No, no it’s not Happy Monday. It will never BE a ‘happy Monday’. What was I thinking, you might ask, titling this blog entry “Happy Monday”??

Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret, and only you should know:

I’m pretending like it was a Happy Monday so I don’t have to face the fact that I did really, REALLY bad on a test.

I studied, for no less than three hours…Actually, it was more like 4 hours…for this test in Geology that I had today. He said that everything will be online, so I went online, printed off the “Practice Test” (Six pages), and studied it like there was no tomorrow. I also took some time and looked at the Chapters on CD, where it gives you a random test at the end of each chapter and has about 100 slides per chapter with visual aides to help one, such as myself, better to comprehend certain chapters.

Well, I completely understood…everything that was not on the test.

That ticked me off, a LOT.

I went in to take the test, knowing already the short-answer questions because they were online and he told us time and time again what they were.

How wrong I was.

There were NONE of those questions that I had studied on the test. The short-answer questions weren’t even remotely CLOSE to what I was thinking would be there. Not even CLOSE.

This is what made me the most mad.

We had to choose 3 out of the 5 questions for short answer, and to give you a clue, here they are:

What is the Magnetic Idea, and what role does it play?

What is the Radius Ratio?

How does mechanical weathering affect chemical weathering?

What is a Versatole Atom?

How are younger, smaller mountains formed?

Here are the things listed online:

What is the Scientific Method?

What is a Lithosphere?

What is the role of volatiles in magma?

Do you see my point yet?

This is why I probably didn’t do very well, and considering the True/False questions I guess I had a 50/50 shot (They were hard, also)…I don’t know what the outcome of this test is gonna’ be, but I’m sure that it’s not going to be good. :-(

I’ll definately post what I got on my Geology test AND what I got on my Math test (which I might get back today, horrah!) sometime this week.

By the way, I probably won’t get my Geology test back until Friday, but the Math test we MAY get back today in class — Horrah! :-)

I remember it like it was yesterday.

* * *

I was a sophomore, sitting in band, not a fear in the world. Mr. Swaar, the new instructor, had announced that we would be starting Christmas music soon. We all groaned, but soon after he made this announcement, the bell rang, signaling the end of class and second period to start.

I don’t really remember much of what happened that day, just mainly shock about the World Trade Center. I had a cousin who worked close to there. Most of my teachers were in denial, and just flat out would not turn on the television amidst protests from the students.

I remember lunch, just watching the plane crash into the second tower again and again, over and over. It seemed like hours. I just wanted to sit down and watch a news channel to its fullest extent. To actually see the damage from one channel, not from 17 different ones in each of the classrooms.

I entered the class, it was soon sixth hour, and normally this time I was forced to crane my neck around to face the TV so that I could watch what was known as “Channel One”. I remember how I eagerly twisted my body so that I could get a full view of the TV, waiting patiently for Channel One to come on, waiting for some answers. Sid, who sat in front of me at this class, was also waiting, wide-eyed. The whole class seemed strangely attentive, everyone willing for the TV to come on, everyone tense.

But nothing came.

There were no answers to my burning questions, and I was not granted my wish of viewing what happened this special September 11th from one news channel. I was upset, and the rest of the class was also clearly ill at ease. Mr. Vazquez (my Geography teacher) would not give up. Apparently he was waiting, very abnormally tentative for Channel One to come on also.

He got up after a few minutes, walked around his desk and stood right below the TV (It was mounted high on the wall). He tapped hard on the screen, for it was supposed to come on by itself, playing the ever-popular music for Channel One. He made sure it was plugged in, but still nothing came.

Those answers would come later.

Instead, he turned to the class and said “I guess Channel One is not on today…”

He flipped on the TV, and CNN was blaring the news for the day, all day, about the attacks and how two separate planes flew into each Twin Tower. It was appalling to watch, the plane flying lower and lower and then BOOM — Right into the topmost part of the first tower. Then a second airplane, and the same thing happened.

* * *

Let’s fastforward to dinner that same day.

Now, I’m sitting at dinner; I don’t even remember what we were eating. I remember my dad talking about what had happened; how it was going to change the future of America.

“You’re living history now,” he had said. “You’ll remember this for years to come.”

And I still do.