Friday, February 15, 2008

Laughter: the cure of all ailments

This morning, I woke up. It seemed like a normal Friday morning, and perhaps it was. My hair was in three places at once, my eyes were running and the headache from the night before still lingered in my mind. But as I put my uniform on and brushed my teeth, I couldn't help but feel that something was different about today. Something was sure to go wrong.

I made the tedious journey to the train stop in haste, hoping beyond hope that I would catch it. It was surprising when I was able to climb onto the train successfully as my feeling of something-is-about-to-go-wrong is usually right. In fact, its not unusual for me to miss both train and bus on those unfortunate days.

I pushed the feeling out of my mind for a while. Perhaps my perception was wrong. Perhaps it would be an amazing Friday and nothing would go amiss. Alas, I could not be so lucky.

I remembered about The Math Test as I walked down the stairs towards my locker. My day was thwarted. There was no chance that any amazing occurrence could rid my day of the horrific importance of that math test. And so, my day was ruined.

I grumbled as I entered the math room and my fellow classmates looked up. Some of them had that horrified look on their face, the face that screamed "help me". Others simply smiled as I entered the room, they knew my dread and were too highly advanced in mathematical concepts to take my fear into account.

I took my seat and the teacher handed my test. After a simple thank you, I took a deep breath and took out my pencil and calculator. When considering grade 10 math tests, calculators are always your best friend. Never forget them.

The bell rang an hour later and I sighed as I handed in the test. At least I got to the last question this time.

A friend was waiting for my verdict as I left the class. She smiled in weak hope. "So?" She asked, "Fail or pass?"

"Shoot me." I replied, and headed towards my advisory room.

At this point, I wasn't in a very sociable mood. However, as I entered my advisory room, there was Clinton, like he always is, awaiting to discuss the test.

I'll admit, Clinton is a very good friend of mine, so I was not mad to see him ready to make me laugh. In fact, I think it really saved my day. He hadn't been able to answer some of the same questions that I missed, so we laughed at the most challenging parts of the test. I was sad when recess ended and I had to return to the pathetic boredom that some teachers unknowingly call "learning". However, the laughter I had shared with a few friends had once again brought me back into a good mood.

After recess came the utter abyss of boredom. Science was only interesting for the first five minutes, North American Literature was full of random comments and dozing off and last and least, came French.

French is the most boring, useless and random class of my school's entire curriculum. I would not have survived it, if it were not for laughter. Once again, Clinton came to the rescue by passing notes throughout the entire one hour segment of Français.

Our inside jokes include many youtube videos, including flight of the conchords music videos, yugioh abridged version and pokemon clips too stupid to forget.

His antics cured the ailments of frustration and boredom today, so I have no choice but to thank him.

Laughter is indefinitely the cure of all things unpleasant. Thank you to all of you out there who have the ability to bring me to my knees (literally) from laughter!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great writing, Meg! You made me laugh too!

Chuck Chagnon said...

Nice piece of bloglit. Almost everyday I wake with the question: what will go awry today? I am never disappointed with the misadventures of the day. If I did not laugh - I would surely crack.

loonyhiker said...

A good sense of humor will get you through anything. And if all else fails, remember...there's always tomorrow. Great post!

Ann Oro said...

Your mom pointed out your blog post to me. You really have a nice way with words. It sounds like you have some great friends to get through the day. You never know when your French will come in handy. I never felt like my Spanish classes were handy until I married into a Spanish speaking family.

Durff said...

"...the pathetic boredom that some teachers unknowingly call 'learning'..." I simply love it! That is exactly it! Now if I could just convince some learners that I am asking them to think, to engage, to use those 20 some billion neurons.

Anonymous said...

Nice post. Some of your comments remind me of my 15 year old daughter, such as comparing test results as you walk out of class. I will pass this post on to her. Keep on writing.

Stewart said...

Student, teacher, employer, family member--everyone has a good day when they laugh! Some questions for you: Have you every had a teacher who made you laugh and enjoy class as if it was taught by a friend? And, what in the world would you do if it were a Math Teacher? Would the day of The Math Test have brought less foreboding thoughts?

John Schinker said...

You poor girl. You have a bunch of teachers reading your blog. It sounds like you're frustrated with the irrelevance of your curriculum, and I'd have to say that you have a point. So much of what we teach is there because we've always done it that way.

Keep smiling, keep laughing. Sometimes, that's all you can do.