Parkrose High

Yep. I may be breaking my 8-year homeschooling streak and take a stab at high school in September. i went and visited the local high school and everything seems cool there. By the way, that's the lobby in the picture. Best picture I could find.
I got there at 7:45 am (I don't think I've gotten up that early in years, heh heh). There was a freshman named Brandon there to show me around. I was "shadow" him all day and I couldn't help thinking of sneaking up behind this kid and whacking him with something heavy. They need to think of a better term. Anyways.
First was English. The teacher there seemed pretty cool, sort of laid back. He gave me a spare literature textbook to read, and while everyone else worked on a 1-page essay, I read a creepy story about a man who loves hunting more than anything else, but is so good at it no animal is anywhere near a match for him. So he hunts humans instead. The survivors of shipwrecks that wash up on his little island in the Caribbean. But eventually he makes the mistake of hunting someone who's an expert hunter himself. The man eventually shows up behind his window curtain after presumed dead, and apparently kills said creepy person-hunter. Rather grim...
After occupying most of the 1-hour English class with that, Brandon and I moved on to art. he art building is this awesome warehouse-like place, covered in paintings by the students. Cartoons, portraits, landscapes, manga, politically-oriented painitngs, you name it. The class itself was pretty cool, if a little obtuse. Something about color layering and contrast. It also didn't help that they decided to have a simulated earthquake in the middle of everything. When it came on over the intercom, there was much eye-rolling and "Oh, gawd." Fair enough. There was one kid who made some ridiculously funny joke about it, but I can't remember .
So now we were sitting under the tables. I was busy picking the gum out of my hair, Brandon was apologizing for how boring this was, and various others were listening to iPods. It was all very unenthusiastic. We eventually wasted 15 minutes after being told to go stand outside until it was "Safe to reenter the building".
After painting in the art class for 2 hours, we moved on to PE. I didn't have a uniform so I got to sit on the gym floor and be bored. The most exciting thing that happened was when I came close to being accidentally brained by a soccer ball kicked by Brandon's girlfriend. She could probably kick a ball through the gym ceiling if she wanted to.
Then there was lunch. I got my first ever sampling of cafeteria food. My options were: Greasy tater tots, greasier pizza, and cookies. I got the pizza. Yay.
The final class was Computers or Tech Literacy or whatever. This was the longest. It also kind of sucked because some annoying girl told me to get off the computer I was using. I figured there was some reason she had to be at that exact spot, so I moved, only to later be told by Brandon that she was generally annoying and just wanted to sit there because it was her favorite spot. There were plenty of other computers available, but I couldn't log in because I wasn't a student. So I was left with the funnies from today's paper. I made do with those for the next three hours.
I don't really understand the setup of that class. The teacher gave an assignment but mostly didn't care when only a few of the kids focused on it. Most were on Myspace, and the one closest to me was watching "Naruto" on Youtube. It wasn't very focused.
That was the last class. After that I said bye to Brandon and walked home. It was a pretty neat experience, though, and I think I'll enroll in September.