Back to School month: Volume I - The School Year

Hello, there. Welcome to the month of August! Unfortunately, the month of August has a reputation of being the worst month in the 12-month calendar. Why you may ask? One reason, and one reason only. August in the United States at least, is the national "back to school" month. It symbolizes the ending of summer vacation, the end of fun pretty much, and the beginning of nine months that are worse than pregnancy. At least in pregnancy, you're free to do whatever, and at the end you are rewarded with a baby. At the end of the nine-month school year, you are only rewarded with the satisfaction that you passed a year of hard work, and that we'll see you again in about 2 1/2 months.

Plus, I find that high school kids break the year down into fragments, or "sections" of the year. Some may call them "times" or "era's". Such an example would be this. At my old high school, I broke the year up into different times of the year, as mentioned below:

• The Start of the Year time
• The Homecoming Dance time
• That October 4-day weekend time
• Halloween time
• Veterans Day time
• Thanksgiving time
• Final Exams time
• Christmas Break time
• New semester time
• Valentine's Day time
• New NASCAR season time (lol)
• March Madness time
• Spring Break time
• April Fool's Day time
• My birthday time
• Prom time
• Final Exams again time
• Memorial Day time
• Graduation time
• SUMMER Break time

Rinse and repeat...

Now I know what you're thinking. That's a lot of fragments to break just one year up into. Well, believe or not, there are so much more fragments I could put in. Such as "ACT time", "Freshmen testing time", "Cookie company time". The list goes on and on...But you really wanted to break the year up into the four quarters like the teachers do, then we should go quarter by quarter and see what goes on in them:

FIRST QUARTER: This is the start of the year. Empty grade books, cold metal desks, freshly cleaned classrooms ready for learning to commence. That is, until the students arrive from the summer and realize they forgot a good portion of what they learned last year. Plus, in high school, the kids are rambunctious and unwilling to learn anything. Especially the seniors; I mean, after three years at one school, why come back for a fourth year, let alone a fourth year you don't really need. So we roll past the end of August and hit September. Now, the year is in full swing. Kids are learning, Principals are commanding, and teachers are planning suicide. We roll to and past Homecoming dance time. Suddenly, September fades out and October rolls around. Leaves are changing and falling, and Halloween time nearly arrives.

SECOND QUARTER: The last week or so of October kicks of the second quarter. Halloween arrives, with candy and scary as hell children. Plus, the occasional adult douchebag that scare the piss out of children. Then we hit November, and already kids want out. They don't even want to make it to Winter break, as it would be too unbearable to even survive. Veteran's Day rolls by, and Thanksgiving Break arrives. Some schools get five days off, others only get four. Some actually get twelve, I mean holy shit, too much time off haha. We return to December, the coldest and most hectic month of the first semester. Everyone's planning holidays and vacations and no one, not even the teachers care about the final exams. But still, exams come and go, and we hit Winter break and the end of Quarter 2...

THIRD QUARTER: Kids go back to school at the start of January, the month that silences the beliefs that December sucks. January has the reputation as being the second-most hectic month, considering driving conditions and student attitudes. January rolls by and we hit the Super Bowl time of the year (forgot that one above lol). This year the Packers beat the Steelers, but I digress. February then kicks off with Groundhog day and Valentine's Day. Elementary students celebrate vividly with a party, Jr. High and high school kids basically say "Love sucks" and move on. We roll by February and hit March. As the weather heats up, so does the sports scene; The NBA hits is postseason almost and NASCAR is in full swing, as is the spring training for MLB. Student attitudes are at an all-time high of "I can't wait for school to end and fuck this shit" feelings.

FOURTH QUARTER: Besides "you're done", "Fourth Quarter" are the two sweetest words in the high schoolers minds. For elementary schoolers its just another quarter. We roll by March and its March Madness college basketball. This year, UConn took the NCAA title, in a surprising upset. We hit April, my birthday month personally. Students kick off with April Fool's Day, but high schoolers ignore the "holiday", considering it a cheap childish holiday, but still we pinch each other on St. Patrick's Day (irony). We roll past my birthday and hit Prom time. Prom was and still is the most looked-forward to time of the school year. That and graduation time once we hit May, but prom comes first I think. So May rolls by and so, too, does the school year. This concludes a standard Mahomet school year in retrospective. Speaking personally, graduation is fun at first, but gets bittersweet as the summer wears on and college starts. The thought of never seeing 90% of your graduating class ever again. The belief that one day you will come across the popular cheerleader working minimum wage a strip club. The knowledge that one day jocks will work under nerds in a decent society. The belief that by the time you reach age seventy to eighty, you'll have no idea whether or not most of your class is still alive or not. It's depressing to think about, but I just pop in a comedy movie and buck myself up (haha)...

Well, as the title states, this is the first of maybe two or three "volumes" that "celebrate" the eventual arrival of the school year, and how every student will return to class looking and feeling like a drone in a factory. But still, what would kids do if there wasn't any school. Sure older kids would probably survive, but younger kids need school to find a creative outlet and to express themselves amongst their peers. But at the very same moment you hit Jr. High, the shit hits the fan...

But we'll save that for next time...Come back again for Volume II - The School Career...