Showing posts with label schools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label schools. Show all posts

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Long Ago...Seems Like Yesterday


I was pretty uncoordinated as a kid.
I’d stumble over a gnat if it was in front of me.
At St. Monica’s Girl’s High School, I played
basketball for P.E.
I was pretty good, except I kept popping the
ball into the wrong hoop.
The teacher pulled me off the court and put me
in the gym basement, along with my friend, Theresa, and gave us ping-pong paddles.

We stunk at ping-pong.
Everything but the table was a target.
The ball was flying off the ceiling, the windows.
You name it.
We made so much of a ruckus, the teacher, a
dyed-in-the-wool mean-as-a-drill instructor
woman [with little emphasis on the woman part]
came bursting into the room…
I think we cracked a half dozen ping-pong balls.
She ranted and roared for a few minutes, saying
she’d never known such two inept girls in all of her life.
If anything, Theresa and I were enthusiastic.

We both flunked first aid.
I could never figure that one out.
What’s so hard about putting on a bandage?
Oh, you’re supposed to
clean the wound first..?
But there isn’t a real wound…

I went two years at St. Mo’s before transferring
to a closer school.
I wonder if Sister Ignatius ever found the bunnies
that were bunny-napped from the bio lab…?

Monday, June 8, 2009

A Mouthful...


Some people are adept at using slanguage or incorrect
grammar in their conversations.
Phrases like "Ya know what I'm saying...?" is commonly
reiterated and means nothing.

In 1996 in Oakland, California, there was an outcry over Ebonics.
Protesters felt it was an excuse for learning grammatically
correct English.

Students wanted this sociovernacular officially
recognized as a language in school studies.
Thank God Ebonics never made it to the school curriculum.
What would have happened if Shakespeare had penned
the phrase "Yo, Romeo! What up? Peep dis..."
It makes me cringe.

Expletives are part of our language, unfortunately.
The beauty of our language has been integrated with filth.
I credit its abundant use for lack of something substantial to say.
I've always had an affinity for words.
Words can color, describe, resonate.
Words can inspire and motivate.

I credit two wonderful English Comp teachers: Ann Singer who taught
at Canoga Park High School in California and Jean Wilkinson,
my professor at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, Ca.for furthering
my love of the English language.