Before Classes: The bus ride was calm, and all that happened was that we got there 5 minutes before class started. Once I got on, I rehearsed “The Fires of Ancient Cosmic Destiny” by Gloryhammer once, and then I took a 10-minute nap near the end. Most importantly, however, I worked up the courage to talk to my crush and say her name to her, asking if we had English first just to make sure. Me and some of my friends have this in-joke that bad things happen when the number 127 is involved, especially at 1:27 PM, but Gabriel reassured me that nothing bad would happen today,

English: Yay, a new unit! And we finally started our first English book!

Band: As usual on Thursday, most kids were late, and me and a few others got their just barely in time to scan the bar codes on our folders so we wouldn’t me marked late. (There are bar codes on our folders that the Band teachers scan to automatically put our arrival time on the attendance sheet.) I was nervous the entire time through class because I didn’t want to be let out late and not get a stall in the bathroom to change for swim.

PE: By now, the coaches are just proving that we’re learning the exact same strokes as last year (aka January) in the exact same order. On the bright side, I was in a lane with my friends Laeyth and Alex (F). In the bathroom after class, Andrew kept slamming one of the stall doors so it would close properly, which prompted the third pop-in in a row from one of the coaches that ended with him getting kicked out. He also lectured the jocks on how fixing doors was the job of the facilities department.

Dance: I got to Dance about 5 minutes early since I changed quickly after PE (and they let us out early to change), which meant I was the only one in the room with the teacher. He talked to me a few times, and after he left to do something before class, Nicky arrived, and I breathed a sigh of relief. We played some piano-drum duets, and during class, we watched the remaining dance presentations that began at the end of class yesterday.

Lunch and Recess: Dessert today was s’mores, and there was nothing interesting during recess, so I spent it on the lower field watching ZJ, Solzy, and Tamir play soccer.

Math: Ms. Clementine was out, so the sub was Mr. Pizza, who is also Alex (R)’s godfather. She even called him by his first name when she walked in and he said “Hi.” Since she didn’t leave a lesson plan and the only thing on her desk was a worksheet of 48 math problems connected to the stuff we were learning. With no other information, he assumed this was our classwork, and if we didn’t finish it, it was homework. I got half of it done in class, and did two more for homework. Next to me, Jai and Alex went back and forth shipping each other. My favorites were Alex x Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump and Jai x the Mane Five plus Discord.

History: Same sub as yesterday, and we finished the Blue Planet documentary we started yesterday. We also started a Green Planet documentary afterwards. Now, here’s where the title comes in. There was a scene in the first documentary with a hippo, and Krish said that was Samir. A few scenes later, monkeys were shown, and Grayson said that was Samir. (This is kinda important, but Krish is of Indian descent and Grayson’s white.) This caused an uproar, and the Black kids (aka my friends) on one of side of the table arrangement started shouting at him. Me and Alex (F) protested that, while it was an offensive joke, he didn’t know that. Kaylah said to me “Of course you’d say that,” before covering her mouth after realizing what she said. (It’s because I’m Afro-Latino, and thus not completely Black, and I’m also a lightskin.) The sub told us that jokes like that were inappropriate, and the dean pulled Grayson out soon after. He was fine, as I saw him on the way down to my next class.

Science: Yet another sub, plus chaos. Our teacher got sick again, and the sub passed out the worksheet she assigned us. After we finished it, we worked on our study guides for the upcoming quiz. Slowly, groups of kids left early for their sports games, eventually leaving me, Cailey, Sabrina, Olivia, Maya, and Izzy as the only people left. The last minute before dismissal was probably one of the longest of my life.

Agora Meeting (Grade Meeting): The dean just told us about the field trip tomorrow to a ropes course we also did before summer break in 2022. While we were originally going to go in the (light) rain that was forecasted, the principal sent out an email after school saying it was postponed to November 15th.

After School: I just talked to Amalia and Kayla on the ride home, mostly about Band.