Talking about labeling things in yesterday’s post has reminded me of something I did when I was 13. I had just transferred high schools and I didn’t know anybody. It was the start of term and I had my schedule. Besides the mandatory subjects (you know Math, English, Social Studies etc) I chose Art (and I can’t remember what else). What I do remember is that we had to leave our home classroom for some of these other, varied classes. So art class was held in the art room. And while we were all out of our home classrooms, I think it was used for something else.
Anyway, we had those old fashioned wooden desks which had a flip lid and could store books within. These were the ones that had a connected bench built in. So if you wanted to be closer to the desk, you couldn’t move the bench and had to slide forward to the edge of the bench. Hrm, maybe that’s where my habit of sitting on the edge of a chair comes from!
A lot of the kids used to tape their schedules to the underside of the flip top of their desk so that when they opened their desk after each period, to put away their books, they could easily see which subject was next and which books to grab.
I remember it used to bug me that some girls used to nosy into my desk and look at my schedule and just grab things from their backpacks. I mean, if I went through the trouble of setting up my desk why couldn’t they?
I enacted the perfect plan for revenge on these unsuspecting kids, to get back at them for annoying me (which I’m sure they had no clue that they were doing! Lol). I decided to code my schedule.
Did I know how to do a code? Only the simple one that everyone knows: A=1, B=2 etc. And there was no way I was going to count out ‘Chemistry’ in numbers. Although, now that I think about it (and now that the periodic table is no longer traumatizing my existence) it would have been kind of poetic to do that code for Chemistry! But, I digress!
So there I was, one evening, covering a couple of text books in leftover wrapping paper, when it came to me! I could cut squares of different wrapping paper and paste them into my schedule, with each pattern representing a different subject. And I wouldn’t even have to learn anything because I would choose patterns that in my mind linked with the subjects. I can’t remember all the patterns I used but I know that a flowery pattern was Biology, I think a very dark paper with a few bright dots was Chemistry…. But you get the drift.
I put it up when I got to school the next day. Kids immediately asked what it was. I took great pleasure in telling them it was my class schedule. There was obvious confusion in their faces. I declined to elaborate further.
I thought I was a freakin’ genius! And that feeling came back every time I flipped open my desk.
Looking back, they probably all thought I was weird. A total odd-ball. Ha! It’s only taken me about 30 years to realize this. Genius not so much, eh!
