Random Story – Quick stories from school

These are just odd little stories from my life.

Speeling

I was a terrible speller back in school. I can’t remember which grade it was, maybe 7th or 8th, but the English teacher gave a weekly spelling test. She said she would continue giving them until everyone in the class had received at least one 100%. I was the second to last person in the class to get a 100%, and I remember it happened on my birthday, which is in February, so it took me awhile. The other thing I remember is that when I took out a sheet of paper and put my name on it, I wrote “speeling test” on it. (That’s why I put that as this blog title, it’s not a typo!) The teacher said she wasn’t sure if my 100% should count because of that, but I think she wanted to stop giving the tests, so nothing more was said.

The reason I brought this up, is that my spelling has greatly improved over the years. The best reason I can think of is my writing. Yes, I do count on the spellchecker to catch mistakes, but most of the time it seems like I use it for words I don’t know how to spell. I just get something close, then pick the correct one out of the spellchecker options. But I was surprised the other day when – for a story – I spelled aneurysm correctly. (And I just did it again!) Back in high school I’d probably spell it anyourism. If my high school English teachers could see me now.

Not doing my calculus homework.

I can’t remember if it was in pre-calc, or calc class, but one day I show up and the teacher says something about checking our homework.  And I had completely forgotten that he had assigned a dozen or so problems the day before.  So I sat there for twenty or so seconds almost crapping myself because A, I couldn’t believe I had completely forgotten to do my homework, but also B, we had a homework grade.  I wasn’t in any danger of failing, but I was a good student who didn’t want the teacher – who was pretty cool – to think I was a slacker, or whatever.

Well, the way he checked our homework was to walk around to see what we had done and if we had any questions.  Fortunately, for me, the first girl said that she had trouble with the last problem.  Thinking quick, I turned to a blank page in my notebook, and copied down problem 12, or whatever.  I started working on it, and I got to a part and got stuck. 

So I’m trying a couple things on this problem a minute or so later when I notice the teacher standing next to me.  I look up and say, “I’m just trying to figure out this last one.” He nods and moves on to the next student.  Sometimes, being known as a good student pays off.