Hello, all. Sorry for the delay- procrastination, camp and homework. But I’m back, ready to write a new column…and, given that I’m in year 9, what better subject than year 9 camp? Admittedly, I could write about the captaincy elections, but I think I’ll leave that to another writer, such as one who particularly cares.


Now, to begin…

Firstly, just to put it out there and as a disclaimer for everything I’m about to say, camp was great fun. Better than years 7 or 8, good leaders, fun activities, edible food and all the other pleasant surprises that usually aren’t present at school camps.

But- and this is a big but- there were one or two things that went wrong. Firstly, the beginning of the camp. I know for a fact the teachers wanted us to be enthusiastic and chirpy on our first day of camp; I’m also sure that Sydney traffic does mean an early start means a quicker journey, and I’m sure there is quite sound logic behind it. However, the fact remains that a group of teenagers dragged out of bed at 4 in the morning and made to stand in the cold for a quarter of an hour while the role is marked is not, generally speaking, an enthusiastic and chirpy group of teenagers. In fact, it quite often falls into the category of ‘grumpy and sluggish’. They got away with it this time, due to a slightly warmer morning that managed to thaw our cold-blooded bodies before we arrived, but a large part of that was luck.

So, after loading on our bags, some of which seemed to be more suited to a month in Siberia than three days in a cabin1, and headed off on a surprisingly eventless bus trip. Upon arriving and unloading aforementioned excessive baggage, we were sorted into colour-coded groups, told our cabins, instilled us with a healthy dose of terror of the kind commonly found at camps2, and marched off to our first activities.

Now, about the activities. They were in the same category as working televisions and nice food- things you would expect to find at high-end resorts instead of a recreational camp for teenaged kids, but there nevertheless; a kind of mirage, shimmering on the horizon after several hours of bad singing on a cramped bus. Unlike mirages, however, these were actually solid; a blessing in the case of the multi-metre-high flying fox. Now, let me list through the activities:



1) Canoeing/Kayaking- Depending on the weather, this was quite fun. The rainy second and third days weren’t the best time for it, although it was still quite good, but the sun on the first day made really awesome-looking reflections…disturbed only by the ripples of capsizers.



2) Rock climbing- Climbing up a Hangdog-style outdoor climbing wall. Fun for those who aren’t scared of heights and easy for those of us with longer limbs, nerve-wracking and difficult for those who are and aren’t, in that order.

Abseiling- Climbing down the other side of said climbing wall. Woe to those who are scared of heights, especially if you did it in the rain. Otherwise fun, almost boring if you’ve done the same at other camps.



3) Archery- Fun, albeit with a high miss rate, which meant we spent almost s much te finding arrows as shooting. Also, the sense of awe at being able to handle a potentially lethal weapon is somewhat diminished when they show you the brand-new, twice as large, five times cooler-looking bows that ‘you could have used if you were here a week later’. Think someone handing you the keys to a bombed-out car, letting you drive it for half an hour, then said that their Ferrari3 was being refuelled so you couldn’t use it.



4) Initiative Games- Fun, but difficult. Also quite odd. From trying to disassemble wooden blocks and a milkcrate and reassemble them on the other side of a wooden board (record: 7 seconds) to trying to see how many people can pass under four people making a bridge (a lot), these were out-there and hopelessly impractical, yet addictive.



5) Raft-building- trying to make a floating raft out of bottles, wood and rope. An optimistic idea, but it usually ended up as six soaking wet kids trying to carry a loosely held together bundle of logs through freezing-cold water.



6) High ropes- Remember what I said before about being scared of heights? If you are, than this could be difficult.4 I’m going to assume that I wasn’t the only one who found it scary, judging by the hand-shaped indents on the ropes from where former students had gripped onto it for dear life. Short of putting a pit full of giant, mutated, aggressive spiders below it and shaking the pylons back and forth, then cutting your rope, there’s not many ways for it to get scarier. However, all of it was negated by the sheer, pure, unadulterated brilliance that was their flying fox. It was one of those fifty-metre-long ones where you skimmed about two metres off the ground at the lowest and high speeds, close enough to the other activities for them to hear your screams of joy and occasional pain as you got whipped by a passing pine tree.5



7) Night Games- a series of activities that were kind-of-fun, of the same calibre as those PE activities you do in an effort to Make Exercise Fun. Luckily for them, they had the foresight to split us into teams ourselves (read: friends), so we got to both spend much of the time talking AND have satisfaction of beating the other people.



That’s about it for the activities. But then, as I have mentioned several times before, there was the food. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say it was good. Really good. Apart from those of you who didn’t like pumpkin. The one flaw, however, is that was served by students. Sure, it was encouraging initiative and responsibility, but it was also encouraging long queues, disproportionate amounts of food and mild cases of salmonella.



After all that, of course, came the disco. Oh, the disco. Firstly, who decided to make a ‘masquerade’ theme?6 Masks do not make bad dancing to bad music good. All masks do is make bad dancing to bad music look faintly ridiculous as well. Also, while I’m on this theme, I would like to point out that this was a camp disco. Not a masquerade with royalty and heads of state. Apparently there is some slight confusion between the two. You see, at a camp disco, you don’t dress like you’re at a royal masquerade. You dress like you’re at a camp disco, i.e. in normal clothes, or close enough to normal to make no difference. Still, kudos to the organisers for trying, although I can’t particularly say I like their choice in music.7



Lastly, the cabins. Oh, the cabins. They had- and I am no joking- working televisions. Perhaps not the best idea, given the already sleep-deprived students, but a fun one, especially given the choice of channels. However, to negate all of that, there was a thief. You see, despite the televisions, someone had decided not to put any locks on the doors, even the ones between cabins. Hence you can- and some people did- walk between all the cabins. Eventually, someone decided to take advantage of this and, in an extremely callous act of thuggery, stole some chocolates.

$20, as well.

I’m pretty sure it all got returned after the teachers gave the year a guilt-trip speed, but even so. Not cool.

After that, the camp was pretty much over. There was a long bus trip, as uneventful as the last, and we got back to the school, ready to go back to learning the next day, keen to soak up some more knowledge.8

So there you go. See you next week,

Eric M.

1I mean that literally. With some of the luggage people were…well…lugging, you had enough fuel for a permanent month-long bonfire, with enough left over to club any roving polar bears.

2The kind that’s enough to stop you from breaking the rules but falls just short of inducing severe anxiety attacks.

3And if you don’t like Ferraris, then you don’t deserve to be reading this column.

4In the same way that having your house burn down is a bit of an annoyance, or Justin Bieber isn’t that great at singing.

5I had the marks for a week. Those things might look nice and innocent from a distance, but at high speed they should be classified as lethal weapons.

6Yes, I know it was the year advisors. I don’t care, it’s for the sake of the article.

7In the same way that I don’t particularly enjoy having major surgery without anaesthetic.

8Heh. Just kidding. We were sleep-deprived, on a sugar low, and suffering from school apathy, a condition usually found after long periods of fun followed by loner periods of boredom. You know the feeling.

This article was written for Smog by a third party and does not necessarily represent the views of Smogblog or its management

Hello again, everybody!

This is a Highly Important Update, so read it even if you’re busy doing homework. I’m going to try and answer a few questions I’ve been asked before, but which are too current to put in the FAQ section for all eternity.

Is Vivian Pham in charge of Smog? She runs everything else, after all.

Vivian Pham is NOT in charge of Smog. If I had a dollar for every time people have asked me if I’m Vivian, I’d have…enough to buy a lot of food at Wanger’s. Yes, I realised a broke the golden rule of never using names, but this is with her permission, so therefore doesn’t count.

Secondly, and more importantly, SMag/Smog relations. For those of you haven’t read the FAQ page, Smog isn’t a kind of anti-SMag that will disappear in a flash of light if they ever meet; it’s more of a distant, somewhat nerdier, sibling that is allowed to poke satirical and more offensive fun at the school. To prove it comes my next part- the bit where I reveal what’s been going on behind the scenes.

What’s been going on behind the scenes?

I thought you’d never ask. Essentially, some inter-journalism negotiations have been going on, with ‘interesting’ results. You see, SMag likes Smog. We fill the gaps where they can’t go- we can put up articles faster, fix typos after they’ve been published, and write whatever we like about school policy.

So a while back, I came up with the idea of getting SMag and Smog to work a bit more together. Like the G8…but the S2. We had the whole thing planned out- SMag would post a specially selected Smog article in each edition, we would put a little advertisement for SMag on the site…until we tried to take it to A-block. It got as far as the Rectangular Office before it got shot down- or the SMag side of it did, anyway. Luckily for you/us, the wonder of the internet is that I say whatever I like, without anybody knowing quite who I am…think a nerdier Phantom of the Opera. Hence I can safely post this, and keep you informed.

This isn’t the entire Highly Important Update, but it should answer most of your questions for now.

Mission Statement

Who we are

Smog is an online student blog for students of Smith’s Hill High School, designed to provide a regular, anonymous and uncensored medium through which students can express their ideas; essentially, an online and uncensored version of SMag, although run by a different management.



What we stand for

The goals of Smog are as follows:

-Providing anonymity for any writers from Smith’s Hill.

-Providing an uncensored snapshot of the mood of the students in relation to certain issues.

-Providing student minorities with a means to communicate freely with their peers on topics of personal relevance.

-Providing relevant, non-abusive entertainment for students.

-Providing a means for artistic expression for students.

Anything can be published, provided it is either written for students of the school or about the school and is non-abusive; this includes a blanket ban on any students being named or implied without their prior permission, and only if they are fully aware of how they will be referenced. Direct references to teachers are discouraged, especially those in a negative light.



Why we exist

We exist as an unofficial online sister organisation to SMag; founded by a student to ‘fill the gaps’ in SMag. These gaps include partial censorship, slow publishing time and what some perceive as a lack of relevance to some students. As a result of it’s ‘No teacher interference’ policy and online, anonymous format, Smog has no official recognition or support from the staff of Smith’s Hill, nor from SMag as an organisation.



What we hope to achieve

-A larger audience

-More writers from a larger range of student minorities

-Official recognition and support from the staff of Smith’s Hill High School.

-Thanks for Standingby
-Smog McSmoggy

Hello there, smoggers! I’m back from holidays, feeling refreshed and ever-so-slightly sunburnt, ready to write another terms worth of articles on life, the universe, and rock music. So, how’s everybody’s subjects this semester? Just between you and me, my PE class is terrible, but I won’t tell if you won’t.


Moving on to the actual article…

Firstly, politics. It’s an area I’m interested in, but I haven’t been able to work up the enthusiasm to follow this election on anything more than a superficial level. So, in the finest tradition of procrastinators everywhere, I’ve devised a few ideas to get our politics a bit more interesting. Other countries do it all the time- from Kim’s Change You Are Mandated To Believe In to Palin’s ‘Africa is a country’ moment, we seem to be a lone dot of grey adrift on a political ocean of nutcases and revolutions, ancient tensions simmering just below the surface and continuous random outbreaks of violence and vuvezelas. South America has Colombia, North America has everything south of Kansas, Russia has spontaneous invasions of satellite nations, China has more civil unrest and human rights breaches then you can shake a riot baton at, and Africa has itself. Europe, or at least the West of it, used to be an island of civility and cricket; then Pauline Hanson moved, France banned the burqua and it went downhill from there.

Of course, those of you unfortunate enough to be cursed with things like common sense would right around now be thinking about the opposite point of view. It’s good, not bad, that Australia is boring. We don’t have wars, deaths, large amounts of discrimination, or a laughable stereotype involving camels. There’s no capital punishment, no political prisoners by most standards…the list continues. I concur, but this doesn’t mean we have to be so dull as to bore even the New Zealanders. Here’s some ideas I thought up on the spur of the moment to ‘liven up’ our politics.



1) Get cooler leaders.

I think that in this area, our two main teachers are Russia and the US. One is led by a former spy who is trying to return their country to Communism (Cue Soviet Russia joke here), while the other is led by a man who fist-bumps his supporters and wears aviators. We, on the other hand, are stuck with a ran-ginger- who lives in a flat with their hairdresser boyfriend and eats Chinese takeaway; the alternative is a marathon runner who thinks posing in Speedos is good publicity. Are these the sorts of people who inspire pride and interest in our political arena? I didn’t think so.



2) Get more crazy people.

Ignorant as this sounds, it actually makes sense. Having a few left-field thinkers in our political awareness encourages new ideas- a mental evolution, with the useless concepts such as invading Canada for water get thrown out, while smarter ideas like changing taxes and making Kiwi-bashing our national sport get taken in. After all, we’re one of the most sensible countries outside North Europe there is- we don’t have the equivalent of a Deep South, One Nation’s collapsed, our Socialist Alliance party isn’t nearly extreme enough to be classified as crazy; as a result, anybody with interesting ideas either moves overseas, or if they’re worried about ASIO surveillance of the airports, to Queensland.



3) Get better campaigns.

Interesting and completely pointless fact of the week- the second-place candidate for the Filipino presidency had ‘dancers ‘at his campaign rallies. Another minor candidate changes their name to Osama Bin Laden for publicity, while a third rebranded himself as a vegetable superhero, complete with 10 tights-mask-and-cummerbund-wearing mascots, his slogan being ‘Plants in the Senate’. All of these on a tiny South-East Asian island chain. Of course, it’s not just the Philippines with the ‘interesting’ campaigns; the Party of Conscientiously Work-Shy Elements won a seat in the Danish parliament after it’s campaigns involved giving out free beer and pies to all supporters. What do we have? Speeches where the most interesting thing is the cliché-per-sentence density, debates where the most interesting things are a squiggly line at the bottom of the screen and Julia Gilliard’s earlobes, and visits to factories in Western Sydney where the most interesting thing is trying to see how long a Canberra-based lawyer can pretend to be interested in slag alignment for.



And now, 815 words in, the article must come to an end before I bore you all to death. However, before I leave, here’s food for thought, or at least a light snack. If we’re going to remake our political system into a more interesting model, we need leaders who fit the categories above- who are cool, with great campaigns, and who are usually slightly insane. My suggestion as to where we can find these people by the committee-load is (you guessed it), Smith’s Hill High School. Think of our last few captaincy elections, and tell me if Australia would not become a prouder, greater, and wittier nation under the rule of Hillians- we would, if all else fails, be able to whip out a handy palm-card-sized periodic table at the G20, thus becoming the life of the talks; I’ll bet the contents of my wallet that Tony Abbott wouldn’t think of that.



Signing off,

Eric M.



1 Greenday, Skillet and Parkway Drive are all good, but Rise Against has a tendency to descend into screaming.

2 Which for me means limiting myself to political analysis under 3 pages, but I’m sure you get the principle.

3 Suffice to say they have nothing on Fidel Castro.


This article was written for Smog by a third party and does not necessarily represent the views of Smogblog or its management

At high-school, there are a hundred shades of ANNOYING when it comes to your...friends...but there are certain shades that you should avoid at ALL COSTS.





1)THE FLIP-FLOPPER: She likes you, she like you not, she likes you , she likes you not. It’s hard to tell if this friend is your BFF or a psychopath with a social-climbing fetish. She’ll be complimenting your new shoes seconds before she uses you like a Kleenex.

2)THE MOOCHER: Will borrow $1.20 for a Freddo and never pay you back. Claiming he’ll “bring it in next Tuesday when my dad gives me some cash”. I don’t believe that you don’t even have $1.20 to your name...you were bragging about your new Iphone a minute ago...or does all of your money come from daddy?

3)THE FML-ER: The sarcastic, gloomy and cynical black hole of hate. “I’m NOT emo” she complains as she prattles off about how she has SO MUCH HOMEWORK and HOW SHE DIDN’T EVEN GET TO GO TO THE BUFFET THE OTHER DAY, among other possibly-life-threatening disasters.

4)THE CLINGER: “WE are like BEST FRIENDS!!!OMG LOL!!”. That one girl who simply cannot take the hint. Sure, she was pretty funny at first but after beginning to stalk you, she gotten a little bit annoying. She doesn’t have many friends so you do feel sorry for her...but seriously...I’m not married to you. Please. Leave me alone.

5)THE REBEL: Everybody is out to get him and he knows it. He “can’t wait to get his first rad tatt” and looking forward to his future in alcoholism and lung cancer. This pal is actually bad for your health. He sticks it to the man, without trying to understand what the “man” is all about. “Screw you man, I am diving into the SHALLOW end of the pool....yeah, that’s RIGHT!”.

NOTE: While we know mnay people who fill these descriptions, they do not in anyway represent a particular person. I'm sure you can understand that there are many annoying people, therefore even if this sounds EXACTLY like one of your friends, I am sorry to inform you that you aren't the only one with a ...friend...like this charming lot.

Which one is most annoying? Are you guilty of being an annoying friend?
COMMENT!

You know what NOT to do and say...but what are some great ways of weaselling your way out of that stupid history report?

• The key is originality. If your teacher has heard is before, he/she isn’t going to believe you.

• Play up the discrimination factor- “But Miss! I was celebrating Eid Al-Fitr. What? You don’t know what that is? *mumbles indistinctly in Arabic* ...it’s...my traditional holiday OBVIOUSLY! So what if I am “anglo”...I do not judge you based on the colour or your horrendous red hair, yet you judge me on the colour of my skin! For shame...”

Not much they can say after that fantastic excuse.

• Start at home- If you can get a note out of your mum go with that. She hasn’t been exposed to years of half-baked excuses. Your teacher can’t ignore parental acknowledgement, no matter how ambiguous.

Take these tips into account next time, and avoid all eye-rolling and eyebrow-raising.

Or...you could...y’know...actually DO your homework and assignments...

  
 
This article was written for Smog by a third party and does not necessarily represent the views of Smogblog or its management

Smog McSmoggy is sorry.  They have been a very bad editor and slacked off. It will not happen again. I promise. As you've probably noticed, there have been fewer articles recently.  This isn't permanent- it's just a combination of holidays, exams, and procrastination over the past few weeks.  Don't worry, everything should be back on track now that the new semester is warming up and we can start bribing our writers with chocolate. Moving on, to the Treasure Hunt! At last count, we were up to 19 articles- only 11 away from the magic 30 needed for our treasure hunt!  As you know, it (probably) will be held in the school, sometime this term, with REAL PRIZES!  By which I mean money, vouchers, or ridiculous amounts of junk food.  More details are to be released closer to the actual hunt. In other news, we've made a few changes to the website, and will be making a few more in the term to come- but it's all hush-hush while we're still making it, so I won't tell if you won't. As for the blog in general, it's business as usual- no additions, subtractions, multiplications or divisions.  As always, writers are welcome. That's about it for now.  And to finish off and distract you from my lack of any direct promises, here's a completely unrelated but amazingly cool picture: Au revoir, readers! (And just to prove, we are cereal about the treassure hunt, here is a pic of some of our prizes...stay tuned) What other prizes tickle your fancy? We want to know. (Click on the large white sqaure after you've ticked your preference...our poll thing has seemed to DERP!

Some people are under the impression that yes, Europeans (Australians too) should be discriminated against for the crimes they have committed in the past. Because my great-to whatever degree-grandmother was racist to an Aboriginal person, that person’s descendant should be able to hate on my lack of skin colour. That doesn’t really seem right. The crimes of racism can’t be made up for.

The same goes for sexism. Shows like Sex and the City are supposed to ‘empower’ women by representing men as sex toys and not much more. This is supposedly ok because in the past women have been treated this way. Again, this just makes the problem worse. Girls can wear blue, green, black and red, all traditional males colours but if you see one strip of pick or purple fabric on a boy and the “gay” taunts start.

And Ageism- the thing that bugs me the most. I don’t think I owe you a great deal of respect Mr. Olg-guy. I can’t see anything that you have done to make this world better. In fact your racist and sexist ideas we ‘rent exactly a great idea. I’m not going to contradict myself by saying that it is the fault of one person in particular- but please, don’t expect much thanks from me. Your age should not matter. If I meet two people for the first time- one aged 12 and the other aged 78 I don’t t see why the 78-year-old should instantly earn anything above my basic respect for other human beings.

One thing that I haven’t mentioned is homophobia. In a few centuries, will heterosexuals be branded as “boring”? Will having a relationship with the opposite sex be like having one with someone from another species? You can’t chose who you’re going to refrain from discriminate against, then just go ahead and discriminate against another group. It doesn’t work that way.

Or maybe I’m just getting confuse-ier and confuse-ier.

To make it easier for everyone- just don’t discriminate in the first place! OK, That’s practically impossible, I know. It’s human nature to pick on people.

Rise above your instincts!



-E

It’s been a while since I wrote down and sat for Smog, and it shows. I blame the laptops- and the DET-fearing paranoia that prevents me from attending to my smogly duties on it, as well as the teachers going through That Time Of The Semester, the week before reports are due and they realise they’re three assessments short. As proof, I’m writing this at 12:40 on a schoolnight, having just finished two assignments.


Now, the eternal question- what to write about? I need to make this a good one, because ENN and I have a (relatively) friendly competition to see who gets the most comments. Occasional cheating aside, we generally average around…0. Yet somehow, despite all the odds of laziness and apathy stopping the comments from flowing, she got 7. So, in short, feel quite free to add a random comment to this article. Favourite band, ice-cream flavour, anything.

But now to the actual article, and I may have just thought of a topic. If you’ve tried getting out of class recently, you’ll have noticed the small sheets of paper the teacher needs to write you. That’s right. Smith’s Hill High School now has hall passes. Those staples of cheap American teen movies are now a rock- or at least cellulose- solid reality.

Before you mentally ask, I do realise how grammatically mangled the above sentence was, and while I’m usually wincing as much as you are, it’s 12:47- no, wait, 12:48- and I can’t really care. So sue me.

Back to the hall passes. Am I the only person who considers it overkill? Occasional thefts aside, we’re still one of the safest schools in the region. Kiera High has an excuse to implement them, not us. Besides which, I can’t help question the teacher’s logic. Here’s what happens in their private little fantasy:



Evil thief #1: Here’s an idea! Let’s go steal some innocent schoolchildren’s valuables while cackling manically!

Evil thief #2: Great…but do you have a hall pass?

Evil thief #1: No! Gosh! I didn’t think of that! Our evil plan is foiled!



Here’s what happens in reality:

Evil thief #1: Here’s an idea! Let’s go steal some innocent schoolchildren’s valuables while cackling manically!

Evil thief #2: Great…but do you have a hall pass?

Evil thief #1: Here’s some blanks I stole from the teacher’s guest. Find someone who can forge the signature and pay them $5 to do the lot.

As you can see, there are the occasional slight flaws. I’m sure the teachers were well intentioned, but they haven’t yet grasped the idea that rule-breakers, by their very definition, break the rules. And so I predict, with an eye jaded by a full two and a half years of high school, that the hall-pass idea will be the worst idea since…well, the thing with the two bells. The one that was, in turn, quite possibly the worst idea since Go-for-gold.

Now that I think about it- as best I can at 11:17pm-the school would function a lot better if left to the students to run. After all, we know better than the teachers what motivates us to work, what we care about, how to make the subjects interesting, what we hate and what we just can’t work up the enthusiasm to care about. So, in order to finish my article, here’s a list of changes I would make if The Big M retired tomorrow and handed me the keys to her office:


1) Make English to at least Year 10 level compulsory. Firstly, it is almost painful to listen to the mangled English of some of our teachers. As someone who feels that the death sentence is an appropriate punishment for anybody who uses ‘youse’ as a legitimate word, it is extremely difficult to focus on anything those teachers say. And it isn’t limited to foreign teachers with English as a second language, either; my knowledge of D&T is severely stunted due to my inability to focus on anything else but the misspelling of some ingredients.


2) Introduce a get-out-of-jail-free card system. This is basically a motivator that works; for every extracurricular activity you partake in, you get an extension on any homework you want. After all, you’re giving up your time for these activities, and you deserve some of it back. The academics work harder and hand stuff in on time, while those who care more about having a life get to be part of as many groups as they like. The only problem would be people ‘joining’ a group for the card, so perhaps a check-up system is needed.


3) Make trips to Wan Long’s legal. It would introduce competition for the canteen, and good ol’ cut-throat capitalism would come into play- prices would plummet, business for ‘Wangers’ would soar, and queues would shrink. Everybody wins, except possibly Ms Chris.


4) Let the students, not the DET, pick the curriculum. How much more entertaining would English analysis be if we were picking apart the hidden meaning within the Matrix as an allegorical example of the rising pace of technology and the uncertainty it brings to our daily life, or as a take on the existential crisis that is an unalienable part of the human condition? Sure, it wouldn’t be a bundle of laughs, but it would be a lot better than doing the same for The Fifth Quest.


5) My final idea for today- well, tonight- is more languages. At the moment, as you know, we have a choice of French, English and Japanese. What about Russian? Arabic? Afrikaans? Mandarin? Spanish? Binary? Apart from being more interesting, it would encourage multiculturalism, give students more chances to express themselves and do well, and a multitude of ways to pretend to be foreign tourists if you find yourselves being yelled at by a complete stranger. Seriously, this ranks with the pretend-to-suffer-a-breakdown technique in diverting attention, with the added benefit of not having to explain yourself to the paramedics and lawyers summoned by the aforementioned stranger.


That about sums it up; now to start on my Duke of Ed Training Hike article. Actually, here’s an idea for comments- post what you would do as head of the DET and/or principal. Not my best idea, but give me credit; it’s past 11:30 pm. See you all next week,

--Eric M.






This article was written for Smog by a third party and does not necessarily represent the views of Smogblog or its management