Recently I picked up a copy of the Daily Spark’s Journal writing. It has page after page of journal writing inspiration. I thought originally I would use it for the Green Room, but I have yet to get the site up… hopefully soon.
ANYway…
DAILY SPARK JOURNAL WRITING 1: What was your most humiliating junior high experience? Write a short, possibly funny, description of it.
Wow! Where to start… junior high. Well thankfully I can remember lots about junior high, but to be able to establish where one embarassing moment ends and the other begins… well that’s a different story. Now if you would have asked me about high school, we would be in trouble. Let’s just say that high school was not just a clever name…
In Elk City, Junior High officially starts in 7th grade. The town isn’t all that big, and I basically shared classes with the same kids since 5th grade, when the three seperate elementary schools melded into middle school.
This is the time in life where the girls get mean and the boys OH SO cute. You have your cliques of various types which seem to be the same everywhere you go, and they seem to pass from one generation to the next. I can intermingle between them, because I can get along with anyone… but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I like the people associated with those cliques… or they even like me for that matter.
A moment that stands out, would be a particular day the spring of 8th grade. The country was facing AIDS in epedimic proportion, or so we were led to believe. A local doctor was asked to come to the school and visit with the students and answer our questions about the virus. 8th and 9th graders were required to get parental permission, and we were of course seperated into two groups… boys vs. girls. I didn’t necessarily want to go, I had heard the boys gave the doctor a run for his money with their ridiculous questions about aural (yes I spelled that right) sex and masturbation.
After lunch we, the girls, were required to head to that auditorium. I am not sure why I sat where I did. I can recall fighting with my best friend and we weren’t speaking, so I damn sure wasn’t sitting next that “bitch” (did I mention how fickle a young teen is). The content of the speech was embarassing to say the least, and I was very uncomfortable listening to the man speak, and I wasn’t about to ask a question… and I don’t think I even got that far into it when a teacher walking the isles pointed me out.“You!” in her best whisper scream, “come with me” she gave me the finger (not that one) and I hopped up and tried not to make a scene as I rushed past others sitting there taking their verbal medicine from Dr. Gill. She grabbed me by the arm and escorted me out of the auditorium.
I was at a loss for words. I was just sitting there listening… not talking… not anything, and now I was getting a scolding like I had shot spitwads at the man from 25 feet. “Get to your class, you should be ashamed of yourself.” she scolded.
“um… what did I do?” I wasn’t being a smart ass or anything, I asked politely.
“Your were slouching… that is so disrespectful. Get to your 5th hour.” and she scooted me along.
I walked back to my class… embarassed. I think the scene the teacher made was more disrespectful than me…”slouching”. What the fuck, really, who doesn’t slouch in 8th and 9th grade? I am sure ever single catty, junior high girl was aware that I walked out of that theater, escorted by the arm. What did they think I was doing?
When I got to class, the boys got a big kick out of it…. “wow, what did SHE DO to get kicked out of that seminar?” For some reason the slouching didn’t go over well, and my teacher sent me to the office to speak with the principal… for slouching, can you believe it? He explained to me that it was an act of disrespect, and I explained I wasn’t even aware I was doing it. I wasn’t sunk down in my seat hiding behind spread fingers… I was just sitting there, paying attention.
ANYway… he walked me back into the auditorium, and I got the priviledge of sitting next to another teacher for the remainder of the “ordeal”.
… and I didn’t even want to go. I alread knew “everything” anyway.
~2
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