Gold Day. Formerly A Day. Day 54.

I think childhood is, generally speaking, a preparation for disappointment. Seamus Heaney

A Sampling of Disappointment

Mrs. Meeker. My first and second grade teacher. She dumped everything out of my desk onto the floor because my desk was messy. Everyone laughed. I had a personal black crayon I brought from home because the one at school was always dull. She took it and told me it wasn't mine.

I was fascinated by trains as a child. Once my father took me to the switching yards where they parked the trains. I was playing around the tracks when I met a train conductor and he told me that if his freight train ever came by again I could help him drive it. I went back day after day and he never showed up.

One time my parents took me over to their friends house. They had a beagle that everyone was ignoring. It was just tied up in the kitchen and was lonely. I spent an hour petting him. His name was Poncho. After an hour he just attacked me out of nowhere biting me on the face and making me bleed.

Once I got pneumonia and had to stay home from school for two weeks. My science teacher emptied my locker with my father. I had a picture I painted in art class of a great blue heron. It got an A and my art teacher told me it was a wonderful use of color and emotion. It was thrown away. My sister went on to become a professional artist, I never painted again.

Once I made a weaving for art class. It was made out of yarn. Mr. Zawacki the art teacher told me he was going to enter it in the County art fair. He did. It won an award. The note under the display for artist just said "anonymous". I am not anonymous.

Today for the second day in a row 4th period didn't come to class. The few kids that did, slept and did other work, even though I worked really hard on the PowerPoint. When they fail the AP exam they will blame me.