Chapter 16: school begins

As happens all too soon for students, summer ended and my junior year started. One thing that was different this year from the last is that we now had a new auditorium that had been getting built the year prior. The rest of the school was very old in comparison, having been built in 1913. In fact, the school was old enough that my grandpa had gone to the same school back in the late 1930's. Classes for us were on a split A/B day schedule, with four classes each day, held every other day. This was somewhat of a shock initially to the incoming sophomore class each year, with them coming from a seven class a day schedule with each class taking forty-five minutes. Now that they were in high school the four classes we had each day were ninety minute classes. It was definitely a challenge to the attention span of a lot of the new students.

For me A day classes consisted of English, history, orchestra, and fit for life (gym). B day classes were algebra, French, biology, and desktop publishing. Tonya, Tenille, and I had previously compared notes at work on classes, so I went into my first day knowing that I would have orchestra with both of them followed by fit for life with Tenille. The next day would have algebra with Tonya, so I had two classes with each of the two girls.

English and history class started out fairly predictably. The first half of each class was largely spent with covering the class syllabus as well as a class introduction. With these two classes being junior level classes, barring any new students we should have all gone to school the previous year together. Although obviously that didn't mean we necessarily knew each other, so the introductions definitely came in handy. Track or cross country it looked like would be a help with the students, as there were several that I knew from either team that were in each class. Each class did assign some reading for us to do in preparation for the next lecture that we would have, though.

Things were a little different for once orchestra started. The syllabus still had to be covered, of course, but after that was where things were particular to the class itself. The cello, viola, and bass sections were small enough that there was only one section of each in any orchestra. As it was, most of them knew each other, so for a start at least each section was decided would be led by seniors. Predictably they had the most experience, though it would be determined as we had more playing tests whether that would end up changing.

Violins - of which Tenille, Tonya, and I all played - were a little different. The violins took up almost two-thirds of the full orchestra, two entire sections. The better players traditionally ended up in the first violin section while the lesser players in the second violins. Historically speaking, music was written with the intent that the first violin parts would be the more difficult to play as well as holding more important in the all-around flow of the music.

Our director had evidently done some scouting with the incoming students and had at least a base familiarity with some of the new students. Tonya ended up getting placed in the middle of the first violin section while Tenille and I were placed in the seconds. Surprisingly for me, I was picked to be the section leader to start out with for the second violins. With each section of violins after the section leader was selected seats were filled up at random. Though perhaps not as random as might have been thought, with certain students selecting who they would share a stand with. It just so happened that my stand partner randomly ended up being Tenille. (Ok, ok ... so there was zero randomness there. We both knew we wanted to pair up).

Even before this year in orchestra the girls in class had been one of the reasons I still played. I had started in orchestra back when I was in 6th grade. It was an instrument that actually came fairly easily to me, though I was definitely not the most studious at it. I could get away with being one of the better players while only practicing in class, not needing to actually practice at home, so I liked that it took up little time. The other part that I liked was the male-female ratio was about one male for every three females. Unlike some schools, our orchestra class was not the full orchestra (including winds, brass, etc.), but simply strings. The sections consisted of about 60 students total largely spread through the first and second violins, then violas, cellos, and base each with about six per section there. The other part I liked about the ratio of male-female was the fact that most of the guys in the class were even more socially awkward then I had been the year before. To make it better, the summer had taught me that I didn't need to be as awkward as I'd been previously.

Fit for life was the last class. Though they had decided to fancy up the name, it didn't hide the fact that it was still in fact just a gym class. With the size of school we had and the amount of students this was a class where they took advantage of the open space and had the class consist of roughly 60 kids total. There was a good mix of people, since during the first semester only the basketball team had a dedicated "PE" class for them to do practices. The two other fall sports we had were wrestling and cross country, both of which just had their practices after school hours were over. It was lucky for me in a way, since it was the last class of the day I could just change into my workout clothes, do the PE class and then go straight to cross country practice from there. The disadvantage could be on days where we would have to run for class, but I'd just have to deal with that as it went. I wasn't the only one in that scenario either, though, so the coaches were aware of the need to factor it in.

Going over the syllabus and schedule in general only took a short time, so given the rest of the class time they ended up sending us up to the track to do a timed two mile run. There were a few of us on the cross country team in the class, so we ended up settling into a group near the front as the run started. Knowing that we had practice coming up after we set a decent conversation run pace. Even so, there were only a small number of people that were ahead of the pace we were doing. Decent natural athletes who were giving a good effort to do it, since they would be done for the day after the run. It would be interesting to see if there might be a couple we could talk into going for the cross country team out of that group.

Once the class actually ended we stayed up on the track, getting a little additional stretching in to make sure that we didn't tighten up while we waited for the rest of the team to finish classes and then get changed before they were out. The two coaches came out just a few minutes after the end of class dressed and ready for running. Since we were waiting anyways, they went ahead and told us that today's workout was going to be interval-based. Since it was our first official practice the number would be lower then what we'd get up to - ten repetitions of a quarter-mile (one lap) sprint with a recovery break where we were able to do a light jog for half a lap.

The speed portion of workouts like this was always where I was one of the weaker runners. I was the type of runner who would run at a sustained pace, but given my short strides and just how I was in general I was not a sprinter. What I did have though was the heart to give a solid effort and the advantage of having kept up my running through the summer months, so my endurance was good and I wasn't having as big a speed drop off by the time we were nearing the end of the workout as a lot of the other runners. I probably had to admit it to myself, I had a chip on my shoulder when it came to running. I had a desire to be a good runner and knew that I had to work hard to do so. There would always be runners who could naturally beat me, it was just how things were. They could beat me in skill though, but it would not be because I was lacking in effort.