Chapter 13

High School - The Sophomore Year

Ah, the sophomore year. I suppose the first thing of note that happened in my sophomore year was my going out for football. The year before I had almost made it, but was still scared of injury, and just doing it. Sometime in-between these two football seasons, however, I realized that I was bigger than most people on the field, and that I wasn’t as likely to get hurt. So I did convince myself, about two weeks into the season, to go out for football. It was very hard, but I enjoyed it just as much as it was hard.

In terms of academia, I began Math IV this year, and re-did writing lab, to get an A. I guess this was the year that I kind of backed off and slacked off. As opposed to my rigorous freshman schedule, I had no accelerated classes or anything this year, although my schedule did consist of Band, Chorus, Biology, Chemistry, Math 4, Writing Lab (independent), Western Cultures, Government, the Changing Face of War and Conflict, Speech, and Spanish 2.

Since Mrs. Stannard wasn’t teaching at the high school anymore, we got Ms. Jackovin. Ms. J was cool. I didn’t get to know her until the first set of parent- teacher conferences, but the time that I did know her became all the more precious I suppose. She’s the one who offered to do the independent writing lab with me.

With her, we had just gotten the new auditorium that year, and first semester we had a variety show. I scored mucho brownie points by helping out backstage and keeping everybody in line. The second night however, I did read a few of my own poems. My freshman year I launched my acting career with "You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown." This year continued with "Pride and Prejudice." This time I was cast as Mr. Collins, an overweight clergyman who is obsessed with marrying every woman he sees (well, actually, if he could get around the marriage part he would). He was sleazy, and I guess that’s all I can say about that.

I suppose I should mention speech. My freshman year I took two pieces to individual speech, and acting and a prose. The acting wasn’t important to me and I got a 2 on it at districts. The prose however, "Cipher in the Snow," I knew already somewhat, because my church actually had a video of it. It’s the sad story of a boy who is killed by education (I’ll have to read it for you later). But anyway, I got a 1 on it at district, and my ratings at state were 1,1,1. Great! I didn’t make it to all-state, but Carol did, so I went with her, Mrs. Stannard, and her mother and watched her perform. It was a lot of fun.

So that brings us to this year. I took a prose and a public address. The prose was about a visit to a mental institution called "Behind These Doors," and the public address was about our society’s lack of imagination. It was called "The Weird Side of Strange." Both pieces went to state, and there I got the ratings 2,2, and 2 on the prose, and the public address was another story. I walked in the room and began. Nothing went wrong. It was the best performance of my life. It was so good, that I walked out of that room knowing I was going to all-state. I got disqualified. Why? Because I didn’t have an introduction including the title and author. That should have been caught at districts, not state. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

This was also the year where my current ACT/SAT peak scores were attained. In January and February I took the tests. ACT was a 32, including a 34 in science reasoning, and nothing below a 30. The Sat was 1350, with a 710 math and 640 verbal. I’m not sure why but my scores are on an up-down schedule, so next time, I should score even better (I hope).

My sophomore year was a time of growth and change, and it was fun, and left the gateway open for another awesome year to follow.