Now it is Friday afternoon. School is over and all the spelling tests and other papers are graded. The usual assortment of scores is shown. However, one A student failed the test. He must have not studied. In my fifth class today, I seemed to snap. We were reviewing for the semester final exam. The students talked, got up and walked around, and threw papers at each other. They were unusually disruptive. They didn’t seem to care a whole lot about the final. They hadn’t studied for any other test so why should they study for this one. The few physics students who were paying attention had lost any idea of how to use the formulas they had already studied. I would explain something and then do another problem that was identical to the first. They would make me explain it again. Then I would have to say the same thing on the next example. They were not listening or at least not thinking. When I ask them to think, they growl at me and refuse. I do not know how to train high school students to think, especially if they do not care. I am very tired now.I go out next to the ocean and sit on the bench. I read a couple poems by Tennyson that I find to be about depressed lovers. Naturally, I get more depressed, so I close the book and lay down. The ocean makes a constant roar so that I hear nothing else. The tide is coming in and occasionally a few drops of salt water from a larger wave splash me. I listen to waves and fall into a relaxing slumber. I wake up shivering. The temperature is still quite warm, but a moderate breeze blows off the cool water making my sweaty body shudder.
Sitting up, I look out across the waves. I can see the islands of Arno on the horizon. They are nothing more than dark silhouettes against the sky. Clouds are gathering. Perhaps there will be rain tonight. The blue waters stretch to the sky that is filling up with the evening colors. The clouds turn a gold color. The foamy waves match the clouds in the colored light of evening. The evening light casts shadows on each cloud showing every contour. Everything the in sky and water stands out in sharp contrast.
I stand up and meander to my apartment. The laid-back culture is getting to me. I am becoming even more laid-back than I was before I came to this spot in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I straighten my room and fall asleep early.
Richard Wright Copyright 2001