Alma mater doesn't matter

Yesterday, I went to PHS to pick up my health records for CSUN. I got kind of a funny feeling when I stepped onto campus for the first time in months. I noticed that while a lot of things remained the same, there were definitely some changes. I didn't recognize some of the security guards and administrators. Margie remembered me. Apparently she still thinks I'm a student because I didn't have to show her ID or anything. All she said was "Go to 4th period, baby." Good old Margie.

I saw Ms. Diamond/Dime/Dimonian, too. We reminisced. As we spoke, I came to the realization that I spent 4 years despising PHS and avoiding it (when I had a choice) like the plague. And after all that effort and energy wasted on hating it, I've actually begun to miss it. I can't believe it. I never attended a school dance or a sporting event and now I know that my high school life is over. No homecomings, no football games. Eh... Anyway, back to my point. The PHS nurse told me that my records were down at the district.

So today I head down to the district only to find that my records were, in fact, not there. They tell me that my records are at PHS! "OK," I tell myself, "Someone's lying..." I have them call and make sure my records are there before I go back. They call the registrar and she finds my records for me. Ah, yes... Now I remember what I hate about PHS and PUSD, alike. They are incompetent! Kind of like the DMV. Percy Clark, I have a score to settle with you.

With my newfound aggression, I march back into PHS, the facility that imprisoned me for 4 of the most impressionable years of my young life. This place... this hell was no longer a haven for sweet adolescent memories. Not a place where I made friends, received a respectable education, and learned crucial lessons that would see me through the rest of my life. It became clear what PHS is. It is the enemy. It is the long-criticized public school system that crushes young minds, intimidates impressionable youths, and places a bold red stamp on a student's character, either labeled "ACCEPTED" or "REJECTED". There's no need to discuss what stamp I've received...

But as I walked down the filthy hallways, it all came flooding back. I stood in the hallway and observed an amorphous glob of freshly spat out phlegm. I tried to think back and remember how many similar globs I'd encountered in my high school career. I began to think that if this stuff never evaporated or absorbed into the ground, the concrete and the lower 3-feet of the walls would be covered in this soft sticky substance by now. And we students would have to trudge through it... simply another hardship. It seems like just yesterday I was sitting in Mrs. Allen's freshman chemistry class, half-heartedly listening to rumors about her fake leg. I remember now. I remember it all.