Brandon Notices

Today, we had a fire drill. I had been expecting it all day—Steffi had told me about it this morning. Ms. Thomas also knew about it, and told us at the beginning of AP Chem that we'd be having the fire drill during her class. As the clock ticked closer and closer to 10:15, we grew anxious because whee! the fire alarms would begin going off. I was bracing myself, expecting the loud, ear-piercing wail of the alarm, but when it started, I really didn't think it was very loud.

We all stepped outside; it was pretty cold out. Of course, I was prepared and had my coat on. Several people were excited because it was snowing a tiny bit. A girl standing nearby was trying to catch the snow in her mouth.

After the fire drill, we all went inside, and my class continued working on our assignment. Many of us were distracted, however, by the increase of the rate of falling snow. It wasn't long before it was a lot of snow falling! Ms. Thomas grew increasingly frustrated with the class's distraction.

During lunch, I bought a bag of Baked Cheetos from the vending machines. They're good, but not as good as Baked Doritos. Also during lunch, there were a lot of people standing outside in the snow, because yay, snow.

After lunch was Astronomy, and the class had a hard time concentrating. People asked Mr. Landon if we could study snow, or perhaps go outside and have a field study (perhaps "examine" the sky today).

Today at the blood center, it was really boring. I probably waited on fewer than half-a-dozen people. What a slow day. I only brought my Calculus homework—after I finished that, there was nothing to read but the boring magazines in the waiting room...

The fire alarm went off again on Friday during school. This time, instead of first period, it happened during my lunch time. Now, since, like I've said, my friends and I eat lunch apart from the other students, we didn't know exactly where to go. We ended up standing in the parking lot while the fire department came to assess the fire. I was glad I brought my coat. It turns out that there actually was no fire. One of the smoke detectors was malfunctioning. The schedule was not changed. I suppose this fire had very little effect on the rest of my day. Still, it was something I thought I should bring up.

In Calculus, Mr. Worster and Aaron have been talking about this question: "What if the earth suddenly stopped rotating about its axis?" We've worked this out: If the earth suddenly quit spinning, there would be tremendous jerk. People would be snapped 6 miles into the east at about 1000 mph. I think this would all be in fewer than 30 seconds, too. Not sure. It would be quite disastrous. So we're talking astrophysics in math class... Math class is never boring.

Today (well, technically, it's barely after midnight on Sunday, but I mean Saturday morning), Kevin came over, and we all left to see friends performing at the grand opening of the Village at the mall. I went specifically to see Megan, but alas, I didn't see her. I did, however, see Brandon B. working at Sears. It was boring because Stephanie was trying on Tolo dresses. Kevin brought his pocket PC, and we took pictures. It probably took us over 10 minutes to get out of the parking lot. Lots of cars.

It was another boring day in Mrs. Hudemann's English class. Fortunately, it was a Friday, so the classes would not be quite as long as usual. We were discussing what the ten most important parts of Act 3 of The Crucible were, when, suddenly, an ear-piercing, shrieky noise pierced our ears.

Needless to say, it startled me, but it didn't scare me like it did Mrs. Hudemann. She jumped up, her mouth gaping wide open, her hands raised up to her chest. "What is that?" she asked, as if she had never heard a fire alarm before. Indeed, it was the fire alarm. The bright white light strobed in infrequent intervals. The ear-piercing noise continued to make noise.

We walked out of the classroom, in the F200's, and walked down the stairs into the grassy thing behind the school. It was cold. Some boy in some blue shirt said stuff not important to the story. There were some seagulls on the field, I noticed, along with a few crows. Some guy whose name I don't remember told me that there was a fire in the hallways. Suddenly, I heard sirens. Wee-woo-wee-woo.

We (we, meaning the whole student body and staff) were directed to the gymnasium to await the fire. Indeed, there really was a fire. It wasn't just a fire drill, like I assumed. I found Stephanie's friend standing in the gym. She really didn't have much to say. Neither did Aaron, when I found him. He said this was all really fascinating, though. Then I found Bryan and sat down next to him.

Mr. Wallace couldn't get everybody's attention, even with a microphone. He told us that there was a fire somewhere in the building, and that "the fire department is taking care of it." Then the student body applauded and cheered.

Then Mr. Hoffman, the principal, gave us a little more information on the fire. "It was a minor fire. All that caught fire was some paper—" he got cut off by the student body's cheering. I wonder what exactly they were cheering, there. Paper?

We got sent back to first period. Back to English. The morning schedule was compressed. Everything after lunch time was normal.

The fire was on the bulletin board right outside the F100's. For some reason, even those who knew where it was had soooo much trouble explaining where it was. It was "on the bulletin board outside the F100's." Easy-peasy.