Secret Actions in School: From Weird Briticisms to Shady Paperwork
High school is a time of many experiments and sometimes unusual actions. While some behaviors might seem innocent or harmless at the time, they can later be seen as quite peculiar. Here are two shocking anecdotes that illustrate the odd acts and deceive that students engage in.
Walking Down the Hall and Whispering 'Booga Booga'
One day during my school years, I whispered the phrase 'Booga Booga' in the hallway as a form of unofficial self-talk. To my surprise, not a single person noticed my weird practice. The reason for my peculiar behavior was simply that I was muttering to myself so softly that it was hardly audible. This funny incident haunted my teenage years and never left the confines of that school.
A Subtle Catch in a Term Paper
During my senior year in 1982, I encountered a situation with my English teacher that I found quite intriguing. My teacher, who I adored but was apparently quite averse to me, had no clear reason. Even my friends and classmates who were also her students did not understand her behavior.
Later, I discovered that my English teacher suffered from OCD. She meticulously arranged and outlined everything in her desk drawers, marking their exact positions. This realization opened up a whole new perspective on her actions. Furthermore, I noticed that a window in another classroom couldn't be locked. For three weekends straight, I entered the building and rearranged everything in the teacher's desk, and then left.
Three days after my interventions, a substitute teacher was assigned to my class because the teacher had taken some personal time off. To this day, I have not felt any guilt about my actions, and I’m certain I have never divulged this secret to anyone associated with my school.
No Introduction to Photocopiers
In the early 1960s, I was somewhat of a tech-savvy student. One of my term papers in Latin class required detailed illustrations of Julius Caesar's campaigns in Gaul. My paper eventually became a hit due to the accompanying artwork, which was meticulous and detailed, impressing my classmates and teacher alike.
However, there was a twist to this unexpected success. The illustrations were actually photocopied from a reference book. I managed to access a high-tech Xerox photocopier at a local refinery where my brother worked. This photocopier was so new that the general public had never seen one before. It was typically used to copy blueprint drawings, and it could produce sharp, fine-line drawings with shading, which back then was quite a rare sight, especially with the inferior quality of mimeograph copies.
The reason my classmates and even the teacher were so impressed was that they had no idea what kind of technology I had used to create such detailed artwork. I managed to complete the entire 14 illustrations in just 20 minutes, no small feat given how long it normally would have taken to hand-draw the pictures.
Both these anecdotes illustrate the lengths some students went to in order to achieve their goals or simply to pass the time. They also highlight the differences in technology, teaching methods, and the mindset of students in the past compared to today.