Repercussions (of course)

Well, I didn't really think I'd get away with my Juno McGruff stunt, so when I got called in to the Dean's (Mrs. Quillacy's) office, I knew what it was about. Of course, the note on the slip that said "per Bobby Biggs" (the janitor's name) didn't help conceal what was about to happen.

Detention.

Oh yes, of course. Repeated "Insubordination," and "Disrespect," was what I was being punished for. To be perfectly honest I suppose I deserve it, but I still wasn't looking forward to it. Luckily for me, all I got was detention, which really wasn't that bad.

On the day of reckoning, I walked to the Finances office to serve up my time with Mr. Jaszkowski. His daughter was a good friend of my family; Michael had gone out with her for quite a long time. She was incredible - national scholarships, state championship in softball, seemingly perfect. I had never met her father really, but she had been a lifeguard at Lowell a couple of years, so I did get to see her plenty.

At first, Mr. Jaszkowski was actually going to let me off the hook, worried he would run the risk of me missing my ride. But I had actually told my carpool in advance and he was happy to stay a bit late. So he gave me some stamps and some letters, and I got to stamping. What wonderful mindless work. Mr.Jaszkowski sat down next to me and asked me what I was in trouble for. "Insubordination." I told him, recalling the words of the dean.
He laughed. "I've had a lot of kids come through here for a lot of things, but never have I heard that!"

As I told him about the events of Friday, I was happy to see that he was sympathetic more than anything. He told me that he knew how Bobby Biggs could be. I nodded in agreement, beguiled by his understanding. He even told me about his own story as a kid.

When he was a kid, he went to a catholic school as well, a little bit stricter than this one, and whenever there were assemblies, one of the monks (Brother Dan, I think it was) would stand by the doorway and make sure nobody left to go home until it was done. But Mr. Jaszkowski would walk right past him, and that Brother Dan would just left him go. Because there was an unspoken agreement between Dan and Jaszkowski. Brother Dan was saying, I'll let you go home and skip the assembly. Mr. Jaszkowski was saying that he wouldn't disrupt the assembly.

Ha! What a troublemaker, huh? He reminds me of me! And he's a successful businessman, managing the funds for the best school in Boise! That cheered me up. After laughing a bit over that, he simplified Friday's situation for me. "You can walk by a pig pen and see a pig snort at you, and you can go ahead and wrestle that pig to the ground, but at the end you'll be covered in mud and pig crap. So when you wrestle with pigs, you're gonna get covered in pig crap."

I got the point.

My Crazy Friday

This was quite an eventful Friday for me. We had the day off from school, probably because it was the very first football game of the season. And the band was performing for the game, so Troy and I left for Bishop Kelly at two. That was when our band director, Mr. Haskell told us to be there. He didn't mention that he actually wouldn't be there 'til 5. So I had three hours of absolutely no obligation and virtually nothing to do.

So, I looked around the school for anything I could help out. It was a big night after all, and I though some people could help. I walked into the cafeteria to find a some mothers setting up a dinner for the football players. I asked one if there was anything I could do to help. She handed me her keys and told me to drive her car over to the Carly Center and unpack some juice and food out of the trunk for some after-game party. I felt a dilemma for a moment. I mean, I didn't really have my license. But it was only like driving around in a parking lot for God's sake. I decided to do it.

Now this is what I like to call following the spirit of the law and not the word of the law. If that makes sense.

At any rate, I did this, and after cleaning up a mess I made dropping one of the juice jugs, I returned her car exactly as I found it and handed her keys. By now the cafeteria was filled with football players in line for food. I recognized several of my friends, grabbed some food and sat down with them. After a bit, I went back to the music room. I found Troy in here and we walked to Subway to get even more food. By the time we got back, Mr.Haskell was finally there, directing people to start packing and moving all of our equipment.

It was a fairly short process, but we soon found that we didn't have near enough extension cord. So Mr. Haskell told us to go grab some from the various maintenance closets/rooms throughout the school. So two others and I set out to do so. First, we scaled the school for Kenny, one of the custodians. Had we found him, we would have asked him if he could help us find some extension cords. But we didn't. So we started searching one of the maintenance closets. We didn't find any in this one, but we did notice the ladder up to the roof, and jokingly dared each other to climb it.

That was when the trouble began. A custodian (not Kenny) walked by, overheard this, and told us, somewhat rudely, that we weren't allowed to climb the ladder. We got out of the closet and told him we were just joking around. As we were walking, he proceeded to tell us that we weren't supposed to be in the maintenance rooms anyhow. Again, quite rudely.

"Well we were looking for extension cords." I said, and I'm not sure exactly what compelled me to do it, but I followed with a sarcastic "Excuse me."

"What did you say?" He said. "Come back here!" I stopped and turned around. "What's your name, kid?"

I paused for a moment, nervous. "My name.. is Juno McGruff."

"Well Juno McGruff, the Dean of Students is going to be hearing about this." he finished, and walked off. I did as well, finally laughing when he was out of earshot. I couldn't believe I actually just did that. I couldn't believe that he bought it either!

Later, I walked into another maintenance room, looking again for extension cords. He was there again. This time, he yelled at me about my attitude. I reacted calmly and apologized, just trying to get him to lend me the cords. Eventually he let up and gave them to me.

I sighed with relief as I walked away. I brought the extension cords back to where the band was set up and connected it. As I rearranged the surge protectors, I finally set it up so that I had three keyboards to play - two in front stacked and one to the right. I had no seat so I played standing up. I may have showed off, but I was having so much damn fun doing it. The band started off the game with the Star-Spangled Banner and played other various tunes from there.

Bishop Kelly lost by three points. To be honest, I wasn't watching most of it, so that didn't bother me so much. We packed up and brought all of the stuff back to the music room. Luckily that didn't take long, but afterwards a girl told me to carry a barrel over towards the cafeteria. There was a dance there it turned out, after the game. Of course I was staying!

I got in and observed for a bit before starting to dance. This was the standard high school mob of kids, most of them grinding some girl. I jumped in and went straight through it and out when I found a couple of my favorite teachers outside. I talked to them for a bit while I got some fresh air. Something about that night was euphoric for me. I really couldn't have been happier.

The dance ended at eleven and I went home with Troy after helping set up some tables for Monday. It was among the best nights of my life. But I do have a bad feeling about the whole custodian thing. Not necessarily guilt - I mean he got what he gave. If he had wanted me to be polite, he should've been. But I've got the feeling that it's gonna come back and bite me come Monday. Hopefully though, he won't figure it out. But I can see him walking into the dean's office.

"One of your students has been giving me trouble."
"I see. Well give me his name and we'll call him in."
"His name is Juno McGruff."
"We don't have anybody by that name. Actually that's a character from the movie, Juno."
"..."

Pulling a Fast One (Clothes)

Earlier today, I walked into my World History class, waiting for Mr. Harris, the teacher, to get up and shush us. Once the bell rang, he got up and told us, nearly shouting, "Ok, this is not acceptable. I've talked to Mr. Wehde, (the principal) and he told me that I could do whatever I needed to get this class under control." The class went silent, most of them confused and frightened.

"Two rules: one. Once you come through those doors, you may not talk unless I ask you to. You will sit down in your desk silently. Two. If any of you speak out of turn, you all get an F for the day." At this point I was kissing my World History grade goodbye. We didn't stand a chance.

About halfway into class he dropped th ball and told us that he was kidding. He was frightening us to demonstrate what Hammurabai's code must've been like for the people under it. The reaction was mixed. Some people, mostly me, thought it was pretty funny. But some people seemed forlorn and hurt, which frankly only added to my amusement.

That's the third time this year that I've been tricked like that. I'm starting to get used to it. I wouldn't say it's a bad thing, because it's always funny. But the trickery is beginning to lose it's appeal...

On another topic of deceit, I was communicating with a friend of mine last week when she complained to me that she had seemingly already worn all of her clothes that week. She didn't want to wear clothes she wore Monday, Friday. Why, I asked? Would people notice?

Well, actually, I've been running a little experiment to find out. I've been switching off between the exact two pairs of clothes for the past week and a half (and I did wash in between wearing them). So far not a single person has said anything about it. My parents haven't noticed either. So just as a tip for everyone. People don't pay too much attention to what you wear. Some, yes, but inordinate amounts of time picking out clothes is simply unproductive and silly. Just pointing that out.

Drama Indeed

I feel like I don't have anything to write about most of the time, but there are some reasons behind that. One, I really am quite busy. I joined the play again, and so now I'm at school until six practicing every weekday. And the sophomore schoolwork isn't getting any easier. So it leaves me with very little time.

But I think a second, more interesting reason that I haven't been writing lately is because I've become quite numbed to the day-to-day drama that I used to be able to write about. But now it just doesn't seem interesting. That's not to say that there haven't been interesting things happening. How could I have not told all of you that my parents just got back from a cruise in Alaska, and that they were gone for a week? How could I have not told you about asking a junior out to homecoming and getting turned down (in my defense, she already had a date)? How could I have not told you about writing a song for a biology presentation? How could I not have told you about my older brother Michael, who recently started his own blog so he could write about his studying abroad? How could I not have told you about my uncle Brian's so called "intervention" for existential angst? How people keep putting games on the Bishop Kelly shared drive on my files? Or how I'm still working on Mondays, and just finished typing chapter 7? Or how I've already arranged/wrote two songs for the Bishop Kelly Band (one was Bittersweet Symphony, and the other was a "One Tin Soldier" Cover I wrote myself)? Or how I'm devising plans for another run for school president, involving the revival of the USJ and a musical performance for the speech? How I found (or rather how it found me) a way to save up basically all of my monthly allowance? How I honestly suspect that I've been subject to identity theft this month? How I heard about and found the entrance to Gnome-land (Bishop Kelly students, if you don't get this one, try asking around, you may be surprised)? And how I'm still trying to get together a functional band amidst all the chaos of my day-to-day life?

Shame on me.

You could say I'm taking for granted the randomness of life. I ought to think more about how lucky I am to be so strange and do so many things. By the way I've been posting, you'd think my life was dull.

Dull! Ha!

I laugh at the thought of me having a dull life. I have always tried to make my life exciting. And with a few exceptions in the long stretch of summer, I have always succeeded.

So look forward to some more regular posting from now on. Of course, if you do get bored, you can always switch 2 plan b...

Overwhelmed

I want to apologize for not posting much, but it turns out that being a sophomore makes things quite a bit harder, especially for me.

So hold tight, give me some time, read a few webcomics.

The Randomness of Life

What it means to be Joe Cieslak:

Starting your own country and getting the whole class to go with it.

Ding-dong ditching, but waiting for them to answer the door.

Wearing a suit and a tophat to the first day of school.

Telling jokes in Algebra class and letting homework wait until ten at night or so.

Bringing an ocarina and playing (and singing) Celtic hymns for your class.

Never going a day without getting into an argument in Theology class.

Arranging the music for a videogame concert.

Climbing onto the roof in spare time to take some good pictures.

Getting back at your swim coaches.

Writing a novel, very slowly.

Being the first and last person to play the school's grand piano.

Getting your blog blocked and then changing the address to sidestep the authorities.

Playing guitar in the halls in between and while walking to classes.

Everybody knows you but you can't remember anybody's names...

Questioning everything, everyone.

My life is so quaint when I think about it. It's so strange, but I think that it's odd in the best possible way. Maybe I'll outgrow being so different. But I doubt it. I don't think I can ever stop taking joy. Taking Joy in the Randomness of life.

Update

Like I said, I've been kind of busy. I'm trying to get better grades than last year, so it's difficult to take time for blogging. But I found some time now, and I have some highlights of the past week or so.

First Day Of School: I got a lot of stares today. It was probably because I showed up in a full suit, tie, and top-hat, complete with nice shoes.

Second Day Of School: As I get used to getting up early for band, it becomes apparent that band will both be more fun as well as more of a project for me. It'll be a big year as far as that's concerned.

Labor Day Weekend: Basically picked up the chord. By the end of the weekend I had learned all the fundamental chord changes I needed to impress people marginally.

Second Week of School: So naturally, I take a day out of the week to not carry any books, but strap a guitar on and play my guitar, walking down the halls. People seemed to like it.

Here's my schedule:
0 hour - Band
1st hour - Biology
2nd hour - Theology
3rd hour - Algebra II
4th hour - Spanish II
5th hour - Computer Programming
6th hour - English II
7th hour - World History

Oh, and I've been working on Mondays! Quite a bit...