Does Anybody Have Serious Objections?

Ah, the SFA, the province of so many strange people like myself (yes, Sachi, I am aware that I am using your first sentence template). The SFA consists of twelve students, ten teachers, a housemaster, and a department head all sitting around a large table in the library early in the morning. The principal is there, so is a Newtonite reporter, a secretary, and other people watching from the sidelines. The leader of the SFA remarked that we should try to start as close to 7:00 as possible. "We could discuss start times and end times in the future if we want..." First comes the Principal's Report. The principal apologized for not being present at the first meeting last week: "The truth is that I completely forgot about it. That's all I can say...It was a real embarrassment." I didn't mind, because I had been unaware that that meeting existed until I read about it in the Newtonite two days later. The Principal's Report was about the state of the building project. The state of the building project was strong. "I'm sure you are all impressed by the progress of the building rising from the ashes," the principal said, "or maybe I should say, rising from the asbestos." Nobody laughed. The SFA is a very serious place. Someone suggested that we discuss the problem of the lack of freshman representatives. Ideas were proposed. People also questioned the constitutionality of special elections. Yes, there is an official SFA constitution (we wound up discussing its validity later in the meeting, and about revising it and ratifying it, all with official formal procedure, of course). Jared suggested making a poster to publicize the SFA to ignorant freshman. Someone else suggested making Wednesday announcements about it. A teacher said that he was sure that spending more time in SOS would solve the problem. Since I hate SOS, I thought it would be best to avoid using it as a solution. I proposed creating a bulletin board that would tell what was happening in the SFA on a weekly basis to attract interest. "Would anyone like to organize this poster?" asked the head teacher representative. Jared and I raised our hands.

At some point the main teacher representative said something about formally deciding not to have to formally decide things. Hmmm. Sounds appealing.

"Perhaps we should discuss possible topics to be addressed in future meetings," someone proposed. A boy near me suggested rethinking the weighted GPA. Someone raised his hand. "I propose that we break into the subcommittees that we created last year." There was some discussion about this. The general consensus was that the subcommittees were a good idea.

Later that morning, I had to go to an orthodontist appointment which was preparation for my braces to be removed. An assistant with a Spanish accent was plying some braces off of my teeth when suddenly she came upon a tooth that didn't obey. I felt pliers grabbing and pulling and grabbing and pulling my tooth this way and that. "Dr. M-----!" she called out, "I need help!" At some point, they had to make molds of my teeth. The assistant came messy with blue stuff all over her gloves, mask, and face. "Open," she said, and plopped a glob of sticky blue stuff into my mouth. "Stick your tongue," she said in her accent, "Stick your tongue. Stick, stick, stick." Oh, I realized, she wanted me to stick out my tongue. I tried. Still, she continued saying, "Stick your tongue." I suppose my tongue must not be flexible enough for her liking. When this was done, she tied all kinds of wires around my teeth. Meanwhile, a man came into the room and began to set up a camera. The orthodontist came over to me when I was about ready to leave and said, "If you stay longer, you can be on TV! Ha, ha, ha..." No, I do not want to stay longer, and no, I do not want to be on TV, I thought.

-Philip