So I managed to bring my english grade from a C- to an A- in 3 hours.
My teacher made a bet with me since I never do my homework and I deserve a much higher grade in english, if I could do a 10 page non double spaced satirical paper on the private school that i attend, he would give me an a- for the rest of the marking period and i dont have to do a thing in class.
I'd like to post this so I can have a link where all my friends can read it, and also because I want CD to destroy my credibility as a writer
Get cracking.
The Sage Day Experience
By John Hanlon
Special Thank You to Mr. Pec for letting me work on this during chemistry.
To any and all prospective students, I offer the following quote: “Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.”
On a more serious note, no matter what your first impression is, Sage will surprise you time and time again. No matter how many years I spend here in the program, I have to say the one thing that Sage cannot promise is predictability. There’s no such thing as a “regular” day here at Sage Day of Rochelle Park. Time and time again, I find myself completely caught off guard by the happenings and events that take place at this school. Usually for the better. Usually.
Now, I understand that coming to a new school may be a little nerve-wracking, especially for the shyer students, but to come to Sage and keep to yourself in the corner completely defeats the purpose of what has come to be known as “The Sage Day Experience.” If you come here, then you will find at least a couple people to talk to, regardless of what type of people you normally associate (or try to) with.
The Sage Day Experience is really kind of like the Jimmy Hendrix one, except without all the LSD. The guitar thing and tye dye colors fit right in though, take that as you will. And don’t get me wrong, we have our fair share of hippies. I can break down The Sage Day Experience into several equally important areas.
• The Bus Ride
• The Teachers
• The Classes & Therapy
• SDF
• General Shenanigans
• Sports
• Band & the Arts Festivals
• Milon
As I said before, each category is equally part of The Experience, and deserves its own TV show, if not its own channel. I’ll start with
Chapter One: The Bus Ride.
It all started my freshmen year. I took one look at my new method of transportation, and to be honest, I said to myself something along the lines of “Shit. The Short Bus.” Of course, in time this would become a source of conversation, and I am now a proud rider of the short bus.
The bus ride to Sage is definitely a very important part of any proper, fulfilling time at Sage Day. I pity anyone who has to take the bus by themselves, or who doesn’t socialize with the people on their bus, for whatever reason.
The bus pulled up to my house the first day of school. The doors opened, and a somber looking Tom Sattler greeted me with his ever monotone “Welcome to Hell. All aboard the Sped Express.” In hindsight, this was actually extremely appropriate and more than uncannily accurate. There was a lot of shouting during my Freshmen Year, with the bus ride taking a full hour and ten minutes to get from my house to school. The Freshmen Year bus ride was me, Mike Robin, James Sattler, Tom Sattler, and Alex Carbone. What. A. Group.
We all shouted a lot, talked over each other, smacked each other, and even ourselves from time to time Freshmen year. I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. What with the Bi-Polar mood swings, a certain somebody (Not naming names) massive perversion, James and Tom’s clumsiness, my own insightful yet soulless pessimism, and Mike Robins’ pure chaos, it made for some extremely interesting conversations. Our first week, we were leaving Tom and James’s house, and we backed up straight into a tree. Oh if I didn’t know an omen when I saw one…
Sophomore year Tom graduated, and in his place we received a religious nutcase: Alexis Brown. We also received a second addition to the bus, Kelly Blake. Now since Kelly and Alexis where much smarter then me, James, or Mike, this seemed to give them a superiority complex, so occasionally we would have to… Throw them under the bus so to speak. Although the Sophomore bus ride was much less hectic and much calmer then the Freshmen one, a certain somebody’s obsession with all things perverted and BPD got worse and worse as the year went on, to the point where Mike Robin was the ignorant one for telling an abortion joke during a pregnancy scare. Apparently it’s a terrible crime to not know someone might be pregnant via osmosis.
A very hot topic during this time was religion, with Alexis being the only religious person on the bus, and the rest of us being a mix of Agnostics and Athiests,this made for some heated arguments that culminated with little miss I-Know-Everything saying that men have one less rib then women do, and pointing that as evidence for creationism. We had a field day, let me tell you. She also had a habit of pulling out her little handheld Bible at any given time during an argument, and reading scripture as though it settled the argument. As I told everyone else, if she pulled that Bible out one more time, I was going to take it away from her, place sardines in some of the pages, and slam it shut. I would then hand it back to her and go back to my music.
Mid winter, if any of you have been to Oakland you’ll understand; me and Alexis got stuck on the bus when we went down into a trough between 2 hills, and the road was too icy to get it. We had to wait 2 hours. 2 HOURS WITH THAT DEMON SPAWN ON A BUS WITH NOTHING BY MY IPOD TO KEEP ME SANE, until the snow plow came and salted the roads for us. I was never so glad to see a multi-ton truck with a reinforced steel plow at the front barreling towards me in my life.
Sophomore year we had a lot of various problems involving the bus itself. At our worst, we went through 3 busses in 2 weeks. One bus broke down, and after sitting in front of Alex’s house for a solid half hour with no sign of rescue, all of us STARVING by the way, we decided to pool our money together and order Chinese. We 411’d the number for Tommy Cheng’s in Franklin Lakes, the nearest Chinese food restaurant, and gave them a call to see if they would deliver to us. Unfortunately, they thought we were joking when we said “go to *Alex’s Address* and look for the little yellow bus in the middle of the road.”
Needless to say, we went hungry. A week later, we’re using a new bus and the transmission blows. We got stuck again. The next day, we’re on our third bus, and our klutz of a driver gets us into an accident right by the Hawthorne exit on 208. Luckily none of us were injured. This turn of events made me and Mike embrace our inner Pagans. We began worship of Koshwak NoFo, the Angry God of Transportation. We realized that the only person that had been on the bus every single incident was Alexis, and it came very close to me and Mike sacrificing her to appease Koshwak NoFo.
So Junior year rolls around, and we’ve had our share of pretty funky drivers. I mean that in the most polite sense possible. Alex Graduated along with Alexis (Thank GOD) and Matt, Kelly’s brother, joined us on the Sped Express.
Our current driver doesn’t speak any English aside from the occasional swear, and we have more then once had to rely on Mike to translate into Spanish to give her directions.
In fact, just today we had a replacement driver. It was an American for a change, and he was just like one of the teachers. Hell, he was just like one of the kids. He was swearing and chilling and laughing with us as we told him stories of Bus Rides Past. We warned him that we would be at James’ house for quite awhile, so he got there, turned the bus off, and put his feet up on the dashboard. We were riding past the Garden State Plaza when some jerk cuts us off. Our driver blares the horn for about 3 seconds and starts swearing him off, holding up both middle fingers. Mike of course jumped up and held his middle finger out the window, and me and James assisted. Basically, if that guy looked in the rear view, he would have seen a short bus full of angry speds flipping him off. Anyway, I’ve dedicated probably what is too much space to the Bus, if such a thing is possible here at Sage Day, and I need to move on.
Chapter 2: The Teachers.
One thing you’ll realize immediately upon coming to Sage is that we have the most amazing teachers out of any school you’ll visit. A good and surprisingly accurate Ad campaign would be something along the lines of: “Sage Day, the coolest teachers or your money back!” (Mr. Leonard, if your listening…)
First off we have Bertelloni, who I can safely say is the only teacher I know to have played Xbox Live with his students, and threw us a Halo tournament last year. More on that later. He’s a really chill guy as long as you get some work done, and he’s really up to date with current events and what’s going on in the world. I can safely say that he’s one of the more intelligent people I know. Also, upon finding out that I had a mere 4 hours to write this from scratch and make everything up as I go along, much as I always do, he decided it would be funny to Shadow me for a few minutes and occasionally screw with me. Deleting my work, clicking buttons, changing page size. Oh yeah great fun.
Milon would come next, but he deserves, and shall receive, his own section dedicated entirely to him.
Dr. Shteingradt is next, and I can safely say he doesn’t deserve the title of Dr. He’s too smart. The kind of science he does is at such an unthinkable, uncomprehendable level, that I think we should take away the Doctor and just call him Wizard. His science isn’t science. It’s magic. He was a scientist in Russia many years ago, and worked on a Radar system, which is an accomplishment unto itself. I can safely say, respectfully of course, that Dr. Shteingradt is probably the most intelligent man that I’ve ever met.
We have Maggiore, whose been playing every instrument known to man since he was still in the womb, and also invented the glockenspiel. The man has such knowledge of music that he no longer “hears” sound. Rather, he feels it using an advanced form of echolocation like a bat or dolphin. I’m dead serious. Really. He also lives in a van down by the river.
Mr. Tweedie is probably the nicest, most chill person that I can think of. He’s never gotten upset or yelled in my 3 years of being here at Sage. He manages to make the bright side of a 3 hour trip to and from work every day, commuting from PA. It’s uncanny, really, how relaxed he is at any given time. He always has something meaningful to say about life, and is very willing to share the wisdom he’s attained throughout his.
Friedland. What can I say? The guy drives a jeep to school everyday in the pouring rain, and has worked here at Sage pretty much forever. He’s singer of a band, Somatic Habit, which is kind of like RadioHead meets Rage Against the Machine. They’re actually really good, and I’m not just saying that to suck up, seeing as I’m not in any of his classes anymore. I can safely say that he has the best eye-chalk coordination out of anyone I’ve ever met, having never missed a student from across the classroom. Ask Mike Robin for first hand experience.
Of course we have Bitteto, who was the NJ state champion wrestler several years ago, with a ridiculous career of like 200 wins and 5 losses. Something like that.
Although a man of few words, whenever he speaks you know he has something intelligent and insightful to say, much like David Noto, except without the fatalist opinion on life.
There are more teachers of course, but I’m trying not to do what I did with chapter 1, and so I’ll be a little briefer from now on. All of the teachers here at Sage are extraordinary; I can say confidently that we don’t have a single “boring” teacher. Most of the teachers are fresh out of College, so they behave and teach much like kids would. Which is of course a good thing, I definitely feel that I have learned more from teachers who are really chill and have a sense of humor than I would have from public school.
The teachers are a huge part of The Sage Day Experience.
Chapter 3: The Classes & Therapy.
Ah, who hasn’t had a Health class with Milon, or a Science class with Dr. Shteingradt, which are of course one of life’s finer pleasures. The classes here at Sage Day aren’t quite as major as some of the other categories, but of course they can’t be overlooked. Of course everyone misses Delaney, and if you don’t remember or didn’t meet him than I feel sorry for you. Every class he started teaching the normal subject, but you could bet your life that it would break down into a conversation about football within a half hour. How many times have we all heard stories about the time that Delaney was a bouncer, or the time that his football team had an incident of some sort? Countless.
Now all of us at one point in time have had to go see our therapists for some reason or another. Whether we were misbehaving, having a bad day, or just generally being a jackass (which is quite a common thing throughout the halls of Sage), or the 2 times per week mandatory therapy sessions, we all know what its like.
Of course we have Family therapy, which I won’t go into very much for fear of repercussions, and group therapy. Now I won’t give any specific examples because of the rules, but in my Group, we just sit there and make fun of life all day. And each other. Especially each other. Mrs. Fritsky is the best.
To be honest though, sometimes the therapy gets a bit much. Not everyone feels this way, and many people feel that the therapy is something necessary and should be taken advantage of. Although I personally feel that I’m to terms with myself and self sufficient enough to not need it, that’s just me. All this therapy is making me depressed.
Chapter 4: SDF
Ahh, SDF. How many hundreds of pages could we all fill in our various stories and incidents involving SDF. Run by Mr. Milon, SDF has been called a “school cult” which of course Mr. Milon denies adamantly. (Most of us agree for fear of displeasing him.) SDF, to those who are new or who live under a rock, is the school kickboxing program. It stands for “Self Defense and Fitness.” It’s almost as old as the school itself.
SDF is also the first thing taken away from you when your in the program and misbehave, no matter how unrelated the 2 things are. I never quite understood that, but it’s not my place to argue. It IS my place to be passive aggressive about it and be sneaky about it, case in point. (I’m probably going to get in trouble for this, thank you Mrs. Morelatos.)
SDF was relatively injury free, despite the contact and exercises, until James “The Wrecking Ball” Sattler came and injured 12 people in 6 months. Thank you SDF Wrecking Ball!
Of course we cannot forget the SDF Mascot, Geidrius “The” Albin. He was like a son to milon. Undefeated in his 4 years of SDF, Geidrius trumped the entire program when he beat Milon in grappling. SDF is probably the most notable aspect of Sage Day to an outsider.
Chapter 5: General Shenanigans.
Now, as Aceyman would say, “The more Sage kids that get together in a concentrated area, the more the jackasery level of that area increases. It’s all relative.” We Sage kids are known for our Shenanigans, and I would say it’s safe to say that we are very proud of it. It’s one of those things that you just can’t have one without the other. We Sage kids just love to goof off, it’s as strong a law of physics as anything Newton ever came out with.
The Tourettes Game is also very famous, or infamous depending on who you ask. And the best part is, everyone who plays, (or used to, since we got yelled at.) actually had Tourettes besides Mike. The Tourettes Game is played by several people taking turns shouting random obscenities in increasing octaves, until it gets too loud or (usually) until we get caught.
Whether it be Beelee going around stealing people’s hats to fence back to them, or Joel and Bryan wrestling in the parking lot and blocking traffic, tearful arguments that stretch the hallway over something as trivial as a Cola, me telling everyone I pick pocketed Friedland of his car keys, or one of the many incidents in which a chair gets kicked, Shenanigans are a solid staple of any true Sage Day Experience.
In fact, chair kicking is a very popular pastime whenever people get into a loud argument. It usually starts out with the entire lunch room going quiet, 2 people arguing until they both get sent to the office, upon which one of them will kick a chair. That part isn’t so popular, but its happened enough that now, whenever someone flips out and DOESN’T kick a chair, one of us takes the liberty of kicking it for them and shouting “MOZZELTOPF!”
Chapter 6: Sports.
Sports. Ah. Sports. Go up to any Sage kid and say “Sage Day Sports” and watch their reaction. Their eyes will light up as many fond memories of playing soccer, football and baseball at the little field several blocks away fills their fragile eggshell minds. Wow. I really need to stop with The Doors references.
Anyway. We all have great memories of the times that we won, lost, or didn’t participate in Sage Day sporting events. I personally remember the time that me and Mr. Friedland took turns running the Armenian flag across the field every time Team Armenia scored. Good times, good times.
Of course we have the ever popular Dodgeball too. SDF club, every wendsday (which is a half day by the way, I can’t believe I got 7 pages into a paper on Sage Day without mentioning that.) At the end of the day, we have a club. Some people do creative writing, some people do acting, and of course, there are others who prefer Dodgeball. SDF club and the Sports club have a rivalry that has spanned the ages, neither side giving nor asking quarter. Of course, Sports club usually destroys us anyway, but we take it like men. Yes, including you, Kelly.
Chapter 7: Band & the Arts Festival
Now, here at Sage, we strongly believe in the philosophy of “Anyone can do anything, no matter how off key it is.” A prime example is the Arts Festival! Every January and June, we get together and throw a 5 hour show that takes months of preparation and planning to execute, and of course comes crumbling down around our ears after the first couple of minutes.
Besides that, we have a lot of fun doing it, and I would say that it’s completely worth it. For the past 3 years, SDF has even had a martial arts performance, which reached it’s epic height June of 2006. The last one was just… Not what it could have been. And I’ll be the first to admit it.
Band is great. Maggiore always has such high hopes for us, musically speaking, and every year we manage to bring him to tears with our skill. (Or lackthereof.) I loved being in band last year, and although I have absolutely no musical talent of any kind, I enjoyed playing with the equiptment. I guess that’s why they let me stay.
In all seriousness, music is a very important aspect of The Sage Day experience. Just ask Mr. Milon.
Chapter 8: Milon.
Ah, Milon. He is truly a physical embodiment of the abstract concept that is the Sage Spirit. He can intimidate you, make you laugh, and mean three different things with the same sentence. It’s really quite something.
He’s also quite dedicated to his job, making the lengthy trip in from the Kuiper Belt every day… er.. I mean Point Pleasant… (I’m risking my life writing this, so I hope you appreciate it.) Leader of SDF, he is also very fond of discipline; in the form of pushups, v-sits, situps, and occasionally letting Mr. Bitetto take over the class.
A rather frightening incident that I had with Mr. Milon last year, was that I had a dream. In my dream, Aliens raided the school and had us pinned up against the chalkboard. I was standing next to him, and I said to him “Friends of yours?”
To which he responded “If we survive this, remind me to kill you.” I told James Sattler about the dream, and ONLY James, who promptly forgot about it 5 minutes later.
The next day I come in, and he comes up to me, in front of the entire class, there are witnesses, and says to me “I TOLD YOU NOT TO TELL ANYONE ABOUT MY FRIENDS!”
I cried myself to sleep that night.
Epilogue.
As you can probably tell, Sage Day is a very magical place with very magical people. I use magic for lack of a better word. We all work very hard to maintain the Sage Spirit, and of course it works wonders for maintaining itself.
If you decide to come here, be warned, no matter how hard Mr. Leonard tries to keep to a schedule, there is NO SUCH THING as a normal day here. And we all sure as hell wouldn’t have it any other way. Which is, of course, the point. In a place where nothing is normal everything is. It’s always just another Sage Day.
