Andrew Gets Lost

As stated, in the previous post, myself and Kirbs went to Lone Star Elementary today to volunteer our time for NHS. It was a drizzly day -- figure that, one out of the two days a year it rains in Texas, it rains when I have to drive to some place I've never been.

School was out, and we had to get to Lone Star Elementary pronto! It was one of those 30-minute-or-less deals like pizza delivery, only our service project was on the line, not pepperonis. First stop was Kirby's house so she could get her form for the person running the show to fill out. After a 10 minute conversation with her mom about the hilarity of unintended offensive names and acronyms such as Fu-King Transistors and Franklin University (FU), we were off into the rain and down the hill into New Braunfels.

I had insisted on leading the way. I knew where I was going.

I think.

Maybe.

Actually, no.

All this time, I had thought that Memorial Elementary was the school we were going to, forgetting the other elementary school tucked away in a deeper part of New Braunfels that I never visit. After pulling into the parking lot after making the trans-town 10 minute trip, my jaw dropped as I saw the sign. "Memorial Elementary: TAKS is coming soon!"

Crap. After a phone call to my mom, I found out that I had passed Lone Star a loooooong time ago, forcing me to reroute my entire plans. While on the phone, Kirby tries to adjust the engine in her car so she can listen to music without burning gas.

*RUUUU-RU-RU-RU-ROYROYROY-HAWWWWWKTOOEY*

This is pretty much what I thought happened to her car.

I turn just in time to see Kirby stall out her engine in embarrasment, burying her face into her steering wheel in a mass of hysteria -- part from the car, part from our situation. I couldn't help but laugh into the phone, my mom mid-explanation of the directions.

Way to go, Kirbzig.

Anyways, after that whole fiasco and a half, we make our way across town to our new destination. After driving slowly along the street, looking for the school, we come to a four-way stop. I go forward, continuing to look, only to glance into my rear-view mirror to notice that Kirby was gone. I freaked and decided to turn around. Too late. The road that was four lanes and against side-streets for miles suddenly shrinks into a one-way, one-lane road cranking ominously over the hill.

I thought I was going to die. Eventually, I reached the top of the hill on my one-man crusade and was soon rushed against highway traffic. Crap. I was going to have to find a turnaround and come alllllllll the way back. Talk about annoying. I go over a hill, down. Over a hill, down. Make a huge turn, go over a hill, down, go over a hill --- IS THIS THE EXIT TO MY HOUSE?!

At this point, I was mad. It was 4:40 and I still hadn't found the school. After some tricky maneuvering, I come all the way back, hoping to finally find Kirby's whereabouts. I took a right at a stop sign and cruised down onto the small, secluded road that she apparently took.

The street Kirby turned onto, minus 10 DO NOT ENTER SIGNS

First thing I see: DO NOT ENTER. TURN BACK. WRONG WAY. TU ESTUPIDA. TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT.

There were literally 6 or 7 DO NOT ENTER signs plastered on this street connected to the four-way stop. No traffic, no wrong direction on the road...

Our civil engineers ROCK.

I was scared. I was expecting to take a turn and see just a hunk of metal that was once Kirby's vehicle after some tragic exploding car accident that I was about to suffer as well, all because we entered No Return Lane.

However, thankfully, I found Kirbs, and the walk into the school was long and silent. Neither of us could contain our laughter and embarrassment, much less talk.

*** WE WORK ON OUR SERVICE PROJECT: LONG AND BORING AND IRRELEVANT TO THE TOPIC AT HAND***

Eventually, we close up our stands and put away our paintbrushes and begin to gear towards heading back home. I was in the lead again. I don't know why.

Have you ever continued down a normal, two-way street, only to come to some weird, sharp turn with a giant sign with an arrow pointing the opposite direction your driving at the end? How about this road being connected TO THE HIGHWAY ACCESS ROAD?!

Neither had I, until about 7:30 this evening. After making a deft U-Turn alongside Kirbs, we finally get around to the right road. Apparently, if I would of just continued on that road, we would have been fine, I discovered.

The road signs in Scaryville, New Braunfels SUCK.

Finally, after parting with Kirbs on the vast, slick roads, I found my way home and crawled inside.

I dread turning on my ignition tomorrow.

All in Good Fun

“Can you face-paint?” was the question, asked by an enthusiastic yet slightly harried mom-like figure.

I shifted slightly in my chair, judging within a millisecond her query. Could I face-paint? Not that I have anything better to do, I thought.

“Sure, I can try,” I replied, mirroring her busy but thankful grin.

When I signed up for the Lone Star Elementary Carnival today, little did I know that I’d learn a bit about others and myself by spending two and a half hours at an elementary school plastering kids’ faces with ladybugs, spiders, snakes, hearts, unicorns… lions and tigers and bears, oh my!...

This afternoon Andrew and I planned to go to the carnival to earn National Honor Society hours for a ‘service project’. I’m not against volunteering but I like going into a situation knowing what I’ll be doing- and face it, I had no idea what was coming as I followed Andrew to the school. It’s better than some things- reading to comatose patients or wiping baby butts. So I’ll spend a few hours of my time with kids when I could be… what, blogging? Homework? The carnival sounded better than anything else, so it’s what I picked.

But before we could even pick up a paintbrush or beanbag, we had to get to the school- which wouldn’t be such a big deal if it was out in the open. But it’s tucked into a tiny corner of the envelope of small houses behind and between a couple streets, extremely out of the way if you don’t know where to go. So it’s not completely Andrew’s fault that we got, well, completely and utterly lost, is it?...

Everything was going perfectly fine until I was behind Andrew and I saw the school out of the corner of my eye to the right. There it is! Finally! was my reaction. Excited, I pulled a right before I realized that Andrew hadn’t seen it at all, and was going straight forward. Great, here I was in this part of town I didn’t know, looking for a school I didn’t know, and without a phone, which was out of batteries. Its’ blank screen looked at me dismally. Where was Andrew? Well, I had found the school anyways. I parked, looking around me for several minutes while I waited for him to magically appear. After waiting for what seemed like hours I spotted him and we walked to the school.

“Not a word,” I said, on the brink of severe laughter.

Walking inside this elementary school was a bit of a culture shock for me; the front door was about three inches above my head, and I could touch the ceiling if I had really wanted to. The first thing that struck me was Alice and Wonderland’s experience with growing to a huge size and having the room around her shrink. But I’m not on any mushrooms… The lockers were hilarious: first of all, who knew elementary schools had lockers? Not me. Secondly, I could rest my hand on them and they were about stomach height. Keep in mind these are two lockers stacked on top of each other. Pretty sure I couldn’t fit one book in them, let a lone all the rocks, broken pencils, feathers, and all the other crap I carted around when I was eight.

The lady we spoke to directed us to a couple of booths to sit at. I took on “Paper Planes Racing” and Andrew took a booth where kids would attempt to knock plastic apples off the table with sling shots. I don’t remember the name of it but it must’ve been something like “Shoot and Miss” or “Attempt to Hit the Apples”, because Andrew had trouble with his booth. The sling shots were unworkable, to probably say the least. Even he never shot the thing successfully once. He says he had parents questioning the worthiness of his poor booth to the carnival experience. I had more luck.

After about five minutes at the dead “Paper Planes Racing” booth, one of the ladies in charge asked me if I’d like to shut it down and face paint instead. Sure… So I was whisked away, leaving Andrew alone with plastic apples and frustrated kids, to land in the gym at a full face-painting table.

“Just grab a brush, there’s the paint, and just look at these little pictures to see how to paint it,” were my only instructions as I sat down at the messy table. What did I do? I grabbed a brush. I don’t recall who my first guinea pig was, but I remember that she wanted- a cat. And I remember that my hand was visibly shaking as I started painting her cheek. I was nervous, yeah…

But as I painted I had plenty of time to think by myself, and slowly I realized that the girl nor the girl’s parents nor anyone else for that matter besides me and the other lady painting knew that I had never face painted before. So with that little vote of confidence my hand calmed down and I got better and better. I mean, come on, after the twentieth unicorn you get it down. The ladybug? Got it memorized. It didn’t start that way… my first ladybug I did, I forgot to put the black spots on. Part of me wanted to go chase down the girl and put black spots on her cheek, the other part of me cracked up at what her reaction she would be when she gleefully looked in the mirror that night before bed and saw a spotless ladybug.

Another kid I had kept moving around and chewing gum or something. Seriously?... One kept looking back at their mom. About half didn’t speak English. But heck, I know a little Spanish. Okay not really. “Como estas” is about my range, and that’s about it.

Me: “Hi! What do you want?”

Kid: *points at heart*

Me: “Okay, heart…” (silence for the remainder of the time)

This mantra of little kids, requests, painting, and parent observance continued until seven fifteen, after it had already ended. But our booth was popular, and you can’t turn down kids who want to be face painted, can you?

The night ended with a cat. Or was it a unicorn? Pretty sure it was a cat. I could paint a unicorn in my sleep now… But the point is, I gained a bit of confidence today, and a bit of wisdom, which is this:

Service to the community doesn’t have to involve anything strenuous or gross, or uncomfortable (for me that would be anything having to do with old people). You can have a great time and help some desperate moms out by just going to a carnival and helping paint little pictures on the cheeks of kids. People need help all over the place, and are always glad of a willing hand, even for a couple hours. So jump out of your comfort zone a bit- maybe not a whole lot- and do something you don’t normally do. I know I’m looking forward to the next time I get to volunteer.

The Africa Panel Experience

"Scary."

"The thing of nightmares."

"The aberration of death itself."

"Akin to the death penalty."

What do all of these comments describe? Cannibalism? Taco Bell? Our country's economy?

No.

The New Braunfels High School Freshman World Geography Africa Project
AKA
The Africa Project

This project has served as a rite of passage at the high school for who knows how long now. A successful, professional presentation can leave others in awe and transcend the freshman into the beacon of scholarship. A dreadful presentation can make one sob uncontrollably, pass out, stutterer worse than Elmer Fudd, and otherwise leave one academically scarred and humiliated by their fellow students.

The embarrassment is a lot like this.

Not only must you compile detailed information about African countries, keep your eyes peeled to newspapers and periodicals to ensure that the quick-to-change environment of Africa doesn't melt away your entire thesis, and know everything from a nation's flag to the amount of librarians in Morocco, but you also have to present all this information flawlessly and in perfect sync with your team in front of your worst nightmare:

Upperclassmen.

These upperclassmen have survived this project and achieved their rite, and they come back to watch and observe on the panel of this stressful project for four reasons:

1) To get out of their normal, boring class.

2) To make sure the standards they set on their project are being maintained.

3) To look smart in front of faculty and peers.

4) To make the freshmen wish they were getting hit by a train or some other equally as traumatizing and fatal event.


However, some are spared this event. These lucky few are called the Tompkinians. The students of the one and only Mrs. Tompkins who, unlike her ambitious cohorts Brake and Wenzel, made her students merely draw a map of Africa and present it in front of a sleeping audience with no pressure of memorization, or even of research. Heck, I think it was a Daily Grade. However, Tompkins no longer teaches at our school and the incoming students no longer have a possible luck of being spared.

I was spared. Kirby was not.

I remember hearing the stories about this project during our freshman year. I remember hearing about its potent ability to reduce the most stable people I know into a puddle of tears. I continued along obliviously, unaware of the torture these students were experiencing at the front of that room.

That is, until today.

Today I had the unique experience of serving on the Africa Panel in Mr. Brake's classroom during U.S. History. While I never had Brake as a teacher nor did the project myself, Brake and I have worked together to piece together SkillsUSA, my club, this year. This made me feel less guilty about barging in -- Along with Allyson, Rachel, and Evan who were quick to attend and escape the movie-watching, lights-out atmosphere of History. I quickly found a seat and settled down, looking down the panel. What I saw both amused me and perplexed me: juniors and seniors sitting poised in their chairs, ready to strike, atlases as their weapons and laptops as their shields. It was a grim experience that sent me into introspection. "What am I doing here? I don't belong here."

Mr. Brake's class, approximately 2:25 PM, March 11th, 2009

The first group rose and took their stand in the niche Brake had built for them at the front of the class. I'm not sure if it was to protect them from the savagely upperclassmen or to provide a pulpit for their copy-and-paste preach. Two people on the panel I had encountered before. They were friends of Kyle -- Kirby's younger brother -- who attended his birthday party. They seemed pretty shaky as they made their way to the front. Comments such as "Oh, God," and "We're screwed," leaving their breath as they fired up the projector and opened their PowerPoint.

The feast had begun.

"We're doing, uh, North Africa," one timidly quipped. His confidence struck me as flimsy. Allyson tore a piece of paper from her notebook and slid it to me. "We're gonna rip them apart," it read.

Usually, the group presents a type of African food dish to the panel. Partly to demonstrate their understanding of the culture and basic TAKs abilities to read a recipe, but mostly to distract the panel and appease them. It is similar to a sacrifice to some pimpled pantheon. However, Brake decided to not allow this form of bribery. My stomach gurgled as I saw a Pawpaw Muffin flash on the screen: I wanted one.

Hunger aside, I've always been one for the holistic approach: tell them what they do right and build on positive reinforcement (a method that has been endorsed by psychologists and our own Freud: Kilford) and I kept steady on that idea. Evan told me that I was "missing the point" and Allyson assured me that "no one goes easy on them." I was going to try and be different.

The group continued along, each slide trotting past our eyes like a wounded animal. The upperclassmens' stomach pangs were beginning to reach audible levels as they scribbled down notes and went, "Arg---hmm," to themselves, as if starting a snide remark but then swallowing the idea, locking it away in their abdomen. Soon enough, the presentation was over and the group was taking questions.

Hushed whispers spread along the classroom as each panelist raised their hands -- all except for me. I would wait. I need to see what the other panelists thought: I didn't do this project, remember.

"Why did you go through Algeria?" Alex started.

"We, uh--" one quickly replied.

"I'm merely asking because, well, Algeria is full of landmines."

"We were not aware of this---"

"Oh, reaaaaallly?"

"Let him finish," Brake quipped to Alex.

"We, uh, can clear out the landmines. They have a machine now that can roll over the ground and destroy the mines."

I was familiar with this machine. This tank-like vessel was designed to disarm mines after wars. By flailing chains through the ground at a high speed, this machine disarms the mines by actually exploding them. It's effective, but mostly still a prototype.

MV-20 Double Flail-Tiller Heavy Mine Clearing System

An effective device indeed. I thought it was a good answer, but then I quickly remembered the fact that Discovery Channel's documentary over it was fairly recent and this machine is likely not produced on a large-enough scale to effectively clear Algeria. And, imagine if it was stolen. Would you want to be responsible for this thing traversing the streets of a village or port town? Heck no.

My geeky thoughts dissuaded and I was once again the classroom. We were talking about the pollution of the Nile river, and after a few more good points made by our panel in an attempt to both impress and subdue the project-victims, the group was finished. A heavy applause was given and one of the panelists reached her hand to shake one of the teammate's. The shake was not returned.

Bitterness and disappointment was in the air.

The intermission was hectic. Audible complaints and too-late retorts coming from the back of the class as the group took their seat. One of the students doodled a picture entitled "Algeria Sweeper" on a piece of paper in an attempt to ridicule the traverse through the mine-riddled country by splicing it with the ever-familiar Minesweeper. Soon, Allyson and I were making up t-shirt ideas until I said one that stuck:

"My heart is in Egypt, but my limbs are in Algeria." (I want this as a shirt)

Laughter was shared by the panel but we quickly regained our professionalism as the next group proceeded to the front. I was determined to ask a question this time and not get lost in the thoughts of a mine disarmer.

The next group was oddly confident. It was a silent confidence that was augmented by their professional PowerPoint and well-binded book full of information. I personally found few flaws in the presentation and was overall impressed by their organization and coloring abilities (I have never seen a map colored so nicely).

Slowly, the PowerPoint ticked by. It grew to be entirely too lengthy and I splurged myself in doodles on my supposed comment paper. I remember one of the doodles was a lion and a snake in a fight to the death... But that's largely irrelevant.

In a hilarious feat, the PowerPoint actually crashed when they tried to proceed to the folk tale section. The ever-familiar Windows Vista showed itself and proceeded to interpret its binary into a frank message: "Sorry, PowerPoint has crashed." Sorry... It's almost like it's apologizing. But it doesn't mean it any more than my fellow panelists meant "Okay," or "I see," after receiving an answer to their questions. They were both dully professional and interiorly structured. The panelists did not want an answer to their questions just as much as the computer was incapable of understanding the horrible timing of its crash.

Eventually, Brake got the video to work and soon I was watching the group act out folk lore about a Turtle, Elephant, and King in Africa. The ever-familiar suburban houses of New Braunfels lined the background -- the film was obviously filmed in a greenway built for flooding purposes. My house is right along one, and it struck me as amusing that this Africa Project video was filmed in an environment I live near, and the intrinsic similarities between it an Africa. Interesting, I thought. The video itself was actually quite funny. One of the students was dressed like a turtle -- complete with a shell -- which showed me how much they cared about making a good grade. They cared enough to wear a turtle jumpsuit with a Hobby Lobby felt shell, just for a few points on a rubric. This project goes deeper than a grade, however, and the passion surfaced. The students stared at the video on the screen, the team members chatting among themselves and burying their faces into their papers when they said their lines on the video.

Amusing. It's rare to see a teenage video with violence in it, I mean -- Oh, there it is. A man in a chair goes toppling down a spillway into a dry flooding reservoir. The video clicked to an end and the lights came back on. The group was staring at the panel, fear in their eyes, silence on their tongues.

The panel once again dished out their dose of questions, but the case this time was much more stable and impenetrable. The only discrepancy was calling "African" a language, something that Alex quickly corrected from atop his high throne.

As the last question was answered, the bell rung unexpectedly, sending everyone reaching for their stuff and rubbing their weary eyes. Time had slipped away and the joys of the panel and the woes of the teams were set aside for the day as the afterschool commotion quickly swelled then diffused. The torture for the groups was over for yet another day.

As I slowly made my way home, I began to think about what I had just experienced. The Africa Project is some sort of social norm that has embedded itself deeply into the culture of our high school. It highlights the students who excel in professionalism and ridicule the ones who crack under pressure. The project is a prime demonstration of time management. It supplies a flippant tool for upperclassmen to manipulate to their will, and a blank canvas for incoming students to prove themselves upon. It represents the clean slate of your academic life when you come into the 9th grade. You can paint a Picasso or scar scribbles onto the canvas -- But what you can achieve is totally dependent on you. I feel it epitomizes the mindset one must possess in high school, and despite the fact that I never experienced it, I openly endorse it.

It's not unlike a bird's first fly from a nest. A really, really high nest that overlooks some sort of chasm that represents all your deepest fears and teenage faux pas. The nest represents your time in school up until high school, and the sky represents your future, the many clouds symbolizing the future colleges you may consider in years to come. In this situation, when you spread your wings for the first time, the only advice I can offer is: don't look down, look up. The sun is blinding, but the warmth it provides is critical to the nurturing of your success.

Spread your wings and soar among the greatest minds of our generation, and the wind will be on your back.

-Andrew

feeling Pensive?...

Frankly, I’m jealous of Albus Dumbledore. And who wouldn’t be? The man’s got brains, three middle names (Percival, Wulfric, Brian), magic… plus he can pull his memories and thoughts out of his noggin and store them in a bowl- kind of like an extra brain floating around in a magical sink. Imagine how many math tests you’d make a perfect score on if you could carry the notes around in a little bucket, pulling them out whenever you felt like it? All of them, if you couldn’t guess. Unless you can’t read. Or write. So maybe where I’m going with this is that the inspiration for this blog comes from several places. One, nearly every day of my life, boyfriend Andrew and I come up with brilliant life lessons that the world ought to know, books we ought to write, stories we ought to tell. Two, everybody needs a healthy dose of nerd inspired humor on the realities of life (no more than four per six hour period, or else instructed by a physician). And three, this blog is like a garage for all that mental flakiness. Kind of like an extra brain floating around in a magical cyberspace. So read… comment… laugh… and repeat.