Yer Blues

It has been a crazy week. As usual.

Things started out predictably, with the dreaded word paper. I finished mine and turned it in, not without a great deal of frantic rushing around and so on, but at least now I can put it out of my mind for a while. My word is "regret"; my book, Mrs. Dalloway; my film, The Big Chill. I really like everything about it, but of course it's still a pain to get it all done. I felt okay about it until Sapna got hers back on Wednesday with a C. Sapna is the quintessential English student, whose papers Mrs. Longhenry always uses as examples to read to the class, so her relatively low grade does not bode well for the rest of us. I won't get mine back for a while, since she's grading and returning them in the order they were turned in, and I didn't get mine in until after school Tuesday because of WYSE.

Speaking of WYSE, that actually was very nice. Taking the tests is still boring, but I enjoyed hanging out with April, Aashesh, Lindsey, and Kelly Rockwell. Matt Strong and I tied for first in English in our division, with Kelly getting second, which was extremely nice. Playing Egyptian Ratscrew with Aashesh, Lindsey, and April was nice, especially with Aashesh saying things like, "You have to be faster...to beat the master!" and then laughing evilly. On the way home, Mr. Holstein treated us all to Dairy Queen, equally nice. And of course it's always good to miss school.

The week went downhill from there. Upon arriving at QB practice on Wednesday, I was informed that Will was not going to be with us because of an English project. Ms. Greene told him that he wouldn't get to play on Saturday because of missing practice, so he said that he wouldn't come on Saturday. He's going to be ineligible next week because of an unexcused absence, so that means he's gone for the rest of the year. Then, yesterday, Ross told me in bio that she had called Adam the night before and told him that he wasn't going to be able to play at State (assuming we get there) because of missing Masonic State. Patrick, on the other hand, was able to miss practice last night for baseball without repercussions. That's right. Baseball is apparently considered more important than homework in this alternate universe of hers.

Last night, I told my mom that I was upset enough to consider quitting the team, meaning not going to State if we get that far. She offered to call Ms. Greene and let her know about my feelings. Today, I found out that after talking with my mom, Ms. Greene called everyone else on the team (excluding Adam and Will, naturally) to ask them if they shared my feelings, which angered me. At lunch, Ms. Greene had me sit down so she could talk to me. She did concede that Will and Adam are both invited to join us at State; they just won't be able to play. Obviously I understand that Will's ineligible, but there is absolutely no excuse for Adam being left out. There's room on the roster for him. It's stupid and mean-spirited. She claims that he hasn't shown the same commitment as other players have, and it wouldn't be fair to let him play. If missing practice once or twice because his grandma was in the hospital and electing not to go to Masonic State because of a huge English paper counts as not showing commitment, then I guess she's right. In other words, bull.

There doesn't seem to be anything I can do, and anyway, none of the other guys seem to care, including Adam and Will themselves. For a little while there, I really didn't care about whether we won or lost, but now my desire to win (or at least place) at State is renewed. I still don't agree with Ms. Greene, though, and I will never agree to her stupid rules about homework not being an excuse for missing practice.