A Return?

I was thinking the other day of my high school. This was even before I saw that they were set to compete in the state football championship, but that did intensify my thought. I was thinking about how I spent my time there and what my lingering feelings about the place are. It has been some twelve years since my terrified graduating night (when I sat in my cap and gown all evening full of fear that I lacked the credits to walk).

High school was a difficult time obviously, as it is for most people. I suspect it is not as happy a time as it seems even for those seemingly blessed people who later might regard the time as the best in their lives, but I was not one of those people. I knew and was close to few people then. It is for that reason that I doubt I would have much interest in attending a reunion. I have never received notice of one, but as we still receive mail at the address where I then lived, I'm sure I will when the time comes. Is it ten years, or fifteen?

Seeing Far

Yesterday was an eventful day. I don't know that I'll get to all of it, but there is enough I'm sure I want to describe that it won't all come today. The thing that's on my mind presently is something that happened outside the library in Hollywood. I had just come out after finding myself a DVD. There's more that precedes this and more that follows it, but this is what it's going to be today. There were telescopes.

Some kindly organization of what I assume to be volunteers was there with a pair of home-made telescopes. It was a peculiar thing, having two telescopes set up in the middle of Hollywood before the sun had even set, but they were pointed at the moon, which was visible and quite vividly captured by the instruments. Having time to kill, I spent nearly an hour there chatting with the volunteers and periodically have a fresh glimpse into the eyepieces.

For The Trash

I get plenty of items in the mail from college. I went to two colleges, or I suppose I ought to say technically three. I got degrees from two (which would be an associates' and a bachelors' ), and took two summer classes at a third. I think I'm remembering this right. In any case, what is relevant is that I have gotten very little in the mail from the two junior colleges. I don't know what is the reason for their lack of interest in my post-college life, but I appreciate it.

That third school would be the one from which I got my four-year degree. I want to stress that I got a fine education. I have no complaints about that. If I did, they would have more to do with me than with the institutions in question. I had excellent opportunities to learn where I went, but I am not entirely pleased with what I get in the mail from that third school. They're always wanting things from me. Before my loans are paid, they want donations, and more besides that.

SAT Story

A few days ago, I found myself reminiscing about the bad old days of formal public education. They were hard times in a sense, although this bird now fondly recalls the security and sense of direction provided by the cage in which he sang. As high school drew to a close, a world in which one had to earn the next level of education finally had to be faced. Due to my adventures in unlicensed charter schools, I had found myself quite far behind in credits, and so in my senior year was frantically and assiduously struggling to catch up with a full load plus correspondence courses and a class at the community college. This was just for my diploma.

So that I might have some hope of attending college, it seemed wise to tune up on the old Scholastic Aptitude Test. It was, I gather, different then than it is today, for they have now apparently decided to make it a real and effective means of determining suitability for university admission. At the time, there were the two sections, Verbal and Mathematics. Each was worth 800 points, making 1600 a perfect score. I knew full well how weak I was in the latter section, as did my mother. It was decided that a prep course would be  a good way of bringing me up to snuff in that area. It seems as much now as it did then that such courses are more a way of gaming the system than actually gaining knowledge.