lucky cha cha cha!

I just realized for the first time in a while that PC can refer to the computer!
But nah, I'm talking about my school, Paramus Catholic.

Yesterday, my brother came to visit as Will's buddy/freshman for the day. During third period, there's a fire drill! Being freshmen and all, we weren't really sure if it was the fire bell or not so we hesitated for a second (why, the other day, we could hear what I think was Bob Marley blasting from the room near our science lab) but then Mr. Mulligan started ushering us out.
Now, this wouldn't be something we would worry about, except that our science lab is in the senior hallway (for some strange, unfair reason; all the other freshman labs are by each other) and therefore, we would have to line up by seniors who know what they are doing. We did not.
Mr. Mulligan lead us over to the edge of the parking lot, where the park began, and started taking attendance and such. He also added, "Guys, if we have to go any further, you know what you have to do, right? Go line up over on the field, freshman are by the bleachers, and go to your homerooms." So naturally we all started freaking out, "EVACUATION DRILL!" And it did end up to be an evacuation drill!

I'm pretty sure most of you have no idea what my school's campus looks like, so I'll just give a brief description.
The parking lot where we are is right here. Most freshman classes are gathering by the softball fields, which are about 400, 500 feet away. And the football field is pretty much the same distance away from the softball fields. Naturally, I was one of the last ones to arrive at my homeroom (my teacher's face was worried as hell).

I'm also pretty sure that none of you have ever stood on the football field/track at my school, so we'll just say that it has a sizable population of bees. That's fine and dandy (and distracting) at school-wide Masses and such, but when everyone's all antsy from having an evacuation, especially when nobody is sure if it's real or not, people start jumping around and screaming at the bees, even after countless attempts to make them shut up. (Though I must admit, I was yelling too, but that was only because I don't have classes with most of the homeroom and I want them to think I'm cool. Because I am, of course.)

Now, this being the football field of the biggest private high school in New Jersey, there's a loudspeaker system in place. Once in a while, the loudspeaker would be messed up and make a loud "BZZT" sound, giving at least one person in the crowd a heart attack each time. When it wasn't malfunctioning, the principal would be yelling, "EVERYBODY BE QUIET!" It worked, surprisingly enough. He would also yell out directions, though pretty much everybody could hear the directions beforehand. Giving that everyone was quiet, one could hear the president in the middle of the football field in his golf cart, barking directions to the principal up in the control room via walkie talkie.

A LOUD AIRPLANE JUST PASSED BY! I'm sorry for that, it just seemed strange.

So he went through the spiel of what to do during an evacuation, and then he ordered freshman homeroom 201 to get into the bus on the other side of the field, then later ordered sophomore homeroom 104 (don't ask me how I remember the numbers, but if you do happen to ask I'll say!) to get into the bus as well. And then the entire school watched as the bus drove away! No buses were coming up to pick up the rest of the school, and soon the principal ordered everybody else to get back into the school! Needless to say, that was a huge "WTF" moment right there.

The rest of the day was all right.

Fast forward to today! Don't fast forward too much, though. This starts in the morning! (I shouldn't have used that phrase in the first place.) Keep in mind, there's testing today! According to most people, it started (I'm not sure how to conjugate this verb right here.) at 8:15. I get on the bus at 6:30 and we usually get to school around 7:30, enough time to get to lockers and stuff before the warning bell rings at 7:45, then the late bell at 7:50!

I got up as normal, ate breakfast as normal, went to my bus stop as normal, and everything was fine and dandy until we were on the way to Passaic.
(If you're bored or something, look up these towns and note the distances between them; they're all in New Jersey. Paramus, where my high school is, Belleville, where I live, Bloomfield and Nutley, where my bus passes through, Cedar Grove, where we drop off a random kid because they don't provide a bus there so they tacked him onto our bus, and Passaic. Wikipedia has some good pictures, but they're also kinda small.)
Anyway, we got stuck in some serious traffic on the way. Bad traffic, like, total standstill traffic. We were on this major roadway (I'm not sure what route/parkway it was, my parents keep asking and I have no idea.) for maybe a half hour? Keep in mind, we still had to pick three or so kids up in Passaic. My friend Ericka called one of them and he said that he didn't have a ride anymore, so he had to stay at the stop.
They were redirecting traffic to a nearby exit, so all hope wasn't lost. We were keeping time the entire ride, though, apparently we were there for almost a half hour. That's a huge thing if you're running on a tight schedule, especially driving kids to school! We picked up the first kid and he looked mad but relieved at the same time; everyone was yelling at him, "HOW LONG WERE YOU WAITING?" and he yelled back "40 FUCKING MINUTES!" The other two Passaic kids weren't there, so we sped through that place and made the mad dash to Paramus before rush hour.

Besides the fact that we were stuck in traffic as the late bell rang, we weren't that late. The bus dropped us off at the front instead of the back, and we were greeted inside by pretty much half of the administration ushering us in, the principal in particular commanding, "Go straight to your homerooms!" in his Brooklyn accent. On the way up, we heard him over the loudspeakers, "Teachers, the Bloomfield bus has just arrived, if you could please let them in and not mark them late. Let them start the test immediately!"
And we did start the test immediately! I was still panting from running upstairs by the time I opened my test booklet. The other girl in my homeroom that takes the same bus must've taken her time though, and now I kinda think that I should've too. Oh well.

So we got out at 11:30 and a bunch of people were complaining, "I WAS ON THIS BUS LONGER THAN I WAS IN THE SCHOOL!" And our bus driver was agreeing! Our bus driver kicks ass though, he was badmouthing the administration the entire way back, saying "I'm not sure if I'm even supposed to be taking you guys home! I'm waiting for the call!" He was grinning at everyone as we left the bus in the morning too. Oh yeah, while we were stuck in traffic, somebody must've cut him off or not let him pass, because he opened the door and yelled out, "WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU CUT ME OFF, MOTHERFUCKER? I'M TIRED OF THIS SHIT!" and everyone on the bus started applauding him. We were all saying, "Wow, can't they see that we're a HIGH SCHOOL in PARAMUS in the middle of PASSAIC from the side of the bus? (Which, by the way, says Paramus Catholic High School on it, and our route is the only one that uses the special, personalized fleet because we're awesome!; everyone else uses Laidlaw or First Student buses or something) And it's already, what, 7:45 in the morning? Don't they realize we have to get to school and stuff?! Screw them!"

This entry turned out long as hell, haha.

Oh and edit/p.s., my friend was on the bus that left the school.
"Dan, what homeroom are you in?"
"201."
"Were you on the bus?" (smiling)
"Yeeeeaaaaah." (smiling)
(about to crack up) "What the hell happened?"
"Nothing! We just drove around the school and came back!"

And here's a map of the school area that I drew so I wouldn't have to work on my world history essay! They have real pictures of PC on the website but they're not really of the school's layout, so here's the best I could do without photoshop!
boooo