...Meanwhile, senior year hasn't started so auspiciously, either. Eleventh grade's beginnings were in sadness--and love, though I tend to forget that, since it was so short-lived.

Senior year begins in disillusioned anger. ...I know I haven't had much to say on this year yet--maybe I wasn't quite sure how to do it.

Just...my school is very overcrowded. The whole district is. Our construction project has helped some, but still not really enough. So we've been getting classes in the mid-to-high-30s range. We've taken on the principal, trying to get her to split my 34-person AP English class (last year the classes were split, and there didn't have as many as we did), but she's not cooperating, to say the least. We have all the conditions, all the people, the time, the place, the teacher--and she won't give it to us. Her reasons are many; few of them, however, make real sense; even fewer of them pertain to our problem (34 students in a class designed for 15); ...I'm not going to get into it all. Dismiss this rant as a whiny teenager out of touch with the real world if you like. Certainly the principal did. ...All I know is this: we have the English department on our side, and we have the counselors on our side. My counselor says she could make us another class in 20 minutes. But she's not allowed. Why? Nobody really knows. ...We tried parental support. We didn't get anywhere with that, either. She called my dad back and now he sides with her (though I think my mom still secretly sides with me: my dad doesn't go to parental functions as much; he doesn't know how incompetent she usually is and how sly her administrative doubletalk).

The best part? After three more weeks, if none of us drop the class, she may split it for us--but she'll take away Mrs. W from the second class, the teacher who has taught it for decades and turns every student I know who's had her into somebody who cares about her curriculum. She'll put it at the same time (which we didn't want), in another room, with another teacher. Who knows who--I've heard talk of one of the junior high administrators doing it, and this is a lady I've always found frightening (when you can look like a fish as you smile, as you simultaneously yell at somebody in the hall, you are creepy with a capital C). As Mr. K from last year puts it, "You're going to get something you don't want, either way. It's not right, but that's what's going to happen."

...We wanted AP English where we have study hall. There are 83 kids, at last count, signed up for it, and it's in a standard 30-person room. I kid you not, that's the actual figure. We've got kids all over the floor, on the windowsills, at Mr. K's desk. We mentioned it to the principal; she shrugged it off. We figured maybe we could get ten kids out of there by making another English. We were wrong.

This disorganization is rampant all over the school--and it's only getting worse. See, my one compensation for such an awful study hall was that Mr. K and Mrs. W are good friends with each other (both English teachers; had Mr. K last year, he's just as good in my eyes as she), and they make a terrible study hall tolerable. Mr. K runs it (by himself!), but Mrs. W (who's free then, which is why we wanted the English class there, and so did she) comes in to talk to him--and then talks to Matt and me, who're in her English. She's very cool, just like everyone said. They hold ludicrous conversations Hawkeye-style--totally loony, making jokes because they'll scream if they don't. The demand the school is putting on them is incredible.

...And it's only gotten worse for Mr. K, and here comes a new insanity. They decided one of the English classes at the tenth-grade level was too big--so they split it. And they gave the new kids to Mr. K, without even asking him if he could do it. Which he can't, or couldn't--all his spaces were filled--but the schedules were made out as soon as the class was split. He found out secondhand--from his new students--that he was teaching another English class.

What, of his, are they nixing for the sake of these kids? ...My study hall. Which he has fought over, managed, and expended energy for, for over a straight week now. And now he's whisked away, before he gets to enjoy any benefits he's fought for, assuming they ever arrive.

So this wonderful teacher, who somehow laughs at 83 kids and can make us do the same--is gone, and Mrs. W with him. She won't be coming to talk to us now. Not unless she gets the study hall herself, which I imagine is a slim chance, because it'd prove our AP English-fight point (that she had space for another class) instead of the administration's (that that time was supposed to be used to plan how to administer AP curriculum to a far-over-capacity classroom).

And the final parting shot? This, for no apparent reason, switches me to second lunch. Which takes away my only lunch with Daf, the only other member of our four-best-friends-together-group to be in the school, and puts me in with a lunch I have no friends in. I tell you, I'm actually considering bringing my lunch and eating it in the first part of study hall (where my lunch used to be), then going to the library during second lunch. At least there I can sit by myself without feeling stupid. ...I'm actually considering this, every alternate day, for the next nine months. I've got an in with the librarian (I'm president of Leo Club, and she runs it); I bet I could do it, too. I may. We'll see.

Just...all my scholastic career, I've put up with administrative crap so I didn't fall prey to it. And now they've taken everything anyway: by having only one English in the first place, they forced out my chance to take Piano/Keyboard; by refusing to split it now, they've denied me full effects from a course I'm basing my life on (I want to teach college-level English, like this course), as well as stranding me in a study hall of 83 shoved into a room of 30; by their other crappy planning, they've taken away my favorite teacher from last year and my favorite so far from this year; and they've taken away my only chance to see my last remaining best friend, save choir, which we sit in different sections for. And if they decide to "give us what we want", they take away Mrs. W, and put me in the horrible position of choosing between a small class (which I've been fighting so much for) and a quality teacher.

How many times can I hold back frustrated tears in study hall? It's been twice in as many classes so far that I've had to. How often do I have to go home feeling dead, popping on M*A*S*H's "Dear Sigmund" (which deals with frustration) as therapy? How often will I have to paste a smile on my face in AP psych (which comes right after study hall), so as not to get a concerned "You okay?" from the also-wonderful Ms. P, as I did today? How often will I have to paste on a similar one for my mother, who wants so much for me to enjoy this year and is so afraid I won't?

Sorry, Mom. I'm already counting the days 'til it's over. 281 left.

-Laurel