As slowly as possible he walked out of the classroom.
He had already decided to go to the cafeteria for lunch. There it would be most likely to find a table with a few people, who wouldn’t treat him like air, how they probably would do it at the cool places like “Fred’s Pizza Place” or “Chicken House”. Even so he wanted to spend preferably less time in there, and more time just walking to his locker, getting his stuff for the next period, just feeling normal, doing what everybody else did, and over all HAVING something to do. Possibly avoiding this hurting loneliness, this acidly feeling to be totally useless and not important to any single person.
He hated the breaks when he had to see all the kids having fun, laughing eating with their FRIENDS! During classes he kind of could imagine, he would be normal, desperately waiting for the break, to meet his friends, who maybe just had different classes than he did, but in the breaks the loneliness punched his head straight into what he was…
He’d never called himself an outsider or a freak, but at the last few weeks he couldn’t get rid of exactly that impression of himself anymore.
Since his best friend Brad had moved to Arizona, he must had realized, that apparently that was it what he had always been. An outsider. The garbage of society. A bug, just brooked as long as being quiet and not getting annoying. Maybe even a freak. A weirdo. All this, what ‘s everybody’s first priority to seek away from as far as possible in High school.
He absolutely couldn’t imagine, how and why he became this way.
It wasn’t that people spoke behind his back, they didn’t bother him, beat him up or were mean to him, like they did with “the losers” and the hard core “freaks”. They simply ignored him. He wasn’t interesting, he wasn’t cool, he didn’t do all the cool stuff, people did only for that one purpose-coolness.
He simply was different. He knew that, but there were a lot of people, who were different, although they somehow even so managed to be cool or at least not ignored.
Sometimes he thought it isn’t even one’s choice to be like he was. There must have been some mean little bacteria, which goes into people’s minds, into their body, or probably rather into their appearance, or what you call your aura and it made other people just oversee you. And the worst thing was: there was no medicine! Once people got used to live without you or better only realizing you as just another kid from school, about whom they didn’t know anything, and didn’t have any interest to show effort to get to know either,then that was your destiny. Being a loner your whole school life through!
He finally had bailed out all the time rummaging in his locker, taking things out, putting other things in, before it would be too long and get weird, so he slowly made his way down to the cafeteria.
He got a sandwich and french fries and the lunch lady didn’t smile back when he said good morning.
He looked for a place to sit, but there were only free places on the “freak table”, how the name says the table where all the freaks and people like him had their lunch.
He didn’t want to feel like one of them, although he knew in fact he was one of them. The best decision would be to go to the library and pretend looking over his homework for math. This way he wouldn’t look like somebody who has no friends to hang out with during lunch, what probably didn’t make any difference, because everybody pretty much must have already known, that he was uncool and didn’t have any friends.
Once in a while he glimpsed secretly over to the table next to him, where two girls from his grade were blatantly flirting with two senior boys. He imagined himself being one of those boys. What a feeling! What would he give for being one of them, what would he give for being able to “flirt” just once, what would he give for a girl having a crush on him, what would he give…
It hurt him to think about all those things and he tried to really concentrate on his math. Maybe it was even better being a geek than being just… nothing.
Towards the end of the break, the library filled with more an more students. Students learning for a test next period or doing their homework, students chatting with their friends, students reading books, students eating their lunch, students laughing about jokes, students laughing about other students, students reading the school newspaper, students students students… and all of them seemed to be have so much fun, to be so happy, just content about what kind of life they lived and who they were or pretended to be.
He started to develop anger against those people. It just came and didn’t leave anymore. He didn’t even know what particularly made him angry about them, but somehow they aggravated him so badly, that he had to leave the library to not show his scorn and his disgust.
He started walking towards his locker again, although he had nothing to get or to lock up, he just didn’t know some other place to go. He felt a lump in his throat and he wished he could go home, lock himself up in his room and sleep so long, until he would be too old for school.
The bell rang.
Salvation for this day. Three more periods and he could go home.
He went to his classroom, sat down and the class began.
On Saturday, May 3 the Jr high track team is going to have their sub-district track meet at Siuslaw track. The teams that will be there are, Siuslaw, Myrtle Point, Coquille, and Reedsport.
Unfortunately Their Brookings Invitational meet was canceled since they had such a small team and it would cost too much to take the trip their.
Mrs. Thornton thinks that her team should do well in the sub-district, and district track meet, because every time they’ve competed with the teams at sub- districts, they’ve managed to be at the top. Mainly she said that she expected Leo Rodriguez(long jump and 100 meter dash ), Bailey Tymchuck(100 meter dash), Kami Freestone(100 meter dash), and Brandon Gannon(discus and high jump) to make it to districts with no problem at all.
To make it to the district track meet at Marshfield track, they will have to place in the top three to qualify for districts.
On Wednesday, April 22 there is a Jr High track meet in Siuslaw. They will be excused at 2:00 p.m. and will be leaving by 2:10 p.m.
They have already had two track meets this year, and they only have six per season. Plus they have no home track meets this year they are all in Siuslaw, Marshfield, and Brookings.
The Brookings Invitational is this weekend on Saturday, April 25. Sub-districts are on Saturday, May 2 in Siuslaw. Districts are on Saturday, May 9 at Marshfield Stadium.
This year the team isn’t as big as it has been but most of the team is coming out on top, like Nathan Colins winning first in the 100 meter dash in both meets. Kami Freestone placed in the top three each meet in the girls 100 meter dash also, and Brandon Gannon came in first in high jump each meet and 2nd in discus every time so far.
On April 6th there was a town hall meeting that was focused on the prevention of methamphetamine . At this meeting the Umpqua Partners did a drug overview, what role adults play in teenage drug and alcohol use, how to prevent drugs, and a K9 unit.
During the drug overview they talked about things referring to drugs and drugs. The current percentage of the children and teens in Douglas County using drugs is less than one percent. The current amount of adults using drugs however is roughly five percent.
Most of the drugs in Oregon come out of home labs unlike in other states in which the majority of drugs comes out of super labs in Southern California and Mexico.
The Umpqua partners also talked about what to do if you know of someone that is addicted and needs help. There is an office in Coos Bay called Adapt and they help drug addicts between the ages of 15 and 22 overcome the addiction.
The sheriff’s department also brought in one of their trained drug dogs to show and tell about. The dog was chosen for drug training because of its acute sense of smell and love to fetch. The dog is very well trained and people oriented. It is allowed to play and interact with people but not allowed to fetch a Frisbee or tennis ball, instead this dog plays with a white towel. Once the drug dog has found drugs then the officer with the dog takes a white towel that is always kept with the dog and play fetch for a bit.
The Umpqua Partners are working togeather to accomplish a drug free future and prevent underage drinking.
On Tuesday March 31 there was a track meet here in Reedsport. There were some wins and even a record breaker.
There were many teams there. There was Bandon, Waldport,and ECS, just to name a few.
In Pole volt, Lindsy Wright broke the record for the highest jump for her grade.
For Running , Aston Mann won the 100 meter race. Also the girls relay team won too.
All in all the team did good for it raining that afternoon.
Lindsy Wright trying her best to get over the bar. In this meet she made a new record for the pole volt. Photo by Natalia Taylor
The junior high track season has started and they only had about 12 kids show up for practice on Monday March 16th. But you still have tome to join, because their first track meat isn’t until April 9th.
The coach of the track team is LaRee Thornton or Mrs. Thornton as we all know her. She is encouraging anyone who likes to run or jump or throw to join because there’s so many events to choose from.
If you do decide to join the team practices are from 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. 5 days a weak.
Here is the meet schedule.
Date: Day: Event: Place: Leave: Time:
April 9 Thurs. Reedsport, Sunset, Sunset 2:10p.m. 3:30p.m. Myrtle Crest,Gold Beach
April 16 Thurs. Reedsport, Coquille, Siuslaw, Powers Siuslaw 2:10p.m. 3:30p.m.
April 22 Wed. Reedsport,Bandon, Siuslaw, Powers Reedsport 3:30p.m.
April 25 Sat. Brookings Invitational Brookings 6:30a.m. 10:00a.m.
May 03 Sat. Sub-District C: (Siuslaw Siuslaw 8:00a.m. 10:00a.m. Myrtle Point, Coquille, Reedsport)
May 9 Sat. District Track Meet Marshfield 8:20a.m. 10:00a.m.
It was a wonderful, sunny but not too hot day in May, when two frogs from the local tarn decided to go on an adventure trip to explore the land outside their little, cozy home tarn.
They walked for a pretty long while, examining on their way everything that seemed interesting to them, until the sun began to set and they were watching out for a doss to spend the night at.
They hadn’t had to search for a long time, when they already had found a big, wooden hutch, which immediately was decided to be their shelter for this night.
So they jumped in without any foreshadowing on that, what would await them in this hutch.
It was filled with milk.
Desperately struggling, they tried to get out of the hutch, but whatever they did, there was no chance to come free. Many hours they tried it again and again, until finally one of them whispered gasping to the other frog: “I don’t have power anymore, and there is no chance anyways to get out of here, I give up. I give up…adieu.” and he sank down to the ground of the hutch and died. But the other frog absolutely couldn’t believe, that this already should be the end of his life and he struggled and struggled the whole night through, although all his power seemed to be gone, he still didn’t give up.
And suddenly, when the sun already began to rise up above the horizon, and the birds began to sing in the trees, the milk began to become harder somehow. And after a little while it was finally hard enough, that the frog simply could jump out of the hutch. The milk had become butter.
Without hesitation and as fast as he could with the few power, that was left to him, he went back to his little home tarn and stayed there for his whole life without any further exploration trips. And still today his story is told to probably every little frog child in this world.
“Math is the most unimportant thing I’ve ever done in my life,” grumbled George while he was trying to figure out the cosine of pi over two squared and then multiplied by the third root of twenty-seven without using his calculator. “I wish all the numbers would disappear so I’d never have to do it again!”
Suddenly all the numbers, signs, the Greek letters that indicated angles and the tie of the math teacher that had numbers on it before were erased, yes they even seemed like they never existed before. All the math was gone.
First George was confused bu than he begun to enjoy the world without math. His dream had become true and nobody seemed to see the difference. Everybody around him was still acting normal except for they were not solving any math problems anymore.
George turned to his friend and asked,”hey Marc what time do we get out of here?” “Time?” Marc replied, “what’s that? And George realized that with the math also the time had gone. “Whatever,” figured he, “I can live without time and just leave my class.”
The day went on and more strange things happened to George. In his favorite class, chemistry, he couldn’t understand the teacher at all, in English he got to read a really think book by the next day because the teacher couldn’t say which pages she wanted the students to read. During lunch he got only one donut instead of two but payed twice as much as normal because nobody could give him back the change. During practice it seemed like he had to run infinite laps. For dinner his mom had made his favorite recipe, a Vietnamese beef salad but it tastes rather salty. In fact it was so spicy George had to drink a couple glasses of water. His mother must have thrown in a whole jar of pepper.
But the worst thing occurred when George finally sat down to watch his favorite series on channel 44. How surprised was he when he couldn’t find a single number on the remote or on the screen. At ten o’clock (maybe it was later, he couldn’t quite figure it out) George was so angry and exhausted he went to bed.
The next day, when his alarm clock woke him up George felt the difference in the air. He looked at his clock again and there they were again! He couldn’t remember ever having been so happy to see the figures between one and twelve. He got up looking forward to his math class for the first time.
The first home track meet occurred on Tuesday, March 31. Conditions were like expected: despite a only 30% chance of rain it did exactly this. It rained.But the Reedsport team was excited to host the meet.
Some of the team members were a little bit out of shape because of the spring break the week before.
Coach Chase was pleased with the results of the Reedsport Invitational. And Coach Angie was also happy that “her” hurtle runners did so well. Senior Lori Fraser got second and Freshmen Suzi Martinez came in third in the 300 meter hurtles.
The girl’s relay team with Jessica Cooper, Lori Fraser, Lindsey Wight, and Aston Mann got first. And also the boy’s 4 by 400 relay team worked really hard.
Camille Tisler pred in the discus for the season and has now a seasonal personal record of 89.3 feet.
In the end it even stopped raining.