Memories #3 (high school)

I went to an amazing high school called Lane Technical College Prep and back then it was just 9th-12th grade, with each entering class of 1000 kids so the building would have about 4000 kids every day inside the building not including staff. Now they have let 7th and 8th graders into the 4th floor so I am not sure how many kids are in the actual high school. Anyways, the building and its beautiful campus looks like a college and if you were in grades 10th-12th you got to have open lunch campus meaning you could eat out at the nearby restaurants during your lunch hour. It was some of my best times and I look back at high school with almost always a smile. I have so many stories since it was such an interesting time but they are very random.

1. My first one begins with finding an interesting hobby. I forgot the name of the class but the teacher was so quirky and we learned about American History but it wasn’t an actual history class but an elective. She would always be teaching us random things and one day she brought in the TV to show us commercials. OMGGGG I loved it! This is where I found my love for commercials and especially Jingles. I love catchy jingles and humming them and even to this day I sometimes go on YouTube and watch old commercials for their jingles. My favorite to date is the Alka Seltzer one, “Plop plop fizz fizz oh what a relief it is” I buy alka seltzer even when I don’t need it just to have in the house so whenever I look at it I sing the jingle. My kids sing jingles now and if I hear a really good one I always contact the company and tell them how I love their commercial and jingle. When Mad Men came out I fell in love! I loved seeing the behind the scenes of it but wish they did more jingles instead of print ads. This class also had my first foreign exchange student I ever met. He was from Brazil, really short, zits all over his face, but the most beautiful ocean blue eyes I have ever seen. I loved having conversations with him speaking Portuguese and me Spanish and we would go on all class just talking and deciphering what we were saying to each other. I wish I stayed in contact with him because he was really nice and I wonder if he ever came back to the States after his year at Lane.
2. Junior Year was my favorite year of high school. I had awesome classes and one of them was Earth Science, my lab partner was really cute and the two guys behind me ended up being great friends too. My teacher was even Mr. America at some point in his life which was shocking because his class was so boring but he was always so polite and would call me Ms. Janet and basically he was the complete opposite of Mr. America in my mind lol. One time, we had to turn in our Solar System projects with drawings of our SS on black paper and facts about each planet. My lab partner was always late and never turned in homework, he basically just copied off of me, but he was really funny on the days he did show up so he was my favorite lab partner. Anyways, he was also an art major and on the due date he comes in so proud and showing off his SS and it was beautiful! Like amazing and I didn’t even know he had that much talent and while I am looking at it I am like “Julio, where are your facts?” He is like, “what are you talking about, we were just suppose to draw the solar system.” He then goes to look at everyones SS with their facts and I see the panic in his eyes lololololol. I pull out my white crayon and tell him to stop freaking out and just copy my facts since we all had the same ones. He copies it in less than 10 min and ends up with 100% just like me and hugs me thanking me for saving his life. I wish we kept our SS projects because I would have liked to have kept his since my middle is obsessed with space he would have enjoyed his own special solar system.
3. I rarely got in trouble in high school but I will never forget the day in 9th grade I did something stupid that I cant even remember during lunch and the security guard took my ID and I had to push the garbage can around the whole cafeteria to collect garbage so I could get my ID back and I cried the whole time. My friends still don’t let me live this down since in retrospect it was no big deal but I had never gotten into trouble and it was so embarrassing for me.
4. I have worked my whole life and in the summers our high school would hire students to help clean the garden, be assistant administrators, sand and lacquer all the woodshop tables and so on. The summer of Junior to Senior I worked there with my friend Michelle and X (same girl as my post about death.) I had somehow ended up getting picked to work a cozy position in the Records Office copying and sending transcripts to peoples’ colleges with X’s ex boyfriend. Well when she found out she freaked out!!! She even complained to our boss that she heard from the Records lady that we talked too much so he split us up. I still got the cushy job and he had to pull weeds in the garden. He hated her after that especially since they dated Freshmen year and this was years after. We did flirt a lot I would admit and he did ask me out but unlike her I could never do that to someone when I knew that person meant so much to her. She was very obvious in her still lingering feelings so as much as we would harmlessly flirt in the office I never flirted in front of her and never ate lunch with him even though he would ask me all the time.
5. Sophomore Year I had an awesome Architecture class with Michelle and X and it was a partnership with Marwen (to this day an awesome arts program for teenagers in Chicago.) They adored me and Michelle not so much X. We went on so many amazing field trips and all free thanks to the Marwen. One time we went to the Pullman neighborhood to visit the town he built and I captured an amazing ghost picture at the hotel there. It was very eerie in general and it was even more amazing to see a silhouette of a woman in Victorian wear staring out the window. X kept the photo and now it’s lost forever but it was so exciting to see it when we did. Even the architects were spooked and tried to tell us it was nothing but we all knew. Another time we were in Oak Park looking at the Frank Lloyd Wright houses and one of the home owners came out screaming at us to get off his property. Our teacher was like don’t listen to him since we were across the street but this guy was livid and screaming and called the police when we weren’t even on his property. It was like a walking tour, we didn’t go up to the houses we just drew what we liked and observed. Anyways, to add to this perfect storm our bus broke down and our teacher began yelling at everyone. He got so mad at me and Michelle he ordered us to stand in one sidewalk square away from the group to give him peace and quiet while he thought about what to do but the group just ended up moving towards us since we brought the laughs. In the end someone let our teacher use their cell phone and he called for help and we got on another bus and he even apologized at us for screaming and making us stand in a square but I could never be mad at him anyways because he was so nice and we could be very annoying. This class also did 2 big projects one in first semester then other in second semester. Our first semester project I was paired with Michelle and 3 other people and we had to design Goose Island (not the beer but the actual piece of land) into our ideal neighborhood for Chicago. I was tasked with doing the model and in perfect Janet form I waited until the due date to skip all my classes and build it. I brought my hot glue gun and tons of different color construction paper. Michelle even skipped 2 classes to help me with it and while it looked very child like, it was colorful and went with our theme. Imagine my surprise when the panel of architects rated ours the best model!!! We all got A’s and X was furious since she was in charge of her group’s model and they called hers lacking creativity LOLOLOLOLOLOL. I loved presenting it and BSing my way through it and even more that they loved the idea behind it to add more color and more inviting for families and kids to come and be a part of the community. It was amazing!
6. My Senior year of high school started off great but midway became a nightmare. That is another story for another time, but senior year I had another amazing elective class, Marine Biology. I heard from everyone it was an easy class and even though it wasn’t an honors class I wanted to be in it because I heard you got to dissect things. Back then you would get a card you have to fill out with what classes you wanted and after school you had to race to get the ones you wanted because it was first come first serve and the teacher had to sign off on your card. I raced to get this class and when I got it I was so happy. We got to dissect so many animals it was amazing to learn so much first hand. I was really lucky because I was always paired with people who did not want to dissect so I got to do that part while they wrote out the lab report. It was an easy A and one of my favorite classes after my Architecture classes. Some things I got to dissect were a squid, a shark, and various fish. I really found my love for carefully using the knife and being able to keep my animal in tact and not stabbing too much or messing up the organs. I still can’t believe we got to do that in high school.