Field Trip

Dear Journal,

            Today I took a most lovely trip to the gorgeous theater district in Cleveland, Ohio with my AP English 12 class. This was a day I had been looking forward to ever since the calendar for November came out several weeks ago. This morning we went to our first period classes and then met in Sands Community room to leave for our special fieldtrip to see Othello. Upon walking into the room I could feel the knowledge circulating throughout among the many studious and intellectual conversations. After being introduced to the legendary Mr. Serensky, I boarded the school bus with several friends and the three other members of the Dream Team. Of course in our typical spirit of competition, we could not simply pass the time on the way downtown with friendly chitchat. Instead, we used iPods to play games of hangman. As you can imagine dearest journal, the games quickly became more and more intense and the trash talking picked up as well. I know, trash talking may seem like a bit of an anomaly from the Dream Team, but I think in games that require some education and intelligence, a little bit of mockery or downright insulting comes with the territory. Well, as the ride continued, John challenged me to face him and there was a lot riding on the game because I really wanted to beat him and then rub it in his face. I picked a special word that is fairly long but only has one vowel (I cannot reveal some of my better words to even you journal). So as the story goes, he had three blanks left, but only one guess. I won after he guessed the letter J. After winning the game I began to let him hear about it and then this next moment sticks out in my memory so clearly, it is as if I am currently visualizing it, “Please stop, he says, mouthing the words. And then suddenly there is silence” (Lahiri 92). The silence was then filled with laughter because I thought his feeble attempt at peace was extremely humorous. After a few more uneventful games, our bus arrived downtown. We took a very nice group picture in front of some random red fence near the theater. When we entered the theater I was very surprised because it had a small and intimate feel to it. In typical Chagrin fashion, we sat in the boxes of the balcony where we had more freedom because we could move our chairs around and arrange ourselves as we pleased. I really enjoyed the play because it not only helped clarify some of the more confusing or unspoken scenes, but also because it was very cool to hear the actors recite many of the same lines that I had memorized for my data sheet. At times, I felt like I knew the exact words that were coming out of the actors’ mouths. The audience was extremely well behaved, especially for a group of high school kids. I could only hope that maybe someone from a well-known national newspaper was in attendance to praise us in his own article. Well, after the long but interesting show, we boarded the buses again to return to Chagrin Falls High School. Ms. Serensky had a special afternoon planned for us because we all stayed in Sands to discuss the play (take detailed notes) and then eventually have lunch. I would expect nothing less from Ms. Serensky than having to complete a detailed packet for homework about the many relations or discrepancies between the novel and play. As we were diligently discussing, everyone was beginning to grow tired and antsy because it was approaching two o’clock and we had not eaten at all yet. We were promised pizza and many other snacks but it seemed like the pizza maybe would not come before the eighth period bell. After some encouragement from students, Ms. Serensky called up Zeppes to find out the status of our pizza. She spoke directly yet calmly to the phone operator, ‘“I have something very particular to ask you. Much depends on your reply”’ (Wilde 43). Luckily, the pizza showed up soon after. I must attribute the speedy deliver to the stern and demanding voice of Ms. Serensky. I was feeling absolutely famished so when I finally got some pizza, sun chips, and sprite in me, “I was getting so’s I could see some good in the life around me…I was feeling better than I’d remembered feeling since I was a kid” (Kesey 256). The perfect day was capped off with feast of food and I left school feeling very satisfied.

Othello the play