JOURNAL: ANECDOTES: HIGH SCHOOL: I threw my grades away once.

This Dilbert comic totally reminded me of a moment of my life!:

The comic is funny, because Dilbert’s boss simply thinks he can crumple up his problems, throw the piece of paper away, and have them solved.

We all know the real world doesn’t work like that.

Or does it?

I left TJ to return to Woodbridge High School — best decision of my life, since that’s how I met Carolyn.

I made the right call.

This happened one quarter through 10th grade. Leaving at 7AM and arriving home at 5PM only to have 3 hours of homework was not cool. Having classes that were harder than AP classes — but not getting college credit for them because these were the “normal” classes — also not cool. (I ended up taking AP classes in high school. Not a lot, but enough to spare me the year of CS classes that causes most Virginia Tech CS students to drop out.)

So anyway, this was a good decision. That grading period [Fairfax had four 9 week periods, Prince William had six 6 week periods] was the worst in my life. I even had my only F, ever. In Spanish 3. Which was odd, because I ended up doing just fine in Spanish 4 at Woodbridge. The point being: TJ was a lot of extra work, with very little benefit. I got into Virginia Tech based on my 740 math SAT score, and it didn’t really matter if I took magnet school classes, or normal school classes. Most people I knew ultimately dropped out. Those who didn’t ended up in the same Virginia Tech classes with me. One even told me he wish he’d dropped out, since he did a lot more work to get to the same place.

I graduated–the same as everyone else. But I didn’t waste as much of my childhood on pointless overachieving, and ended up much happier than most of them.

SO ANYWAY, there I am, in Woodbridge High School, on my first day there, sometime around approximately November, 1989.

I had my first 6 weeks report card in my hand.

I didn’t really like those grades — they were really, really bad grades.

So, much like Dilbert’s boss in the above comic, I threw the paper away.

Beavis — in control.

Guess what? My report card was blank for that grading period. It only showed up as 6 weeks missing under the Prince William Count system, even though I had missed 9. The 2nd 6 week grading period, I was there for half of that, so I got within 3 weeks (I about tripled my GPA, and for some reason made a switch from Spanish 3 to Spanish 2–even though I had already taken Spanish 2 at TJ. So I ended up taking 5 yrs of spanish by graduation: 1, 2, 2, 3, and 4).

Yes — I got to throw away my grades. FOR REAL. MY REPORT CARD WAS BLANK, AND IT WAS FINE.

maybe the fact that this is what I did during Spanish 2 class didn’t help

Ironically, it was my bitch of a Spanish 2 teacher who was the only one to penalize me for having a blank report card period. I had a tie between my semester grades — let’s say an A and a B. Rather than rounding up, she chose to round down, because of the blank I had. Didn’t matter that I’d already passed Spanish 2 in the first place. This was the same bitch who gave me detention for walking into the class with gum — even though gum was allowed in all other classes. It wasn’t enough that you spit it out when asked, she considered it an offense if you didn’t remember this instantly upon walking into the class. BIIITCH!

I *SUFFER* for my gum habit! And it’s WORTH IT!

Anyway — this Dilbert comic satirizes the concept of being able to solve one’s problems by such a simple method as throwing away a piece of paper.

But truth is stranger than fiction — I’ve done what Dilbert’s boss did above. And it worked!

That, my friends, is what the SubGenius concept of SLACK is all about!

SALLACK!

Music: Sepultura – Dusted
Mood: anxious