I initially signed up to take Physics, because I thought it would be fun. It was full, and so I decided on Chemistry instead. It was tough, and because it was my last class of the day, by then, I was usually tired and just bored out of my mind. And the silliest part, I didn't have to take a 6th class my entire Senior Year because I had enough credits. I could have gone home an hour early but silly me wanted to give it go.
I had Mrs Thiel again for College Comp class. If I had taken the 2nd semester of this class I would have had a completed composition written with footnotes, and so forth, but I only took the 1st class and had to just write and rewrite and have a working composition in order. That was kind of interesting in itself for me. I did learn a lot about different writing styles, and Mrs. Thiel was on her A game the entire Semester in my opinion.
I had Mrs Caples again for Math Analysis. This was a lot different than Algebra and definitely different than Trig. What I remember of this class was it being really heady and having to write out proofs. Prove that 0 didn't equal 1, for instance. Well what really does that mean and doesn't everyone already know that? But in Math things like this aren't what they seem. It's easy to say 0 doesn't equal 1 or 2 or even -1 or absolute 1, but when you use the same idea to explain space or nearness to things, then you need to understand what Math Analysis is and does in the real world. I did okay in the class, but I knew it was the next step towards taking Calculus, and I wouldn't touch that class for several years, until I went to College. More about that in a later post.
My Teacher's Aide class was my favorite class after my art classes. Mrs. Hillemann was the director of this, but we didn't meet with her to learn how to be Teacher's Aids, no we got to pick which teacher and class we wanted to teach and had to get that Teacher's permission to do so. Our job had a few criteria. To observe the class and record our observations. Both the students activities and behaviors and the Teacher's. To teach 3 lessons on our own from the Teacher's handbook. That was my favorite part by the way. And to create some activities on the bulletin boards, hand out paperwork and pick it up, and take attendance. I chose Mrs. Caples and her Trigonometry class. (Oh I said I had that in my Junior year, my bad, I had that in my Senior year. I remember this now, because I had my Trig class early in the day and had my Teacher's Aide class later in the day.) On the lessons I had to prepare and teach myself, I did really well when I did it in my own Trig class. It was a bit weird but I told Mrs Caples it helped me learn Logarithms really well. At the time I could teach anyone about Base 2, Base 10, and any other Base of counting. I don't know that I remember enough of it to still do it, but it was really fun at the time! One of my awesome quirks, to learn as I go and turn around and teach it to someone else practically in the same day.
I had Mrs Craig for Drawing & Painting. I loved this class! We painted still life, had to learn perspective drawing and shading in pencil medium which is probably my favorite medium we used. And weekly we had to draw with pencil in our Sketch books anything at home and show we understood use of space and shading on the page. I loved the notes Mrs Craig wrote on the back of my pieces. I do have that Sketch book still. I have a lot of the stuff I created in my Senior year. It all meant a lot to me. I also met one of our Exchange Students in this class, her name was Anki short for Anne Christine in her native Sweden. Very lovely person. I didn't pay much attention to her skill in the class. I was then and always have been a sucker for learning new cultures and meeting people from other lands and who have learned English and can tell me their life story. I don't remember Anki's full story, but I know she liked being an Exchange Student and had a lot of admirers in our school the year she was here.
My other art class was completely different and that was Commercial Art, with Mr. West. He was my most favorite art teacher in the department. He kind of reminded me of Grizzly Adams with his thick beard all over his face. We learned some calligraphy and stylized print for advertising posters, and also stenciling, and screen printing on Tshirts. I am almost sure I was teacher's pet in this class. I was given a lot more freedom in the class than some of the others. Mr. West always struck up conversations with me about college ideas, really encouraged me to continue taking art in college. I was so afraid to do that, because when he told me one of the classes involved drawing the nude human figure, I freaked out and said I couldn't sit and look at a nude body and draw it. He laughed, he said it was no big deal, and usually you spent a lot of time on learning to draw one section of the body, not the entire thing. I was naive and immature to say the least then. If I had to take an art class and drawing a nude body was part of the coursework NOW, I wouldn't be freaked out about it at all. That's actually funny thinking about my reaction then on this subject. LOL The human body is gloriously made, and nothing wrong with putting the sight of it into art work. It's been done thousands of times by many of the great artists.
One other noted story about art from this point in time of my life. Sometime towards the end of the semester in Mr West's class, there was a fire that broke out under the theater, I think under the stage, and it was on the same floor as the art classes. Although none of the classes I reported to had any fire damage, everything that was exposed to the general air in any room, got smoke damage or soot on it, and my favorite art piece from the class, a poster for the Fall Play, "The Pink Panther" was ruined. It smelled like soot...and if I still have it in my portfolio, I am sure it still has a sooty smell to it to this day. No one was injured in the fire that I know of. But it really upset me that people's hard work got smoke damage, something nearly impossibly to remove from paper or other similar types of fibers. My poster was used as the main poster on display outside the theater entrance on the nights of the play's production. I was honored to say the least.
I was in one of the first Computer Programming classes my school district had. This was 1984, and Apple was already a known computer entity. But we used Radio Shack computers, called TSR80s. We studied "Basic" programming language, and from then on, I was hooked on computers. Blame my school district for lighting that fire, if hadn't been exposed to it then I might not be writing online and posting this blog. My instructor was Mr Beltz. He was absolutely the nuttiest teacher I had. I remember programming a bowling game, and he helped me with one part of the code to get my program to work. Some of the real geniuses in class came up with some clever extras to their program, and I being witness to what different things one can do in writing programming code, always kept that idea in the back of my head. It is still there. I would for years practice with lots of code in other classes in college and learn how to do it outside of class and tweak things as I learned ideas not in our textbook. I loved that I had found another creative outlet besides drawing, painting, and music!!
And then there was Spanish I class. My all-time favorite class that had nothing to do with my general academic requirements. I simply took it because it was fun. And Senora Murdock made it so much fun. She was my 3rd mentor in high school. And I would keep in touch with her for many years after I graduated. She is a dear friend and mentor to me. My name was Susana in Spanish class. My friend Lori was in the same class, her name was Louisa. We had to use our Spanish names, and Senora Murdock only called us using those names. She made that class so much fun....learning another language was integral to my personality. I realized midway through that year that I should have taken more Spanish than Chemistry and Typing. But 20/20 hindsight just taught me to consider everything the next time a situation arises.
When I joined the Spanish crew, I learned that there was a Foreign Language Club, and so I decided to join that. I had so much fun in that club! We got out of class a few times during the school year, and most memorably during Christmas season. The Latin, German, French and Spanish FLC members went carolling in our respective foreign language. We sang many well known Christmas carols and some that were only known from in the language they were sung in. Being a Catholic girl I already knew the Latin hymn Adeste Fidelis (O Come All Ye Faithful).However, I think the French speaking kids sang some stuff I had never heard of. I don't remember what we sang in Spanish....I just remember it was the most fun I had....and skipping class was fun in itself, but doing something with others with the joy in our hearts, that was just so much fun and memorable.
Two other things I remember doing with the FLC group. Going to Jaycee Park and having a barbecue and being so close to home, and hanging in the park I grew up playing in, that was really cool. The other was going to Brentwood and ice skating on a rink there. I tried hard to figure out how to stand on ice skates, failed often. I tried to skate on the ice, fell often. I finally got up and held onto the wall of the rink, got half way around and cut my finger nearly in half on some sharp metal thing sticking up I didn't see. I bled like a stuck pig, and ended my skate journey. But I had a lot of fun. The drive to and from the rink was fun, with a bunch of girls being silly.
.... we all have a life journey, and in our life journey are many shorter journeys, to different places, in different spaces, with different people, and with different modalities. We learn about ourselves, we learn how to interact with others and society at large. We just scraped through the first 18 years of my life, get ready, there's a lot more about which to tell.
I agree - this Life IS a Journey - with lots of stories to share . . .
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G, just wait, more stories and lessons learned to be shared!
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