School Daze
Being particularly verbose and well-read does not always
coincide with great qualifications. In my case, my shoddy GCSE results are down
to sheer laziness - the laziness that haunts me in every aspect of my life, the
precursor to failure at college, in the workplace and my social life. Laziness
is crippling in an understated way.
My school career was somewhat of a disaster, regularly
accumulating numerous detentions, to most of which I did not attend. When I did
decide to grace the teachers with my after-school presence it usually resulted
in an impromptu bonding session, finding out juicy facts to which I could empty
into the willing ears of my peers. Two of my favourite anecdotes I was
entrusted with were finding out my Irish maths teacher used to be in a rock
band with long hair and my Science teacher who was usually seething with rage
revealed her brother was a professional ballet dancer. I don’t know if any of
you were miscreants during your education but to me, those bonding sessions
were a kick in the teeth as I so wanted to carry on misbehaving and making the
innocent educators into villainous creatures who reside inside the institute.
Whilst many of my school tales are negative, I do enjoy reminiscing from time
to time.
Perhaps the pinnacle of my rebellious phase was being
excluded from school for 5 days. I imagine you are all writhing with excitement
and wondering what I could possibly have done to deserve such a punishment, and
a spot on the school “hall of fame”, otherwise known as the exclusions board –
my predecessors name fading fast from the forefront of students’ minds. That
board was placed in a spot in the centre of student traffic and was sure to
guarantee me at least a day rotating in the gossip mill. I’m waffling. The day
before the exclusion I’d done some “hair modelling” at the salon I would go on
to work in, but modelling is an overstatement, it should have been called a
hair massacre. My previously luscious thick hair was now replaced with inch
long layers and a contrasting pink chunk in the fringe of my dyed orange hair courtesy
of Lee Stafford himself.
I had been sent to the deputy head's office, and when I
entered she told me that I was about to be called to her for a different reason
altogether, and I should know what that reason was. Puzzled, I stared at her
perplexed as she explained I was in trouble because I had posed in a picture in
lesson, and unknowingly somebody had posted it onto MySpace (retro). My
portrait – me sitting on the lap of a fellow student - was the least offensive,
as the others depicted the lovely lads in my class with their hands down their
pants. I will never forget my sombre headmaster asking them in his booming
voice why their hands were in their pants, asked if they thought it was funny,
and then asked if they would be happy to tell their parents that they enjoyed
it. Those five days away from school were very relaxing and enjoyable. Although
I missed a school trip to see Billy Elliot, I caught up on my sleep and even
went to The Clothes Show Live. I hadn’t done anything wrong!
Of course now that we are all adults we are a bit better
behaved, but I’d be interested to hear if any of you have any similar tales?
No comments: