coursework. Basically, it’s a waste of time that you can’t really complain about because if graduation is actually something you want to partake in, you have to been here.
Rather than try to escape, we’re all content to while away the forty-five minute block, crammed into chairs that were the appropriate size back in grade school.
I scan the room and watch the plot unfold. Channing is nearly asleep; his head a victim of that head-jerking dance that snaps him to attention every time his chin rests on his chest. Two girls write notes on a spiral pad in between them — one of the notes is probably about me as I saw them gesture to my new haircut and immediately write something — then again, I could be paranoid. Other students check their class schedules or doodle.
My own class schedule is so messed up I can’t begin to know one to blame — except perhaps the computer that shuffles all the classes, requirements, and requests and spits out the index-cards.
First of all, I’m listed as a freshman — which puts me in intro classes and their two-hour grammar lecture. Second of all, as I’m listed as a class IV (the technical term for a freshman), I have study halls, which you outgrow by sophomore year. And lastly — but perhaps of most crucial importance — denying my class I (the official senior term) status means that I can’t take senior classes. Meaning, I have not secured places in Literature of the Worlds (notoriously difficult to get into and taught by JP Kramer, who should have taught Ivy league long ago but chose to grace us with his cowboy-hatted presence instead) nor French for the French (the class after all your language requirements are filled in which you get to cook, talk, read short stories, and debate — all in French). And of course, there is no record whatsoever of my trying to gain access to Mr. Chaucer’s small advanced creative writing class.
My next task: skip my next class — which is Ancient Civilizations — the basic history class for all IVs — and head directly to the Dean of Students to see what I should do.
I try not to let the schedule screw-up ruin my morning, and instead appreciate the fact that as of right now, I don’t have any homework. This bliss I’m sure will last all of one period, but it’s like those last few days of break, when I just pretend the rest of life — real life — won’t bombard me.
“We’re supposed to have these,” Harriet Walters says. She places her hand on the stack of leather-bound books on the non-existent teacher’s desk and begins to hand them out. “I’ve actually already read it.”
“Of course you have, Walters,” a guy named Jimmy Kapp says. He and Harriet have long dueled it out for top ranking in our class, even though — as per Hadley’s handbook — we don’t have class ranks. Jimmy Kapp — AKA Jimmy Phi Beta Kappa — is the guy who’d lend who his class notes if you were sick in the health center, the guy teachers would choose to monitor study halls if they had to dash out, the guy who helped stage the fund-raising dance-a-thon and the ran the Boston Marathon last April. The guy you could find incredibly annoying if he weren’t just plain nice, smart, semi-funny, and quite cute.
Harriet shoves a Hadley History book in Jimmy’s face. “A little light reading for you, Kapp. Just so you won’t fail the test.”
At the end of the semester, we have to take a test based on all the exciting knowledge we’ve gained form the ancient text. Basically, if you go to Hadley, or just hear about the school from a friend, you can pass — supposedly.
“You know no one’s ever failed that test?” Jimmy Kapp says.
“Not true,” Dalton Himmelman says. He’s shrugged down in a plain white t-shirt, gazing out the window toward the quad, where lucky folks who have their free periods now are lazing about, flaunting their ease. Dalton is without his best friend, Jacob, which is unusual. Normally, I only ever see Dalton in
Rather than try to escape, we’re all content to while away the forty-five minute block, crammed into chairs that were the appropriate size back in grade school.
I scan the room and watch the plot unfold. Channing is nearly asleep; his head a victim of that head-jerking dance that snaps him to attention every time his chin rests on his chest. Two girls write notes on a spiral pad in between them — one of the notes is probably about me as I saw them gesture to my new haircut and immediately write something — then again, I could be paranoid. Other students check their class schedules or doodle.
My own class schedule is so messed up I can’t begin to know one to blame — except perhaps the computer that shuffles all the classes, requirements, and requests and spits out the index-cards.
First of all, I’m listed as a freshman — which puts me in intro classes and their two-hour grammar lecture. Second of all, as I’m listed as a class IV (the technical term for a freshman), I have study halls, which you outgrow by sophomore year. And lastly — but perhaps of most crucial importance — denying my class I (the official senior term) status means that I can’t take senior classes. Meaning, I have not secured places in Literature of the Worlds (notoriously difficult to get into and taught by JP Kramer, who should have taught Ivy league long ago but chose to grace us with his cowboy-hatted presence instead) nor French for the French (the class after all your language requirements are filled in which you get to cook, talk, read short stories, and debate — all in French). And of course, there is no record whatsoever of my trying to gain access to Mr. Chaucer’s small advanced creative writing class.
My next task: skip my next class — which is Ancient Civilizations — the basic history class for all IVs — and head directly to the Dean of Students to see what I should do.
I try not to let the schedule screw-up ruin my morning, and instead appreciate the fact that as of right now, I don’t have any homework. This bliss I’m sure will last all of one period, but it’s like those last few days of break, when I just pretend the rest of life — real life — won’t bombard me.
“We’re supposed to have these,” Harriet Walters says. She places her hand on the stack of leather-bound books on the non-existent teacher’s desk and begins to hand them out. “I’ve actually already read it.”
“Of course you have, Walters,” a guy named Jimmy Kapp says. He and Harriet have long dueled it out for top ranking in our class, even though — as per Hadley’s handbook — we don’t have class ranks. Jimmy Kapp — AKA Jimmy Phi Beta Kappa — is the guy who’d lend who his class notes if you were sick in the health center, the guy teachers would choose to monitor study halls if they had to dash out, the guy who helped stage the fund-raising dance-a-thon and the ran the Boston Marathon last April. The guy you could find incredibly annoying if he weren’t just plain nice, smart, semi-funny, and quite cute.
Harriet shoves a Hadley History book in Jimmy’s face. “A little light reading for you, Kapp. Just so you won’t fail the test.”
At the end of the semester, we have to take a test based on all the exciting knowledge we’ve gained form the ancient text. Basically, if you go to Hadley, or just hear about the school from a friend, you can pass — supposedly.
“You know no one’s ever failed that test?” Jimmy Kapp says.
“Not true,” Dalton Himmelman says. He’s shrugged down in a plain white t-shirt, gazing out the window toward the quad, where lucky folks who have their free periods now are lazing about, flaunting their ease. Dalton is without his best friend, Jacob, which is unusual. Normally, I only ever see Dalton in
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