Memoirs of an Insane Freshman Girl

Chapter 3: Physical Systems

Chapter 3: Physical Systems

Let's just say that my first semester of high school was full of guy issues. As previously said, I wasn't expecting to be basically stalked by a great variety of guys. There was this one guy in my physical systems class 2nd hour that frustrated me beyond my limits. I didn't have physical systems with Chris until 2nd semester, luckily, or else I'm sure Chris would have been suspended by now-if you catch my drift. This guy's name was Mike. To say that he irritated me would be a huge understatement and far too kind.

Okay, so I wasn't really much of a talker. Of course, anyone who really knows me now or at any point in my high school career would instantly protest and claim that I was lying. They would be correct in saying that I talked so much that even God himself couldn't get me to shut up. I just wasn't quite the social butterfly. I didn't do well in social situations, if it must be said. It's not like I was afraid of other people. I just wasn't the girl to start up conversations with people I didn't know. That's why my first few days as a high school student were a little rocky at lunch. But I'm getting ahead of myself again. Let's just say that I was the "silent student" in my physical systems class.

So I rarely talked to anyone because I didn't know anyone, until Mike found it imperative to reach back to my lab table and try to hold my hand. Let's just say I was a little more than alarmed. Then he claimed that my hands were always cold, which was a legitimate fact since I had health class first hour over at the annex; so, I had to walk over in the freezing cold. Of course, you may be wondering how it was so cold if I just started the school year on August 13th, but that's because this incident with Charles didn't happen until it started getting colder.

I completely skipped over my twice lab partner, Jared. He was my first lab partner, and it was obvious that he liked me. I, being the stupid, naïve girl that I was, didn't question what he was going to do when he asked if he could see my hand. Seconds later, I had an unfamiliar number scrawled on my hand with the name Jared accompanying it. Of course. It must be noted that I wasn't completely naïve and stupid, but I must have been plenty because I didn't even see that coming. I suppose that can be justified because of my lack of experience of guys basically falling at my feet begging for me to go out with them.

Of course, the attention was nice. Every girl wants to be told how cute they are and know that if they wanted to, they could get any guy they wanted. Of course it was nice to be invited to go to the football team because Jared was a football player. Not to be mean, but Jared was even more of a shrimp than my Chris. I even think he was shorter than me or at least the same height as me. Not to be discriminating, but I don't date guys who are shorter than me. I know that sounds really superficial and discriminatory, but it is one of my standards. Also, I never wanted to go out with a guy skinnier than me, but I suppose I already broke that rule for my shrimp of a boyfriend Chris. I wasn't fat or overweight; I just wasn't naturally skinny. I had to work really hard to stay my weight. I did lose weight running cross country, but it was more like I was losing fat and gaining muscles.

Okay, I know I have been avoiding it forever, but I might as well come out and say it. I have massive calves. I know no girl wants to have bigger calves than her boyfriend, but I'm pretty sure mine beat Chris's out, no matter how disturbing that may seem. I came into running cross country with already big muscular calves, and I came out with even huger, more muscular calves. Seriously, come up to me and touch my calves. They're like rocks. That's because I love running. That is my second passion in life, right after reading and writing. I count reading and writing as one thing because you need both to get better at either one. Now let's move back to my story about Mike and Jared in physical systems.

So I disappointed Jared by never calling him. I didn't really have a problem with that because behind all my kindness and sincerity is basically a coldhearted bitch. It can't be denied. It's not something I'm proud of; I just don't want to pretend I was a perfectly kind and nice person when I wasn't. Just ask all the guys' hearts I broke, and they will tell you just how cold I can be when I don't want guys in my face bothering me because I have already found someone-I want to say the love of my life, but I don't think Chris really was. (But don't worry about that just yet-we'll get to that later.)

Speaking of my coldhearted bitch qualities, there was one time when I just snapped in physical systems. I was working on a project with my new best friend Carla when it happened. Just to backtrack and explain Carla, I had met Carla in my physical systems class first semester. I hadn't really known her or even talked to her until a couple of months after school started. Carla was also in my literature/composition class fifth hour. I hadn't even really talked to her until I started going to Hydr8 at First Christian Church of Florissant, but we'll cover that later as well. Carla had just seemed to get my Chris problems, and she helped me out with that a lot. Of course, I know you're thinking. What Chris problems? I thought you were perfectly happy with Chris!

No, Chris and I were everything but perfect. As I said, we weren't even Chris-and-I until five months after I had met him. We had a lot of problems, starting with his girlfriend, but we'll get to that painful part of my life later. So Carla and I were working on a project when Mike kept trying to touch my hand while walking past me. What was even weirder is that he started trying to hold Carla's hand, and I constantly teased Carla for it. I told her that maybe Mike would like her and leave me alone. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, and to this day, I still have no idea why he was trying to touch my friend. Maybe he was trying to make me jealous? Well, I wasn't; I was happy that he was getting away from me, but I felt sorry for Carla for having to go through the same torture that I had endured.

Of course, I didn't reach to grab Mike's hand and profess my ever-growing love for him. For the first few weeks, I basically blew him off. Whenever he claimed my hands were cold or stared at me, I just said, "Whatever," or "Leave me alone." It was very ineffective as I can now philosophically attest to the fact that guys' hearing is impaired by the presence of girls who they find attractive. Apparently I wasn't firm enough because he didn't leave me alone. He continually pestered me until I finally reached my limits. After those first few weeks, I didn't say anything back to him but began giving him death glares. Anyone will tell you, I give a really mean death glare. You really don't want to be around me when that happens because it's really scary and apparently freaks some people out. Apparently, it didn't freak Mike out. He continued persisting, and I continued glaring. Then came the shouting. I began yelling, or at least speaking at a louder than necessary volume, at him whenever he tried to talk to me or touch me. I was done with him. I didn't care if he was really harmless; if I told him to go away, he should have listened to me, but that then again proves my guy hearing impediment theory.

At one point in physical systems career when Carla and I were working on a project, he still tried talking to me, and it really, really irritated me. It's hard to explain why because of course, most girls would die to have as many guys as I did falling at my feet wanting to talk to me and go out with me. Mike was just protruding into my personal bubble. I like my bubble for just me, and he was really making me angry. So I'm sure he just kept talking to me and I began to scream, "Just go away! Leave me alone! I never want to talk to you again for the rest of my life!"

Of course, I will never know why no one said anything about me screaming in the middle of physical systems class, but I suppose it wasn't completely quiet in the room since we were working on group projects about the sum of all forces. It got even worse, though, because while Mike left me alone for a couple of minutes-a blessing in and of itself-he didn't leave me alone. He came back! The nerve of that guy! He came back and tried to talk to me about why I was mad at him. There were so many things I could have yelled, but I think I basically ignored him after I asked him if he heard what I said about never wanting to talk to him again. I think Carla finally convinced him to go away because I couldn't talk to him or else I would completely lose it.

The only reason I felt a little bit bad about the whole thing was that it wasn't completely all Mike's fault. My anger really wasn't supposed to be all directed towards him because it wasn't even only him I was angry at. I was angry at the guys at our school. How could they just go up to some random girl they had never met and ask their name? Okay, when I put it like that, it sounds really stupid. Of course, maybe the guy was just being friendly, but I knew that wasn't the case. Okay, maybe I was being a little paranoid, but that wasn't my point. It's not like the guy was some guy in the girl's class who he had talked to before, maybe just about school, but not some completely random girl walking out the basement door as she was innocently trying to head to the annex and get to class. He would, of course, hold the door open for her and then as she was walking out say, "What's your name?" Do you really ask a girl's name when you hold the door for her? Okay, so she looks cute. I don't think you do. And of course the girl will already be slightly pissed off at the rest of the male population; so, she will bluntly ignore the guy who had only held the door for her not out of gentlemanly kindness, but out of the falsely mistaken hope that he would get her name and number. Nice try, fellow. Does anyone even use the word fellow anymore?

Of course, this is a completely hypothetical situation of which I had no personal part or even any interest in, except that the death glare I gave was pretty intense, even for me. Well, if I had been in that situation per se, I would have given him a death glare, of course. Not that I completely ignored him and stared at him in disgust. I wouldn't have done such a thing because I wouldn't have been in that situation because it was completely hypothetical. Right.

Okay, now to actually talk about the class of Physical Systems, not the annoying guys chasing after me. First of all, it must be noted that science is one of my most hated subjects. I was never fond of science or history, but apparently I excelled in science. I found that class to be so incredibly easy that I was dying in boredom. It wasn't like I had really been taught any science in my previous years that would make me so far ahead in Physical Systems. I hadn't even seen any of the material we covered in Physical Systems. I was just a fast learner. When the teacher explained how to do something once, I already knew how to do it. I found the endless hours we spent covering and reviewing the same material useless and a waste of time. I would have much rather liked to have learned more than reiterate the same material we had been reiterating since the first day of class. If I have to write that magnitude means size one more time, I think I'm going to scream.

We also had these weekly articles we had to read and answer questions about called journals first semester and then CSI's (Current Science Investigation) second semester. I was notorious for turning my journals in on Tuesday or Wednesday even though they weren't due until Friday. In fact, most people didn't even do the journals/ CSI's at all. They weren't what would be called difficult; they were just time-consuming. First, you had to read the article. Then you had to answer three questions in three paragraphs of fifteen sentences each. Even though this might sound weird, I actually enjoyed writing them. Soon, I graduated to typing them because I ran out of room on the lines Mrs. K provided us because I didn't want to try to cram all my brilliant thoughts onto that little piece of paper. Okay, so maybe my thoughts weren't that brilliant, but I mentioned before that I was a perfectionist. If I was going to write something, then it had to be at least semi-decent. I couldn't write fourth-grade level and length sentences. I had to write something at least semi-intelligent, which required me to type them. Of course, I can type at least twenty times faster than I can handwrite any document and have it actually be legible, considering my usual haphazard scrawling. It was extremely more convenient for me to type them, and I soon began typing them weekly. Only during the last month or so of Physical Systems did I really slack off when I turned in a couple on Friday. I had handwritten two of the CSI's during Geography during first hour, the hour before Physical Systems during second semester. I had also typed one of the CSI's during Geography when we were in the library when we were supposed to be working on this project where we had to make up our own countries. My country was called Happy Cloud. Of course, there is a story behind the name of my country, but I'm sure we'll get to that later.

It was actually a very stressful process-taking Physical Systems tests. All through first semester, I double and triple checked my answers. Then for my final, as my grade was currently at 103%, I decided I wouldn't check any of my answers. This was a miracle in and of itself because I couldn't just not look over my work. It was difficult because I was such a perfectionist, but I made myself not study for any of my finals because my grades were already so superior that the finals didn't really matter. The irony really lay in my Physical Systems final. I almost rushed through the final, just wanting to get it done and over with. I put down the first answers that came to my head and then contented myself with drawing pictures all over the final. A bonus question was to draw something that reminded you of winter, and I ended up drawing a whole page of colorful drawings because I finished the final in forty minutes. It turns out I got 110% on the final that I rushed through without really caring about. Figures.

After that final, I vowed never to check my answers again in that class. I know that sounds like a really stupid thing to vow, and it's not like it took a whole lot of time to check my answers. It's actually probably a good thing because I'm one of those second-guesser girls who pick the right answer the first time they take it but then change it after thinking about it for too long without just going with their gut feeling. Second semester became a time of serious slacking in Physical Systems. Once I realized that I didn't have to give 100% to get 100%, I began my reign of randomness. My Physical Systems teacher had fish in her classroom that only I found extremely fascinating. I'm one of those girls who never get bored. I can sit alone in my room for hours just listening to music and daydreaming. I'm not a hard girl to please and entertain. So after I finished the Do Now assignment, I always just stood up and went to stare at the fish. I know that sounds incredibly boring and stupid, but it was far more interesting than actually paying attention in that class. Of course, people asked me why I kept staring at the fish, and the only answer I had was that it was fun. It was true enough for me even though other people didn't find the fish quite as fascinating as me. My physical systems teacher accused me of harassing her fish, which isn't completely far-fetched since I did talk to them on more than one occasion. What else was I supposed to do in Physical Systems?