Blast my home computer

Good morning bloggers. I tried to post from home but we're having some internet "issues", or at the very least, blogger.com is one busy site on the weekends. Excuse the formatting from below. I cut and pasted my post into an email and am not going to take the time to re-space it just now.

Thus far we have done the following: introduced ourselves and personalities to the community; researched other
(in)famous blogs and chronicled both the topics blogs cover and the
diverse voices that compose them; centered our writing on a particular
topic of interest following research and tinkered with our vocabulary,
grammar, poetic license and critique. Now, I think we need a creative
break from our focused energy on writing analysis, research and
reflection. So, this week I would like you to compose a story-- a
progressive one. Each day you need to contribute to your story. Your
story could be action/adventure, romance, memoir or mystery. It could
be fiction or true. I want it to be vivid, entertaining, descriptive
and well-written.

For me, I'm going to try and recollect pieces from my life as a high
schooler. Each day I am going to start the new section with the phrase
Tales of a High School... and fill in the blank with a new word and
series of related anecdotes. It should be a good time:)

Below, is the beginning... or at least a draft of one:)

Tales of a High School...

Band geek. I spent most mornings of high school in the bandroom.
After I'd dropped off my coat and such at my locker, I would head to
the bandroom to drop off my flute. I was pressed to remain in band
through high school, a decision of my mother's that I fought tooth and
nail against. But despite my skilled teenage oratory, my mother
over-ruled me when it came to what classes I could register for.
Needless to say, her wisdom had more foresight than my impassioned
arguments against playing the flute. My closest friends were in band
and we all ran in the same academically over-achieving circles. Our
marching band performed at the World Series in '91 and then at the
Super Bowl televised event at the Target Center. I went to Disney
World through band and maintained crushes on boys throughout the band.
And yet, I never achieved in band. I was a lousy flute player, truly
bad. I was nearly always last or next to last chair. I froze during
auditions every year and almost never practiced for lessons. To this
day, I will have dreams where I realize I've missed a whole term of
flute lessons and I'm now going to fail class. In middle school, we
had to have our parents sign off on our practice sessions. I would
write in my "actual" time in pencil and after my mother signed off on
it, I would adjust it so my grade wouldn't suffer. Of course, my grade
was also comprised of my progress and I made very little on the flute.
Still, the band teachers were nice enough to NOT call me a failure.
There are many things adults don't tell you as a teen and one of them
is that sometimes the kids who are under-achieving, are great company:)
Some of my favorite high school pals were also flute rejects. We
would hold our flutes to our mouths in a mimicry of playing and
especially when tough sections in the music arose, we would smile and
laugh with each other-- they didn't actually think we were going to
"play", did they? Being a really poor flutist also lead to other
opportunities. I was recruited to play the cymbals in the marching
band, for example. To be honest, I would never have memorized the
music on the flute, but I could and did manage to remember when to
crash two pieces of metal together. Impressive, I know. Last, but not
least, I managed to have a crush on someone from nearly every section
of the band, excluding flutes and clarinets which were dominated by
women. Trumpet players, saxophonists, trombonists, drummers... the
names roll off my mind but for privacy sake, I'll abstain from sharing.
Most of all, I felt wholly accepted in the band room and with its
occupants. In the life of an average teenager, that's a pretty hard
thing to find, but it was there, waiting for me every morning when I
entered the band room.

I have printed a story for you to read as an example of one way you could format your story so that you use our class format to your advantage- potentially. Ask me for it:)

If you'd like to respond to the story for extra credit, please do so. If you'd like to respond to my first draft of high school memoirs- for my benefit- please do.