I'd like to make one introspective emo statement for the day. When it's done, I swear there will be a reward for your patience. Ready? OK.
I have a difficult time talking or making friends with people I really admire, whether they are my age or older. But I don't know if I feel worse about not having the confidence to even casually chat with them or that I take for granted the friends I am comfortable with in lieu of doting on the admired.
That's it! Not so bad after all, was it? Like ripping a band-aid off. Now here's your reward:
PICTURES!
That's Old Milton High School, our dear alma mater. Nestled in the humming traffic jams of north metro Atlanta, it's the damned-near oldest institution in Alpharetta that hasn't been trucked in from Roswell (see NY Times muck-rake). The high school, in fact, was over 80 years old. I say "old" and "was," because as of today, the first day of the 2005-06 school year, that Milton is no more. Here is the new Milton:
In keeping with the Alpharetta way, everything new looks older than the old stuff. That's why the AJC likened the new building to Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. The architects, in fact, were told to draw from that and the University of Virginia campus. Oh, the history that money can buy.
Kristen and I ran into an old teacher who told us about some of the new "policies" of the new Milton. Apparently this teacher had labelled some old bookcases in the old classroom "to go to new Milton." When an administrator saw them, however, they were told, "Um, we're not going in that direction." Which evidently translated into "no old junk in the new school." This teacher actually had to fish one of the old bookcases out of the trash and repaint it for the new school.
The PTSA was handing out cookies and punch in the new cafeteria that sported the old bench-style mess tables but with a three story-high ceiling rising above. The show of hospitality, however, couldn't mask all the typical steele-eyed administrators roaming the hallways with walkie-talkies and clipboards in hand. Seeing all the familiar peacekeepers forced me to recall what a restrictive environment high school was, how strangely guilty you automatically felt when you were looked at by an unfamiliar authority figure. Ultimately it did nothing to instill any sense of discipline or restraint in us. It made half of us rebellious and the other half deeply suspicious of the bureaucracy behind it.
The new Milton might look like the University of Virginia, but on the inside it's still a pretty stifling place. What bothers me about all the pomp and bombast behind its opening is that it gives the administrators and the county board a chance to show themselves off and seem relevant. The AJC ran three separate articles this Sunday on the new school, including the one on the front page of the NorthSide section that featured an enormous photo of our principal's enormous head. But the heart and soul of the old Milton or any high school has always been the students and more importantly the teachers. From what I hear, all of the best teachers my sister and I had have either left or are now sticking it out in the new building completely alienated from the new educational miracle that has descended on Alpharetta.
I have a difficult time talking or making friends with people I really admire, whether they are my age or older. But I don't know if I feel worse about not having the confidence to even casually chat with them or that I take for granted the friends I am comfortable with in lieu of doting on the admired.
That's it! Not so bad after all, was it? Like ripping a band-aid off. Now here's your reward:
PICTURES!
That's Old Milton High School, our dear alma mater. Nestled in the humming traffic jams of north metro Atlanta, it's the damned-near oldest institution in Alpharetta that hasn't been trucked in from Roswell (see NY Times muck-rake). The high school, in fact, was over 80 years old. I say "old" and "was," because as of today, the first day of the 2005-06 school year, that Milton is no more. Here is the new Milton:
In keeping with the Alpharetta way, everything new looks older than the old stuff. That's why the AJC likened the new building to Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. The architects, in fact, were told to draw from that and the University of Virginia campus. Oh, the history that money can buy.
Kristen and I ran into an old teacher who told us about some of the new "policies" of the new Milton. Apparently this teacher had labelled some old bookcases in the old classroom "to go to new Milton." When an administrator saw them, however, they were told, "Um, we're not going in that direction." Which evidently translated into "no old junk in the new school." This teacher actually had to fish one of the old bookcases out of the trash and repaint it for the new school.
The PTSA was handing out cookies and punch in the new cafeteria that sported the old bench-style mess tables but with a three story-high ceiling rising above. The show of hospitality, however, couldn't mask all the typical steele-eyed administrators roaming the hallways with walkie-talkies and clipboards in hand. Seeing all the familiar peacekeepers forced me to recall what a restrictive environment high school was, how strangely guilty you automatically felt when you were looked at by an unfamiliar authority figure. Ultimately it did nothing to instill any sense of discipline or restraint in us. It made half of us rebellious and the other half deeply suspicious of the bureaucracy behind it.
The new Milton might look like the University of Virginia, but on the inside it's still a pretty stifling place. What bothers me about all the pomp and bombast behind its opening is that it gives the administrators and the county board a chance to show themselves off and seem relevant. The AJC ran three separate articles this Sunday on the new school, including the one on the front page of the NorthSide section that featured an enormous photo of our principal's enormous head. But the heart and soul of the old Milton or any high school has always been the students and more importantly the teachers. From what I hear, all of the best teachers my sister and I had have either left or are now sticking it out in the new building completely alienated from the new educational miracle that has descended on Alpharetta.
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