:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63463215/1142477707.jpg.0.jpg)
Hey, everyone!
I’m about to tell a slightly embarrassing tale for you all to enjoy.
Ramble of the Day
Back in seventh grade, I took (by that I mean “was signed up for because seventh graders have no control over their schedules”) a class called Great Books. I don’t remember reading any particular great books, and I probably couldn’t tell you of a single book I actually read. I think we ended up reading a lot of short stories, which is pretty funny. It was a class designed by, I think, a mix of teachers and administrators who had no idea what to do with a free period in certain students’ schedules, so they created a class with very minimal guidelines, leaving teachers to do whatever they wanted with it. I ended up working out okay most of the time, but I have no idea if the class still exists.
Our year-end assignment in my seventh grade Great Books class was to write a book about whatever we wanted, and that there’d be an awards ceremony for the books. Because I had just found out what an epistolary novel was, I decided I’d write one, It was about two brothers’ correspondence; one was an American soldier stationed in France during World War II, and the other was a preteen in the midwest of the United States starting middle school. (Pretty deep for a 12-year-old, right?)
I had fun switching between the two characters’ perspectives, and especially so through switching fonts. I was in a phase where I was very interested in exploring all the fonts Microsoft Word had to offer, making this an ideal assignment for me. Anyway, at the end, it came out to about 10 pages, which was about the same length as everyone else’s books.
Everyone, too, got an award. Awards like best sports book and best animal book were handed out, and each person got a chance to either read their book aloud or have a classmate do it. I opted for the second after winning the day’s final award, the best book award, because I was pretty shy at that age.
A classmate read the book well, but might have accidentally spoiled the end of the book before he started reading it to the class. I don’t think a lot of people noticed. He also pointed out something I hadn’t noticed the entire time I worked on my short book — the older brother was named William, and the younger Billy. Thankfully, I wasn’t embarrassed. It was pretty funny, especially after my teacher just made the joke that the parents of the kids in my story were like George Foreman, who named all five of his sons George.
The book itself was a success — one teacher I didn’t even know told me how much she enjoyed it. I will never quite get over the fact that I made such an error, and I do laugh at it when I remember it.
tl;dr: Slightly embarrassing, but good, times in seventh grade.
Links of the Day
Manchester United will bring its own security to the Camp Nou after several groups of away supporters have claimed stewards were violent with them.
MK Dons forward Chuks Aneke was racially abused on social media over the weekend, and the club has since condemned it.
RB Salzburg has hired RB Leipzig assistant Jesse Marsch as its new coach, beginning in July.
Today’s longer read: Matthew Hall on the sexual misconduct scandal in Canada involving former U20 women’s national team coach Bob Birarda for The Guardian