Nationality Crisis...and a Head-On Collision

So today, for the first time ever, I had to speak in Model UN. Except I didn't want to to. One of our USGs (Under-Secretary General) put me on the speaker's list.
Naturally, I was terrified. But finally, it was time to go, and the SG calls out:
"Ukraine is now recognized for 1 minute!"
I start walking out, and realize a new girl is also walking up to the front.
Oh dear. It seems we have a bit of a nationality crisis.
Now, there wasn't a doorway for me to hide in, so I had to stand up near the chair and awkwardly wait until they had figured things out. I was hoping that I might end up with a free pass from speaking.
No such luck. Everyone just giggled until they called decorum.
I said some generic stuff, and walked back, turning red in the face. Awkward.

Another awkward moment was about a week ago. Some friends and I were walking to lunch after another invigorating band session, talking about new levels of sharp-ness that had just been reached in the last number.
I had been looking sideways to talk to my friend as we walked, and we were approaching a sharp bend in the hall when all of a sudden my friend grabs my arm.
"Marena!!!"
"Whoa!!" said a deep voice...not anyone's I had been walking with!
I turned around and realized to my horror that I had walked straight into the lunch tray of a kid who sits behind me in band - a mere acquaintance of mine.
I managed to back up before I got a shirtfull of pizza, and managed to mumble an apology of some sort, attempting to avoid eye contact.
Yeap. I'm epically smooth

Would you like fries with that awkwardness?

Like at any typical high school, my friends and I have this one table we always sit at at lunch. And the strangest things happen there. I've had a sports bra thrown in my face, seen somebody stick three plastic forks into an apple and call it "art"... right next to deep exsistentialist conversations. (Courtesy of Sachi, of course.)

Today, however, I think we've achieved a new level of weirdness. The zenith of weirdness, if you will. Everything's downhill from here.

We have a stairs rising up from our cafeteria, with a sort of balcony thing. Our table is right under than balcony. Today, some random person threw a bottle of milk off the balcony. It then bounced off one of the Rebecca's (I know six or seven different Rebecca's, I swear, they just multiply. Like amoeba or something) chest, EXPLODED, and milk went everywhere.

So I offer my friend my gym shirt (which was in my backpack, since I refuse to use the gym lockers because the locker room CONSTANTLY smells like chicken soup. Which isn't a smell I want on my clothes, even if they're only gym clothes. But I digress.) And she doesn't really feel like going to the bathroom to change, so she puts my huge gym shirt on over the milky one, and starts changing underneath.

Now just this would be enough to get weird looks. But then Jared (from this blog) had milk splattered all over his pants too. So then HE started stripping to. I mean, yeah, he was wearing gym shorts under his jeans, but they could have easily passed for boxers. (Wait, why WAS he wearing shorts UNDER his pants?)

So Sachi looks over casually, then does a double take, upon seeing Rebecca stripping in the crowded cafeteria. After about two minutes of sputtering questions, complete with bewildered looks, she finally notices JARED stripping too. And I'm just sitting there laughing at the whole scene.

Then, at the end of lunch, Emily comes over from a different table and starts telling a story. She's like, "So then I grabbed Jillian's crutch, then somebody else grabbed her crutch." Only, since lunch was basically over, everyone was leaving and walking past us, so I couldn't really hear that well. So I went, "Wait, did you just say you grabbed Jillian's crotch???"

See? Zenith of weirdness lunch. But then again, knowing us, we'll probably top this within a week.

<3 Helen

The Math Teachers are Falling

This week happens to be state testing for sophomores, which is quite a bummer for them, but not being a sophomore means a bunch of my classes have been cancelled or rearranged.  It happens that my math class today met in a miniature lecture hall, whose cramped set up included five rows of seats, a few chalk boards, and a center table.  Math class is one of my favorite classes, partly because my teacher is a really wonderful and enthusiastic person, who is always smiling and happy and having fun.  We were talking about how to simplify 'yucky fractions' and my teacher outlining the 'legal moves'.  "Never ever divide fractions like this,"  she exclaims, flipping a difference of fractions that was in the denominator of the big fraction.  "It gives math teachers heart atta—"  CRASH.  She had fallen onto the floor.   Silence.  Soft laughter. "Are you okay?"  A few kids asked, trying to peer over the small table for a sign she was alright.  For a few seconds there is no response.  "I'm alright!"  She says, all chipper, though we still can't see her.  Then she jumps back up and continues class.  "It gives math teacher heart attacks!  See?  Never do that!"

Sachi

Stinky-Head Soup

Having just joined this blog, I will have to tell some stories that happened a while ago before I can get to the present. It's hard to decide where to start, but this one should be good.

My history teacher is an intelligent, respectable woman who treats us as if we were college students, and pushes us to do rigorous work. She is also very kindhearted; for example, when our Junior Theses were due, she had us all wait outside of the classroom until she had it all set up. When we were allowed to come in, we found a buffet of bagels and juice, and we all got a chance to tell the rest of the class about the topic of our theses while enjoying our snack before getting to work. Anyway, she is a good teacher, but one from which you have to expect hard work and no nonsense.

One day when my history teacher was lecturing about labor in the late nineteenth century, she mentioned that she had once gone to Alaska to work in a salmon-packing factory. She described the different levels of work that people had to do: the beach packers (or something like that) who had to wade in the sea of dead salmon and pack them (this is where my teacher was), the canners, the factory supervisors, etc. (I don't remember what they really were, but it was something like that). My teacher was talking about how she was at one of the lowest levels, had to work hard for low pay, and got bad living quarters, while others at other levels had better conditions. Eventually, it was clear that she had gone off on a tangent--something that she almost never does. She described how an old eskimo woman had the job of chopping the heads off of the salmon, and how she was so skilled and fast at it that when a machine was introduced to do the job for her, they soon decided that she was better. Apparently, fish come in different sizes, and while the woman could always chop at the right spot, the machine was programed for average-sized salmon, and so if the salmon was too big part of the head would stay attatched, and if it was too small, too much would be cut off. So they decided to put the eskimo woman back in her job.

Speaking of fish heads, my teacher mentioned that instead of disposing of the heads, she and her colleagues would give them to some local eskimos who used them to make some special food called stinky-head soup. They would bury the fish heads under the ground for a few months, and then use the fermented fish heads to make their soup. My teacher said that she had never dared to try the peculiar dish, and after she returned to a more normal part of the country, she had nearly forgotten about it.

Then, she was reading an article about someone whose job it is to search for strange, disgusting foods to be eaten on the TV show Fear Factor when she came across stinky-head soup again. In his search for disgusting foods, the man had discovered stinky-head soup. It turned out that stinky-head soup was not safe enough for Fear Factor because while the fish heads are buried, they become hallucinogenic. So then, my history teacher, a dignified, respectable woman, said, "So maybe I should have tried stinky-head soup, after all."

-Philip

Why?

I know this blog is supposed to be for funny, awkward moments, but I feel that this deserves a place here.

One of our good friends, Nathan, is really sick. He's in the hospital in a drug-induced coma. He has a staph infection, though I'm unsure if it's a antibiotic-resistant strand or not.

I think I speak for all of the posters on this blog when I say we're shocked, and that we miss him terribly. Please keep him in your thoughts.

<3 Helen

*Edit: He died a few hours ago, on March 14. It's Pi Day, something he probably would have really loved if he were here. Everyone's extremely shocked and I, personally, can't stop crying.

Thank you for the compliment

My friend needed to take pictures of someone for a photography assignment, and I, being available, was her model. But then she accidentally crushed her film, and so yesterday she asked me if I would be willing to be photographed again. I agreed and she, being thankful, said, "by the way Rebecca, did I mention what an amazing person you are?" And my Spanish teacher (because this was all occuring right before Spanish class started) said confusedly, "Did you mention what an amazing person I am??"

-Rebecca

I'll show you mine if you show me your... SWORD I mean!

I had an... interesting conversation with a certain regular poster on this blog. (She absolutely refuses to be identified, apparently, she has a "reputation to keep up.) Let's call her Priscilla, as punishment for her refusal. ;)

We were talking about this class at this museum where you can learn to fight with swords. Like, actually big, shiny metal swords.

Me: I would have SO much fun with a SWORD!
Priscilla: GUTTER
Me: Aaaaaaahhhh! Well, only with Will Turner's sword.
Priscilla: *dies*
Me: He makes good ones... hahahaha. Priscilla? Come back to life?

Later:

Me: Aw see, now I can't do this. 'Cause every time somebody will mention a sword, I'll think PENIS! Which you know, won't really work. Thanks for ruining it Priscilla!
Priscilla: Well in Rome, I imagine they did that all the time.
Me: Gladius nautae ;)
Priscilla: Gladius magmus?

*Note: In Latin, the word for "sword" and "penis" are the same- gladius. So "gladius nautae" means "the sailor's penis (or sword)" and "gladius magmus" means "big sword (or penis)". Well, actually, I'm pretty sure it's magnus, with an n, but you know, neither of us has taken Latin in almost a year. Just a bit of nerdy Latin humor in there...

Who said the Middle Ages were all about plague? They CLEARLY had some fun times with their swords! ;)

<3 Helen

Red Lockers Are Not an Aphrodisiac

So last Thursday, I arrive from the English Honors Exam, nestled far, far away in some obscure corner of the school (Room 404, seemingly among the least convenient classrooms in the school). After mulling around for a good while blabbing about the confusing nature of life and death and the relationships between them through two potions, I arrive at my locker, deep in the red lockers on Main Street. It is perhaps the worst set of lockers in the school, considering that they are quite a bit smaller than others, and the last row (where my is) is practically impossible to maneuver into, which leads to daily traffic jams, while the freshmen somewhat less intelligent and higher on the social ladder blabber away and block our exit with their buxom features... Anyway, today, thanks to being the end of X-Block, the row of lockers in almost empty. I find my row almost empty, and it were to be, lest the couple held in a tight embrace, let's call them Tyler and Lorraine.
Me: "Umm...okay, I can go now..."
Lorraine: "No, it's okay, you can go to the locker, were not doing anything."
So much for the innocent clues, I go to my locker, and alas! It will not open. I'm not very good with locks, but for one very long minute I am unable to get it open. I run off. I talk to Georgina and Rebecca in dark green for a few minutes and remember my locker combinations. I run back. The lockers are vacant. I retrieve my coat. Gahhh.

-Jarj

I think I'm talking...

So on Friday, my friend and I had to go to Freshman seminar during A block to discuss...well, not much of anything, really.
But we didn't feel like going to Chinese, so what the hell.
Of course, there are only 4 freshmen in my Chinese class, so my teacher had no idea that we had to leave.
So as he's walking in, we attempt to make contact.
"Umm, hey, today we have to go to..."
He continues walking without even a glance in our direction.
Apparently I was wearing my invisibility cloak. I mean jeez, why didn't anyone tell me!
So we go in to talk to him, and manage to get him to register that we exist on the planet.
"Did you already go?" He asks us. Well, um no...wouldn't he have known if we had???
"You would have gone in your other foreign language," he tells us.
Wait, what?? What other foreign language??
"Umm..well we only take Chinese."
"Okay. Go."
Wow. Awkward much.

Marena

Worm's Eye View

I did my photo project today. I had to take pictures of an "interesting" building from different perspectives. So I went to Boston with Sachi to take pretty pictures of Trinity Church and skip around with sunshine and bunnies and happy little rainbows.

Not so much.

First off, it snowed. Which, yeah, I know isn't unusual for New England. But we had really nice weather the day before, and on the *one* day I have to do my project (I'm only allowed to borrow the school camera for one weekend, 36 pictures all crammed in) it snows. And that would have been ok, even pretty, but when I actually get to the church? It starts raining. Ugly, lens-wetting, rain.

And then, Sachi and I crossed a street. For anyone else, this would be perfectly normal and safe. But I guess this blog is proof that I'm not anyone else. I oh so nicely applaud Sachi for actually walking when the light was red (which she had flat out refused to do until then) and she pushed me into oncoming traffic and hijacked a nearby truck and ran me over!

Ok, no, not really. But she did give me a little shove, and I guess it was just bad timing or something, because I fell. Like, down on the ground and in pain. In the middle of the street. In Boston. I couldn't really walk so I had to stumble/shuffle over to the curb and sat there on the wet sidewalk for a few minutes. And the really sad thing? Nobody around me (except Sachi of course) even stopped to ask if I was ok. And I knew they saw me, I made eye contact with a few people! I guess it's true what they say about unfriendly New Englanders.

So my jeans were kind of muddy, but I got up and Sachi and I went to Au Bon Pain for lunch. Bad luck over and done with, right?

Wrong.

I don't know if you've ever been to Au Bon Pain, but it's one of those places where you get all your food, drinks, etc. on your own, then go up to the cash register to pay for all of it. And this particular one had two cash registers in the middle and two off to the side. I walked straight to the ones in the middle, realized there wasn't anybody at them, and turned around a few times looking for some cashier. That's when I hear Sachi going "Helen? Helen, over *here*!" And I turn, and of course, there's another two registers, both with people at them. So I awkwardly shuffle over and pay for my food. With the cute cashier laughing at me.

And the super sad thing? Those are only the main awkward moments during the two hours I was in Boston. So many more happened. Really, it's like I'm a danger to myself. Or maybe it's just because Sachi has this murderous tendency to push people in front of 18-wheel trucks.

<3 Helen