High School AP Biology

I don't know why I was thinking about this today...

My Senior year of High School I took AP Biology. Amy was a Junior then, she was also in that class. (A number of Juniors were. They have no idea that I was a trend setter for them, breaking the "No Junior has taken an AP class here before" barrier in my Junior year I signed up and took AP Math. The guidance councilor was really upset, but I think he was more upset when I passed the thing with flying colors. That's a topic for another day.)

The Biology class was immediately after lunch, which wasn't all that great for me. First off, I worked nearly every night until late, and woke up early for seminary. I would get some lunch in me, and be ready for a nap right as the class was starting. This was ok for me, because I had taken the High School level biology 2 years before, and it wasn't all that different, really. I didn't bother studying anything in the class, I had sort of listened in class, and this kind of behavior really ticked Amy off, so I hear. (It didn't help any that she would study all the time, and I would end up with the higher grade on the tests.) When we did labs, I was always will to be her lab partner at least, you'd think she'd give me some credit for being the one with the scalpel.

(On a side note, we wanted to dissect a cat. The cat the teacher had wasn't preserved properly, and was solid as a rock. We pulled it out, and it was no good, so I took it downstairs to get rid of it. That same day, it was really nice outside, and the principal was on a rampage about people leaving the school for lunch. (It was a closed campus) He had even gotten on the loudspeaker to say that anyone caught leaving the school would get detentions. I walked by the office with my cat-in-a-box, and headed for the door. He stopped me, and asked me where I thought I was going. My response was that I had a dead cat, I was going to throw it in the dumpster. He didn't believe me, I had to show him my dead cat. I don't think it helped that just a couple of days before that, I was walking by the office with an unpeeled banana in my ear. (This was just for his benefit, really, I was trying to bait him.) He came out and asked why I had a banana in my ear. My response: "What's that?" He asked a little louder why I had a banana in my ear. I said "I can't hear you, there's a banana in my ear." Then I smiled and walked off. This is the influence Sesame Street had on my life...)

Anyway, there were a couple of thing to note about the Biology Teacher, Mr. Hemmer. (And Amy should appreciate this.) Mr. Hemmer got excited when he taught. His big bushy eyebrows would start creeping higher and higher on his forehead until you thought they might pop right off and hit the ceiling. His eyes also got wide and bulged out a little. If he caught your direct eyesight, he would stand there staring at you until you looked away. (Sometimes this would be a fun game. Get his eyesight honed in on you, then see how long you could go without either of you blinking. As you can see, I payed lots of attention to the subject matter.) When he said the words "too", "to", or "2", it would last lots longer than it should have. (As in "Toooooooooooo")

The only class is distinctly remember well was the day that for some reason he was talking about enemas. It seems that he enjoyed them. I mean really enjoyed them. He was telling us about how nice they were, and I was thinking to myself that he was a little too excited about the subject really. He went on and on with this funny smile on his face. It was kind of odd.

He retired a few years later. He sent Tara and I a glass candy dish with a Buffalo on it for our wedding. Maybe I stayed awake long enough to make some sort of impression on him.

I got a "4" on the AP exam. Amy got a "3". I don't think she has yet forgiven me for that. It's not like it was my fault, I wasn't really putting any effort into getting a better score, it just happened...