Señor Ochoa

My junior year, my Spanish teacher was Señor Ochoa. He was probably the best Spanish teacher in all 5 years of middle/high school Spanish. He was energetic and friendly, and just a good teacher all around.

One day he told us his wife was expecting their first child, and that it was a girl. We were all super excited! I, always looking out for opportunities to earn some money, went to him one day after class and told him that if he ever needed a babysitter I would be happy to take care of the baby. I had no idea that it would turn into an actual job, but it did. A few days/weeks later, Señor Ochoa asked me if I would babysit after school on a regular basis until he got home. I don’t remember all the logistics, but I think I rode the bus to his apartment (Oak Park, where I ended up living years later after college), and his wife went to work and left the baby with me. Then when Mr. Ochoa got home he either drove me home or my parents picked me up, I don’t recall.

I thought it was really awesome and kind of weird that I got to babysit like that for a teacher.

*On a side note, my friend Janae also had Mr. Ochoa, and he was so impressed by her as a person that he and his wife named their baby girl after her. They actually named her Yanet, which was pronounced just like Janae, but with a Y sound in place of the J. Pretty cool honor, to have your teacher name his baby after you!

Mormon Kids At THS

At our  high school, most of the LDS kids hung out together at every break. We hung out before school, and then we had a 15 minute break mid-morning called “Brunch,” (a great chance for kids to go and spend all their money on junk food at the student store), and then at lunch. There was first lunch and second lunch, so usually we just hung out with whoever had the same lunch we had. (Senior year I was always with my AFS group—Stefan, Richard, Maggie, Lauri, etc). Here are some pictures of us Mormon kids on campus.

Front: I think that's me on the far left, half cut off. Then Matt Mollard, Allison Bowers, Ronny Bjarnason, Matt Day, Paul Mollard

Middle: Devon Thompson, I think? Rachel Smith in the white shirt, Amy Coughran in red, Susan Day, Janae Lewis. Derek Payne is right behind Janae. 

Brian Gleason

Mormon kids could be found here during any lunch or brunch.

Paul Mollard

Paul Jensen, with Susan Day in blue.

Devan Thompson and Ryan Wheeler in front. Matt Day, Travis Liston, Derek Payne and Matt Mollard in the back.

Kim Jones and Laurie Spencer

Guys, just hanging out like they always did.

Rachel Smith, Amy Coughran, Amy Peterson

Heather Gleason and Kim Jones

Janae Lewis

Janae Lewis

I Will Not Talk In Class

I made the biggest mistake of my high school life when I dropped Mr. Hinds' Honors History class. Man, I was a whiner. It was a lot of work, and it took a lot out of me, there is no doubt about that. But I should have stuck with it. I was equal to it--I just didn't want to put in the effort. I wasn't used to having to try for good grades, and I had no desire to start trying. I look back on that and just wish so much someone had told me to suck it up and not let me drop the class. Mr. Hinds made us think. He taught us some really solid stuff. I wrote a paper that was probably the best paper of my life, and he gave me a B. I believed it was an A paper, and did not know how to handle giving the best I felt I had in me only to receive a B grade. Oh, how my grown up self wishes I could go back and tell my high school self that I would regret dropping that class for the rest of my life.

I opted to take "regular" 11th grade history. Which meant I was not eligible for AP History as a senior. But that's not what bothers me. What bothers me is that, honoring my request, I was removed from Mr. Hinds' class and put into regular history with Mr. Biever. And oh. This man. It was awful. He spent every class period lecturing, but not really teaching. He walked around as though he was in a daze and had no control whatsoever. I don't think I learned a single thing that year. His class was a complete joke, and everyone treated it that way. He was probably the least respected teacher on campus, and it was like he just didn't know it.

Mr. Biever's favorite form of punishment was making students write sentences. I will admit, I wasn't the best student in his class. It was impossible to take him seriously, and it was impossible to take the class seriously. There was really no content. It was such a waste of time. I spent my time in that class talking to my friends, and honestly--that's about it. (This was not my typical behavior, by any stretch of the imagination). But anyway, people were ALWAYS talking about being assigned to write sentences. He assigned so many sentences he was probably drowning in them.

One day he gave me 100 sentences for talking to my friend Ozzy. I was pretty upset, because I was absolutely not talking that day. I'll admit, I did talk in class. But the day he assigned me sentences I had not beet. I was really upset, and I decided it was time to make Mr. Biever's life a little more interesting. I thought about finding a refrigerator box and writing the sentences on that. But it wasn't practical, because I really had no way of getting a huge box like that to school. My next best option was to write the sentences out on toilet paper, and then roll them back up. So that's what I did. I wrote, 100 times on toilet paper, "I will not talk in class." And then I wrote, "101. I was not talking in class, and it was not fair that Mr. Biever assigned me these sentences." Or something like that.

He accepted my sentences, and I never heard another word about it. I don't even think he smiled at the fact that they were on toilet paper. Other kids got a kick out of it though.