If you have a moment to spare...

I am a respectful lad.

Just ask most of my teachers.

I'm certainly respectful.

To a fault.

That is, if you earn my respect.

I don't respect someone immediately just because of their position, much to the chagrin of a few teachers I've had over the years. My position is, if they deserve respect, then they will receive it. Simple as that. That's how it always works, right?

Right?

Every time?

Right?

~

The event I refer to in the title happened last year, in Health class.

With Mrs. Clark.

She had an unfortunate habit of being wrong.

A lot.

When I was in her class, and she was wrong, as happened all too often, it was my duty as an intellectual to correct her. To enlighten her. To put her on the right path. It was a service to her and the class, and I'd expect the same from my students were I a teacher.

She...did not see it as such.

She kicked me out of the class.

Booted me like a football.

I was out of there like her sense of decency.

But that's old business. I try not to dwell on bad memories. Good memories are an entirely different story, but only if I have nothing better to do in the present.

Like write a blog, say.

The reason this was brought to mind is it happened again.

Only this time, I didn't even try to correct the teacher when she was wrong, as happened from time to time. I didn't point out the glaring flaws in her lesson plan, if you could even call it that. I didn't utter a peep when she blatantly lied to the class, or when she told any number of stories that she thought were funny that were inappropriate. Nothing obscene or anything, but they had nothing to do with the PSAT test.

That was the course she was supposed to teach.

A course about the preliminary SAT test.

And they couldn't even do that much right. The entire class was vocabulary.

The entire class.

I can't stress that enough.

There were twenty-five words in a list, and we were on list...twenty or so. So, what, about five hundred words so far? Yeah, that's about right. Yeah, I learned all of three new ones during the school year, from this class, at least. So the vocabulary portion of that useless test would have been no problem for me personally.

Did we glance at other portions of the test?

No.

Mathematics, science, grammar...Actually, there were a paper on grammar.

[In case you missed it, the last sentence was shtick. I was using improper grammar to emphasize...Never mind. If you have to explain a joke, it's usually not worth it.]

So, the math and science portions of the test, completely ignored.

Test-taking hints?

One day was spent.

So, basically, we have a second English class.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for more English education. I could certainly stand to benefit from such an effort. But don't call an English class what it isn't. Give me another English credit for my efforts.

But I digress.

I did, actually, care about my education in that class the first few times I had it. When I realized the potential time waste it was, I was concerned. She sent me to the counselor's office, the first time of two, on the third day for me not being able to contain my sigh of discontent when she said we would get more points for coloring an assignment.

Not extra credit.

Points. Like part of the grade.

After that, I decided to just try to distance myself. Operate at twenty percent or so and maybe I wouldn't care about all of her...well, sins may be too strong a word. I'd still be able to do all of my work, of course, and I'd still be able to find any relevant information she may disclose, no matter how hard she may try to disguise it underneath her insensitive, sarcastic remarks.

And so it went.

The plan worked, until today.

Today, for some reason, she made me get a transfer from her class. I normally would be happy about it, but some cool people were in the class and so I'm kind of bummed.

Here's what happened:

She was talking about something, stunningly, that had no relevance to anything. Ever. I had a sudden, shooting pain in my eye/frontal cortex region, and so I laid my head on my desk to try to make it feel better. Less than two seconds had passed before I raised my head to find Sata-umm, I mean, the teacher-staring directly at me. If I thought she had the capacity, I would have guessed she had put a hex of some sort on me. She stares me down and says, "What's your problem?"

I reply, "Nothing. I'm fine."

She says, "Why was your head on your bag just now, then?"

[My duffel bag was on my desk at the time.]

I blink at her and say, "Sorry, I had a headache. It's gone now. Please, go on."

She turns around and writes my name on the board before saying, "That's for lying."

[Apparently, I'm in the first grade during this class. That's what she does when some one "acts up".]

I make several incoherent, sputtering sounds of disbelief.

She says, "Go wait in the hall."

I oblige, and she leaves me out there for twenty minutes before she leaves the classroom. She comes out and berates me for moving, but not in so few words. I try to apologize for my migraine, but she just tells me to get my stuff and go to the counselor's office. Trip number two.

I get transferred to the other eighth period PSAT class, Self.

I figure if I'm taught by Self, and I fail, I'll only have my own Self to blame.

The only puns I could make with the last teacher's name were what I'd like to do with the entire class~

Burnett.

With all due respect,
Jeff

I do so hate dabbling in the cliche.

My apologies to those who read the last post.

I just had to get that off of my chest.

I promise my next post will be something worth your while.

Well, actually, I can't promise you that. That would imply I had some sort of plan for the posts in this blog, and that certainly isn't true.

I just write whatever comes to mind whenever I sit at the computer, and sometimes it's comprehensible. Sometimes it's not.

Flip of the coin, really.

Now, I'm afraid I have to cut this short to go play my trombone for a while.

Again, sorry for the inconvenience.

First, don't read this.

No, seriously.

This is going to be boring, unnecessary, and totally out of place. There's no reason for anyone to ever read this.

Ever.

Even now, before I've written it, I know that any objective observer would call the upcoming article asinine, for reasons that will soon become painfully apparent.

Look at the title, for cryin' out loud.

This is your last chance to back out, you know.

I'm just going to remove any filter of common decency I may have had and type whatever comes to mind.

Still here?

I tried to warn you...

Here's where the post actually begins:



To start off with something I'm willing to bet no one's ever heard before in their lives, there's this girl.

A shocked silence fills the room.

Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, this being my affections for a young lass, but it's someone I talk to on a semi-regular basis. Let me explain it to you:

If it were a girl I saw every once in a while in the halls of my school, for example, it would be somewhat easier. Instead of awkwardly trying to initiate conversations after the classes I have with her, more on that in a bit, I could simply use my considerable charm. Something like, "Hey, how's Lynn? What? You don't know Lynn? Oh, I'm sorry, you look like Lynn's friend from Chicago. Let me make it up to you by buying you a cup of coffee."

Yes, my school has a coffee shop. But that's another post entirely.

[Props if you can identify where I stole that line from.]

But, the snag is, I have fallen for someone I am lucky to consider a friend. And yes, as I just mentioned, I'm awkward around her.

Me.

Maybe you don't understand.

I...

Well, it's hard to put into words...

Let's see.

Oh, I know how to express how I usually act around those of the fairer sex:

Which isn't to say that I hit on them, or that I'm a flirt by any means, I just am usually cool.

The definition of icy, to quote Smashmouth.

To put it frankly, I, usually, can behave in a socially-accepted way.

Not around this girl.

Tongue tied, sweaty palms, the whole nine yards.

If it weren't happening to me directly, I would find it fascinating.

How can the presence of a particularly indescribable, remarkable human being flip my personality so? It's not as though there aren't several young ladies of my acquaintance who are almost as lovely and almost as radiant, almost as...

Wait, I lapsed into verse there for a second. That's not a bad idea for a poem, actually, I'll write that once I'm done with this.

And if you're reading this and you know me, and haven't noticed anything like what I'm talking about in my behavior, rest assured, it takes every last ounce of my considerable self-control to appear normal.

Well, as normal as I ever am, anyway.

Here's my problem:

Actually, one of my problems, I don't have nearly enough time to list them all.

Here's my current problem:

This inconvenient...emotion, italics here symbolizing distaste for the word itself, not the feeling, that I somehow find to be a good thing, go figure, this emotion has affected my logical decisions. No, I don't want to be a Vulcan or anything, but let me give you an example: I once gave up a lunch, a good lunch, just so I could have the privilege of walking with her to a test she had to take. Me, giving up a lunch!

And I'm not saying that I regret it, on the contrary, that walk was one of the three best walks I've ever had. (Guess who was involved somehow in the other two?) I'm not saying I regret it, I'd make the same decision a thousand times over if given the opportunity, I'm saying it's strange that I don't regret it.

Of course, retrospectively, it would be pretty silly to regret missing a lunch. The fact that I usually do regret it whenever I miss a meal is beside the point.

I had a point here somewhere...

Oh, yeah.

I've been debating with myself about whether or not I should contrive some way to get all this out in the open somehow.

No, not over a blog...I mean finding some way to tell the unfortunate girl who has attracted my attention.

If I do inform her, and she reciprocates, I couldn't be happier, but...

But...

But what if she doesn't feel the same?

I'm certain, either way, she'll be cool about it, but if she doesn't want a relationship with me, I, and this is very hard for me to say, I don't know what to do.

It seems as though the noble thing would be to respect her wishes, simply back off. I wouldn't get exactly what I want, but if it makes her happy, I'd be all for it.

Oh. I just reread that last part, "get exactly what I want," and that could be way misconstrued. I don't like this girl for her looks, although she is quite beautiful, I like her for the indescribable qualities not mentioned above. To put it as best as I can, I like making her laugh.

That's what I want, really.

As many chances to make her laugh as possible.

[Hey, maybe the pathetic nature of this post will make her laugh! Ha ha ha...oh, I made myself sad.]

[Seriously, though, she is far too astoundingly nice to laugh at anyone.]

[Why am I defending someone you don't know the identity of?]

But if I do "back off" as outlined above, I'm not entirely sure I could live with myself. Would I be able to pass the days, thinking "it might have been?"

[You know, I'm witty, but John Greenleaf was Whittier.]

Then again, if she doesn't care about me as deeply as much as I do her, do I have the right to change her mind? Do I have the right to convince her just how amazing I am?

These are the questions that keep me up at night, man.

Well, goodnight.

[Told you it was a waste of time.]

I'm too lazy.

Not in the sense that I'm too lazy to go on the computer and expound on any given subject, I do that all the time, the problem is I have a MySpace account.

*cough*shameless plug*cough*

This poses no problem to me writing, since I clutter my friends' bulletin-space with any random thought that springs to mind. The problem is that it's a lot easier to communicate through MySpace than it is to come here. I'm a Cancer, a water sign, so I blame my birthday for my tendency to take the path of least resistance.

No longer, though.

I swear, on "Weird Al" Yankovic's accordian, on my newly-acquired Unggoy pendant, on the TARDIS itself, that I will come here to do the majority of my pontification.

Pontification?

That doesn't sound right...

Pontificating, maybe?

That's the trouble I have with using multi-syllable words. I like to, since I like sounding somewhat distinctive in my dialogue, but I'm afraid that I sometimes use the wrong word, or often one that doesn't exist at all. Of course, I love using my judo grip on the English language to make up words if one doesn't come to mind to fit the exact situation, but if I don't admit I'm doing it I can come across as unedumakated.

It's a thin line. I like to think I walk that line every day of my life.

Huh. In the past two paragraphs, I referenced both Penny Arcade and Red vs. Blue without even realizing that I was doing it. That's another one of my few flaws, I suppose. I've seen a lot of funny stuff in my day, and I sometimes use someone else's material without thinking about it.

By the way, the two institutions I mentioned above, PA and RvB, are extremely funny, and only some blue language keeps me from recommending them both wholeheartedly. And yes, they're good enough to be considered institutions.

So, in conclusion: Look out here for more stuff soon, I'll get a thesaurus, and if you don't mind a couple of four letter words go here and here.