• Tyler Woods’ Journal Entry #2
    March 12, 2010

    tab I could almost feel the piercing eyes of the two dozen classmates staring at me. Tried to be polite, but after sitting down, ended up being more direct than I meant to be to the African American boy sitting next to me,
    tab “Staring is rude.” Looking at him, maybe that wasn't the best thing to say. He was the kind of guy I could tell lifted 100 pound weights every day; his muscles bulging out of his tight, revealing t-shirt. Large chin, a goatee beginning to poke out of his rough looking skin.
    tab Thankfully, though, he just rolled his eyes, although this triggered another string of words to spill out of my mouth,
    tab “Something I said? Do you disagree?” His head quickly whipped around to face me, followed by his matter of fact tone of voice,
    tab “Look, I don’t know who you think you are, but I know already you ain’t funny.”
    tab “Actually, the correct term in that sentence would be ‘you “aren’t” funny’, on the contrast to ‘you “ain’t” funny’. “Ain’t”, though found in the dictionary, is widely determined to be ungrammically corr…”
    tab “Oh my God…would you just shut…” Bell rang. The whole class squelched. Even the noisy African American, though with rolled eyes, of course.
    tab “Tyler Woods?” the teacher announced to the class, his face buried in his attendence book. I stared my at him for a second, but it only took just a glance to see he was just like any other, stereotypical teacher. Large round glasses, short brown hair buzz cut on the sides, just dangling a little bit on the front. His chin showed no sign of hair, his black, almost silkish button up shirt stood out rather boldly amidst the rather bland classroom.
    tab But what did any of that mean to me? After that quick speculation, I raised my right hand.
    tab “That would be me, sir.” Whole class giggled. Chuckled. Even laughed.
    tab “Did something in my sentence imply comedy?” The teacher ignored all this, or at least pretended to, and went on looking up at me,
    tab “Tyler. Though we all appreciate your being here, we do not appreciate your hat on your head.”
    tab “Specifically, sir,” I corrected, “it’s a beanie.” Visibly, there was a sign of annoyance. Verbally, he did a good job of hiding it.
    tab “Yes. Beanie. Would you please put it away, Mr. Woods? We do not permit hats-beanies- in school.”
    tab “Would you like to hear a story, sir?” I asked, hands folded neatly on my desk. The teacher flinched, and lifting his spectacles up higher on his nose, he said,
    tab “Please, Tyler. My name is Mr. Smith.”
    tab “Very common last name, I see.” Another flinch. I repeated, now with his desired name included,
    tab “Would you like to hear a story, Mr. Smith?”
    tab “Well,” he began, glancing away from me, “if it’s relevent.”
    tab “Relevent?” I asked. “To what? Social studies, or me?”
    tab “Just tell the God—God darn…story…” He had saved himself from swearing, an obvious sign of irritation. As he slowly walked towards his desk, I began,
    tab “All right. About four days ago, I woke up in an old man’s house. I had no memory of my past. Had no idea who I was. Didn’t even know my own name. Then I walked over to the coffee table, and picked this up.” I took off my beanie, and just stared at it. A regular old beanie. But it was my regular old beanie. That’s what made it special.
    tab “These are the clues left for me. Myself, the clothes I was wearing, and my beanie.”
    tab “So,” I continued, putting back on the beanie, “if it’s all right with you, I’d like to break one little school rule, and keep this on my head.” We both just looked at each other for a couple seconds, and then he opened his mouth, the words following with about five seconds delay,
    tab "Huh..." he muttered, smiling a bit as. I could tell he didn't believe my story.
    tab "And what would that mean?" Not exactly answering the question, he replied,
    tab "Very well, Tyler. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to make an exception." Hey, Mr. Smith may not have been the most original looking or acting teacher, but so what? I was starting to like him.

    tab 11:35, in the lunch line. Guess the black kid still didn’t like me. Found this out, as I was fortunate to be right next to him in the line.
    tab “You think you’re cool, don’t ya’?” Calmly, I reached for the ketchup and let it over my bread for a couple seconds. After a tight squeeze, the red goo begins to ooze out, neatly layering itself onto my sandwhich.
    tab “No,” I said, placing the ketchup back on the counter. “But I suppose the literal meaning of that question would probably simply be ‘you’re not cool.’”
    tab “Obviously,” the boy seethed.
    :tab"“Well, if it’s not too difficult for you,” I went on, moving a couple inches forward in the line, “I’d rather you be blunt.”
    tab “Look!” he exclaimed, a sudden, killer grip on my collar. “Mr. Smith might believe your stupid little story, but not me! Not anyone else in the class, either! And if the teachers can forgive you for breaking a stupid school rule for such a stupid excuse as that, then I think I’ll probably get away with this.”
    tab “So you think you’re going to beat me up, then?” I asked, reaching for my plastic knife on my tray.
    tab “Right.”
    tab “No,” I quickly said, twirling around. “Wrong.” The emotion of his face made abrupt changes from an angry, killer expressioin; to eyes filled with fear; to a large mouth wailing in pain.
    tab It only took me moments to realized what had just happened. The whole line went quiet. The guy’s right cheek…The color of sloppily thrown on, blush red paint…
    tab Only it wasn’t red paint.
    tab “Gah! What is your problem?”
    tab “Apologies,” I said smoothly, though the shock inside was swelling up. “I had no notion to believe I was able to do something like…that.” And obviously, I didn’t. Making someone bleed like that with a plastic cafeteria knife was simply unheard of.
    tab “Oh, great. An apology. Maybe you should’ve thought it through in the first place, Mr. Apologetic Genius!”
    tab “Thank you.” The boy raised his eyebrows, a questioning look planted on his face as if he had heard something wrong.
    tab “What?”
    tab “You called me a genius,” I answered simply. “I was simply thanking you for the complement.”

    tab A summary of my first day at school? Had a discussion about beanies with the teacher, who’s name was the generic Mr. Smith. Cut a guy’s cheek in the lunch line. The guy complemented me, and I thanked him. Later, though, he told me he was being sarcastic, and that it was actually an insult. Needlessly complicated, if you ask me. Ended up in the principle’s office and had an extended discussion on appropiate behavior of students. Said I was getting of lucky for the fact that I wasn’t being suspended. Worst part of it all? Now the prinicple had taken away my beanie privelidge.
    tab My thoughts? First day was…bad, to use as simple and blunt vocabulary as possible. I was in hope of a better second day, but my expectations?
    tab Very low.