Here I Blogeth

Well, I've decided to start blogging again, for better or for worse, it seems. Some of you may shout in pleasure, and others may groan in...

Okay, I'm getting melodramatic.

But how can I not? I'm going to school for the first time in... ever. So I started writing. I do that when I'm nervous.

If you're reading this, chances are that you know that I've been homeschooled most of my life, (from 2nd grade on,) and that this year, my junior year, I'm going to private school for reasons I shall not put in print.

Oh, joy. (not you, Joy! <3)

Needless to say, I was beyond terrified. However, my annoying little writer's instinct started buzzing, wondering if this was something different I could offer the collective writing world. Apperantly I'm so calculating that I'll use even my own tradgeties and terrors to make a good story.

Before this last week, I hadn't really thought about it much. Well, I'd avoided thinking about it, more like. My collective terror REALLY started the tuesday before school started, and I went uniform shopping...

Through pain, suffering, terror, life, death, and a heartrending giving up of my leggings and skirts, I learned five very important, true, and sad things.

1: Uniforms are designed so that they fit no one and look bad on everyone, especially me.

2: That my school's uniforms, especially, are icky. I mean, not everyone looks good in dark blue and green, people! What of those others with warm palates and who can't pull pure white off? Would it kill them to offer more than three colors and a dorky oxford? Red? Pink? Anything else?

3: The skirts are made to make you look like a nun.

4: That "specially tailored" uniforms are basically not tailored at all and look a little like art smocks on those of us who are less than 5'4".

5: That "specially tailored" uniforms are WAY overpriced for baggy, shapeless clothing.

Even worse, their contract with this company is ending, so they didn't have enough polos in my size! -insert dramatic sob here- So I'm stuck in the dorky oxfords that I can't dress up AT ALL until my polos come in. It's so pathetic! I'm the new kid in the oxford. Talk about embarrassing. I will admit, I cheated. I took my oxfords to my neighbor and had her take them in for me on the sides a bit so that they didn't look like me using my dad's shirts for art smocks and more like a shirt.

Uniform shopping aside, there was then the orientation. My terror grew exponentially as I sat, petrified, as the principal talked forEVER about the billions of rules and importance of order and timeliness until I was well nigh convinced that while the principal may be a perfectly nice man, he was very dedicated to teh rulez.

After the orientation, I went to my homeroom and met my english teacher who is also the P.E. coach. Well, that was new. Not to be annoyed, but, uh, I was annoyed. She completely ignored me and acted like I didn't exist! Even for questions that my mom wouldn't know at ALL she asked her like I was a brainless third grader who was more concerned with the contents of her lunch than the themes of Les Miserables.

I think this spells the beginning of a wonderful and beautiful relationship, don't you think? [/sarcasm]

Of course, then they handed us the Giant Rule Book of Doom, also known as the Parent-Student Handbook. Hah. The Book is huge!! According to The Book, hugging is against the rules. And creativity, non-school books on campus, having other beliefs, wearing sandals, multicolored belts, neclaces outside your uniform, and individuality.

Then, of course, there is, wait, get ready for it... "Christian T-shirt Day"

What the HECK?

And I thought it couldn't get any more pathetic. Why don't they just call it no uniform day and get it over with? Where am I supposed to get a T-shirt with a, and I quote, an "appropriate Christian logo" on it? Is it a sin to not own shirts with logos on them? I buy plain t-shirts, sometimes with patterns... not t-shirts with logos.

Well, at least I get to wear jeans and black once a month.

Then, of course, there is always the apprehension. I didn't know any of these people - and I'm not neccesarily "normal". I mean, how many teenage girls watch the news obsessively, argue politics, did speech and debate for four years, watches Star Trek, and reads over thirty to forty books in a three-month period? That's as much as a lot of people my age have read in their LIFETIME. I write obsessively, ask deep questions, take notes, study, and give the extra mile of work. I'm practically an alien!

Well, it was ALMOST as bad as I imagined.

Apologetics is my favorite class so far, because it's the closest thing to debate I've got. It's official, I'm a NCFCA addict. English is dry, because, for some reason, the P.E. coach is the English teacher. There's no enthusiasm from the students... It seems like there's very little feeling for literature except from me and the teacher.

Spanish is REALLY easy, because it's still beginning levels and I basically speak that wonderful language. The teacher is nice, even if she doesn't think that I speak spanish. (She's never evaluated my spanish before, however.) She's a pretty Dominican lady from Santo Domingo...

I had a good laugh about my math teacher's name. Mr. Callahan. Now, if you've seen Legally blonde, you'll know why I crack up every time I hear his name.

Hm.

I met new people today. YAY, new people. Some of them were fun, and others were annoying AND fun, and most of them I didn't get to talk to enough to know anything about them. We were with the senior class in a LOT of classes, and with the tenth grade in one, so I got to know basically the entire high school. One of them enjoys teasing the HECK out of everyone, including me. He did hold his distance until he figured out I could take it. *sigh* Then I hit him over the head with my lunchbag when he kept trying to make me sing base for his friend. Hopefully he'll give me respect from now on. I only hit when pushed to it.

Another girl wrote on her "all about me" card in Math class that she when she grows up, she wants to be a pedestrian. Huh. Apperantly she meant pediatrician.

Uh, oops.

Well, it's an easy mistake to make, but it was FUNNY.

My somewhat-issue is that everyone is so close-knit. They've all been in for a few years together, and I don't know what to expect... or how to relate to these people. I guess for so long I made friends with people who I could relate easily to. However, none of these people want anything to do with basically anything that smells literary. Though one of them does want to go to law school. I'm praying that I don't come off as a know-it-all or standoffish - I just don't know how to react to so many of the things they say or do - and i'm deathly nervous. Scared, believe it or not.

Just let me get through it and get out.

-Katie