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Feb. 13th, 2004 11:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
godreamI spent most of yesterday utterly convinced at some deep level that it was Friday, so I'm not quite sure what I'm doing at school today.
It's been possibly the most low-key Valentine's Day I've seen in high school, which may have something to do with it not actually being Valentine's Day, but rather the last school day before it. No candy grams, no roses, no ridiculous quantities of red and pink walking around the school. That sounds vaguely bitter, but it's not. Just an observation. Anyways, it's making it difficult to summon up the quantities of angst necessary for my annual v-day poem. *sigh* My life is full of trials, I tell you.
So today during creative writing class the teacher sent us out on a ten-minute hall wander in search of inspiration & story starters. I strolled down the hallway (what has that boy done to get kicked out of class?) and past the annex (whose apology is written on the Fountain sign and why?). Then I stood and stared out at a courtyard, where a subtle plaque declares the space "a quiet and enduring tribute to life", in memory of a young woman who would be fifty now, were she still alive. It also says the place was "designed by L-S students". And of all the people I passed and all the notes on signs and lockers and scraps of paper discarded on the flat carpet, I thought I'd most like to write about that.
There's the obvious -- who was Lorene, and what about her was so special that losing her made the school community invest what must have been a significant amount of time and money in a rememembrance of her? How did she die? I wouldn't write about her specifically, because she was real and I wouldn't want to... you know. But, potential fictionalization. The next question I had was who were these students who designed the place? Who planned how the plaque would nestle under one of the trees, the placement of my favorite sunny bench, the gently spiraling ramp down to a sunken alcove where the snow builds up every winter? Were they all her best friends, reminiscing about her life and pointing out that here was a place she'd love to sit? Were they a motley, Breakfast Club-ish group, connected by the vast holes in their lives -- maybe not just of her, but of everyone they'd lost? Did they drag their heels on the way to planning sessions, reluctant but determined? When I mentioned this story bit in class, my teacher added the question: what does it mean to make a memorial?
And while I was standing, staring out the windows of the glass hallway and trying to figure out what to scribble in my slim black-and-white notebook to sum it all up, one of the English teachers stopped by me. I think I know her name; she may have known mine. But I'd never had her for a class. Anyways, she paused briefly, and we talked for a moment, and it was an odd sort of peaceful thoughtful awkward conversation covering some of what I've just mentioned, and some that I haven't. Kinda makes me grateful for being in a school where a teacher would pause and talk, where that seems normal. Aw, warm fuzzies. Anyways.
And of course I could ramble for ages, I could write that story right now, but I have to go try to fix my Towers of Hanoi program. Recursive algorithms are wicked cool but a pain in the neck to implement.
It's been possibly the most low-key Valentine's Day I've seen in high school, which may have something to do with it not actually being Valentine's Day, but rather the last school day before it. No candy grams, no roses, no ridiculous quantities of red and pink walking around the school. That sounds vaguely bitter, but it's not. Just an observation. Anyways, it's making it difficult to summon up the quantities of angst necessary for my annual v-day poem. *sigh* My life is full of trials, I tell you.
So today during creative writing class the teacher sent us out on a ten-minute hall wander in search of inspiration & story starters. I strolled down the hallway (what has that boy done to get kicked out of class?) and past the annex (whose apology is written on the Fountain sign and why?). Then I stood and stared out at a courtyard, where a subtle plaque declares the space "a quiet and enduring tribute to life", in memory of a young woman who would be fifty now, were she still alive. It also says the place was "designed by L-S students". And of all the people I passed and all the notes on signs and lockers and scraps of paper discarded on the flat carpet, I thought I'd most like to write about that.
There's the obvious -- who was Lorene, and what about her was so special that losing her made the school community invest what must have been a significant amount of time and money in a rememembrance of her? How did she die? I wouldn't write about her specifically, because she was real and I wouldn't want to... you know. But, potential fictionalization. The next question I had was who were these students who designed the place? Who planned how the plaque would nestle under one of the trees, the placement of my favorite sunny bench, the gently spiraling ramp down to a sunken alcove where the snow builds up every winter? Were they all her best friends, reminiscing about her life and pointing out that here was a place she'd love to sit? Were they a motley, Breakfast Club-ish group, connected by the vast holes in their lives -- maybe not just of her, but of everyone they'd lost? Did they drag their heels on the way to planning sessions, reluctant but determined? When I mentioned this story bit in class, my teacher added the question: what does it mean to make a memorial?
And while I was standing, staring out the windows of the glass hallway and trying to figure out what to scribble in my slim black-and-white notebook to sum it all up, one of the English teachers stopped by me. I think I know her name; she may have known mine. But I'd never had her for a class. Anyways, she paused briefly, and we talked for a moment, and it was an odd sort of peaceful thoughtful awkward conversation covering some of what I've just mentioned, and some that I haven't. Kinda makes me grateful for being in a school where a teacher would pause and talk, where that seems normal. Aw, warm fuzzies. Anyways.
And of course I could ramble for ages, I could write that story right now, but I have to go try to fix my Towers of Hanoi program. Recursive algorithms are wicked cool but a pain in the neck to implement.
