants, in her incredibly high speech-giving voice.

             Halfway  through her presentation, a letter came for D.O.

            "Oooooooooh, the talent show! Did I make it, did I make it? Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, I didn't make it! Lemonpies!" D.O. screeched. Then she promptly reverted back to her speech giving self.

            Then there was the clip art. Oh, the clip art. Clip art here, clip art there, clip art with Spanish captions, clip art with English captions, clip art of food, of schools, of homework, and of tigers (no, not LSU. Just a coincidence.) By the end of the school day, that clip art was just about ready to explode off the edge of D.O.'s project and devour all the laughing students, and some were afraid it would.

            I must report on the lack of order and in some cases, lack of sanity and basic personal hygiene of the students in Mrs. Z's class. If I were a parent, I would be spending my time writing a stern letter to the school district, but as I'm not, I'm writing this instead. Good luck, parents.

By Jessica, the viola player.

What's cool in middle school?

            Apparently, educational puppet shows.

            Today in our English class, an assignment, given a week ago, was due. The project? Make a puppet show involving an original adventure for Tom Sawyer, a novel we recently completed. The puppets, ranging from sock to stick, elaborate to decrepit, were perhaps the most interesting cast Tom Sawyer has ever seen. Some had been hastily made the night before and glued to still-sticky Popsicle sticks. Others were well-washed and well-drawn, and a few even had real doll hair. 

            When the time to perform arrived, Ms. H set up a large box for hiding behind and called the first pair to present their show. On went the displays, some silly, some serious, and others outright ridiculous (Huck and Tom go off together, kidnap Becky Thatcher, and feed her to a polar bear, anyone?).

            Most notable was a stick puppet presentation involving a trip to Jackson's island, a falling tree, poorly done dialogue, and an incredibly high voice. Now, some background information is needed to grasp the enormity of the performance; D. O., the speaker and puppeteer, has perhaps the highest, strangest, and most annoying voice ever in the history of womankind. Naturally, she elected to raise her voice higher for the sake of the puppets, as well as throwing in screaming, giggling, crying, bird-imitating, and sword fighting. Setting the record for craziest puppet show in the history of middle school, D. O. proudly had C. E., a rather obnoxious boy, videotape the entire performance and donate it to the theater group. I suspect that the theater class will be enjoying themselves over the next few days, particularly the ones who have yet to read Tom Sawyer.

            Now, a single puppet show assignment would be poor justification for citing a rise in puppeteering. No, there is more; today, a history teacher assigned another puppet show, this time demonstrating the use of inventions made in the U. S. from 1780-1850. Each pair is assigned a single invention to demonstrate in front of the entire 8^th grade. In addition, the theater group is considering a puppet PANTOMIME (how they intend to do that, I have no idea).

            So, right along with course-selection cards and boring textbook worksheets, middle schoolers are also required to show ability in puppeted performance. The unfairness rings true to everyone, at least, everyone who is absolutely idiotic, failing to realize that these shows waste valueless learning time for all. So live on, puppet shows, and continue to brighten our days.