Three weeks of school have come and gone now, and a few topics have come to my attention.

On the first day of school, at the field house assembly, during his speech, Mr. Tutwiler said something that really got me thinking: “Try to sneeze into fabric because of swine flu.” Sneeze into fabric? What if you’re wearing a short sleeved shirt? You’d have to tilt your head 90 degrees and lift up your arm. It would be incredibly distracting. Or, you could just grab the front of your shirt and sneeze into it. Of course then you’d be forced to explain the big splotch on it to your mom. Well, you could always say you spilled your lunch on the front. What about grabbing some other kid’s shirt? Oh yeah, “sneezing into fabric” definitely prevents swine flu.

A big focus in the first few homerooms was read from the handbook. Since 6^th grade it’s been the same thing. They tell us, “Drugs – stupid, Alcohol – stupid, Smoking – stupid. Any questions?” We’re told it’s not about the consequences, but that’s what we spend most of the time discussing.

Freshman elections have started. Four or five people have urged me to sign their nomination sheets – good luck to them. If the school elections anything like the national ones, there’s going to be a lot of backstabbing and lying. Anyway, I like to mock authority figures, so I can’t really run for student office. It would be hypocritical.

Finally, club fair – a good idea in theory, especially since I agree with the idea of getting students involved in activities. But it doesn’t seem to have a point. People sign up for every single club just for the candy. Relative popularity of  clubs is determined by who has the best sweets.

“Hmm…. The daydream club hands out Milky Ways and Snickers but the stuffing your face club hands out those candies they stole from the 19^th century museum. Daydream club it is.”

My point with all of these little snippets is that we’ve upgraded from the middle school. It’s certainly a good thing, because by the time we reached 8^th grade graduation, most of us had outgrown the middle school. I say that I had outgrown it in that my feet could finally touch the floor when sitting in the chairs. So why do I take these privileges and mock them? Simple – I just like finding the flaws in everything and complaining.

Well, that’s about it for this week,

Andy