It's Kind Of A Funny Story

After spending two years at a high school unlike any you've ever seen, I have to admit that I have learned a lot. No, I haven't been able to memorize the irregular conjugates of "Dire" and "Dare" in Italian and I'm still completely oblivious about most everything that goes on in my math class, but the most important lessons that I've learned come from the people around me, and those fore-spoken people are never the ones that stand at the front of the room with an Expo marker in hand. My kind of lessons come from the kids sitting next to me, chewing gum and downloading the answers to our next Chemistry test on their iPhone. My real-world learning is overhearing gossip about how our History teacher, a woman not much older than us who graduated from the very soil we walk on, was apparently a promiscuous teenager in her high-school days.

As much as school leaves a bad taste in my mouth by the time the day is over, I have to admit that it's the only place in the world where you can experience true, unbridled havoc. If nothing else, by the end of the day I have a top hat full of great stories and a slew of experiences that no world traveler could ever parallel, because even the tightest-knit village of four little huts couldn't spread news as quickly as a high school does.

I really have to thank these crazy kids that I share classrooms with for eight hours a day, because without them I would have never known about the Napoleon Dynamite-esque cat-fight that took place no more than an hour before the news hit my ears.

The China Chongas (also known by those unfamiliar with Miami lingo as "Tokyo Drift") are really two of the strangest students at my lovely school. Even those who don't attend daily know of them because, honestly, they're hard to miss.

As two small asian girls decked in full latin Chonga get-up, they don't just cross racial borders but instead sail across with a kind of impertinent ease that says they were clearly transplanted to the States later in life and raised by MTV. Part ghettofabulous, part Miami skank, and full-time Asia natives, The China Chongas are decked out with bleach blonde hair, gold hoop earrings that I could probably fit my entire hand through, a variation of white/black Reeboks depending on the outfit, and, of course, Sharpie lip-liner.

I refuse to name names for the sake of whatever integrity will remain when I'm finished, but their first names do, in fact, rhyme.

So, now that that picture is painted, let's work on the story.

While it's no requirement, for some reason a good chunk of the who's-who at my confidential art school find it necessary to shove themselves into a tiny cafeteria by the time lunch rolls around. I never understood it until the first Cafeteria-centric happening went down, and then I realized that people weren't sitting in there because they liked the wobbling tables and collective roar; they were in there because if anything groundbreaking were to happen, that's where it would take place. The cafeteria is the Los Angeles of the high-school microcosm. No one particularly likes it there, but it's the axis on which the world turns.

To continue. Whilst eating lunch with a slew of their hispanic friends, one of the China Chongas murmured something or another about a girl sitting near by. Of course, this is where the story starts to get muddled. Some say that Tokyo of the Tokyo Drift initiated what followed, others say that the passing Crazy White Girl was dropping out that afternoon and wanted to start at least one fight during her high-school run. What is agreed upon is that no one in the room could understand what they were saying during the verbal food fight that followed. Anyone who has heard those with a latin background go at it knows exactly what this high-pitched vomiting sounds like. Spanish mixes with English mixes with Vietnamese. Words like "papi" and "hoochie" are thrown around like an inflatable beach ball at a sporting event.

Eventually, Crazy White Girl couldn't take it anymore. She wound up, pulled back, and decked Tokyo right in the face.

A stunned silence followed. Even Tokyo didn't move. Everyone in the room was simply amazed that action had been taken; punches had been thrown. Assistant Principles were ushered in and students jumped to one side, cheering on a competitor of their choice.

It wasn't until after they were dragged away that the stories started to come out. Apparently, the China Chongas frequent a local Presbyterian church that a girl in my math class also attends. During the church's annual talent show last year, the two signed up and stepped on stage in their regular get-up of Baby Phat and Reeboks. Only to perform a nun-chuck act.

Stop me if this starts to sound fake.

As the current celebrities of this epic Confidential Art School, they're getting the full spectrum of attention from every clique and class. Granted, rumors are spinning just as quickly as the truth is, but this, I think, illustrates something grand about high-school culture as a whole.

We are all freaks in the making.

Or maybe we're freaks now, in all our glory, and as we ascend into adulthood that inner Smiths-lover and garage band hero fades away into the back of our consciousness. Maybe growing up doesn't mean maturing, but instead means forgetting what it is to twirl nun-chucks at talent shows and solve problems with brute force. Maybe growing up means putting those Reeboks or Adidas or Converse in the back of the closet and trading them in for something more mild. Maybe this is the last chance we'll get to be completely batshit crazy.

Whatever the case may be, this is our daily life. This is what high-school is like, in case all you adults out there forgot. In case it was you who hung away your studded jean jacket and Cramps shirts all those years ago. This is what you have been missing, and what I'd really like to know is has all that much changed?

I truly believe that it is as they say. The truth, it seems, is always stranger than fiction.