By Nous
 
                       November 30, 2002         

In the torment of my week, the big mountain is Wednesday, which if I 
can successfully reach and cross, makes Thursday and Friday mere stepp-
ing stones en route to the weekend; but, being on block schedule, thus
having split days, on this particular week, my toughest classes land on
this glorious Wednesday, and I hate waking up.
Expecting, or hoping, that for some reason, this day will go by quickly,
I am utterly disappointed upon arriving at a first period class that
consists of reading and taking notes over Hawthorne for an hour and some
minutes.  This would be my junior English class, that I am forced to 
repeat, not my senior English class that I feel I am repeating.
Despite being in a class of students younger than me by only a year or
so, I still have that feeling of ah-was-I-ever-so-young, because I feel
completely distant from these people in just about every way.  Besides,
I know everything that I'm being taught, because I am really only taking
this class for my benefit.
When I failed my first semester of junior English last year, I still
managed to pass the entire year due to my - yes, I'll say it - perfect
grades during my second semester of English.  To be fair, my good grades
were the direct result of me being ousted from the honors English class
and into the regular class.  And now I'm back, only this is first 
semester regular English as opposed to second; and my chance to learn
what I might have learned last year in honors English is gone, and I
think, "Ah, was I ever so young?"
I feel like an idiot.
And despite the good grades that I receive on my papers with stickers of
animals that inform me that I am indeed "Cool", there isn't anything to 
help ease what I feel to be the deterioration of my mind. 
Ah, well, perhaps not all is lost. 
Said every failed society in the history of the world.

After watching Mr. Jimmy Stewart portray Mr. Jeffrey Smith in the movie
Mr. Smith (nice little ending on the picture, by the way), a preface to
the new chapter in our books, my American Government class sets to work 
on taking notes as my teacher, Mr. Calelly, speaks on the roles and 
rules of the Senate.  But all his attempts in teaching us about 
government and the way it works is hindered by one Kevin Praytor - a 
smart alecky (to the point of goofy) character who, finding no other 
cure for his apparent low self-esteem, wastes class time by making ill-
intentioned comments and asking only semi-intelligent questions that, 
directed at Mr. Calelly himself, are obvious attackS on his knowledge 
and, sometimes, on his character.
Mr. Calelly is a professional on the subject at hand, for Christ's sake.
He is obviously interested in politics and government and making our
class aware of the political world we live in, yet, Praytor remains a 
perpetual sarcasm machine; but having mentioned his self-esteem problem, 
it is quite evident why he does these things, but I really cannot expect
the "one of many" anti-depressants that he is taking to be backfiring. 
What really counts as depression for a relatively "rich kid" anyway?
I doubt depression has any real effect on his behaviour, and I think the
only two things that are for sure are the following:
Kevin gets off on sounding smart.
Kevin is an asshole.
There really is not much of a character beyond that, and if there were,
it would not matter much anyway.
Some people take up space, time, and words.