See how straight my teeth are?
I actually still have two of my wisdom teeth. They're both on the left side of my mouth.
Friday, July 11, 2014
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Pete Townshend said it best...
I wonder how many of the attributes of my relatives I will carry with me when I become a senior citizen.
The scary thing is that I am a little more than 15 years away from that threshold.
The scary thing is that I am a little more than 15 years away from that threshold.
Monday, July 7, 2014
A couple of interesting changes my senior year
The new school year in the fall of 1981 saw a couple of drastic adjustments to school policies. These were things that I wish had been put into effect years earlier.
The first one was kind of peculiar. After years of seeing students humiliated for this violation, it was now okay to chew gum in class. The only restriction was that we could not loudly smack the the gum in our mouths.
It was around this time that there was a particular study making its way around the schools. It showed the top three complaints teachers had about school in the 1950s. They were
1. Students talking in the class
2. Students chewing gum in class
3. Running in the halls
More problems had surmounted for teachers in the previous 25 years and these slid down the list. I guess the thought was to get rid of one of these problems and maybe some of the other newer ones would follow. That didn't happen, but I did enjoy chewing gum without having to worry about getting in trouble.
The other major change was the grading scale. Ever since I was in the fourth grade, the percentage went like this:
94 - 100: A
85 - 93: B
78 - 84: C
71 - 77: D
0 - 70: F
Starting the fall of 1981, the new grading scale went like this:
90 - 100: A
80 - 89: B
70 - 79: C
60 - 69: D
0 - 59: F
This really solved a lot of problems. For starters, pop quizzes typically had 10 questions on them. On the old scale, if you missed ONLY one question, you got a B and that counted toward your class average. Enough of those incidents of not being perfect could bring down your score, and it was even worse if you missed two questions and wound up with a C or three questions and get an F. The new scale allowed you to make one mistake and still have an A, or two mistakes for a B. It also made it a lot easier to figure out what letter grade you got on an assignment. A 92 would look like a good score, but it only rated a B. One other issue was that, in the law of averages, you had a 70 percent chance of failing a test or assignment, but only a 7 percent chance of getting an A.
It should be noted that a number of my teachers were already using the new scale because they saw these same problems with the old one. The main difference with the implementation was that if you scored between a 89.6 and 89.9, the teacher was not permitted to round it up to an A.
While I was happy to see this change, I was upset because they would not make it retroactive. I wondered how many classes in which I got a B would be changed to an A and increase my GPA. (In the end, I figured out my GPA didn't really amount to anything in the real world.)
Of course, making it retroactive for me would have meant making it retroactive for everyone, including people who flunked out of school in previous years. I wonder how many students would have benefitted from having 60 as a passing grade and would have been able to get diplomas. I guess the key thing here is that report cards usually only showed the letter grade and not the percentage. This probably prevents tons of lawsuits against the schools in the 1980s.
The first one was kind of peculiar. After years of seeing students humiliated for this violation, it was now okay to chew gum in class. The only restriction was that we could not loudly smack the the gum in our mouths.
It was around this time that there was a particular study making its way around the schools. It showed the top three complaints teachers had about school in the 1950s. They were
1. Students talking in the class
2. Students chewing gum in class
3. Running in the halls
More problems had surmounted for teachers in the previous 25 years and these slid down the list. I guess the thought was to get rid of one of these problems and maybe some of the other newer ones would follow. That didn't happen, but I did enjoy chewing gum without having to worry about getting in trouble.
The other major change was the grading scale. Ever since I was in the fourth grade, the percentage went like this:
94 - 100: A
85 - 93: B
78 - 84: C
71 - 77: D
0 - 70: F
Starting the fall of 1981, the new grading scale went like this:
90 - 100: A
80 - 89: B
70 - 79: C
60 - 69: D
0 - 59: F
This really solved a lot of problems. For starters, pop quizzes typically had 10 questions on them. On the old scale, if you missed ONLY one question, you got a B and that counted toward your class average. Enough of those incidents of not being perfect could bring down your score, and it was even worse if you missed two questions and wound up with a C or three questions and get an F. The new scale allowed you to make one mistake and still have an A, or two mistakes for a B. It also made it a lot easier to figure out what letter grade you got on an assignment. A 92 would look like a good score, but it only rated a B. One other issue was that, in the law of averages, you had a 70 percent chance of failing a test or assignment, but only a 7 percent chance of getting an A.
It should be noted that a number of my teachers were already using the new scale because they saw these same problems with the old one. The main difference with the implementation was that if you scored between a 89.6 and 89.9, the teacher was not permitted to round it up to an A.
While I was happy to see this change, I was upset because they would not make it retroactive. I wondered how many classes in which I got a B would be changed to an A and increase my GPA. (In the end, I figured out my GPA didn't really amount to anything in the real world.)
Of course, making it retroactive for me would have meant making it retroactive for everyone, including people who flunked out of school in previous years. I wonder how many students would have benefitted from having 60 as a passing grade and would have been able to get diplomas. I guess the key thing here is that report cards usually only showed the letter grade and not the percentage. This probably prevents tons of lawsuits against the schools in the 1980s.
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Back to (grade) school for the last time: Senior Year
So this was it. One more year of school to go before I would head off into the wild blue yonder and paint it red. Senior year was finally here, but, as mentioned before, it did not live up to my expectations.
From everything I had ever seen and read about being a teenager, this was supposed to be the best year of my life. Unfortunately, there were too many obstacles that kept me from enjoying my youth. One job was great, but two jobs was too much and it didn't help that I hated my second job.
The whole year, I just didn't want anything to do with anyone. I figured that if I felt like I wasn't missing out on anything, then it wouldn't really matter if I did. I almost felt worse than I did the previous year in which I considered suicide, but my entire attitude really showed it on the outside.
Things were so bad, I wouldn't even listen to music on the radio. I had almost no clue what the most popular songs of my senior year were because I was just so into my own music. When I worked at a radio station two years after graduating high school, I was surprised at the songs from that period that were big hits.
I can say that I learned how to deal with so many consecutive disappointments that year. The first one was the Drama Club. The last two years, we produced seven plays each year and performed them publicly. (Most of those plays were one acts that were one-shot performances, like at the Festival at Eastern New Mexico University and various events around town.) We did two main-stage productions and the children's play for the schools. Before my junior year ended, my Drama teacher told me we were going to do "You Can't Take It with You" by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. I was really looking forward to acting in that in my senior year. That play has a lot of great roles in it.
However, when I saw my teacher over the summer, she said, "Oh, I found this really funny play for us to do." It wasn't "YCTIWY." It was some other play that was a parody of TV show detectives. It sucked so much, I'm not even going mention the title of it here. And then, she told me that the only other main stage production we were going to do that year was our children's show. I WAS FURIOUS! On top of this, I didn't even get the lead role in either one of the plays!
In January, we started practicing our one act play for the Festival at ENMU. I wanted to be recognized for my acting ability and win an award. The one act play she picked (I can't remember the name) was decent, but wasn't a good fit for our acting skills. It was more of an ensemble piece, and while I didn't have the lead role, I was sort of playing the leader of the group in the drama. I was trying like the dickens to give an outstanding performance, but I wasn't backed up by the rest of the cast. We were all rather bewildered by the choice of play as it was very dark and brooding. In the middle of rehearsals, the teacher was sick for a couple of weeks. We continued to rehearse, but the substitute had no idea how to direct. (Actually, our Drama teacher didn't know how to direct, either, but at least she knew what we were supposed to do on stage.) After she came back, we ran through a rehearsal of the play. When we finished, the teacher decided we would go to Festival, but we wouldn't be putting on the play. DANG IT!
I guess that the Drama department's budget had been slashed, so there wasn't enough money to mount another production that year, and one of the areas in which we probably had to cut was in paying royalty fees. She likely had to pick something that could be really done on the cheap. However, she never explained this. As I've mentioned before, the Drama class and club disappeared the next year, so I guess I should consider myself lucky that they didn't do away with it my senior year.
As for Choir, I was disappointed in the musical the teacher chose to do. It was "No, No Nanette." It was okay, but not as much fun to do as "The Music Man" or "Bye Bye Birdie." This was my senior year and I should have gotten one of the three male lead roles. I got stuck in the chorus. My heart really wasn't into doing my best for that show.
I know how all this looks, like I'm some prima donna who thinks he better because he's a senior in high school. I really felt like I was entitled to those perks after spending all those years waiting for the other upperclassmen to leave so I could have my moment to shine. However, the underclassmen took the spotlight away from me without even trying.
And then, no girlfriend. I had one prospect for a girlfriend late the previous year. She was in the ninth grade at the time and I met her while she was in the Artesia Arts Council's production of "Annie Get Your Gun." She actually seemed interested in me, and she was smart and talented. I thought I would be able to get to know her over the summer, but she took off to be a part of the "Young Americans" performance group FOR THE ENTIRE BREAK! When she came to high school the next year, she was dating one of the football players in her class.
In the end, I guess I'm glad I had such a lousy senior year. It gave me little to look back on as I moved toward my future. It kept me from re-living glory days, Springsteen-style, because I really didn't have any. I would just continue my quest for good times. Sometimes, I would find a few.
In my upcoming breakdown of my classes, you'll also get to see how my discontent led to many unethical dilemmas. It got really bad.
From everything I had ever seen and read about being a teenager, this was supposed to be the best year of my life. Unfortunately, there were too many obstacles that kept me from enjoying my youth. One job was great, but two jobs was too much and it didn't help that I hated my second job.
The whole year, I just didn't want anything to do with anyone. I figured that if I felt like I wasn't missing out on anything, then it wouldn't really matter if I did. I almost felt worse than I did the previous year in which I considered suicide, but my entire attitude really showed it on the outside.
Things were so bad, I wouldn't even listen to music on the radio. I had almost no clue what the most popular songs of my senior year were because I was just so into my own music. When I worked at a radio station two years after graduating high school, I was surprised at the songs from that period that were big hits.
I can say that I learned how to deal with so many consecutive disappointments that year. The first one was the Drama Club. The last two years, we produced seven plays each year and performed them publicly. (Most of those plays were one acts that were one-shot performances, like at the Festival at Eastern New Mexico University and various events around town.) We did two main-stage productions and the children's play for the schools. Before my junior year ended, my Drama teacher told me we were going to do "You Can't Take It with You" by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. I was really looking forward to acting in that in my senior year. That play has a lot of great roles in it.
However, when I saw my teacher over the summer, she said, "Oh, I found this really funny play for us to do." It wasn't "YCTIWY." It was some other play that was a parody of TV show detectives. It sucked so much, I'm not even going mention the title of it here. And then, she told me that the only other main stage production we were going to do that year was our children's show. I WAS FURIOUS! On top of this, I didn't even get the lead role in either one of the plays!
In January, we started practicing our one act play for the Festival at ENMU. I wanted to be recognized for my acting ability and win an award. The one act play she picked (I can't remember the name) was decent, but wasn't a good fit for our acting skills. It was more of an ensemble piece, and while I didn't have the lead role, I was sort of playing the leader of the group in the drama. I was trying like the dickens to give an outstanding performance, but I wasn't backed up by the rest of the cast. We were all rather bewildered by the choice of play as it was very dark and brooding. In the middle of rehearsals, the teacher was sick for a couple of weeks. We continued to rehearse, but the substitute had no idea how to direct. (Actually, our Drama teacher didn't know how to direct, either, but at least she knew what we were supposed to do on stage.) After she came back, we ran through a rehearsal of the play. When we finished, the teacher decided we would go to Festival, but we wouldn't be putting on the play. DANG IT!
I guess that the Drama department's budget had been slashed, so there wasn't enough money to mount another production that year, and one of the areas in which we probably had to cut was in paying royalty fees. She likely had to pick something that could be really done on the cheap. However, she never explained this. As I've mentioned before, the Drama class and club disappeared the next year, so I guess I should consider myself lucky that they didn't do away with it my senior year.
As for Choir, I was disappointed in the musical the teacher chose to do. It was "No, No Nanette." It was okay, but not as much fun to do as "The Music Man" or "Bye Bye Birdie." This was my senior year and I should have gotten one of the three male lead roles. I got stuck in the chorus. My heart really wasn't into doing my best for that show.
I know how all this looks, like I'm some prima donna who thinks he better because he's a senior in high school. I really felt like I was entitled to those perks after spending all those years waiting for the other upperclassmen to leave so I could have my moment to shine. However, the underclassmen took the spotlight away from me without even trying.
And then, no girlfriend. I had one prospect for a girlfriend late the previous year. She was in the ninth grade at the time and I met her while she was in the Artesia Arts Council's production of "Annie Get Your Gun." She actually seemed interested in me, and she was smart and talented. I thought I would be able to get to know her over the summer, but she took off to be a part of the "Young Americans" performance group FOR THE ENTIRE BREAK! When she came to high school the next year, she was dating one of the football players in her class.
In the end, I guess I'm glad I had such a lousy senior year. It gave me little to look back on as I moved toward my future. It kept me from re-living glory days, Springsteen-style, because I really didn't have any. I would just continue my quest for good times. Sometimes, I would find a few.
In my upcoming breakdown of my classes, you'll also get to see how my discontent led to many unethical dilemmas. It got really bad.
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
A little bathroom humor, very little
Have you ever opened a door expecting to find what you were looking for to be right in front of you?
It only took one more second for me to find the bathroom.
It only took one more second for me to find the bathroom.
I am forgotten
When I was young, I liked to think of myself as a pretty memorable person. I thought everyone was so dazzled by my personality that they couldn't possibly ever forget me. I found out how untrue this was a couple of months before I turned 17.
I went to Santa Fe with a small group of other students from choir. We were going to see "The Barber of Seville" performed at the Santa Fe Opera. When we were waiting to be seated, one of the chaparones started talking to this woman I recognized.
The woman was the mother of one of my classmates from when I went to Hermosa Elementary. His name was Tid. I don't remember when I first met him, but I remember his mother coming to our class in the third grade. She was from France, and she was very distinctive looking. I remembered seeing her among the guests of the second wedding I was involved in. Out of the 200 or so people there, she really stood out.
I wasn't really that good a friend of Tid. He had a little bit of bully in him, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle, so we still hung out together somewhat. After I went to Central Elementary in the fifth grade, I figured I would run into him again in the sixth grade at Zia Intermediate. But I never saw him in school again. In fact, I couldn't even recall seeing him the first two days of fifth grade when I was still at Hermosa, so I don't know when he and his family moved away. I just know it was sometime before the Fall 1975 semester.
So it had been seven years since I saw him when I went to the Santa Fe Opera. When the chaparone had finished talking with his mother, I asked her if Tid was around. She pointed him out among these three people who were nearby. I went up and called out his name. He turned around. He had grown quite tall. I would not have recognized him as the person I went to school with. I also remember he was wearing a pancho at the time.
I re-introduced myself. "Hi, Tid! I'm Fayd Ogolon. I went to school with you in Artesia." He looked at me for a moment with a confused look on his face. He then started thinking, and said, "Oh, yeah! Mr. Ogolon's son."
I couldn't believe this. He remembered my father more than he remembered me. This absolutely shattered my self-image of being the most unforgettable person on the planet.
Tid and I caught up a little bit. At some point during the last seven years, he had been left back in school. He was just going into his junior year as I was going into my senior year. He didn't elaborate on what had happened that caused that. It did surprise me, because I never thought of him as one of the students who would be most likely to have to do a grade over. (Trust me, there were plenty of candidates for that.)
But I was still rather taken aback by the fact he didn't really remember me. As I mentioned before, I ran into my Boys State roommate later my senior year. He didn't recognize me after only six months, and we spent a whole week together with him in the upper bunk.
Every time this would happen in the future, I would get a little upset, because I feel like I put some effort into remembering people. It kind of angers me that others I meet don't put in the same amount of work in trying to keep me inside their memories for the rest of their lives.
So, I have gotten mildly used to this. Just last week, Ms. Ogolon and I went to the wedding of one of her best friends from high school. We had met her fiance at our son's 1st birthday party. We had arrived early for the ceremony at the beach. When we saw how we were supposed to park our car there, I went up to re-park it. The groom had arrived at that time and was right outside my car. I recognized him. But when he saw me, he looked like he recognized me, but couldn't recall where we had met. I told him I was the husband of his fiancee's friend and we had met at Boyd's birthday party. Then he had full recall. I can't really blame him. He had a lot on his mind that day.
Sometimes, it would be nice if I was just able to forget certain people in my past. But then, I wouldn't have much to write about.
I went to Santa Fe with a small group of other students from choir. We were going to see "The Barber of Seville" performed at the Santa Fe Opera. When we were waiting to be seated, one of the chaparones started talking to this woman I recognized.
The woman was the mother of one of my classmates from when I went to Hermosa Elementary. His name was Tid. I don't remember when I first met him, but I remember his mother coming to our class in the third grade. She was from France, and she was very distinctive looking. I remembered seeing her among the guests of the second wedding I was involved in. Out of the 200 or so people there, she really stood out.
I wasn't really that good a friend of Tid. He had a little bit of bully in him, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle, so we still hung out together somewhat. After I went to Central Elementary in the fifth grade, I figured I would run into him again in the sixth grade at Zia Intermediate. But I never saw him in school again. In fact, I couldn't even recall seeing him the first two days of fifth grade when I was still at Hermosa, so I don't know when he and his family moved away. I just know it was sometime before the Fall 1975 semester.
So it had been seven years since I saw him when I went to the Santa Fe Opera. When the chaparone had finished talking with his mother, I asked her if Tid was around. She pointed him out among these three people who were nearby. I went up and called out his name. He turned around. He had grown quite tall. I would not have recognized him as the person I went to school with. I also remember he was wearing a pancho at the time.
I re-introduced myself. "Hi, Tid! I'm Fayd Ogolon. I went to school with you in Artesia." He looked at me for a moment with a confused look on his face. He then started thinking, and said, "Oh, yeah! Mr. Ogolon's son."
I couldn't believe this. He remembered my father more than he remembered me. This absolutely shattered my self-image of being the most unforgettable person on the planet.
Tid and I caught up a little bit. At some point during the last seven years, he had been left back in school. He was just going into his junior year as I was going into my senior year. He didn't elaborate on what had happened that caused that. It did surprise me, because I never thought of him as one of the students who would be most likely to have to do a grade over. (Trust me, there were plenty of candidates for that.)
But I was still rather taken aback by the fact he didn't really remember me. As I mentioned before, I ran into my Boys State roommate later my senior year. He didn't recognize me after only six months, and we spent a whole week together with him in the upper bunk.
Every time this would happen in the future, I would get a little upset, because I feel like I put some effort into remembering people. It kind of angers me that others I meet don't put in the same amount of work in trying to keep me inside their memories for the rest of their lives.
So, I have gotten mildly used to this. Just last week, Ms. Ogolon and I went to the wedding of one of her best friends from high school. We had met her fiance at our son's 1st birthday party. We had arrived early for the ceremony at the beach. When we saw how we were supposed to park our car there, I went up to re-park it. The groom had arrived at that time and was right outside my car. I recognized him. But when he saw me, he looked like he recognized me, but couldn't recall where we had met. I told him I was the husband of his fiancee's friend and we had met at Boyd's birthday party. Then he had full recall. I can't really blame him. He had a lot on his mind that day.
Sometimes, it would be nice if I was just able to forget certain people in my past. But then, I wouldn't have much to write about.
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
White bread world
I've mentioned how I was a real picky eater when I was a kid.
I won't even be tricked by honey whole wheat. Making it sweet does not make it better.
I won't even be tricked by honey whole wheat. Making it sweet does not make it better.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)