Here's the deal. Hallways are made for walking. If I catch you standing in the middle of a hallway, surrounded by a million of your little grade 9 friends, blocking my path to a class I'm already late to, I will give your name to all my grade 12 friends, and we will eat you alive. You need to move. Its not that hard. I understand that it's hard to get to your locker at peak traffic hours, but there are corners all over the place; stand behind one and wait a while instead five people deep in front of your locker, where you're going to get pushed a whole lot more, and you probably will get trampled, pre locker excursion.
Secondly, when you're walking down the hallway in mad traffic, and there are people on all sides of you, and it finally dawns on you that instead of walking towards the portable stairs, you meant to go to the civics classroom, on the other end of the hallway, it is not okay to 180! I don't understand why you don't understand that if there are people in front of and beside you, there are probably people behind you too; therefore, when you turn around, you will not be met with a clear path and smiling faces but 120 angry, and already late students, unwilling to let you through. When you figure out that you're going the wrong way, you need to duck into a corner, an alcove, a classroom, anything you want, I don't care, and creep back out into the correct direction. It takes 4 extra seconds, and ultimately may actually save your life. I know that grade 9 is hard, I did it once already, but the faster you learn this the easier life will be. I promise.
Last one, and this is a biggie! Mass. I am not Catholic, nor have I ever claimed to be Catholic, nor do I ever really want to be Catholic. But for the teachers and students that are, talking in a Mass about, oh I dunno, the hot girl in English, or how much you absolutely loath Mr. Annear, is not okay! You have 75 minutes at lunch in which to talk to your friends, and let's be honest, you talk through every one of your classes anyway, so I don't understand why you feel the need to stomp on someone else's sacred ritual by not keeping your mouth shut for an hour. AN HOUR! That's not even a long time! And wouldn't you rather be told by a grade 12 with a little bit of righteous anger than a teacher with 30 years of power trip built up behind all that crazy white hair? I'm holding the long end of the stick out to you; take it!
I will never understand why grade nines are the way they are, but they are. I was, we all were, and everyone will be at some point, but grade 9 does not have to be synonymous with the things it's normally synonymous with! Take your intelligence back, grade nines, learn the rules, follow the rules, and don't get eaten alive. It's the smarter option, and that you can trust me on.
Okay, I'm done.
Maddi.
