To the Band of Brothers: November 13, 2020
Good morning,
I don’t think a day off in the middle of the week is a good idea. Don’t get me wrong, this nation needs to celebrate Veterans’ Day, but I think they should push it to a Monday or a Friday. The problem is, when we get back to school the following day, we seem more tired than ever before. Why is that? You would think that after a day of lounging around, a full 24 hours of blessed relief from classes, you would come back invigorated. But you don’t.
I can tell just by standing at the front of the school as I welcome the walking dead into the building. For some reason your fist-pump is weak, your heads are down, and your eyes are barely open. You want to say “good morning,” but what falls out of your mouths instead is more like a whimper. I’ve never heard so many knuckles crack as I slam my fist into your limp hands.
Are you telling me that a full day of lying on the couch watching the Price is Right does not put a spring in your step anymore? That show still exists right? It should because it got my juices flowing back in my day. There was nothing like watching Bob Barker on television holding on to that elongated microphone, hanging out with those beautiful models.
On the show, they would always call up some poor schmuck from Wichita wearing a God-awful colored shirt that said, “I’ve Waited My Whole Life to be Here” or “The Price is Right Here.” The contestants would get so excited to play Plinko, a game that requires no skill set whatsoever. They would win a couple of bucks only to go out losing because in the big wheel they would go over the $1 mark.
An overdose of a game show like that would put a bounce into any young man’s step, but it doesn’t anymore. I don’t know if it’s the absence of Bob Barker or the presence of Drew Carey or more sophisticated games. Instead, you guys seem to come back looking worse than when the long break started.
And don’t look now, but Thanksgiving break is around the corner. Now we’re talking about six days of Plinko, Cliff Hangers, Hi Lo, and Line ‘Em Up. I hate to think about what you’re going to look like on December 1st when you come back. You may be giving thanks and counting your blessings over the break, but when you return you’re probably going to look like you need to be counting sheep. On that Tuesday when classes resume, most of you will probably still be on a tryptophan trip (you know, that nutrient in turkey that makes you drowsy) from too much turkey and pecan pie (with vanilla ice cream, of course).
This is what leads me to believe that maybe we should just have more school days and not less. I know you guys will probably want to kill me when you read this, but maybe as an adult, I should know better and limit breaks to the standard weekends. Maybe we should try the Japanese style of education that has six school days in a week and eleven months of classes instead of the American version of five days and ten months. The Japanese may not be able to come within a thousand bucks of a final showcase, but at least they don’t carry scowls on their faces when they walk into school (probably because they never leave it).
Auspice Maria
BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was founded in 1854 in Havana, Cuba by Queen Isabel II of Spain. The task of educating students was assigned to the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), whose teaching tradition is synonymous with academic excellence and spiritual discipline. In 1961, the new political regime of Cuba confiscated the School property and expelled the Jesuit faculty. The School was re-established in Miami the same year, and over the next decade, continued to grow. Today, Belen Jesuit sits on a 30-acre site in western Dade County, only minutes away from downtown Miami.