I sort of made an unspoken promise that I'd stop talking about students in a public forum since I often feel racked with guilt afterwards, but I just can't help myself today. There's someone I want you to meet.
In order to have some semblance of anonymity, I'll call him Elliott. I think Elliott is a pretty cool kid. I think this for the following reasons: he likes striped wool sweaters, prog rock, and he's the only kid in the room who understood what I meant when I likened postmodern literature to Eraserhead.
(And for the record, it's not that any of these things are prerequisites for me to like you, but it does help.)
Anyway, Elliott happens to also be obsessed with pirates. I admit that I don't really share in or understand his infatuation, but I do find it interesting when a 16-year-old high school kid has the balls to wear a large, stuffed parrot on his shoulder for an entire week for no other reason than because he likes pirates. He even wrote an essay on pirates, the thesis of which was that pirates were far superior to ninjas. As far as I know, he was never assigned to write this particular essay, however he did ask me to proofread it for him. Although I'm not sure that I support his thesis, the essay itself wasn't bad.
Well, as it so happens, Elliott is no longer obsessed with pirates. Apparently he's moved on to wizards, although his interest in them appears to be more of the "how to fell them" variety rather than admiration.
The subject came up today when the power in my school building (and in the entire city, in fact) suddenly and unexpectedly went off. My kids were nearing the end of taking a timed writing test, so the mood was a bit tense. When the power failed, there was perhaps ten seconds or so of confused yet curious silence when Elliott broke that silence with a quiet question -
"Is your door wizard-proof?"
I responded that I didn't believe that it was. He then asked if I had any wizard-related literature on my bookshelf. I admitted that I did have several Harry Potter books in there, if that made a difference. To this, his face turned ashen and his mouth fell agape. I was then informed by one of his prog-rock buddies that today there was a red alert on the wizard threat advisory, so the power-outing culprit was clearly evident.
Huh. How was I to know? No one bothered to tell me that wizard-related crimes has reached such dangerous levels that a terror alert system has been imposed. Turns out that the wizard meant no real malice. The students were dismissed, the power came back on shortly after, and I was allowed to use the rest of the day to catch up on grading papers, so frankly, if this is what wizards do, I say bring them on.
So anyway, that's Elliott. Just thought you might like to meet him is all.
In order to have some semblance of anonymity, I'll call him Elliott. I think Elliott is a pretty cool kid. I think this for the following reasons: he likes striped wool sweaters, prog rock, and he's the only kid in the room who understood what I meant when I likened postmodern literature to Eraserhead.
(And for the record, it's not that any of these things are prerequisites for me to like you, but it does help.)
Anyway, Elliott happens to also be obsessed with pirates. I admit that I don't really share in or understand his infatuation, but I do find it interesting when a 16-year-old high school kid has the balls to wear a large, stuffed parrot on his shoulder for an entire week for no other reason than because he likes pirates. He even wrote an essay on pirates, the thesis of which was that pirates were far superior to ninjas. As far as I know, he was never assigned to write this particular essay, however he did ask me to proofread it for him. Although I'm not sure that I support his thesis, the essay itself wasn't bad.
Well, as it so happens, Elliott is no longer obsessed with pirates. Apparently he's moved on to wizards, although his interest in them appears to be more of the "how to fell them" variety rather than admiration.
The subject came up today when the power in my school building (and in the entire city, in fact) suddenly and unexpectedly went off. My kids were nearing the end of taking a timed writing test, so the mood was a bit tense. When the power failed, there was perhaps ten seconds or so of confused yet curious silence when Elliott broke that silence with a quiet question -
"Is your door wizard-proof?"
I responded that I didn't believe that it was. He then asked if I had any wizard-related literature on my bookshelf. I admitted that I did have several Harry Potter books in there, if that made a difference. To this, his face turned ashen and his mouth fell agape. I was then informed by one of his prog-rock buddies that today there was a red alert on the wizard threat advisory, so the power-outing culprit was clearly evident.
Huh. How was I to know? No one bothered to tell me that wizard-related crimes has reached such dangerous levels that a terror alert system has been imposed. Turns out that the wizard meant no real malice. The students were dismissed, the power came back on shortly after, and I was allowed to use the rest of the day to catch up on grading papers, so frankly, if this is what wizards do, I say bring them on.
So anyway, that's Elliott. Just thought you might like to meet him is all.
Labels: cream of mushroom soup, idiosyncrasy, pirates
