Gabriel the Opinionistic's blog Tri-Daily Whatnot 

When I arrived back at school in august I expected fun, exitement. Just like 6th grade. But…

Oh Boy!

This was not going to be my year.

I had some good teachers (who gave lots of homework), and I hade a few bad teachers (who gave LOTS of homework). In late August I was swimming in homework, when September came around I was drowning in it (paper! Cuts!), by October my life was a living– what’s a work worse than nightmare?– homework. An utter flurry of no sleep, late grades, and stress, all tornadoing around me. My entire existence was gyrating and whirling out of control and…

And the I stopped.

I stopped caring.

My life was infinitely better. As I halted my insane nit-picking about perfection I got closer to it. When I began to leave some of my load for the morning I began getting better sleep. When I spent less time on each problem I started getting less 85’s and more 95’s from less over-exhaustion. When I chill out, I do far better.

However despite my bleak early seventh grade existence, I learned a lot. I learned to manage my time (I said I learned it not applied it). I learned how to say “he sniffs the donkey” in Latin. And most importantly I learned that the Pythagorean Theorem states that the two legs of a right triangle squared and added together equals the length of the hypotenuse squared not

I am so HAPPY to leave here seventh grade has been an enormous parasite sucking my life and happiness from my husk of a raisin-ified shell and spewing homework and Black Death in its place. And now I’m rid of it. God bless next years sixth graders.

A checklist for next years sixth graders:

1)A light but large backpack

2) organizational skills and a will to use them

3) a dump bucket so you can find “that one” homework assignment a full semester later

4) a good outlook, nothing keeps stress away like denying anything is worth worrying about

The gigantic black beast came shooting down the kitchen at my mother, doing ordinary housework, and crashed into her with all it’s might. Then it went at the broom chasing it in circles like a deranged cow-dog would a cow,and proceeded to drag it around the floor.

But how did this all begin…

Last Saturday my mother began volunteering at the Austin Pets Alive shelter on Ceasar Chavez. The next day we when there to participate in the “walk a dog program” where you either walk or run one of their shelter dogs around Town Lake. Thirty minutes later we were looking around the shelter and saw a two month old black lab puppy named Cora . In another hour and a half I was walking to the car with “Cora” in my arms (despite my earlier claim that “we aren’t getting a dog today.” )

The first time that we used the broom in the kitchen she was at it. She pounced at it over and over like it was a large rodent. She mangled the bristles, she bit the handle, she slammed the t-bar. But only when some one is using it.

Even now the broom is her favorite play rough toy because it runs away like her rope and it’s big and it’s “furry”. She likes tearing after it and watching it stay just in front of her. She likes a challenge. My dog loves her broom.