why_i_never_got_my_high_school_yearbook epitome of incomprehensibility I haven't been cleaning_out_the_garage, mainly since there isn't a garage to clean, but my dad's been rummaging through the basement on his vacation while I've been doing exciting summer things (learning how to cook better, learning how to code simple math in Python, biking to the local libraries, tutoring kids in math and ESL, applying for more work that better people will inevitably get, et cetera...) Anyway, I've wondered sometimes why I never got my high school yearbook, and yesterday I found out why. My dad handed me a bunch of papers from high school, asking me to sort through them, and I found an envelope marked "$ for yearbook" with fifty dollars inside. This made me happy, because I like solving mysteries and I'd rather have fifty dollars than the yearbook. I already have a picture with the names and faces of everyone in my high school class, although now that I've said that I probably won't be able to find it. 130822 ... e_o_i Besides, I was only in that school for grades ten and eleven (no grade twelve for me, vive la Québec libre!) and I hadn't really formed lasting friendships. It was a bit of a culture shock going from a small independent school to a large school downtown. And it wasn't so much the difference between the two schools, but the difference between the way I'd imagined large high schools and the actual atmosphere. I was rather disoriented when I couldn't find "the" popular crowd. Popularity was nebulous, fleeting, and people were (gasp!) differently popular for different things. And just as I'd accepted this state of things as a welcome surprise, I heard a girl saying nasty things about another girl in the cafeteria (apparently Absent Girl was a slut because she wore her pants too low) and this saddened me. I guess I'd seriously thought that no stereotypical cliques = no mean things said. My attempts to "get in" with the non-existent popular crowd were kind of funny. I remember one girl asking me what music I liked to listen to - in the cafeteria, again. I was very sure I shouldn't mention any music that I actually liked, so I said, "Well, I listen to Mix 96 sometimes" (the local pop radio station, now owned by Virgin). I was a little abashed when she dismissed it as "Top 40 crap" or the like. I wonder how she'd have reacted if I'd said Verdi or Charlotte Church or perhaps the Barenaked Ladies? On that note, I found a list, dated November 5, 2004, of "The 5 Most Annoying Songs In The WORLD" - capitalized exactly that way! These songs are, in order, Livin' La Vida Loca Fur Elise Row, Row, Row Your Boat Smoke on the Water That Spice Girls song The only one I still think belongs on that list is #2. Yeah, that's right, Beethoven. Your song is one of my top five most annoying. Proves that classics have staying power, doesn't it? 130822 what's it to you? who go blather from