The high school visit

Reason 941 for my absence:

One of my job responsibilities is to visit high schools in our surrounding area. I go out and talk up higher education and promote our campus as a first-choice for college. I give students the 411 on how to apply, the majors we offer and why my university is da bomb diggity.

I'm the rural chick. For some reason, because I went to a "smaller" high school, I've been tagged in our high school territory distribution as "she who goes to all podunk schools." I actually don't mind it because during autumn recruitment season, I enjoy driving to all these rural schools, soaking in the autumnal splendor.

But let me tell you, sometimes I feel that instead of walking into a high school, I'm walking into some sort of sanitarium for pimple-faced freaks. I had three visits the other day, and while two of them were rather good and engaging, the one - the larger one - was a freak show. Why?

Where do I start?

First of all, it was a very rural school, and not a whole hell of a lot goes on in that small town, so the idea that two college reps were visiting that day must have been like flies being drawn to shit. We were the shit. Next, instead of a classroom or guidance office conference room, we were thrown into the cafeteria, while a study hall was going on, with no adult supervision whatsoever. Can I hear a strike two? Finally, the kids who showed up didn't give a rip about what we were saying, they just wanted to be out of class - in the cafeteria - with no adult supervision - and with us, the shit. That's exactly how we were treated.

So that visit stirred up some memories of my last visit to that school. I did a spring visit to hopefully capture any kids who were sitting on the fence about choosing a college. Instead of a structured visit, I merely set up camp outside of the cafeteria at a table and chatted with interested students as they meandered by. During the down time, which was pretty much the entire time I was there, I was privvy to watching a serial killer in the making. An odd sort of student was sitting alone at a table minding his own business and eating his lunch. Sure enough, a host of cocky, jock-strap sporting individuals showed up and started harrassing him. They surrounded this boy, who was of the Goth persuasion, and proceeded to get in his face continually for about 15 minutes until the poor kid finally broke and escaped - without incident, thank God. I was trying to avoid the entire situation and was having a micro panic attack as the incident escalated and I, knowingly, was doing nothing.

My take was that this happens pretty much every day to this kid. He did a stellar job of ignoring these asswipes, however, it was very disheartening to watch. I felt for that kid. I often wonder how many high school idiots he has chopped up and buried in the corn field next to his house.

So that's the reason for my absence from my blog. I've been out travelling. Earlier in the week, Techtard and I took our "vaginas to Celina", (Sa-line-ah) a phrase we rattled off about a 1,000 times on our 4 hour drive to western Ohio in the pissy, cold rain. Yeah, we're that weird, but it seemed to get funnier and funnier the more we said it, and the more we drank.

But that's a story for another post. And no, we're not gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Next week, hopefully the posts will return. I know, I know, the excitement is unbearable.