Cammy

I get really nervous before school starts. I can’t eat because my throat is all “hell no,” and then my tummy is all “HELL no.” It twists and turns and flops and I get clammy and everything feels too warm and suffocating. I inevitably start thinking about my third grade science teacher telling us how bad carbon dioxide is. (To this day, I am 100 percent convinced that warm air is carbon dioxide; I can’t even be under my covers too long before thinking, you better watch out for that CO2 man, it’s bad!) I also start sweating on my legs and my lower back and it’s just so gross.

But last week, I started my junior year of high school and I felt fine! My first day felt like any other day at school. Maybe it’s because my first two classes were two of my favorites—French and Computer Science. I had the same teachers I had last year, so I didn’t experience that feeling of not knowing. It makes me think, maybe it’s not knowing what will happen that usually makes me so nervous. Coming in to my first two classes knowing the teacher, my classmates, and what was expected, made it easy.

This year I’m taking Honors English Three, and my teacher is literally all over the place. He sometimes speaks in a weird language similar to pig Latin but with an “f” sound following every syllable. He almost never wears shoes and he plays music over the speakers while he’s talking or while we’re working. So far, he’s played Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Alt J, Beyoncé, The National, and that band with a song in a Geico commercial. He rides a skateboard up and down the classroom’s center aisle and sometimes he’ll hop on a desk and start yelling—but not in a bad way, I think he’s just really expressive. We also have this classmate named Carliscious who is basically a scarecrow. Truly, he’s a shirt and pants stuffed with hay or something, his head is a kickball with a face drawn on, and he wears a hat. Carliscious is also included in roll call. As wild as my teacher seems, he’s actually really good.

This week, we have an essay to write. So far, nothing I’ve written for this class feels like me. I’ve been trying so hard to sound like I belong in the class, using big words and constructing huge sentences: I was turning in the work I thought my teacher wanted to read. Now that I know there’s a degree of freedom in what we’re doing, it takes a lot of pressure off. Our assignment is to write about A Mercy by Toni Morrison—probably the most difficult book I have ever read. It jumps back and forth in time; perspectives switch without warning; it’s set in the late 1600s (BARF); and it’s about slavery, religion, and mercy. The latter concept is apparently SO important that our prompt for this essay reads, “Should this book be called ‘Mercy’ or ‘A Mercy’?” Like, are you kidding me? That’s so vague! We’ve been provided some background information about why Morrison picked that title, but I guess I’m meant to question whether there’s one big mercy that shapes the entire book or if there are multiple mercies throughout it? Anyway, I’ve been trying so hard to keep up with that class that I skipped the first three days of my honors chemistry class and sat in the bathroom doing English homework instead. (OK, not entirely because I was working so much on my homework, but the chemistry class is at upper campus and it was hot this week!)

Besides all the chaos of my English class, being back at school means getting together with my friends and eating lunch together. In French class, I saw my friend Jasmine, who really makes that class. We are two peas in a pod (actually, pisces—we are pisces in a pod), we just vibe so well together. In all, I’m starting to feel more comfortable with school, and I am having a really good go with life right now. My friends and my work are all coming together. Life feels really solid right now. ♦