Well, this is my third year at Clear Horizons Early College High School, and I had almost forgotten I had this blog, and was apparently too busy to make a post in... what, MONTHS now?! Whoa! I guess Horizons has kept me busy during the school year, not to mention the summer kept me busy having fun as well! But anyway, we're back in full force, and I'm officially a junior! Oh, and things have changed a lot since I first started going here. A LOT of things. There's quite a few new teachers, the busing at some locations has changed (again)... there's a lot that I could talk about on just that particular topic.
But I can't, and won't, get into everything that I possibly could. I'll only talk about a few of the definitely noticeable differences, one of them being that there have been quite a few changes in what teachers are at Horizons. It changes every year, but every now and then, there's a noticeable change, and it's happened this year. Some of the awesome teachers, like Ms. Nylen, Mr. Martin, and Ms. McGill, have left us... and for us students who have had those memorable teachers, we will always remember them in our dear hearts, just like I will remember Mr. Martin deeply in my heart. And when awesome teachers leave, another takes place. But when it came to finding another ISM teacher because Ms. Nylen left... it was actually a rare moment. They got a freshman teacher who had been teaching at Horizons for a while and let her be the ISM teacher because she was licensed and capable of doing so. So now, the old English I teacher is now our new junior ISM teacher, and Ms. Kahlich is our senior ISM teacher. This change of teacher positions will be quite interesting, but we'll all miss those who left us...
And it seems that as I go up grade levels, something else also changes... and in this case, it's the freshman, not just at Horizons, but this time.... it's everywhere, and it's not good. The reason I say that is because at Clear Springs (where I wait for the morning bus), the freshman have quite literally taken over the cafeteria during the morning... freshman are stealing an excessive amount of chairs from the wrong table, and believe it or not, it's mainly the boys this time. Like today, actually, I sat down on a table and waited for my best friends who go to school at Springs to get here, and while I was waiting, I had several freshman steal chairs from my table. I actually tried to stop one of them the first time and tell them "Hey. You can't take the chairs at this table. I have friends wanting to sit here"... and guess what they ended up doing instead?! They actually went and stole the vacant chair from the OTHER SIDE. Wow. I actually got pissed and said "Of course. Of course the freshman don't listen", so I got up and stole a chair from a table that had too many chairs, and then replaced that particular chair. Then I had several MORE freshman boys go and steal MORE chairs from the EXACT same table, and I was like "I put the darn chairs back for a REASON." So I had to repeat the process. And in the end, the table behind me was far too crowded... there were at least two dozen freshman, ALL BOYS, sitting at the table behind me! Yeah! Not a good sighting at all! They have taken over Clear Springs.... it's supposed to be the other way around, where either the seniors or the staff are "in charge" of the campus. Oh, and did I mention it gets loud in there just before 7:00 AM? Like, c'mon... we just woke up. We need some peace and quiet around here.
The freshman at Horizons, thankfully, aren't so bad this year. I haven't met many of this year's freshman yet, but I can already tell they are a lot more well behaved. I haven't seen an excessive amount of hallway blocking yet, the voice levels aren't ridiculously loud (and it used to be that way), and they're nice in general. I can't wait to get to know some of them, as soon as I figure out who everyone is and who would actually be willing to be friends with me.
And now that I'm a junior, it seems I'm starting to have some more free time during school. I now have an 80-minute tutorial period (Tuesdays and Thursdays, shorter on Fridays), I'm free for lunch, I have passing periods, and I have the free time I get when a college class lets out early. But that's not to say that you should flat-out waste your time during the free time that you have here. It is possible to survive Horizons that way, but it's not recommended at all.
Oh, and the Horizons routes for me have changed a lot. In the morning, Clear Springs now also drops off at Clear View, which means it doubles as a Clear View AND Clear Horizons bus (route 127), and surprisingly, it makes sense, given that Clear View is basically on the way to Horizons. But that change also brought a change in the afternoon part of the run, and route 105 now runs it, and for some weird reason, we don't really have a main driver for that route, which may potentially mean lots of different drivers and different buses, which'll be interesting, because I love it when I get to ride a different bus than normal, especially if it's a newer one. For me, the neighborhood buses are still the same, except for a new intermediate driver that I get to ride with in the afternoons, and she's really nice, which is great to hear, because I keep being reminded myself countless times of the not-so-great times we had on the Horizons bus for most of last year, when route 119 was still running the Horizons routes for Clear Springs, Creekside, and Victory Lakes. If you were a CHECHS student and rode that bus last year, you know who I'm talking about. She wasn't a great bus driver in many ways. She doesn't really drive a bus that well... a little slow (understandable), late in changing lanes, may often times leave the turn signal on, and... yeah. She also once singled an innocent rider out for having bright hair (she was forced to sit up front) and that didn't go well. From the looks of it, that rider *almost* got written up for something out of her control. And when the driver stopped so that the innocent student could be moved, she ended up stopping in an active turn lane, which highly concerned me and the safety of other drivers, not to mention anyone who was possibly waiting behind would get annoyed at the delay. Riding with her was basically a nightmare... and she also drove an older bus that seemed to be nothing but problems, but that was out of her control.
Anyways, this post just goes to show you that a LOT has changed at Horizons in the two years I've been here. I'm just starting my third year here, and it'll be my second to last round at school. And Hurricane Harvey came through and made us lose two weeks of school. It also made several families suffer house/water damage, and some lost everything in it. And for those who suffered any type of damage from the recent Hurricane Harvey, I feel really, really bad for those families. Thankfully, our house wasn't flooded at all, and neither did the other houses in my neighborhood, and we didn't suffer any damage. My family and I are totally OK.
Well, I've typed a lot, and I can't think of much more to talk about, so I should probably wrap this post up. I'm sorry I haven't made a post since January, but.... life keeps me busy on a regular basis. I hope y'all will have an awesome school year. And if you're reading this and you haven't ever talked to me, or have never been friends with me, feel free to come talk to me, especially if you're a freshman. I could use some new friends now that a new year has started, and things are not at all how they used to be. I'm not sure when the next time will be that I'll end up posting another post on this blog, but hopefully it'll be soon, along with me talking about something different! I hope y'all will have an awesome school year with good grades, and all I have to say now is, good luck in school, have fun, and have an awesome day!
