School's Out
Note: I've moved my blog to my own web site - the new address is:
www.nonaverage.net/insomanywords/
Comments can only be left at the new location.
*********************************************************
As a teenager I got out of high school early. I didn’t drop out - I was let out early as a “mid-term grad”, which I was quite happy about because I was so tired and bored of high school. So tired and bored, in fact, that by my senior year I had stopped going to school on Fridays - I would just stay home and sleep in. I also stopped going to P.E. class. I had always disliked P.E., except on rainy days when the coaches would take us into the gym and let us play Slaughterball for an hour. But since my high school was in Southern California and we tended to have many more sunny days than rainy ones, we generally did the usual P.E. stuff which always involved a lot of running and calisthenics and being picked last for teams, and I was never a jock, nor did I ever want to be one, and that made P.E. my least favorite class. So I just stopped going to P.E. class during my senior year. I actually started tapering off during my junior year, though I believe I was able to squeeze by with a “D”. But for my senior year I had just given up, which did not please my counselor, because our school required a passing grade in P.E. for every semester attended. So by the time I was 3/4 of the way through my senior year it was very apparent that I was not going to pass P.E. class for my last semester, and I was called into the office by my counselor. He gave me a choice - either I finish the school year and make up P.E. during summer school or I leave as a mid-term graduate. I had the “mid-term grad” option available to me because in previous years I had attended summer school three times and I had already earned enough credits to graduate, and what he was telling me was that if I stayed the last semester and failed P.E. I wouldn’t be able to graduate (because of the P.E./semester requirement) and would have to attend summer school later that year. So given the choice of a) staying in school for another 6 months, or b) leaving school now, I carefully thought it over for about 0.73 seconds and decided to leave school. I felt great about my decision even though it meant giving up my job at the local naval base because it was part of a school program. So I was out of school and out of work, and I was OK with the “out of work” part because I felt great about the “out of school” part. But college wouldn’t be starting for another 5 months, and I did need something to do. And that would be provided by my good friend Steve.
www.nonaverage.net/insomanywords/
Comments can only be left at the new location.
*********************************************************
As a teenager I got out of high school early. I didn’t drop out - I was let out early as a “mid-term grad”, which I was quite happy about because I was so tired and bored of high school. So tired and bored, in fact, that by my senior year I had stopped going to school on Fridays - I would just stay home and sleep in. I also stopped going to P.E. class. I had always disliked P.E., except on rainy days when the coaches would take us into the gym and let us play Slaughterball for an hour. But since my high school was in Southern California and we tended to have many more sunny days than rainy ones, we generally did the usual P.E. stuff which always involved a lot of running and calisthenics and being picked last for teams, and I was never a jock, nor did I ever want to be one, and that made P.E. my least favorite class. So I just stopped going to P.E. class during my senior year. I actually started tapering off during my junior year, though I believe I was able to squeeze by with a “D”. But for my senior year I had just given up, which did not please my counselor, because our school required a passing grade in P.E. for every semester attended. So by the time I was 3/4 of the way through my senior year it was very apparent that I was not going to pass P.E. class for my last semester, and I was called into the office by my counselor. He gave me a choice - either I finish the school year and make up P.E. during summer school or I leave as a mid-term graduate. I had the “mid-term grad” option available to me because in previous years I had attended summer school three times and I had already earned enough credits to graduate, and what he was telling me was that if I stayed the last semester and failed P.E. I wouldn’t be able to graduate (because of the P.E./semester requirement) and would have to attend summer school later that year. So given the choice of a) staying in school for another 6 months, or b) leaving school now, I carefully thought it over for about 0.73 seconds and decided to leave school. I felt great about my decision even though it meant giving up my job at the local naval base because it was part of a school program. So I was out of school and out of work, and I was OK with the “out of work” part because I felt great about the “out of school” part. But college wouldn’t be starting for another 5 months, and I did need something to do. And that would be provided by my good friend Steve.
Labels: graduation, high school
posted by Ruben at
11:20 AM
<< Home