My Day at Highschool

It was too ridiculous. I couldn't say no. I had three important classes, then a tutorial with a quiz this morning, but when I heard the plan I was all in. I was trying to fall asleep last night, then pictured the situation again, and woke up my soundly sleeping roommate with bouts of riotous laughter because its just that ridiculous.

Background info: Today was the first day of the second semester for high school students.
The Plan: Infiltrate a local high school, posing as grade 12 students.
The Preparation: back stories. E: wearing hippie clothes, shell beads, a head scarf, a regular scarf, mismatching earings, and a jelly fish skirt, was a homeschooled UK-native (British accent: perfect). L: a homeschooled Kensington kid, with Toronto-kid attire including a yellow bandana wrapped cowboy style around her neck. R: star wars shirt, side part, glasses. Me: brown cords, brown shirt, brown sweater. Why did I transfer? My parents just got divorced (you're not going to probe for more answers at that, are you?). Everyone else had pretty much normal clothes, oh except M had a RUSH belt buckle (more coming up). We all split into pairs, E is with me.

Period A: E and I try to find a room number, find out its a portable, decide we dont want to get cold, and jump into the nearest class room and take a seat. Unfortunately, J and M are already there, but its too late to leave. The teacher takes all our (fake) names because we are new to the class. Its transportation technologies. E and I are the only girls. We start girl-ing it up with the guys near us. Wait- we're new to the class? I thought this was the first day of second semester? Oh, of course. FOUR of us walked into the ONLY full-year course. Great. M quickly parts with his new found friend (wearing a rush shirt! Too hilare!), and E and I also run out the door because the teacher left, we assume to go to the principal. J stays behind. As the three of us grab our bags and exit the door, the teacher comes back in.
Teacher: guidance is going to find your timetables, and come meet you here
Us: ooohh, no big deal, we'll go get them now. (because if guidance came and found us, the jig is up). ta-ta!
[J stays. Later guidance will come to him and the teacher will tell him the other students don't exisit. J will be escorted to guidance by somebody, when he is almost there he makes a dash for it by saying he needs to pop into the bathroom, is it okay if he makes his own way to guidance in a second? of course! because J is not under suspicion yet]
Period A part 2: E and I wander, then decide to join in a class behind a door marked Visual Arts. The teacher is like, sure, come on in. Its a photography class. I have an assignment due tomorrow. E keeps asking great questions, like do we have to use school equipment if we have our own? E says she likes portraits best, I say landscapes. E whispers to me "are we allowed to take pictures of nudes?" I almost laugh and blow our cover. We make friends with a girl named Rachel in the class. Rachel likes knitting. Her friends are a girl with bushy eyebrows and a black hat, and a girl named Sofia wearing all sorts of black necklaces, with tangled hair and atrocious eyebrows (think: almost unibrow but with an evil tone). I tell Sofia I like her sweater. She says thanks, its stretchy. Rachel shows me a picture she took of 2 dogs, one is bigger than the other. I say its hilarious. She gives me her website. We smile at each other. She hasn't been brushing her teeth as much as you and I. A guy with dreads, the only other guy in the class to own this special type of camera, keeps checking out hippie E. Over at the cool table, American Eagle and Hollister are holding hands and stroking each other. ALL CLASS. Meanwhile, their friend, Hot Jaw Line and two other girls, Thinks Shes Funny and Goes Along, chat it up all class.

Period B: E and I try to get into an English class, but the teacher says we're not allowed if we don't have a timetable. We worry that a memo went out to teachers about infiltration. We stop at the bathroom and E poops. The toilet almost over flows. We decided to pretend to have second period spare, and hang out in the lounge. We meet the nicest girl ever named Ashley, who volunteers in the community, and wants to go to Waterloo. (I say thats where I want to go too). Ashley says she spends a lot of time at the campus. E, the star of UW production of the Vagina Monologues, worry our cover is blown. We decided to take a stroll around the halls. We run into transport tech teacher, and divert our glance. We walk past camera-owning dreads boy. He checks E out again. PS HES IN GRADE 11! We meet up with T and J2. T points to the semi formal sign, and asks if I have a date.

Lunch: all accounted for except M and J. We sit with Strong Jaw at lunch. We start to gather to get to leave. J3 and R want to leave with a bang: perhaps ripping their shirts off and running across the stage in the caf? E and T are elsewhere. R, J3, L2 and I are hanging out convincing R and J3 not to streak. L3 and J2 are elsewhere, also. J, the first J, begrudgingly finds us. He is with a VP. We need to go to the office. (R makes a run for it).

The Office: M and J got caught. We are all issued a trespass warning. If we ever set foot on school property we will get arrested. We all give our real names and real permanent addresses. No legal action is being pressed (What? How is this a big deal?... well... backstory)
Back story: VP 1 is on the case. He finds M and J and thinks they're drug dealers. M and J get frisked, and have to empty their pockets. M and J keep with their story that they are new students. Finally, J gets caught with "what year are you born in, if youre 17 then?" "1985, i mean shoot 89". Oh well, the truth would have come out eventually. Some good phrases of the investigation include "Dont shit with me!" by VP2 and "Tell me the truth, boy!" by VP1. What is this, Alabama in the 50s? Anyway, I see their point. Its a safety thing to not let strangers wander around the halls. By the end VP2, the harsher one, is chuckling (or, trying but failing to hold it in) with us, while VP1 writes us up our trespasser letter (now termed "our certificates").

Would I do it again? No.
Am I glad I did it? Come on, its hilarious!
Do I have recommendations? Figure out a schedule so you don't tell people you have calculus then realize that was taken out of the curriculum this year. Have a better getaway plan.


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Additional Stories
R: went to a grade 11 college level math class. They did a worksheet on fractions. The kind of worksheet where the answers match up to letters to the answer to a dumb riddle or pun joke. Its in partners. R rips through the sheet, with the girl next to him struggling just to copy his work as fast as he does it. I can totally see the girl being like "yesssss this is the term I pass math, if I just stick with this guy". Remember to refer back to what R was wearing: total geek clothes. Hilare.
M and J: went to an English classroom. They got an assignment to do in class: WRITE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. WHAT! They make an elaborate story about M being J's cousin. M is living with J's family because his parents are going through a rough patch. J's family has just moved to Waterloo. One part of the autobiography is "what are your interests?" M asks the teacher (Mrs B)(literally, B, thats not a codename) for assistance. Mrs B is like "well hey, look at your shirt. Do you like Eddie Van Halen?" M says, sure. Mrs B says "ROCK ON" and does the little rock on hand signal. Are you kidding me this is the best teacher of my life. M then stands up and says, "Yeah, but check this out. Rush baby, Rush" while displaying his Rush belt buckle to the whole class. Mrs B then does a little air drum solo. GET OUT! We all feel bad that she was lied to. Oh Mrs B. We have video footage of her, I haven't seen it yet though.