School Story:
In Mr. Mendez' physiology / Anatomy class I seemed to have one of the best brains in the class. Classmates even queried in my yearbook about how I suddenly got a brain. There is a very strange explanation for that phenomenon. I had never done much homework and had been used to "skating by" in school. At that particular time-period, the semester I had physiology / Anatomy, my "recreational" use of illegal herbal substances began spilling over onto school nights (and days). Along with my increased usage came a sense of paranoia that I would fail to graduate High School and be a loser all my life. That paranoia became the motivation for me to "crack open" the books. I did not read very well at that time and my mind would drift off into space after every couple of sentences. I would finish a paragraph and wonder if I even remembered anything I had just read. This would cause me to re-read the same material over and over all the while thinking that I was retaining nothing. Until the next day in class when I seemed to know everything about everything. It was crazy! One time Mr. Mendez gave a test and allowed a false key to be stolen. He had suspicions that someone was cheating, I don't know, maybe me? On the day of that test Danny, the guy sitting next to me, had a copy of the false key on our desk. I knew right away that it was wrong. When the test results came back Mr. Mendez read allowed everybody's test scores as recorded against the false key and the real key. The vast majority of the class had failed the test by using the false key. There were about five of us that did not use it. Mr. Mendez even highlighted to the class that I had made an "A" on the test with the real key. I think his surprise illustrates well the commonly held low expectations for me and also explain why several people wrote in my yearbook that I had somehow
gotten a brain. Life is truly stranger than fiction.
