(this is long because I'm not busy at work)....
I got one of those emails today with a list of questions about myself when I was a senior in high school. I don't usually do these forwarded surveys (although I'm always curious who is responsible for starting them) but I did this one and it was fun to recall my high school years.
I loved high school, and I loved everything I involved myself with. I have no regrets. I miss it much more than I miss my college years.. which were too much about preparing for real life, how boring! High school was too fun and carefree.
I miss being artistic in high school. There were no limitations whatsoever. English project about Shakespearean acting? Make a stop action movie! Hebrew Scriptures project on the Old Testament? Make a stop action movie! I woke up early so Mandy and I could have free reign of the photography dark room without the less passionate photographers getting in our way. My drawing skills weren't really developed beyond what I'd already accomplished. My art teacher had a lot of odd props to draw from, and we drew a lot of plant root balls (not easy). My favorite project was probably the linoleum prints we did, where you carve an image into the rubber, put ink over it and make prints onto paper. I made a few oil paintings I still have around too, one hangs over my sink. It's abstract, influenced by observations of a seashell. One of my senior projects was my prom dress.. which went on display along with my illustrations for it. I guess no one had done that before, because there was a lot of hubbub about it.
High school was the only time where I really enjoyed math, too, and I did well in it. I loved geometry.. and I still remember the quadratic formula song we sang to the jack in the box melody.. and the "illustration" for remembering x and y on a graph : X men say Yo ho, get horizontal".. wow.. that's actually pretty terrible. We thought it was funny.
I took dance all four years to avoid having to take "senior phys ed." We had a psycho dance teacher who tended to make us do moves that seemed to have us rolling on the floor as in to appear dying at the end of a couple performances. Some of the routines I did include: Footloose (wearing crazy socks/shoes), You Got A Friend In Me (terrible cowboy outfit), a Christmas one was a tap dance with suspenders, oh yeah and the rap version of We Three Kings where I wore a black sweatsuit with rainbow stripes on the sleeves and legs, ugh. Ones I wish I were in was Mr. Roboto with light up suits.. and one abstract dance where the girl wore one of those green screen body suit things, ha.
I also was a theater prop hand during my later years. I designed the t-shirt for the Wizard Of Oz, and a few props/scenery for The Music Man (which I also tried out for dancing for, and learned the Shapoopie dance haha).
I honestly didn't gain much from the computer design course I took as an elective. Old Macs suck. My photoshop skills sucked. I did make a version of the Sgt Pepper cover, replaced with my friends' heads on it though. Most things I did, I did by hand. My dad dug up that old light desk in our basement somewhere and I felt professional using it.
There were some rumors about ghosts of old nuns in the school building, which was built in like 1860 or something. We tried to keep an eye our for happenings when we had to stay late waiting for carpools. Never saw anything. Staying after school after everyone had gone was a temptation for mischief. We sneaked around to places we never went during the day... and snooped around people's unlocked lockers for change for the vending machine.
For a while Mandy and I did work study (up to so many hours counted toward tuition relief) in the science department, cleaning lab equipment. I was bummed to find the piggie in formaldehyde that we never got to dissect. Yes, I've never dissected anything worthwhile. A flower in 8th grade was all. Boring. We watched a video of a cow's eye being dissected, but didn't get to actually do anything. Biology was my other favorite and aced subject.
I had a bit harder time with chemistry... and music for that matter, ha. Jon would kill me. Actually my music class focused on the classical period and my crazy teacher would ask the most detailed questions based on sessions of listening. It was hard! I had quite a few Cs and Ds in his class. One of the few As I got, I framed as a joke. All I remember from that class is something about Handle's
Water music, or some ladies' high pitched voice singing "popagano!" somethingorother. That was the time in my life where I thought I could be a musician of sorts. I was obsessed with the Beatles and their instruments looked interesting so I tried to learn guitar and a bit more of piano. I faked my way into knowing enough guitar to join the group of musicians that played for church services. I guess I had a lot of courage or something. I really didn't know much. I also made a few recordings (on tape!) of what I'd worked on a few Beatles' songs. Wonder if that still exists somewhere?
I realize how many different hobbies and abilities I've attempted and passed or failed/discontinued over the years. Pass: fine art, photography, sewing, cooking, design, dancing, writing, planning and organization. Fail: guitar, filming movies, audio/visual tech, political interest. Middle ground: piano, ice skating, gymnastics, reading.
I need to read more.
