My School Rocks

School is back in full swing, and boy are things a mess. I don't know if my pictures do them justice, but the pics are of gang graffiti that was drawn on the wall on the 3rd floor. The gangstas used a Sharpie to create their art. I noticed the artwork last Thursday as I was walking up the stairs from lunch. The next day, the graffiti was still there. It took a full 24 hours for the artwork to be removed. Nice.

I guess we are lucky in that there are really only two gangs to deal with at my high school. Just the Black Disciples and the Gangster Disciples. We don't have as many problems as schools with more gangs competing for members and whatnot. It's still ridiculous and I can't believe it took so long for the graffiti to be removed.

One exciting new development is that we have a new teachers' lounge. Our school was built in 1942, and the teacher bathrooms were built inside lounges. There was a ladies' lounge and a men's lounge. For the last several years, our teachers' lounge has been located inside the men's lounge. So basically the lounge is inside the men's restroom. The lounge often smelled of pee. If you were lucky, you could catch a glimpse of a male teacher at the urinal as you were walking in. It was fantastic.

Now the ladies' lounge is back open. It smells way better. It's still weird and gross to have to eat lunch in what is essentially a bathroom, but it's progress. We have to be thankful for small favors.

The new 60 million dollar attendance software is still not working well, so we enter our attendance via computer but still have to turn in paper rosters, too. And I've been making phone calls, since freshmen and sophomores are so immature. Most of the phone numbers I have are wrong. The majority of the numbers are disconnected, although you'll get the "this line is being checked for trouble," upon occasion. My favorite is, "this phone is not currently taking calls." Then it's not much of a phone, huh???

But no one has pulled the fire alarm, and there have been no real fights. Pretty remarkable. So maybe it'll be a good year!