450 of us, crowded into a two-tier auditorium littered with purple paraphernalia and embellished with hungry teachers who would give anything to walk out the back doors - the noise cacophonous, penetrating even the oldest administrators' ears, and threatening to stampede through the walls and leave us in a pile of dust - an endless flurry of seat-finding, as if an upholstered red seat that left pink fuzz on my white jeans could affect one's social standing for the rest of eternity: This, for those who have forgotten, is a typical assembly.
As per the usual here, where violinists wear horse costumes and for a major assignment someone presents a freshly printed copy of their rendering of "Romeo and Juliet" featuring donuts, there was no reason to hold the grand affair. A few reminders about rules in the hallway (that no one would bother with). A couple horror stories about muggers and truancy officers (which would metamorphize into urban legends that would linger like dusk until the end of the century). Most noticeably? Nothing new. The same speech as a year ago. And suddenly, the familiar words seem out of place, because their backdrop is so dramatically changed.
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