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<12/03/2009 - 12:30 | Saffrin Middle School (Math), Austell, GA, USA>
Not that today would ever hold down too much significance in my life, I still think back to it at times and laugh. As much as I didn't like school, days like this were what made it awesome.
It didn't start off as anything too special, just a new project assignment. It was given in math because math would obviously be involved in calculation. When it first started, I was sitting next to Laura to see if I could bounce some idea off of her, since I struggled to myself.
My usual girly self and trance about the skies and stars was for the moment suspended. I was capable and willing to put all of my thoughts and concentration onto this one project. Thus, there were no distractions. The assignment's premise for this project was simple sounding on paper: Students working either solo or in pairs will prepare a Power Point Presentation on throwing a party, and assess the partial and total costs of all items used in that party. The theme of the party will be up to the student or student pairs.
Simple. The teacher wanted to show us the unexpected costs of actually throwing a party in real life, even if it was just a birthday party, as a means to get us all thinking about money. In terms of calculations and processes, I understood very well what I had to do and what was expected of me. The problem was... "I just don't know what theme to pick. You have to help me Laura. I just need an idea that is interesting or fun."
"And realistic," she added while drawing on her own paper.
"Does it say it has to be realistic?" My question made Laura search the instructions again despite knowing already that there were no such limitations. There were not even any limits to how much we could spend. All of this was hypothetical after all.
"I guess not. Pick whatever you want."
"That's the issue," I reminded annoyed and frustrated. Laura and I were both not working in pairs; we didn't need to. But I often found her advice or help on topics better than what anyone else gave me, so I wanted to ask her of all people. "I don't know what I want."
"Aren't you always going on about absurd things? It doesn't even have to make sense. It could be something like a balloon party or a Halloween party, with cats or something."
"With cats?" I pondered what she said, my thoughts grasping at straws for ideas. The term cats held more significance to me than usual, and there was good reason for that.
Several years ago, before my parents split up, I used to have such a cute house pet, a cat named Jypsey. The cat ran away one day never to return home, and ever since then, I've always wanted another cat. I've wanted one so badly that I frequently draw them at random on paper. Showing off those doddles makes Maddison happy since she likes to draw cats on other people's paper for no apparent reasons. I should remind myself that she is also a dog person counting what pet she actually does have.
The point is, I have always had a minor fascination with cats since I wanted a new one as a pet for so long, while having been denied it for a long time now, especially since I recently developed a powerful outbreak of allergy-related Hives we were barely able to get under control. I'm allergic to cats now, despite having been fine before. I care more about funny cat pictures than the average student does, and people notice. Laura notices too, that I like cats so much, which is ultimately the reason why she said it; it was not as random as she meant it to sound.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
But as soon as I thought about it some more, my eyes widened with vigor as the ultimate perfect idea popped into my head! "With cats!" I cried, excited enough to start writing up the idea faster than my hands could move.
Laura soon understood why I was making that face, picking up on the subtlety of my thought process, and as she thought about it, she couldn't stop herself from giggling at the absurdity. "Are you seriously going to go with that theme?"
"Of course I am!" I met her question with a proud confident smile of mine, presenting my new project title in front of her face... But as I held it up to her, Laura dug her face into her arms laughing even harder at the thought of how serious I was.
I didn't care about it though. This will be perfect! The teacher did say to make it as unique as we could. I doubt anyone else would pick a theme like the one I just did. I tried my best to keep it to myself before the presentation date in five days, but Banraus ended up learning of it, and could not resist the good laugh between herself and her friends. Needless to say, once it was presentation time, the entire class was most quiet and attentive to the beginning of my turn, while the teacher did not understand why initially.
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<12/07/2009 - 12:44 | Saffrin Middle School (Math), Austell, GA, USA>
Standing before the class in front of the Smartboard with my school flash drive plugged into the computer, I began the project presentation with one hell of an intro. "For the theme of my project, I will be throwing a cat party!" The students who were not keen to my plan had the most confused and funny looks on their faces, while the others were already laughing at the thought of someone throwing a party with cats. I could barely hold back myself, laughing in sympathy.
"Okay..." The teacher did her best not to laugh out loud either, failing to suppress the amazing expression on her face the others were making.
I entered the first slide after the intro, which at first entered preliminary results and data on how much normal tableware would cost. But soon after, the next slide played and broke down both the number of cats in attendance with the amount of food they would need to attend, all while the slideshow played Proces Verbaal (Intro) by Seriewoordenaar from Djax, otherwise known as a commonly used suspense soundtrack. The suspense of the song and the weight in my results matched pretty well. "There will be 300 cats attending this party. As such, the cost of the food for one serving per cat came out to be about $180, but combined with the cost of getting each cat, the total estimates to about $3,320."
In my next slide, I made sure to insert both graphics and sound effects of some random cute cats, all while drawing out the hypothetical nightmare that would be if this idea were implemented for real. At the same time, I kept my tone of voice nice and normal, as if to make this entire idea seem like it was perfectly natural, which only made it easier for everyone to laugh at the unexpected presentation I revealed to everyone. In all, the entire presentation was short but balanced. As intended, I happened to make the entire moment fun for everyone involved, which ended up making me feel better about it too. "Any questions?"
Raising his hand, one of the random students asked something I knew he would. "Yeah.... Why?" Creating another chain of chuckling even from myself, it was easy to feel the lightened mood in the entire room from this lone presentation. He was only joking around, but wondered how I would answer to this abomination of an idea.
"Oh, just because. Cats are cool. So I thought, why not throw a cat party?" We were all just messing around at this point, so the teacher had no choice but to dismiss me back to my seat. She graded the project in her spare time later with an A+, focusing on the math part of the assignment above all else.
But the hilarity of the idea was even stronger than I predicted before the presentation. Later that day, word went around my other classes pretty quick since others had her same class at different times. I was randomly approached by several students asking if I really went through with a "Cat Party" theme. I just told them the truth. I could, therefore I did. I wasn't expecting to be approached like that by people I did not know in totally different classes, but I welcomed the attention for the day, since it gave us all something funny to talk about.
Man, thinking back on it now, it sounds stupid, and yet it still puts a smile on my face. Days like this were always worth remembering, so I never forgot a single detail.