For Andrew

A friend of mine asked me to write a blog, purely about our drama class. And so, without further ado, I present (for you, Andrew) ‘Year 9 Are Animals’:

A teacher called Alan, ah, I mean... Mr Howman (How – Man) is the new teacher (and is played by me.) After hitching all the way from Byron Bay, he finds himself confronted with a class of year 9s who want nothing but to muck about and give him grief.
His first day of school isn’t very pleasant, and to top it all off he doesn’t make a very good first impression with the teachers. Les Willis - an experienced teacher at the school – thinks Alan is a student, because he isn’t wearing a tie, and also isn’t too fond of the idea that Alan is from Byron Bay. Alan missed the pre-term staff meeting the day before, which sets him off to a bad start with the school principle.
The only person on Alan’s side in the beginning is his old friend, Marie Forbes, who has let Alan stay with her while he’s in Melbourne. What Alan doesn’t know, is that she has a crush on him.
Alan organises an excursion for his class, all about Ancient Egypt. Kelly, one of Alan’s students, tries to get away without paying for the excursion. But Alan sees money fall out of her pocket, and gets rather annoyed that she tried to talk her way out of paying. Kelly also has a crush on Alan, and runs away when he gets upset at her.
When they get back to school, all the teachers are appalled that Alan didn’t take greater care with his students. They tell him that to be a good teacher you have to give them what they expect, as in: sit them down, shut them up and tell them what to do.
Alan takes on the expected approach to teaching, he doesn’t let his students mess around and tries his hardest to accomplish order in his class room. Although he succeeds in controlling his students, he goes too far and crosses the line between strict teacher and control freak teacher who doesn’t even listen to his students.
Due to Arthurs ‘problem’ he runs out in the middle of Alan’s lesson to go to the toilet. Alan forgets that Arthur has issues and regretfully overreacts. Tyson stops Alan from chasing after Arthur, reminding him of Arthur’s problem (Arthur is played by Andrew.)
Alan then decides that he should quit his job. He didn’t like being a mean teacher, and could see that it went too far. But Kelly, Amy, Tyson and Arthur stick up for Alan and declare that he’s a good teacher.

Alan: well, then. For the rest of the lesson you can do anything you want!
Students: Anything?

Alan: yes, anything.

Students: Anything?

Alan: YES ANYHTHING!!!

The moral of the story, I think, is: don’t change who you are. But everyone else has different opinions of what the moral is.

Our actual performance went pretty well. We didn’t really mess up any lines or entrances and exits... except when the boy who plays Les exited off the wrong side, and had to run across the stage to get to the side he was supposed to be on. Also, my clip board wasn’t behind the couch. Who stole my clipboard?

There you are, Andrew, I know you said to mention everyone’s names but I’m not sure they’d all appreciate it.

While I’m talking about Andrew and drama, I think I’ll mention that I beat him in a sprinting race on Thursday! Although, according to him, it’s not much of an accomplishment because he’s gay.... but I don’t see how being gay would make you a slower runner than others. HA, I BEAT YOU!

Weekley Helpful Hint: Little sisters can kill weasles with tea towels