Free Periods

Let me recreate the situation for you:

It was a French lesson. We were in the labs. We were, basically, doing nothing.

Phoenix and I were trawling through the files on my school server, looking for a certain document I was fairly sure should be there but for some reason couldn't find. Well, I was trawling and she was watching somewhat disinterestedly over my shoulder.

'What's "Shakespeare&Napoleon.docx"?' she inquired after some time.

'Last semester's History seminar.'

'How about "ReinhardHeydrich.docx"?'

'This semester's History seminar.'

'What about that one called "Free Periods"?'

I paused. 'What?'

'"Free Periods", it's right there.'

'I have no idea,' I said briefly, still hoping to find my other file. 'It says I made it sometime back in May.'

'Well, what's it about?'

'I really can't remember. Now, getting back to finding that document I made about Francophone countries last week -'

Phoenix glowered dramatically and unrealistically. 'Let's look at it.'

I sighed. 'OK. Let's look at it.'

I opened it.

I stared in amazement.

'What is it, exactly?' Phoenix asked doubtfully.

'It's a spare blog post. It's a blog post I wrote in May and never posted,' I breathed, barely believing my luck. At this point I was still in my two-month writer's block phase. 'I wrote virtually an entire post in the spare fifteen minutes at the end of one of my free periods last semester, and forgot about it. I just have to stick an extra 200 words on the end and it's a finished product. This is marvellous.'

Phoenix grinned. 'And this is why you listen to me.'

I never did find that document about Francophone countries around the world; I had to type it up again from scratch. But yes, thanks to Phoenix's curiosity, I discovered a post that would probably otherwise have been deleted by the server, unnoticed, at the end of the school year. And that's the important thing.

My free periods are the biggest waste of time since reality TV was invented.

It’s probably something to do with the name. In other schools they’re called ‘study periods’ or even ‘study hall’. My school chooses to refer to them as ‘frees’, which, being pleasantly reminiscent of ‘free time’ in kindergarten, I don’t think is likely to encourage us students to actually get things done.

Like now, for example. A perfectly normal free. I should be doing work. Instead I’m sitting here typing about not doing any work, which, to be honest, is a greater waste of time than not actually doing any work.

Let me explain to you what I’ve been doing.

 

It’s not a perfectly normal free today, to be honest. Initially, I was supposed to have been helping my Hospitality teacher out with preparing numerous snack-like foods for selling to the teachers, to raise money for something I’m not totally clear on.

I was prepared for this when Marie-Clare arrived this morning. ‘Ready for the English presentation, Leslie?’ she said blithely.

‘What presentation?’ I asked, somewhat confusedly.

‘The one during Period 2 today. It’s those Poetry in Action people again, remember?’

I had forgotten the English presentation. Probably something to do with sleep deprivation. I haven’t been getting a lot of sleep recently. I’ve taken to getting dressed in the mornings without getting out of bed.

‘That’s annoying,’ I said.

‘Why?’

‘Now I have to go and see my Hospitality teacher and tell her I can’t help out,’ I explained. ‘Do you want to come?’

So we went up to see my Hospitality teacher. I knocked on the door, waited for a reply which didn’t come, knocked again, was almost slammed into the wall by the sudden opening of the door, explained why I wasn’t able to come, and left. That’s the problem with being charitable. If I’d decided not to help with the preparations I wouldn’t have had to worry about anything. As it was, I had to go to the effort of explaining when I couldn’t actually go. The world is hideously unfair.

Anyway, Period 1 passed with relatively few events – I’d forgotten to do my homework, but that turned out to be all right because the bell went just before I had to present – and, at the beginning of Period 2, I walked up to the Hall with Marie-Clare.

While I was missing a free to see this presentation, she was missing Japanese, and so was extremely happy. I considered this to be somewhat tactless. At any rate, we made it up to the Hall, where we met up with others in our class. They were discussing the prospect of another Poetry in Action presentation.

Today’s Wednesday. The same people presented to us on Monday about the war poetry of Wilfred Owen. Marie-Clare and I found them quite amusing. I think this was, on her part, mainly because she thought one of the players was very attractive.  Anyway, we were quite cheered at the idea of seeing them again.

To our surprise, while there were a few props set up in the Hall, the players were nowhere to be seen and only six people were there. After a few minutes of this Liss decided to call our English teacher (although why she has his number …). We watched as she talked to him.

After a minute, she turned to us and said ‘It’s not in the Hall, it’s in the lecture theatre, and it’s just for the Australian Literature class. They must have put the wrong dates on our note.’

So Marie-Clare and I walked down to the lecture theatre to see if this was the case. To our annoyance, it was; we stood behind the building for a bit and glared at the presenters through the windows, but it didn’t seem to do much.

To do this we had had to walk past the Hospitality classroom twice. Both times, I’d sprinted past, on the basis that my teacher wouldn’t look at me, and judge the reality of my so-called presentation, if I was merely a blur of light rushing past the window – or, more likely, a somewhat uncoordinated Year 11 jogging slowly along in plain view. Magically, she managed not to notice me.

She even completely failed to see me when I walked past for a third time. Marie-Clare had wanted to head back up to the Hall, just to double check they weren’t there. Despite the fact we had just seen them performing in the lecture theatre. She did assure me that this enthusiasm had nothing to do with not wanting to return to Japanese. However, she did also explain that she didn’t like the Poetry in Action people solely for the attractiveness of their members, and so, once again, I’m left to sadly point out that her word really can’t count for much.

In the Hall, we found three screens set up to look like a theatre’s curtains, a green bag full of mysterious black items we didn’t look at, several costumes, some steps, a few chairs, and a large leather suitcase.

‘Nothing here,’ said Marie-Clare disconsolately. ‘Let’s go. To the Common Room, I mean. There’s no point in me going back to Japanese halfway through the lesson.’

I was standing over by the screens when she said this, trying to figure out what was on the back. ‘All right, let’s head off.’

We were just crossing the room when I stopped suddenly. ‘You know what I worry about at times like these?’

‘What?’ Marie-Clare asked suspiciously. In tutor period I’d gone off on two separate five-minute-long tangents which had only stopped upon threat of, and actual, violence. I can understand her hesitation upon the prospect of listening to anything else I had to say.

‘That the whole room is really full of people. Like, it’s actually an hour later in the day than I think it is, and for some reason I’m hallucinating that the room is empty. But really, the presenters are standing up by the screens wondering why I was walking around them, and the audience are waiting aghast for me to stop making a fool of myself, and now they’re just confused because what I’m describing is actually happening, and maybe in a moment one of them will come over to me and –‘

I stopped at this point because I was experiencing what has now become a familiar sensation for me. That of being dragged forcibly from a room.

I’d honestly like to say that that was the end of it. That would have been the end of it, if not for that part of my brain that subconsciously knows when I’m going to do stupid things and appears to find it hilarious.

Surely everybody has that. The tiny part of you that goes ‘No, seriously, Leslie, it’s a GREAT idea to see how far you can lean back on this log while wearing a heavy bag. What? You’ve fallen over backwards and are now trapped in the straps of your bag, meaning you’re forced to just lie on the ground until Phoenix and Cambridge stop laughing and help you up again? HA HA HA.’

Or ‘Look, Leslie, you’re wearing your watch. Why don’t you go and put that away. STOP LET’S GO BACK TO THE KITCHEN RIGHT NOW. What? You mean you tried to go in both directions at once, lost your balance and accidentally dived into the wooden floor in the hallway? Never mind. I’m sure your knees aren’t damaged permanently. Although how the hell would I know? I’m in your head.’

Actually, maybe it’s just me that has that part of the brain.

In this case, it’s the part of the brain that goes, ‘Ah. Marie-Clare is dragging us from the hall. This is a considerable loss of dignity. Let’s do this the proper way. Disentangle yourself from her. Good. Now go and stand on that leather chest the War Poetry people left behind. Then salute, and then leave the hall.’

At that point there was a brief, action-filled pause.

‘Ah, I see you tried to salute with some degree of force, hit yourself in the eye, closed both eyes in pain, overbalanced and fell off the chest. How ‘bout that. I bet you have a black eye and have to explain this awkwardly to people for the next two days.’

That kind of thing wouldn’t happen if they were called study periods.